The Origin of the Project

There is an initial spot that the idea was created. When I first moved here to Natchitoches I was reading River Horse: Across America by Boat by William Least Heat Moon. Moon traverses the United States, from the east coast to the west via the waterways. He wrote of the importance of these rivers and lakes to our country’s heritage. We originally traveled to a town by river. Now they are mostly covered up-we rarely see them except when we cross over them by bridge. While the people in the cities used to depend on the rivers, now we almost hide from them and the industries that have built up around them.
The book stirred my heart with appreciation and a sense of adventure.
As I crossed the Cane River going to and from work, I began to realize its importance, past and present, to this area. So I started thinking, "What if I found a way to experience it?"
It started gelling in my mind-maybe I could make a canoe or a pirogue. A pirogue (pronounced PEE-row) is a flat-bottomed canoe that was brought to this area by the French.
So I started talking to people about my ideas. I have a friend, Brad Ferguson, who had built a pirogue. He said it was very tippy and unstable. I wanted something that I could stay on and that would carry my gear adequately. So I decided I would build a raft.
The raft idea dated back to when I was a teenager in Houston. My friend Matt Reynolds and I were walking along a bayou and decided we would build a raft to float on the bayou. What a wonderful adventure! We never got around to that, so this project sort of satisfies that original idea.

The Cane River's Importance
Natchitoches was originally settled in 1714, and is arguably the oldest permanent settlement west of the Mississippi. It was at least the oldest settlement of the Louisiana Purchase.
The Cane River, as part of the Red River, flowed through Natchitoches and became the center of travel and commerce. If it hadn't been the offshoot of the Red River that came through this area, then there wouldn't have been this settlement.
There is a lot of history behind this river. There was a giant logjam, called the Great Raft. Once the Great Raft was cleared around 1830, the Red River found a shorter course to the gulf and abandoned the city. The Cane River began to dry up, the authorities built a dam on the south end to create this beautiful finger lake. As far as I can tell, they did this to maintain the aesthetics of the area.
That's how rivers were the essential element of the settling of a place. To settle in an area there had to be fresh water, and flowing fresh water was the most desirable.