Minnesota Canoe Association

In Memoriam: Gene Jensen

GENE JENSEN (1928-2004)

A canoeing legend late has died —
At the age of 75;
He grew up on the town’s north side,
Where Mississippi paddling thrived.

As a boy he’d paddle anything —
From homemade boats to rafts and logs —
Which to a sawmill he would bring —
For quarters would he water slog.

He often paddled in a race* —
Four hundred and fifty mile,
And was four times he took first place,
And developed a racing style.

He came up with the signal “hut”
And invented the bent-shaft paddle,
But best known for designs he cut
For the racing boats astraddle.

A half a dozen boat makers
Have built canoes along his lines,
And a dozen undertakings
Have We-no-nah and Gene combined.

The Jensen name is known world-wide
On the finest racing bows —
In fact, 3 “Jensens” I have plied
With the “old lady” in the prow.

And then, upon the 6th of June —
At noon, up north in Brooklyn Park,
His ashes on the river strewn
Upon the shoals he made his mark.

George Kittell
*Minneapolis Aquatennial: Bemidji to Minneapolis

James Scidmore was born on December 31, 1956 in Waseca, MN. His family subsequently moved to White Bear Lake in 1957. He attended Bellaire and Parkview Elementary Schools and later Sunrise Park Middle School. He attended White Bear Lake Senior High and then Mariner Senior High. He graduated from Mariner (later renamed White Bear Lake Senior High School-South Campus) in 1974.

For six years he worked for United Parcel Service before moving to Colorado in 1980. He worked as a maintenance supervisor for an apartment complex while attending the Colorado Institute of Art. He graduated in 1984 and moved back to Minnesota in 1985, where he worked as a creative director and photographer for Image Design and Exe Advertising.

In 1988, he formed his own firm of Scidmore, Hersom and Others, Inc. with partner, Linda Hersom. The agency has accounts worldwide in the hospitality, medical and industrial markets. James was a member of ACM SIGGRAPH and served as International Co-Chair with Linda in 1988 and 1999 as well as International Resources Co-Manager from 1991-2000. Jim will be remembered by friends and family as someone who enjoyed life and was unafraid of a challenge. At various times he enjoyed fly fishing, piloting small planes, scuba diving, canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing, photography, boating, gourmet cooking, playing the bagpipes and traveling the world. Jim is survived by his parents, Warren and Stella Scidmore; a brother, Stephen; and by a loving friend and partner, Linda Hersom.

[ed. note: Jim published HUT! for a number of years and was a long time member of the MCA]

The paddling community lost a good friend on November 24, 2000. Derald Storlie, owner of Sawtooth Outfitters in Tofte, MN, died while participating in one of his favorite activities, ice skating with his son. The BWCA was his favorite place to relax and fish. His love of the wilderness and wanting everyone to appreciate it helped send many new paddlers into the BWCA with the right values.

Derald helped us years ago by outfitting our first big BWCA trip with two small kids. Over the years our kids grew up and we obtained all out own gear. But our family canoe and ski trips were never complete without dropping in at Sawtooth for a healthy dose of Derald and Ginny Storlie’s warm, smiling greetings. The maps would come out, with Derald enthusiastically pointing out new routes or sharing his dreams of his own future adventures. A quite, gentle man with a twinkle in his eye, it’s almost like he served as a transition buffer for us between the wilderness and civilization.

There must be thousands of paddlers whose love for canoe tripping was influenced by Derald’s care and advice. Thousands of memories that were the result of Derald recommending a route. We all will miss him.

Betty L. Ketter, "The Canoe Lady", age 75, of Brooklyn Park, died June 18, 1999. Survived by son, Kenn. L. Ketter (Beth Sikkema). Also survived by other special family, friends and customers of Ketter Canoeing. Preceded in death by husband, Karl L. and son, Karl N. "In appreciation of Betty Ketter, canoe friend extraordinaire, for more than 75 years of laughter, coffee, cake, advice, racing, paddling, canoes and friendship. We found you irresistible. From your friends in wet sneakers."

