Popularly known as “Mr. Canoe,” Ralph Frese paddled for more than half a century the waterways that carried the canoes of Native Americans, explorers, and the founders of Chicago. Frese was a champion for the conservation of Chicago-region rivers, devoting his life to keeping rivers and lakes clean for all to enjoy and to educating people about the importance of waterways conservation.
His outstanding accomplishments included founding the Chicagoland Canoe Base to build handcrafted canoes and practice as a fourth-generation blacksmith, teaching local Boy Scout troops how to build their own canoes, helping the Cook County Clean Stream Committee transform Chicago-area rivers, organizing the annual Des Plains River Canoe Marathon to draw attention to the scenic Des Plains River, and serving as a charter member and vice president of the Chicago Maritime Society.
He was the first recipient of the American Canoe Association’s “Legends of Paddling” award in 1994, was inducted into the Illinois Outdoors Hall of Fame in 2006, and received awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Interior, and Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Frese’s canoes are found in select museums across the country, and he developed an enormous collection of canoes for exhibition and study. He constructed the canoes used in the official tri-centennial reenactment of the Marquette and Joliet expedition in 1973, and one of those tri-centennial canoes is at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium and National Rivers Hall of Fame.