A documentary about an ambitious canoe trip will make its Iowa debut tonight in Davenport. The film called “Columbia River Canoe Project” is about two young Montana men who make a difficult odyssey in a special canoe that was hand-made in the Quad Cities.
Todd McGreevy is Chief Paddling Officer at Navarro Canoe Company, based in Rock Island, Illinois. McGreevy says the movie is a must-see for all outdoor adventurers.
“And it follows the journey of two cousins, Robert and Braxton, from Butte, Montana, all the way to the Columbia River system, all the way to the Pacific Ocean,” McGreevy says, “1,300 miles over 52 days and they did that in a single Navarro Canoe.”
He says it took more than 100 hours to handcraft the canoe into what’s considered an “heirloom, floating work of art.” It’s constructed of materials including fiberglass, Kevlar and cherry wood.
“Our 17-foot expedition canoe designed by Bob Foote back in the ’90s, a famous canoeist, and he’s still alive,” McGreevy says. “He designed this model, and we’ve named it the Oberholtzer after Ernst Oberholtzer from Davenport, Iowa. He helped form the Wilderness Society.”
The documentary is beautifully shot, he says, and displays the excitement, the exertion, and the exhaustion of the challenging trek across parts of Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.
“The journey was photographed by four film experts from the University of Utah, and they spent about a year editing it down to the 70-minute film that it is,” McGreevy says. “And it’s been showing out west in all kinds of film festivals and won documentary awards and so forth, out in Oregon and Utah and Montana, and we’re excited to have it premiere here in Iowa.”
He says the documentary is partly a coming-of-age film about the two young cousins, facing their fears and the elements. “And then it’s also about stewardship of our environment,” McGreevy say, “and how Robert and Braxton go through the lock and dam system and talk about where some of these locks and dams can be retired so that the fish can flourish again.”
The first Iowa screening of the film is tonight at 6 at The Last Picture House in downtown Davenport, with more screenings every Wednesday through April 16th.