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first off, thank you very much, everybody,for coming out. thisis awesome. i love this space, the restaurant, the cafã©here as well, very cool. i have been having great chats with peoplehere tonight and it is really awesome just seeingthe whole thing come about. when i came in, none of this stuff was setup and these guys have done a fantastic job in helpingme set some stuff up

here, and putting all this together, so yah,kudos to you guys. that’s awesome. to the organizers here, as well, big muddyspeaker series. thanks to steve schnarr who is in columbiaright now, columbia, mo, for getting a hold of me and saying “heydude, want to do this?” and me saying, “yah dude, i do!” and here i am. it’spretty awesome. i’ve got a little thing over my ear overhere,

and a microphone, that i don’t know if youcan all see. it’s oneof those cool like ted-x kind of microphones. i feel sosophisticated right now. it’s awesome. it’s like, i just wantto do like some britney spears moves or something here, but theytold me not to wander too far from the patio, so i can’t do likeany, well, i can’t show off, actually i guess. but i came heretonight to talk about my books, talk about

my publishing companywhich is called crow books, which i founded a couple years ago soi could publish all my books and hopefully in the future, publishsome books by other people as well. i was talking to a gentlemantonight, mike, who would like to put out a book of his travels inmexico that he did years ago and he said one of the hardestthings that he has done, is to get to the stage where he iscomfortable enough with his book to try to publish it. so he isstill in the draft stage, basically.

i am well acquainted withthe draft stage. i have been there many times myself. it feelslike i have written ten books by now, but there are only two. but i’m proud of those two for sure. we were talking about the river. the river that runs right pastkansas city, the missouri river, the big muddy you’re all wellacquainted with it and i’m sure some of you have been on it,paddling as well.

i was in parkville last night, talking toa group there, a group of city officials andpaddlers and we were talking about possibly putting paddlers’camp, a place that long-distance paddlers could stop and overnightin parkville, and i’d really like to see that happen. there is a great spot there,platte’s landing. there is a boat ramp, so it’s easy to getthe boat out. if you’re in a kayak or a canoe, or on stand-uppaddleboard, so be it.

and there is a toilet there. there’sfresh water there. there is a road where they could walk intodowntown if they wanted to get a burger or a beer or resupply,and they’re probably only going to be there overnight and thenget back on the river. from doing long-distance travels on rivers,i know that research is really critical. the people do a lot of research before theydo a trip, and they have an agenda. almost all of them have aplace to go back to.

they have loved ones and friends that theywant to see, so they have an agenda. they have an itinerary aswell. so knowing that 50 miles downstream, theycan stop, resupply, overnight, and then get back onthe river next morning and continue on, and not have to worry aboutstopping in kansas city. because, i’ve gotta say, even though thereare boat ramps in kansas city and a number of parks, riverfront park, i think, is one of them…i didn’t, when i paddledthrough, i didn’t stop.

i stopped at kaw point. i stayed with some people in kansascity. we went back in the morning, i put my boatback in and continued on, and then paddled right throughdown probably another 30 miles and camped somewhere in aforest after that. and, i don’t recall seeing anywhere throughthe downtown kansas city area where i would want to leave a boatfor any length of time. so having something like that in parkvillewould be

awesome, to be able to leave your boat foran hour, go in town and then come back. that would be great. so i’d really like tosee that happen, and i think last night, there was gooddiscussion about it, and i think it is on the positive side. ithink they are going to make the right decision in parkville. in 2012, i paddled 2800 miles from the utmostsource of the

missouri river, in the centennial mountainsof southern montana, close to the town of west yellowstone actually,and started at a place called brower spring. i guess it’s not really a place,because there is no place name there—it’s just a little area thatbig where the water bubbles out of the mountainside, 8800 feet,200 feet below the continental divide. when i was there, iclimbed up and looked into idaho. it was beautiful. so it waspretty cool to go all the way from the spine

of the continent,all the way to the gulf of mexico. and along the way, i met ariver angel. i met people who helped long-distance paddlers. ididn’t know it at the time, but there was a whole network ofpeople along the river who enjoy following along vicariously andalso offering help, offering assistance, when paddlers come intotheir area. i was on fort peck lake in eastern montana,and i was in a dead zone for about ten days.

