Episode #32
#32 John Ruskey, Quapaw Canoe Company
Episode 32 Brought to you by Stafford's Market, Drew, Miss Breaking Bread with Stafford Shurden Episode 32: John “Driftwood Johnny” Ruskey | Quapaw Canoe Company On this episode of Breaking Bread , Stafford sits down with John “Driftwood Johnny” Ruskey , founder of Quapaw Canoe Company , musician, painter, writer, river guide, educator, and one of the Mississippi River’s most passionate advocates. John has spent decades exploring the wild places of America from his home base in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Before founding Quapaw Canoe Company in 1998 , he served as the first curator of the Delta Blues Museum from 1992 to 1998 and helped co-found the Delta Blues Education Fund . His work eventually carried him from the blues to the river. John founded the Mighty Quapaws Apprenticeship Program , introducing young people from the Mississippi Delta to canoe building, river skills, outdoor adventure, and the natural world. In 2011, he founded the Lower Mississippi River Foundation , dedicated to river access, education, conservation, and public outdoor recreation. Quapaw Canoe Company celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2023 and has become a gateway to a side of the Mississippi River most people never experience. John and his crew guide paddlers through the islands, back channels, sandbars, forests, and enormous open spaces of the Mississippi from St. Louis all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. And John hasn't limited himself to the Mississippi. His travels and writing have taken him down many of North America's great rivers, including the Colorado, Rio Grande, Arkansas, Platte, Columbia, Missouri, and Atchafalaya . John's philosophy is rooted in a line from Henry David Thoreau: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” His lifetime of work has been recognized with the Noel Polk Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters in 2019 and the St. John’s College Award of Merit in 2022 for his contributions to the United States, the Mississippi River, the arts, and exploration.
