Photo by Erik Sanchez

Do you hear Mark Twain in the new Grimes record, Visions?

A June 2009 report from the Minnesota newspaper The Star Tribune (via ShantyBoatLiving.com) describes Claire Boucher's Huck Finn-style DIY houseboat adventure with William Gratz, a friend she met at college in Montreal. It's an amazing story that proves Claire Boucher is even more awesome than we knew.

That summer, the couple traveled 25 hours from Montreal to Bemidji, Minnesota, where they spent a month constructing a 20-foot houseraft on a friend's property with the intention of sailing it down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. They named the boat "Velvet Glove Cast in Iron" and renamed themselves "Veruschka and Zelda Xox" for the trip, as the Tribune reports.

Boucher and Gratz painted murals with "fantastical creatures" on the side of the vessel, which they filled with live chickens, a sewing machine, and 20 pounds of potatoes. Yes, chickens. And 20 pounds of potatoes. But soon after setting sail, the engine failed, and Boucher and Gratz spent three weeks traveling downstream, attempting to fix the boat, and dealing with the police.

"I love the idea of the Tom Sawyer adventure," Rob Mooney, a Minneapolis park police officer, told the Star-Tribune. "The problem is it's not 1883. You can't do that anymore. You have to follow the rules."

Does that sound confusing? No worries, the Star Tribune made a News Graphic outlining their whole trip. Or read the full story here. Trust us, it's worth your time.

Watch Boucher, cleaned up a bit from her houseboat journey, at New York Fashion Week, in the latest installment of "Pitchfork Weekly"