To Russia With Love

White-water rivers may soon supplement outer space as an area for international cooperation, if negotiations between the Ledyard Canoe Club and the Institute of Soviet-American Relations bear fruit.

When five Soviet citizens visited Hanover recently to observe several aspects of the College, from undergraduate education to community medicine, one of the topics of interest was a plan for Dartmouth and Russian canoeists to join in a two-summer exchange. The first year the Americans would travel to Russia to team up with their Soviet counterparts to canoe or kayak more than 1,000 miles on the Lena River, part of the route John Ledyard took in the late 18th century during his abortive attempt to cross Siberia. The following year, the Soviet canoeists would come to this country to join the Dartmouth students on a trip, possibly down the Russian River in California.

When the visitors were in town, Harold B. Putnam Jr. '37, a Bostbn lawyer and keen canoeist, presented the Ledyard Canoe Club Medal to Alexei Nikolayevich Stepunin, secretary general of the Institute of Soviet-American Relations, in recognition of his efforts in promoting the canoe Putnam established the medal in to honor those "who paddle overseas in the tradition of Ledyard."

The five Soviet specialists were in this country under the joint auspices of the Institute and the Citizens Exchange Corps of New York.