Maiden Launch (vintage remix) [Video]
The shantyboat Dotty's maiden launch. Dropping a completely untested boat…
Continue reading
Life On the River – 2015 Trailer [VIDEO]
The amazing Secret History River Life trailer by filmmaker Monica…
Continue reading
Jessica Bierbrauer and the Future River
Jessica Bierbrauer, director of the Great River Road Visitor &…
Continue reading
John Sullivan and Fish Kills
John Sullivan, retired DNR officer in La Crosse WI, talks…
Continue reading
Jessica Bierbrauer and Lost History
Jessica Bierbrauer, director of the Great River Road Visitor &…
Continue reading
Kali Arlene and Latsch Island
Kali Arlene, Latsch Island boathouse resident in Winona MN, talks…
Continue reading
(Frozen) Water Under the Bridge
A week on the Mississippi River in the dead of…
Continue reading
Ice Fishing Shack on Lake Winona [Video]
One of my goals in returning to the Upper Mississippi…
Continue reading
La Crosse Boathouses [Video]
Down in La Crosse for the day, I hung out…
Continue reading
Ice on Frog Slough [Video]
The other day I had just finished talking to the…
Continue reading
An Intense Winter Fieldwork Trip
Tomorrow I am leaving for Minnesota and Wisconsin for a…
Continue reading
Experiments with Multimedia [Video]
The production team and I are working on cutting various…
Continue reading
Shantyboat at FIGMENT Oakland [Video]
A Secret History exhibited at FIGMENT in Oakland, a one…
Continue reading
Lauren Donovan and the Creepy Guy [VIDEO]
Lauren Donovan, who kayaked the length of the Mississippi River…
Continue reading
Sunset on the Sacramento Delta [VIDEO]
A relaxing evening at sunset from a recent trip on…
Continue reading
The Producer’s Journal: Catching up
A note about the Producer’s Journals: They make either super…
Continue reading
The Producers Journal: A Week of Amnesia and Delirium
It was a strange week of going through the motions…
Continue reading
Beautiful People I’ve Interviewed
With help from numerous people who work and live on…
Continue reading
History of Flatboating and a Charming Educational Film
A very brief history on the evolution of river craft…
Continue reading
Secret History Shantyboat Exhibiting in November
At two art exhibits in November, the shantyboat will be…
Continue reading
Ken Lubinski on the Resilience of Nature [Video]
Ken Lubinski, river ecologist at the USGS Upper Midwest Environmental…
Continue reading
Unusual photos of the Shantyboat
Two unusual portraits of the shanyboat from inside, one a…
Continue reading
Santa Cruz Sentinel: Artist turns a journey down the Mississippi into rich oral history
We're all sharing our "How I Spent My Summer Vacation"…
Continue reading
Web Development Independent Study
Looking for a talented web developer with experience creating dynamic,…
Continue reading
People’s History Expedition on Upper Mississippi: A Reportback
The Secret History expedition -- a reportback on the journey,…
Continue reading
Film and Digital Media Independent Study
This independent study provides a focused research experience as we…
Continue reading
Support For This Project
We had a successful fundraiser which covered a portion of…
Continue reading
PA’s Diary #2, lovingly entitled A Leaf on the Wind
The Production Assistant's report, a lock and dam, a cute…
Continue reading
This River Life Drawing to a Close
For weeks and miles people have been asking us, "How…
Continue reading
Brownsville Boathouses
After La Crosse, we made our way down to Brownsville…
Continue reading
Jim Ehrsam and Other People Not Interviewed
On the day before we were leaving La Crosse I…
Continue reading
A Night in Winona and the Production Assistant’s Report
A report back by PA Jeremiah upon his departure at…
Continue reading
Small and Not So Small Town Press [Updated]
We’ve done our best to try to let people know…
Continue reading
La Crosse WXOW: 2 art students take journey in shantyboat on Mississippi
Two art students from California are traveling down the Mississippi…
Continue reading
La Crosse Tribune: Artist plies Mississippi in Shantyboat to net historical portraits
California-based artists Wes Modes and Kai Dalgleish are traveling down…
Continue reading
Typical Shantyboat Questions and Answers
Within minutes of arriving at the town docks, we have…
Continue reading
Charming La Crosse, Wisconsin and a Theory About the Uneven Distribution of Social Capital
A sprained ankle, a man in a bowler hat, charming…
Continue reading
Winona Post: History afloat down the river
It is August on Latsch Island, that beautiful time of…
Continue reading
Into the Storm on the Open River
Unless we survive this storm. We are anchored on a…
Continue reading
Electronics Are Not Waterproof (URGENT)
URGENT SITUATION: My iphone took at drink in the Mississippi…
Continue reading
A Fog Brings to Mind Huck and Jim
We wake to a fog and make our way finally…
Continue reading
Stuck on a Sandbar, Civil Defense, and Flying Predators
While making our way downriver, we saw lots of barges…
Continue reading
A Watery Death on Lake Pepin Narrowly Averted
The sun was shining and the wind was still and…
Continue reading
A High Speed Water Chase, Flyswatting, and Madness
We venture on to Lake Pepin where we encounter both…
Continue reading
Engine Solutions, Party in the Lock, River Days, and a 97 Year Old Woman
More of the generosity of strangers in Prescott, WI and…
Continue reading
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Shantyboat heads down the Mississippi, gathering stories
The Mississippi River has changed in many ways over the…
Continue reading
Lauren Donovan on Nearly Drowning at Lock 11 [Video]
Lauren Donovan, who kayaked the length of the Mississippi River…
Continue reading
Mike’s Shantyboat
