About Us
Doug and Molly Blom founded HeartLand Boating in the fall of 1988 in Martin, Tenn.
Talking later about what prompted the step, they said that while enjoying the area waterways, “we began to notice something puzzling. We were boating on inland, navigable lakes and rivers — huge lakes and rivers, the very ones the early explorers and then pioneers used to move west — and almost no consumer boating publication was writing about them,” said Doug.
“If someone from another country were paying serious attention to our mainstream boating press, he or she surely would have had the impression that Americans were boating only on the East Coast, West Coat, Gulf or Great Lakes.”
Six months later, Vol. 1, No. 1 of HeartLand Boating appeared in March 1989. “We produced four issues that year…we were joyful, fearful, energized and tired,” Doug said.
The magazine was purchased by The Waterways Journal Inc. of St. Louis later that same year, and it has continued to publish the magazine ever since.
HeartLand Boating exclusively covers the lakes and rivers of the Midwest, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Our content is focused on all those things you need for boating in this beautiful region, plus some you just dream about.
