When things go wrong on the river

Here is the first thing I tell every new river family: most days on the St. Croix go perfectly, and the ones that do not go wrong fast. So know who to call before you need them. This is the directory I keep in my own phone, and the one I hand to every buyer the day we close on a riverfront home. Keep it somewhere you can reach from the boat.

Start with the water itself. A deadhead is a log or fallen tree floating just below the surface, nearly invisible until you are right on top of it, and it can break a prop in seconds. Deadheads ride low and drift with the current, and after a rise in the water level there are more of them in the channel than usual. You cannot spot every one, which is exactly why you pair good local knowledge with a spare prop and the numbers below.

For any emergency, call 911 or use marine radio Channel 16. 911 reaches the dispatch center for the county you are in, and Channel 16 is the river's distress and calling channel, monitored by the Coast Guard, the county water patrols, and most boats on the water. Flag your location on a chart or GPS when you can, and tell them the nearest town and what you can see on both banks.

Here is the directory itself. Save these in your phone and put a printed copy with the boat. I have no stake in any of these agencies; this is simply who answers when you call.

For the everyday breakdown or a boat stuck on a sandbar, the best money you will spend is a towing membership with Sea Tow or BoatUS. Both are large 24/7 on-water assistance networks with St. Croix coverage, and many boat insurance policies cover a tow, so check your policy before the season. This is the honest answer for a breakdown at 6 p.m. on a Sunday: call the network.

These are the professionals you call when a deadhead breaks your prop or you need a tow, not 911. I keep this list on website links only, with no phone numbers, so you can look everyone up yourself and confirm what is current before you need it.

When a dock or lift has to come out before freeze-up, or go in each spring, the crews you want are the dock companies that run a crane on a barge, which is how the heavy lifting gets done safely. St. Croix Dock and Marine in St. Croix Falls does seasonal install and removal, repairs, and barge work, and J&D Marine in Marine on St. Croix handles docks and lifts on the lower river, with White Bear Lift & Dock, Lake Services Unlimited, and Jagusch Lawn Care working the area too. All offer seasonal install, removal, and repair.

For marinas, haul-out service, and boat repair, I keep the whole river list on website links only, with no phone numbers, so you can look everyone up yourself and confirm what is current. My full rundown of the marinas from Bayport to the confluence, plus the boat shops that keep boats running, lives on my slips and marinas page. Book haul-outs and spring service early, because the good shops fill up fast.

And then there is Wayne Prokosch, down at River City Welding in Stockholm, Wisconsin, the man they call when a boat is too big or stuck too deep for anyone else. He is the river's welding and salvage guy, a longtime St. Croix river man who has worked the river since the early 1990s and done jobs for the cities of Hudson and Prescott along the way. He built himself a handcrafted 20-ton workboat he named Maggie Marie, and he is the one who pumped out and towed the abandoned 54-foot Sweet Destiny off Beer Can Island near Hudson in May 2025, with people cheering from the shore and offering to buy him dinner up and down the river. If you are on the river long enough, you will know his name.

The short version: for an emergency, 911 or Channel 16. For a breakdown, the tow networks. For a boat too big for anyone else, the man with the workboat. Print this page, save it to your phone, and tuck a dry copy in the boat's glove box. You will almost certainly never need most of it, but on the day you do, you will be glad it was already in your phone.