Mike Mosedale is a great fella I met in St.…
Continue reading
Engine Troubles, Burger Lexicon, A Theft, and Much Generosity
St. Paul, MN to Prescott, WI and the many awesome…
Continue reading
Hastings Star Gazette: California artist in shantyboat stops in Hastings during Mississippi River tour
Hastings Star Gazette/Pierce County Herald by Chad Richardson Itâs not uncommon…
Continue reading
Peter Rachleff on the Creativity of Poor People [Video]
Peter Rachleff, Professor of History, talks about how poor people…
Continue reading
First Few Days on the River
We’ve had our first few days on the river. We…
Continue reading
Found Photos
Tag your photos with #shantyboat to share them on social…
Continue reading
Living on the Shantyboat
Here are a few shantyboat details minutes before our departure…
Continue reading
Send Off Party
Our Minneapolis friends are organizing us a Shantyboat Send Off…
Continue reading
Shantyboat Runabout [video]
Today we powered up Mr. Johnson and motored about in…
Continue reading
Shantyboat Open House
Drop on by to check out the Shantyboat, share stories,…
Continue reading
The Secret History Shantyboat is Afloat
This afternoon after two years of building, months of planning,…
Continue reading
15 Discoveries After Two Days of (nearly) Non-Stop Driving
Bug massacre, crossing the Rockies, mysterious cattle, new truck, two…
Continue reading
A Brief Tour of One Random Neighborhood in Salt Lake City
We found ourselves stranded on a Sunday in Salt Lake…
Continue reading
A Secret History Expeditions
An interactive map of the Secret History expedition.
Continue reading
For Your Information: The Rockies Are Big
In which our heroes discover that the Rocky Mountains eat…
Continue reading
Desert Crossing
Today was the day I had scheduled to be in…
Continue reading
The Trouble With Building a Boat in California
Stuck in California needing a new radiator. We are trying…
Continue reading
A Series of Unfortunate Events
California, we love you, but please please let us achieve…
Continue reading
Finally On Our Way
Our list of Must-Dos in the last few days was…
Continue reading
The Joys and Heartache of Saying Goodbye
With days left before our departure for the Secret History…
Continue reading
Odds and Ends We Still Need
This is like a Secret History scavenger hunt whose items…
Continue reading
On the Eve of the Secret History Expedition
Our shantyboat nears completion and we are readying it for…
Continue reading
A Month of Fervent Preparation
It was a busy month making preparations for the soon-to-be-launched…
Continue reading
Minneapolis Reconnaissance
I have been in Minneapolis for the last week doing…
Continue reading
How You Can Help
We’re scrambling to get the trip together by July, including making…
Continue reading
Shantyboat on the Mississippi
In July, we are bringing the shantyboat across country to…
Continue reading
Reddit: I am an artist who hopes you don’t read about my death when we launch our homemade (and untested) shantyboat on the Mississippi River AMA!
For years I’ve been building DIY boats, often out of…
Continue reading
Indebtedness
In no particular order, here is an ever-growing list of…
Continue reading
A River Reading List
Here are materials we consider critical to our growing River People Library:…
Continue reading
The Shantyboat
A shantyboat is a small crude houseboat. There is a…
Continue reading
Time is an Enormous, Long River
Time is an enormous, long river, and Iâm standing in…
Continue reading
Mississippi River Map
[WPVT]
Continue reading
A People’s River History
Secret History seeks to examine both the historical context of…
Continue reading
History
There is a long forgotten history in America of people…
Continue reading
The Forgotten River
The river. The forgotten waterways that flow through most towns,…
Continue reading
Beginnings
In 2005, I set out on a punk rafting journey,…
Continue reading
A Secret History of American River People
Secret History is an ongoing research effort to discover, present,…
Continue reading
Secret History Blog
An online journal in which we chronicle the Secret History…
Continue reading
Invisible Stories
While much has been written about the immigrant experience in…
Continue reading
The Project
Secret History is a on-gong research effort to discover and…
Continue reading
What the #*@&% happened?
You must hate me. Last I left you with “Walls…
Continue reading
We Turn To The River – 2014 Trailer [VIDEO]
The Secret History lyrical trailer from the talented Lauren Kincaid-Filbey…
Continue reading
Roof Rafters – The cabin takes shape
When we disassembled the Hollister chicken coop, we got a…
Continue reading
Cabin Framing, More Mistakes Were Made
If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s not being…
Continue reading
Cabin Wall Framing. Finally.
Whew, finally. We get to constructing the cabin walls. This…
Continue reading
New Boat Vocabulary Word: Coaming
One of the smarter things I’ve done on the shantyboat,…
Continue reading
A Collection of Photos from a Non-Shantyboat River Float
I took a two-week break from building the shantyboat to…
Continue reading
Bow Eyes and Stern Tiedowns
Sometimes little things can be a big headache. And sometimes…
Continue reading
The Cabin Has a Floor
Let’s put in a floor! This is the floor that…
Continue reading
Obsessive woodworking, top side
With both decks on, I could be an obsessive woodworker…
Continue reading
Installing the aft deck
I put the aft deck on. Thought you should know.…
Continue reading
Motor Well, A Mini-Project Unto Itself
Oh, the motor well. Seems simple enough. Build a box…
Continue reading
Protecting the Bilge
Water is the enemy of wood longevity. Protecting the wood…
Continue reading