LoginFrom Minnesota to the Gulf: Paddling all 2,400 miles of the Mississippi River is a grand adventure
The Mississippi River stretches for around 2,400 miles from central Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Every year, 30 to 50 paddlers attempt to travel its length.
Shawn Hamerlinck made the journey by kayak. A teacher had planted the idea for the trip in his mind years ago, as a way to see ecosystems along the length of the Mississippi River.
He started on May 24, 2025, and paddled, on average, 12 to 14 hours per day.
For him, the undertaking was personal.
Others who do it try to use it for advocacy. Five friends who took off on Sept. 1, 2025, are traveling under the banner of the Drift South Expedition and plan to do citizen science, education and fundraising along the way.
Whatever the motivation, it’s sure to be an adventure.
“The Mississippi is an iconic river. When anyone thinks of the United States, they think of the Mississippi because it has such a long, long history,” said John Sullivan, who paddled it in 2013 and runs a Facebook support group for other paddlers. “And it’s kind of a wilderness.”
Connection to nature
The river starts as a small stream flowing out of Lake Itasca in Minnesota. In those early stretches, Hamerlinck said, the water is pristine.
“You can see what you believe to be five feet down, and it’s actually 45 feet down. You can see giant fish — northern pike — and the water is so clear, so clean, and so beautiful that you could just take a cup and drink it,” said Hamerlinck.
As he went downstream and the river became more industrialized, things changed drastically.
He had to be careful to avoid barges, and he couldn’t drink the water anymore. There was trash in it and unappetizing white foam. Near St. Louis, Missouri, he says he was almost afraid to light a match because of what looked like gasoline floating on the river.
“You see steel and iron still sitting on the side, rusting away, and you ask, ‘Why did we do that?’” said Hamerlinck. “It makes you look at the environment and say, ‘We should have taken better care of you. And I’m sorry. And we shall do better than what you see.’”
Even so, he says he experienced plenty of wonder. Encounters with wildlife – at times very intimate – were a highlight of the trip.
A skunk sprayed him, nesting geese bit him, invasive carp hit him in the face, and he came across a black bear floating in the river.
His scariest encounters were with alligators.
“The big alligators will swim about 20 yards from you, parallel to you, and they’ll stay right next to you for about half a mile,” said Hamerlinck. “What they’re trying to do is figure out who’s bigger — you in the kayak, or them.”
He slept in a tent or, when he could not find any dry land, on his kayak. In addition to animal encounters, he says storms, difficult conditions and the monotony of daily miles could wear on a paddler.
“The biggest challenge, hands down, is not the animals or the storms or the distance. It’s the human mind,” said Hamerlinck.
Still, for him, disconnecting from electronics and the connection to nature made it all worth it.
“The best part of it was the sandbars that you would sit in,” he said. “I would stop there about half an hour before sunset, because that’s when the bugs would show up, after sunset. And you just stop, and you just look around you, and see that there is nature right next to you. It’s not like you go to a zoo.”
Paddling with a purpose
The Drift South Expedition, which pushed off on Sept. 1, came together when five friends who’d all done the Appalachian Trail started thinking about another adventure to try. One of them had been wanting to paddle the Mississippi River since he was 13 years old, and the others quickly signed on.
But they wanted to do more than paddle.
“What can we do on this expedition to be able to help us but also help the community, the scientific community, the people who depend on the Mississippi River,” said Charles Lampman.
Lampman says he’s lost opportunities to work in conservation due to recent budget cuts, but he didn’t want to stop that work entirely.
“And that’s when we landed on this idea of, well, we can do scientific research and we can advocate for science and show people that citizen science is possible,” he said.
Every 25 miles, they’ll test water quality, and every 50 miles, they’ll sample for microplastics. They are working with a couple of post-doctoral researchers at Saint Louis University to process this data, which will eventually be publicly available.
Their journey is also an opportunity to fundraise and educate people about the river. When they pull through cities, they plan to set up educational materials on their canoes and try to engage curious passersby about how microplastics can move throughout the ecosystem and other issues.
“Whenever we have this opportunity to slow down and engage with people, I think we’re all OK with taking a little bit more time if that means some more authentic connections,” Lampman said.
Support leads to success
The five-person Drift South Expedition will travel with two canoes and a kayak, working together to log the necessary miles and meet their advocacy goals.
On the eve of their departure, they were putting the finishing touches on their rigs, but they were also checking in with each other.
“We’ve all sat down and been like, ‘OK, how is everyone feeling? What does everyone need from each other? How can we help?’” said Morgan Skinner.
“That teamwork and the team aspect of it was something that initially really attracted me to the project,” David Collison said.
Paddling thousands of miles can be daunting, even with a team.
John Sullivan completed the full length of the Mississippi in 2013. “I had a goal of trying to paddle all the state-named rivers that flow to the Mississippi, and I’ve done them all except the Arkansas,” said Sullivan. “That one remains on my bucket list.”
He founded the Facebook group Mississippi River Paddlers more than a decade ago as a way to support other paddlers’ journeys.
“I saw a lot of value in being able to communicate and reach out to other people who’ve done the river and ask questions if I run into a problem,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan keeps an informal list of paddlers. He says that in the past 12 years, several hundred people have paddled segments of the river. Around 100 to 200 paddlers have completed the trip from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico.
Hamerlinck finished his journey in Burns Point, Louisiana, on July 17, 55 days after launching.
He’d weathered broken paddles and cracks in his kayak and disembarked 33 pounds lighter than he started. Sometimes days passed without him seeing any people. When he did meet someone, he asked them to sign his kayak so they could accompany him for the rest of the journey.
“If you look at the boat, it’s got signatures from every person I met along the way, and it’s packed full,” said Hamerlinck.
He counted 119 signatures on his boat, and some of those people, he said, “tracked me all the way down and they’re still friends to this day. It was really neat.”
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
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From Minnesota to the Gulf: Paddling all 2,400 miles of the Mississippi River is a grand adventure is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
