Kickass, the doorstop dog, says his keeper remembers this day 52 years ago when he joined others to canoe down the NameKagon River with Gaylord Nelson to commemorate Earth Day.  Nelson was in a canoe with Lac Courte Oreilles elder Bill Barker and other Barker family members.  It was a bright, cool day with a brisk wind blowing up the river to challenge neophyte canoeists.  The event was organized by the late Tony Wise, a well known Hayward area promoter, and it occurred in an atmosphere of respect and awe toward the natural world.  “Where have all the followers gone?”

The keeper’s canoeing partner that long ago day was his late wife Betty whose memory looms large on this Earth Day.