Southeastern Minnesota is a paddler’s dream. Throughout the forested bluff land terrain, called the “Driftless Area”, there are both easy paddling routes as well as challenging, more difficult streams all offering beautifull scenic views and a variety of wildlife.

Canoeing The Driftless contains maps and descriptions for over 50 routes covering 600 miles to help you plan your paddling trip. Information such as route length, difficulty, hazards, as well as points of interest, the best put-in and take-out accesses and shuttle routes are included to help in choosing a trip to fit your needs.

Also included are “River Scenes” which have interesting information on history along the routes as well as some personal, sometimes humorous accounts of trips on the rivers.

Canoeing The Driftless is written for all levels of paddlers, from the beginner to the most experienced paddler. For the beginner to intermediate paddler there are the main routes on the Cannon, Zumbro, and Root rivers, for the more experienced paddlers the routes on the Bear, Deer, Whitewater, and smaller branches of the Root River and Zumbro River provide more challenging runs.  

This book is a paddling guide to over 55 routes encompassing 600 miles of rivers and small streams that flow through the valleys of Southeastern Minnesota. The rivers covered are:

• Zumbro River: Main Branch from Power Dam to the Mississippi River. The tributaries of the Zumbro including the North Fork, Middle Fork, South Branch of the Middle Fork, North Branch of the Middle Fork, South Fork and Dodge Center Creek.
• Root River: Main Branch from Chatfield to the Mississippi River. The tributaries of the Root including the North Branch, Middle Branch, South Branch, South Fork, Deer Creek, Bear Creek and Spring Valley Creek.
• Cannon River: Sakatah Lake to the Mississippi River.
• Straight River: Owatonna to Faribault.
• Whitewater River: Elba to Mississippi River.
• Mississippi backwaters: from lock and dam #3, near Red Wing, to the Iowa border.

Each of the rivers and streams are divided into sections that consist of one or several paddling routes with alternate accesses. This makes it easy to plan short day trips or longer multiple day excursions.

For many years I have paddled the streams in Southeastern Minnesota, known geologically as the “Driftless Area”, keeping detailed notes as I explored the routes documented in this guide. This book provides a comprehensive guide for paddling the Driftless Area including route descriptions and maps for the popular DNR maintained routes as well as the less traveled routes. Many of the routes contained in this guide are not documented in any other paddling publication. Paddling the southeastern Minnesota streams is a great way to enjoy the outdoors, quietly gliding along, observing wildlife, and get close to nature.

The author, Dave Lind, has canoed and kayaked for over 50 years, beginning with Boy Scout canoe-camping trips on the Mississippi River and the Minnesota Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Dave has paddled extensively in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Northeastern Iowa, on both whitewater and flatwater routes. He has found that the streams of southeastern Minnesota, located in the “Driftless Area”, are a paddlers paradise with scenic easy paddling routes, as well as challenging small stream routes that are not adequately covered in existing paddling books. Over the last ten years he has canoed every route in this book taking extensive notes on each river trip.