Laura Hallam has been working since January on a class project that's sure to make a splash in three states over the next two months: a 483.5-mile canoe trip retracing the route -- albeit in reverse -- that French explorers took in the early 1700s from present-day Pittsburgh to Detroit.

	Online Graphic See a map that shows the students' proposed route to Pittsburgh from Detroit.

The 21-year-old civil engineering student at Lawrence Technological University in suburban Detroit said she doesn't know why some people have told her it's crazy to spend the next seven weeks on open water in a student-made canoe.

"My mom is a little nervous; she tries not to think about it," Hallam said. "As soon as I wake up after that first day of canoeing and I'm so sore, I'll probably know why people are saying this is so crazy."

A group of students and their professor from Lawrence Technological set off on this historic canoe trip Saturday in two small plastic canoes on the headwaters of the River Rouge in Southfield, Mich. Twelve students are participating in the trip; Chris Trunick, a mechanical engineering major from North Huntingdon, is among them. His involvement includes route planning, life saving training and historical re-enactment.

The group plans to make final landfall in Pittsburgh's Point State Park on July 9 to participate in a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Braddock's defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela, said Philip Vogt, their professor and fellow traveler.

Except for the very first portion of the trip, the group will travel in a single handmade, cedar strip-fiberglass canoe that is 24 feet long and 4 1/2 feet wide and cost approximately $5,000 to make.

The approximately 350-pound craft is big enough to hold six people and as much as 720 pounds of gear. It is about the size of the canoes used by French fur traders who first made their way from present-day Pittsburgh to what is now Detroit in the early 1700s.

"We're not pushing it. We're going to take [the trip] at a prudent speed," Vogt said.

The group will rest every fifth day of the journey, and doesn't plan to travel more than nine miles a day on the water. The students and Vogt will camp outside for all but five of the nights, and those are all nights they will be in the Cleveland area, he said.

The logistics of the trip were almost as difficult to put together as the massive canoe itself, Vogt said. A land crew will accompany the canoe along the way, ferrying supplies and equipment as needed and shuttling additional crew members in and out.

Vogt said he didn't mind that his present-day travelers wouldn't be enduring the hardships encountered by those first European explorers on the Great Lakes.

"If [having a land crew] seems like cheating, you have to remember that the French could drink the water that they encountered," the history professor said.

The travelers will "hug the shoreline" of northern Ohio as they travel west to east across Lake Erie on their trip, Vogt said, making frequent stops along the way. When they finally reach Erie on June 24, they will be greeted by the Compagnie Franche de la Marine de la Riviere au Boeuf, a group of historic re-enactors.

The travelers will take that weekend to make a 14-mile overland portage with their canoe to Waterford, Erie County, where they will embark into French Creek, Vogt said.

From there, the group will traverse French Creek until it empties into the Allegheny River, and then follow that river until it meets the Ohio and the Monongahela rivers in Pittsburgh.

Along the way, students will learn about teamwork, leadership, planning, communication, history, engineering, social issues, the environment, Lake Erie and more in a way that Vogt said is not possible in a traditional classroom. Students potentially can earn up to nine credits in science, humanities and engineering.

The history professor said the idea for the trip was his, and came from both his upbringing in southern Indiana, along the Ohio River, and from his love of the Detroit area's early history.