Hut, Betty. Time to switch over to the other side. Time to cruise those easy rivers with clear channels and no crosswinds. Time to let the rest of us paddle away on this side. Over on that side, there won't be any mad dashes down the side roads and out to the bridges to lower down that can of pop or that fresh peach--no frantic search for the spare paddle to float out just in reach of the desperate racer. The rivers will run deep and clear and the picnics and the fudge will just be there just for the taking.

And that will be a major switch for you, Betty. Over on this side, you were a worker bee. Always ready when your family needed you and always there for the larger family of canoe paddlers who will miss you so much.

From the 60's to the early 70's you and your husband, Karl L., were the foundation rocks of the Minnesota Canoe Association. Together, you and Karl L. did everything that others either could not or would not do. Haul a display to a meeting place? Sure. Collate and staple a newsletter? Of Course. Stick labels on "Hut!" and hassle with the Post Office over mailing regulations? That too. Whatever it took, including bringing in new friends to make fun out of the trench work of running a very big club. The MCA could never have become the enduring organization that it is without your contribution.

And the racers? Who could say enough? We did our best a couple of years ago. Struggled we did, to put into words the feelings we all had for your support and untiring promotion of canoe racing. The most eloquent statements and tributes were the same as often heard at 101-79th Avenue North. A simple and heartfelt, "Thank you, Betty." Yes, thank you. And we say that now--from the heart.

After Karl L. died, we all entered into a kind of partnership. We became your customers and the promoters of new customers in your canoe business. We helped to stack canoes and sometimes helped to sell them. You became the sponsor of the "big race" on the Mississippi and you maintained the tradition of a central gathering place for the paddlers. The racers met and paddled up and down the Mississippi from your backyard landing. They looked at blisters, examined canoes and took care of "cottonmouth" in the shade of your patio. At the rivers edge, and in the kitchen, they discussed the day's run and their problems with paddles, canoes, partners, the wind, and the character of the river. You offered cookies and sometimes a sympathetic ear.

Nobody ever got a big head hanging around Ketter Canoeing. A big head became a big target for a "Betty Zinger" that brought people around to a more humble opinion of themselves. Everyone knew that Betty had heard how you had gassed out on a critical portage, or had missed a Hut at the wrong moment, or picked a channel which was full of "junk water". Betty's son, Karl Neal once said, "The creed of the amateur is to enjoy, while the creed of the pro is to endure". Gripping and complaining had no place around Betty's home. And that is very much the character of the Minnesota racers.

And so it was with the races, also. Betty and her husband, Karl L. were running one race when the chief measurement person said, "Buzz, your canoe is a quarter of an inch too long." Well, Buzz looked like he had a something to say, and there are those who thought they heard a mumble or two, but out came his little saw and a little sandpaper and pretty soon, that canoe looked like it had been designed and built to be exactly one quarter inch shorter.

When did Betty start canoeing? Maybe it was on her first date with her husband, Karl L. Ketter. She certainly lived a life around and in canoes. There are a hundred and more stories about her and the races and the paddlers. As Jeff Howe said in his eulogy of Karl Neal, we can't tell all the canoe stories at one time, but the stories go on. They mix and match with other tales. They become like waves and ripples and wakes rolling over the river's surface. Properly read by an experienced eye, they tell a wonderful story of a life fully and well lived.

To her surviving son, Ken, other family, and her close friends, we give our greatest sympathy. For Betty, we will carry on her spirit of help, support and cooperation. And we will keep in memory her steady gaze, great heart, and easy laughter.

During the years when I was Building Director, Betty Ketter was a helpful and opinionated source of information, and she was always the first volunteer to call and offer to do "whatever was needed" for the Paddlesport Show. I missed getting to talk with her at this year's show, so I dropped her a brief note. She immediately responded with an invitation to get together. So, Joanie Furlong, Jackie Kanthak, and I put together a fancy brunch with Betty as the guest in her own home. We spent a delightful couple of hours swapping canoe stories, watching birds, and reading the recipes tiled into the wall above her stove. As we were leaving, she presented each of us with a hand-crocheted dish cloth and a pair of canoe tie-down straps that fasten under the hood of a car so we don't have to crawl around in the mud to reach under the car. She exclaimed that even though someone else had made them, she "had the fun of giving them away". Betty thought of giving as fun-from giving her time to help start the MCA, to helping out racers, to donating paddles as prizes at MCA events, to providing trailerloads of boats for people to try out at MCA picnics. She was ornery, opinionated, knowledgeable, generous-one of a kind. Betty will be missed.

