Two cousins canoe 1,300 miles on Columbia River in new documentary screening Saturday 

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The epic adventure of two cousins canoeing 1,300 miles from Butte, Montana to the Pacific Ocean near Astoria hits the screen at Salem Cinema on Saturday in an awarding winning documentary film, the “Columbia River Canoe Project.”

The theater will host a  screening of “Columbia River Canoe Project” at 5:30 p.m. followed by Q&A with Robert Lester, one of the canoers featured in the film and a co-director. The event includes prizes and giveaways, Salem Cinema said in a release Wednesday. 

General admission tickets for the screening cost $11. Salem Cinema is at 1127 Broadway St. N.E. 

Lester grew up in Butte and said he had never made a film like this before setting off down the Columbia River in the summer of 2023 for the 52-day journey with his cousin Braxton Mitchell, who was 18 at the time. 

Lester is a sponsored skier and climber and works with a group of his visually inclined friends to produce advertising videos for outdoor companies. 

He typically serves as the subject of those promotional materials. This time he got to participate in the actual production of the film, which he loved.

“Basically, I decided I was going to do the trip, and I called  four of my friends who have helped me make things in the past and I went, ‘Hey, can you guys give me your summer? I can’t pay you. I can cover your gas. You can come camp with us and eat what we are eating,’” Lester said. “I was lucky that all four of the filmmakers said yes and took a chance on me and that’s really the only reason we have a documentary right now.” 

Lester is currently on a tour around the Pacific Northwest showing the film and said so far he has been blown away by the reception. He said he didn’t expect his film to be shown anywhere other than in his hometown. 

Both he and his canoeing companion were both inexperienced with the sport before they set off on the journey. 

“We kind of make it seem in the film like I knew what I was doing, but to be honest, I had probably only been in a canoe probably about four times myself,” Lester said. 

Lester said he had had a bit of relevant whitewater experience and had rafted with his friends in college in the past, but that’s about it. However, Mitchell, his canoeing companion, had zero experience with canoes.  

“He had just finished high school, he’s never done anything like this. And I felt like it was my responsibility to stay really positive,” Lester said. “To just make sure that he knew that it was something we could do, even though it was hard and at points miserable and things like that, but that it was not beyond the bounds of possibility.” 

When they first set off down the Columbia from Butte, things didn’t go as smooth as they could have and the enormity of the adventure ahead began to dawn on them, Lester said.  

“We finished the first day and we were about 15 miles from where we started. And there was a moment there where we were like, ‘Oh my God, this is going to take a long time,’” Lester said. “On the very first day we dumped the canoe and that was a mess. All of our stuff was wet.” 

The film was shot by Lester’s friends who used drones or leapfrogged him and Mitchell in their vehicles to set up ahead of them and film from the banks. 

Lester said there really was not a set itinerary for the journey and conditions changed by the day, making it difficult to plan where they would stop each night to camp. 

“Sometimes the wind was so heavy we didn’t make it to it, or sometimes we had such great current that we’d go blowing by where those guys were already setting up camp. We did pretty much camp the whole way,” Lester said. “We did go through towns and had people offer us to be able to camp in their yard, or to have dinner with them, and that was really really cool. That was one of the things that would break up the monotony. But we didn’t have any hotels on the trip.” 

The trip ended in July 2023 when Lester and Mitchell finally made it to Astoria, and from there, the Pacific Ocean. 

Lester said canoeing through Portland and seeing the giant container ships and boats and the huge waves they created as they continued toward the mouth of the river was one of the wildest parts of the trip. 

Once the two finally touched the Pacific Ocean, they knew it had all been worth it, Lester said. 

“That’s a feeling I’ll never forget…making it,” Lester said. “It really was about the journey not the destination, but it was one of those things that when you do finally make it it makes all the hard work feel like it paid off. It was so surreal and I’ll never be able to forget that feeling.” 

Lester said the film took a little over a year to complete and was shown for the first time in Butte on Aug. 30 last year.

In addition to taking the viewer on Lester and Mitchell’s epic river journey, the film showcases the incredible landscape along the way and raises awareness of the ecological challenges affecting the Columbia River Watershed. 

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790.

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