i had no internet access;i had no cell phone access. tom bailey over here, he’s smiling,because he’s been through it as well. tom paddled from threeforks to the gulf of mexico in 2010 and i remember reading tom’sblog that he put together as well, which was part of my research. so years later, i got to meet tom and tom’sdeveloping into a fantastic guy—our friendship is developing,let’s say that. and being on fort peck lake, it is very isolating. at times, itseems like i’m on another planet, i was

on another planet or onthe moon or something—just so different from what was upstreamand what was downstream. i had no idea what was going on in theoutside world, especially the facebook world, because when i dostuff like this, i like to share my adventures, and i had beenvery adamant about keeping up to that point. well, a friend ofmine got a hold of me and said “the only way that we knew youwere alive, was that your gps tracker was still blinking. it wasstill showing that you were moving forward”.

my spot tracker,as it’s called. so the spot tracker was an entertainment devicefor those people back home, because then they knew that i wasalive. i couldn’t look at it. i couldn’t look at the page, butthey could look at the page and find out where on the river i wasanytime. they put out a wave point every ten minutes. so when ifinally got down to fort peck lake, to the dam at fort peck lake,i had a wi-fi connection for the first time

in 10 days and i waslike, “yah! there are going to be a lot of red numbersup on the corner there, the things that we like to see,that make us feel important”. and sure enough, there it was. as i scrolledthrough my news feed, there were people in boats, in canoes andkayaks and stand-up paddleboards, and i had no idea who theywere. and i kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling,and i

scrolled some more, and then scrolling, andstill, i didn’t know any of these people, but i’m thinking, “wow,this is pretty cool.” how did they end up on my news feed? my sister had beenmonitoring my facebook page, and people had been requesting,sending friend requests to her. it turns out that myfriend-to-be, norm miller, had approached my sister and said “weknow what rod’s doing. we would like him to join our facebookgroup page called missouri river paddlers”.

and she said “sure,where do i do that?” and so she signed me up. here are a bunchof photos that he sent there—post those on there. so norm gotright on and posted all this stuff and all the sudden, all thesepeople knew that i was coming downstream. so as i’m scrollingthrough all these things, i look and i go “wow, look at all themessages!” messages from waverly, missouri, messagesfrom

columbia, messages from kansas city. “when you get to our area,you can stay at our place—we’ll host you. we’ll get you a meal. we’ll bring you a cold beer to the boatramp. we’ll give you apat on the back. we’re here for you”. these people, as i foundout, were river angels. they are people who wanted to help out. they are long-distance paddlers, some of them,themselves.

soit was quite astonishing that now, there were so many more peopleinterested in my trip. and being a writer, each one of thesepeople had a cool story to tell as well, and what they told me,that they had overcome during their journeys as well, and some ofthem were amazing. all of them, i should say, are amazing. so iwent back a year later, after i finished my expedition, after igot to the gulf of mexico and swam in the salty water and did mylittle dance, just like this, maybe a little

more movement, but icannot move too much because i’ve got this thing on my ear andthis cord hanging by my butt. but anyways, i went back indecember of 2014 and interviewed all of these people who helpedme out. i did 22 interviews in 15 days. it was exhausting butit was lots of fun. i had tons of material. so i startedputting that material into a series of books about river angelsand about my travels, and weaving all of those

stories together. so this is the first of what will be fourbooks, actually, of river journeys and stories from people whohave overcome amazing, amazing things, the most difficult things,the heart breaking things—cancer. a woman, a friend of mine in jackson,mississippi, breast cancer diagnosed at age 33. she is a motherwith three young girls. the doctor said, “you’ll never paddleagain, because you won’t be able to hold

the paddle over yourhead.” months later, she was competing in a race,battle of the bayou, in southern, mississippi. she won the race. her kidscompeted in the kids’ version. they won the race. she said,“i’m going to creat my own race in jackson”, so she did. she wonthe race.

