Paddle Across America

Our fishing trip that we took in 1986 turned into an adventure that took us all across the North American continent, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. We really didn't plan the trip. It just kinda happened. It wasn't a macho thing. It just developed. We generally didn't hurry. We just took in the scenery and fished and enjoyed the everyday experience. There were only a couple of times when we were forced to work hard. Mainly the last day going out to the Arctic Ocean and crossing the straits of Mackinac racing a lake freighter.Carmon and I were amazed that there were only two overland portages in the whole trip. We dubbed our route the north-south canoe and kayak passage. We were guaranteed by the world's foremost authorities on canoe routes that it was the shortest route across North America. There were four of us who paddled across Canada, but only two of us wanted to do North America.When Carmon and I finished the trip in 2008, he was seventy-five and I was sixty-five years old. Carmon passed in 2015, about ten years ago. I wanted to tell the paddling world about the north-south canoe passage before my time on earth expires.