Toby Sells | Daily Memphian
The Mississippi River’s edge has been home to Memphis’ only canoe excursion company since its inception, but the company’s new location on Mud Island is injecting fresh energy into the area’s aging river park.
For the last five years, Mississippi River Expeditions has met and checked in its river adventurers and conducted business in the open air near Mud Island’s enormous boat ramp.
This year, the company formally leased space from the Memphis River Parks Partnership at the Mud Island River Park. Mississippi River Expeditions’ new home base is the third new business at the Mud Island park in two years, drawing more visitors to an area that is both a major city asset and a challenge, as leaders strive to find a best use for it amid questions of multimillion-dollar renovation costs.
Mississippi River Expeditions founder and owner Matthew Burdine calls the new space on Mud Island “The Outpost.” There, guests can check in for trips, get instructions and generally organize. The space is a home base for the company as well as an office and a visible presence on the island. The Outpost is not a walk-in storefront, however, as trips are currently reservation-only.
The Outpost is filled with old river maps, river plants and fossils, paddles and life preservers. An old river mural along one wall recalls the space’s history as what is remembered as the “canoe room” from Mud Island River Park’s Adventure Center. There, guests could rent canoes, kayaks, and paddle boats for use in the harbor.
A lonely river
Burdine counts his company among only three canoe excursion companies operating on the Lower Mississippi River — the other two being Big Muddy Adventures in St. Louis and Quapaw Canoe Co. in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
For comparison, a 152-mile stretch of the Arkansas River in Colorado had about 45 outfitters and guides for fishing, rafting and kayaking in 2024, according to the latest numbers from a Colorado Parks and Wildlife report. Burdine said a 30-mile stretch where he served as a rafting guide had 15 or 20.
In 2025, the Arkansas River Conservation Cooperative said the previous year’s more than 165,000 visitors to the river brought $53 million to the Colorado economy.
“For those 1,500 miles (of the Lower Mississippi River), we’re the only three outfitters taking people out on the Mississippi River,” Burdine said.
More are needed, according to an Army Corps of Engineers study from 2014, “to get visitors in the region to spend time on or near the Mississippi River.”
That report did not give a count of outfitters. However, its new $25 million “mega-study” of the Lower Mississippi will include recreation and give new recommendations. Those findings are due in 2028.
For economic context, boating and fishing raked in $969 million for the Tennessee economy in 2024, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The category led the state’s $15.6 billion outdoor recreation economy that year, which supported more than 114,000 jobs.
From his experience working in the outdoors, Burdine saw an opportunity on the Mississippi River in Memphis. But his trip from his family farm in the Delta back to the banks of the Mississippi River in Memphis was nowhere near as linear and straightforward as a paddle down the river.
Burdine’s journey
Burdine “grew up on the river” close to Greenville, Mississippi, around Lake Washington. He eyed a Wall Street job after finishing his MBA at the University of Mississippi. But he moved to Colorado instead, becoming a whitewater guide on the Arkansas River and a ski instructor in Vail.
What he called his “five-year walkabout” after college came to a close at the headwaters of the Mississippi River in northwestern Minnesota. There, he launched a 16-foot canoe pointed south down the river on a 2,400-mile journey that would end at the Gulf of Mexico. It was a “spiritual odyssey” for him, but one with a larger purpose.
“I partnered with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation out of New York City because I lost my mom to breast cancer in 2003,” Burdine said. “I called the trip ‘A Million Strokes for a Cure.’ Having some kind of purpose and a cause like that for when it was tough out there, it made it that much more special.”
The trip took six months. Even though it could be done faster, Burdine took his “sweet time” and matched the trip time to roughly the length of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
He returned to Colorado and then moved to Taos, New Mexico, before deciding to trade the mountains for a life in the Virgin Islands. But a winter and spring back in the Delta brought him back in contact with his friend John Ruskey, the owner of Quapaw Canoe Co.
Ruskey suggested it was time for a Mississippi River canoe excursion company in Memphis, Burdine remembered. Three weeks later, Burdine was buying his first canoe to get started.
That’s when he got one of those “silly Facebook reminders.” Five years ago that day, he was paddling into Memphis on his Million Strokes journey.
In the subsequent five years, Burdine built his business, meeting adventurers on the bank of the river and now at The Outpost. But his mission, too, involves introducing tourists and Memphians to the “full river wilderness adventure just right off our doorstep.”
A new appreciation of Memphis
No matter where Mississippi River Expeditions trips begin, they end at Mud Island’s boat ramp.
During some of the expeditions, the canoes float beside Greenbelt Park, slide underneath the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and its interstate traffic, around the southern point of Mud Island, and back Downtown with one-of-a-kind views of its gleaming skyline.
“On certain days, you can smell the barbecue from Beale Street and hear the music,” Burdine said. “To paddle into your own home that way … you just give Memphians a whole new appreciation of Memphis, a whole new love for it.”
The company offers guided cruises across the river to the Arkansas sandbar just west of Greenbelt Park. There, guests can swim in the calm river waters, lounge on the sandy beaches, and take in the Memphis skyline. These cruises run from two to three hours.
Mississippi River Expeditions also offers longer day trips and overnight options — an overnighter from Shelby Forest and a two-night journey from Osceola, Arkansas. The company also hosts school groups, corporate retreats, bachelor and bachelorette parties, brunch and supper club runs and more.
Trips are fully outfitted with safety gear, paddles and experienced river guides in each canoe. The company’s fleet is made up of canoes custom-made by Western Canoeing & Kayaking in British Columbia, Canada. The vessels are large and stable, designed for the Mississippi River and to keep their paddlers generally dry.
Mud Island’s new energy
Back at Mud Island River Park, visitors are returning, according to Paul Chandler, president of MRPP. Visitor counts have increased over the past six to 12 months, he said, thanks to recent activations.
Mahogany River Terrace restaurant opened at the park in 2024. Baron Von Opperbean and The River of Time opened their immersive attraction inside the park’s old Mississippi River Museum in May 2026. Mississippi River Expeditions opened in early October.
Chandler said MRPP has worked with each of these tenants on lease arrangements to make it easier for them to operate at the park.
These new businesses are less expensive ways to activate the river park, he said, noting that capital and participation from a number of agencies are needed to restore the park’s aging structures and infrastructure.
In the meantime, however, MRPP tries to keep water flowing through the park’s River Walk model and supports its new tenants.
All of it, Chandler said, fits MRPP’s mission to “unlock the transformative power” of the Mississippi River. Burdine and his company take that mission one step further.
“I know that a lot of Memphians and visitors haven’t experienced being on the water,” Chandler said. “I think every Memphian and visitor needs to explore the harbor and the river, and we would like to help create those activations. Matthews’ organization is a big step towards that.”