Voyage for Vets
Casey and Carson Barfels take off from the McGregor Boat Landing Sunday morning.
Father-son canoe voyage
raising money for disabled veterans
By Ted Pennekamp
A 43-year-old Appleton, Wis. man and his 12-year-old son are in the midst of an approximate 995-mile adventure on the Mississippi, Wisconsin and Fox rivers.
Casey and Carson Barfels launched their canoe at Lake Itasca, Minn. on June 18 and paddled about 700 miles down the Mississippi River to McGregor by Saturday, July 11 where they took a day of rest at the cabin of friends Shane Lutgen and Alan Kakac.
Casey is a veteran (combined 16 years in United States Army and Iowa National Guard) who served in Iraq, and he and son Carson embarked on their river adventure in order to raise money for NFL football player Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors program which builds handicapped accessible homes for disabled veterans. The website for the father and son canoe trip is voyageforvets.com.
“It was about a year in the planning,” said Casey, who noted that by trip’s end, he and Carson will have gone down the Mississippi to the McGregor-Prairie du Chien area, up the Wisconsin to Portage and then downstream on the Fox to Lutz Park in Appleton. The Fox River begins near Pardeeville and ends when it enters Lake Michigan at Green Bay.
To keep their load light, they have two resupply points along their long route.
The pair is currently somewhere on the Wisconsin River, on which they intended to row about 20 miles per day, a tough row to hoe to say the least considering they are going against a fairly strong current. It is about 125 miles from the mouth of the Wisconsin to Portage, said Casey.
The dynamic duo averaged about 30 miles per day on the Mississippi River.
“It’s been pretty good,” said Carson.
“It’s been good but tiring,” said Casey. “It’s a lot of work. It’s not a float trip, that’s for sure.”
Casey and Carson said that bugs on the northern part of the Mississippi have been the biggest problem so far. “They were horrendous,” Casey said. Otherwise, there was just some rain and wind to contend with. The pair have been camping out along the way and will continue to do so on the rest of the journey.
They have fishing poles but have had very little time to use them. Carson caught a minnow during the voyage down the Mississippi and so far has the only entry in the father-son fishing bet.
Those wishing to donate money which will go to Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors program can email Casey Barfels at voyageforvets@gmail.com. There have been approximately 40 pledges so far.
