The Center for Watershed Education, in partnership with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and River Keepers, has created a River of Dreams Canoe Launch educational program. This school based project supplies 14" cedar canoes to area schools for launching in the Red River of the North and other tributary rivers within the watershed. The goal of this project is to build basin wide awareness and leadership of this unique international watershed through education and engagement of schools and communities. In addition to the canoes, participating schools receive a classroom kit of watershed education activities that incorporate math, science, geography, culture, art and music into their classroom watershed activities.

More than 1500 canoes, each with an identifying 6 digit number, have been released in the watershed on a journey north to Lake Winnipeg and eventually to Hudson Bay in Northern Manitoba. As canoes are recovered by citizens along the rivers they are recorded on our web site and the canoes are returned to the river to continue their journey.

Two of the canoes released in the Red River on October 16, 2002 were equipped with satellite tracking devices so students and citizens could track the daily  travels of the two small crafts. This satellite tracking program wrapped up in January 2005. Click here to see what we have learned.