Karl Neal Ketter, 52, died Saturday evening, August 9, 1997. He lived in Roseville, Minnesota with Barb, his beloved wife of 30 years, and his companion, Scout, a white Samoyed.

Ketter has meant canoeing in Minnesota for over fifty years! From the early days of the ten-day Aquatennial canoe race that kicked off the Aquatennial, through the birth of the MCA, and down to the present day, there have been Ketters prominently involved as competitors, promoters, officials and all-around cheerleaders for the sport of canoeing.

Karl Neal Ketter was born into a paddling family. It was in his genes! From the time they could walk, Karl and his brother, Kenny, lived with and learned the river. They explored every rock, bend, current and nuance until it was like breathing for them. Karl's dad and mom, Karl L. and betty, encouraged a love of paddling through the rich lore of paddling. Stories of the heroic exploits of paddling legends, such as Gene Jensen and Buzzy Peterson, were the bedtime stories at the Ketter home. They wove themselves into the night-time dreams of Karl and Ken. From there dad, the Ketter brothers learned to read water, build canoes, and put together a racing strategy. From their Mom, they learned toughness, tenacity, and the fine art of bank running that will probably never be equaled. Betty could get a request from a racer for a new paddle, a pad for the seat, some tape to patch a leak, or a malted milk – and in the middle of the night, and in the middle of no-where, she would find what was needed and figure out how to get it to the one who needed it. Karl Sr. and Betty would hang what was needed from a tree, from a bridge, or even wade to the spot where the paddler would not have to miss a stroke to pick up what was requested. Karl was sometimes the bank runner, sometimes the recipient.

Karl had a passion for promoting the sport of canoeing. No one put more energy into bringing new paddlers into the 'family'. He was the 'father' of Rookie Racers. He tirelessly taught new people all that he knew. He was partner, mentor, coach, and friend to all of those who took up the paddle. Karl taught not only the elite athletic types, who could perhaps one day join the pantheon of paddling super heroes, but also the non-athletic-Walter-Middy types who just loved being out there to bump gunnels with the greats.

Karl started a class called Efficient Canoeing where some of the racers would teach cruisers how to paddle so that they could enjoy paddling no matter the distance. Central in the technique was the use of the command 'hut'. Switching sides in unison became the crux of the paddling partnership. It meant the same thing whether racing across a Canadian province or cruising lazily down a creek or hurtling through the fiercest whitewater.

The MCA wouldn't be here without the midwife efforts of the Ketters. The newsletter, HUT!, was started as a timely means of communication; but the club growth was fueled mostly by the tying of membership to a set of plans and instructions with which one could build a canoe. Karl meticulously authored the instructions.

A neophyte canoe enthusiast could thus become armed with his canoe and paddling techniques. But what would fan the fire of this enthusiasm? Karl understood. He delighted in drawing the new paddlers into the "stories". Anyone who has been around paddlers for any time at all was immersed in them.,The stories are told and retold until they take on a life of their own. They contain the exploits and the foibles of all who have gone before. The stories reverberate like the wake of a passing phalanx of canoes as the cries of "hut" fade in the distance. This body of lore does something magical to the listener. It makes one a part of something that goes on like the river. Karl loved to repeat them and echo them in black and white in the pages of HUT!

Karl was born into canoeing. It was his life. It was in his genes. So, unfortunately, was the heart disease that took him, as it had his father before him. Saturday evening (August 9, 1997) after participating in a canoe race in Duluth, he drove home, making plans for practice on Sunday. After unloading his gear and his canoe, he went inside and sat in his easy chair. There he went to a sleep from which he was not to awaken.,

I know that as Karl sat there asleep in that chair, he was dreaming those dreams of old which he dreamt as a boy – of great feats and magic moments when the sun, the breeze, and lapping waves put God's great creation into a perspective that made sense to Karl. As the shouts of "hut" recede and fade away, the river flows on, and Karl will be a great part of the lore for as long as the stories are told.

James Scidmore	Betty L. Ketter	Gene Jensen
Derald Storlie	Karl Neal Ketter