
The name of the documentary came to me as I was driving home one day last week (my 75 mile drive home where I have a lot of time to think). I kept playing with the words "Wild and Scenic" but this film will be more than the Act. It's about the people and their ties to these rivers. Then the expression "up a river without a paddle" popped into my head. The idiom meaning "If you are up a river without a paddle, you are in an unfortunate situation, unprepared and with none of the resources to remedy the matter."
The people who have built these camps along the rivers are really in an unfortunate situation. Some of them will be nearly impossible to remove due to their extremely remote locations. A lot of them do not own private property to put a new one on or don't have the financial resources to purchase property to build themselves a new camp on. I also like the term because graphically I can play with the title to emphasize the word UP, seeing that this documentary takes place in Michigan's Upper Peninsula which is lovingly known as the U.P.