I grew up in Princeton MN and spent a lot of time growing up on local lakes and rivers. My dad use to race canoes when he was younger so my 2 brothers and I grew up canoeing. Recently my brother has been hooked on Kayaking and he joined us on a trip down the Rum River.

A few days before paddling down the river we headed down to check it out in Princeton which is just upstream from Spencer Brook which was where we planned on starting out from.  At the intersection of highway 95 and Rum River Drive there is a nice park that takes you to the river. They have a great play area for kids with a rock climbing wall but the  beach is the main attraction. It’s a great local swimming hole when the current is slow and easy. If you’re looking to camp they have a few scenic campsites for RVers walking distance to everything you could need in town.

We canoed/kayaked from Spencer Brook to Walbo just off Highway 95 just east of Princeton. The day before our trip I read online that 20,000 gallons of sewage accidentally spilled into the Rum River but luckily it wasn’t a crappy trip (pun intended) because we were 10 miles or so upstream of the spill in Cambridge, MN.

We dropped the canoe off at Spencer Brook, drove to Walbo and dropped off a vehicle. Went back to Spencer Brook to start the canoe/Kayak trip. Mike had some really great bugspray and we layered ourselves because this time of the year there can be a lot of biting deer flies. Our big Twins hats help avoid the irritation of them landing on your head. We started nice and slow taking in the scenery.

Mike threw out his line to catch fish every chance he got. Although he didn’t catch anything, a bad day of fishing is still a great time. The Rum River is full of fish. We’ve caught bull head, pan fish, northern, walleye, bass and more types of fish.

This stretch of the River is extremely scenic. I think we saw 1 house from the river in all 14 miles. We did however see lots of forest and wildlife. I spotted at least 6 Bald Eagles flying above us. Danielle took a turn on the Kayak. It was the first time she’s paddled in a kayak and handled it like a champ. The sit on top Kayaks are really impressive. They move quickly through the water but also have a great amount of storage for adventure gear.

After Danielle Kayaked, she got back into the Canoe she wanted to relax so I paddled her the rest of the way back.

And what would an adventure be without The Traveling Pomeranian.