now she doesn’t compete, she just organizes,but her kids—she also organizes a kid version ofit too, which is pretty cool. it’s called the gator bait race, which isperfect for that area. they do have alligators where they do therace. so i love telling her story and i look forwardto weaving her story into mine, and then numerous other storiestoo. paddlers are really amazing people.

they are tenacious, they arepersistent. they are egocentric at times, which i cantotally relate to. they like to be the center of attention sometimes,but sometimes they are really humble too. so, they’re friends. i call them friends. and river angels takes on a lot ofdifferent definitions as well. so the people who are helping putsomething together in parkville, those people are river angels.

people who are here because they’re concernedabout the river and the health of the river. those people to me are river angels. the people who helped out the paddlers duringthe mr-340. thoseare river angels. and we have some of those in the audiencetonight. so, and the people who paddled the mr-340for that matter, are river angels, because they’reall ambassadors, too, who go out and talk about how cool it was…howcool it was to

paddle at night on the missouri river, andhow safe they felt, if they weren’t hallucinating, and how formany of them, that was the best part of the race for them. so, meeting these people hasenhanced my life. it has given me tons of material to talk aboutand to write about, and i am forever grateful for that,definitely. so what i’m going to do tonight, is i’mgoing to read a couple excerpts from these books, “river angels”,which is my second book, and also “part-time superheroes, full-timefriends”, which

is my first book, and a little bit about thisbook---in 2001, i went down the mississippi river, from sourceto sea, with an old friend of mine. his name is scott mcfarlane. and i kind of wishthat scott was here tonight, because he would be sitting in thefront row heckling me, because he’s really good at that and hereally enjoys that, and he would stand up and say, “well, youknow, that story that rod just told, or that excerpt from thebook that rod just read?

it was sort of like that, but notreally, and i’ve got a different version and i’m going to tell itto you right now.” and i know that, because i’ve invited scottto a few of these events and he loves to get up and be centerstage and i love to just let him get up and be center stage. he’s just—he’s the guy, that when isaid “hey, if anybody ever makes a movie about this book, who do youwant to play you? i’mthinking, like brad pitt. i’m thinking brad pitt man, becauseyou’re a handsome guy scott, and brad pitt

is a handsome guy—he’dmake a great fit.” and he said “pffft." the only person whocan play me is me.” that is scott. so there’s enough of scottin this book and there is enough of scott in my life, to fillseveral volumes, for sure. but so much so—and i love theguy—love him like a brother—so much so, that i decided to write abook about our friendship. a real tribute to our friendship, andcreate two superhero characters as well, to

really mock our egos,because our egos definitely needed marking, and talk about ourjourneys, going down the mississippi river from source to sea,and then in the same summer, ending up at the burning manfestival in nevada. so we went right from the gulf, right overto an arts festival in the desert, wearing thesame handmade loin cloth and sandals and the cutoff coverallsthat i bought for $10 in new westminster b.c. and put a little namepatch on it that said “jim”, which was my superhero character.

it was also ourcharacters that we played, at burning man. so, lots of fun. wedid that on the river. we rehearsed a lot on the river for whatwe were going to do at burning man, so it was a hoot. it was ahoot. it was summer, for sure. so what i did with this book isi leapfrogged the chapters. i talked about scott and i in firstperson, and then for the superhero characters,

i did it all innarration. so basically, i stepped back and talked aboutthese two superhero characters named “action manand jim”. i’m theskinny one, scott is the buff one. i’m the sidekick. always thesidekick with scott, for sure. so i’m the robin to his batman. i am the cheetah, i guess, to his tarzan. so, lots of good stuffin this book.

lots of funny stories and lots of stuff thatscott would heckle me about endlessly, if he wassitting in the front row. again, i would really like to put him alongon a book tour like this, because it’s just—the chemistrybetween us, is so funny, and the audience seems to just loveit. “let’s watchthese two guys rip each other apart—this is awesome”. so, i’mgoing to read a little bit from this book.

this is a shortexcerpt. we were in a canoe. it was a $250 canoe that we bought off anoutfitter close to lake itasca which is the source of themississippi river in northern minnesota. we bought it for $250and the next day we sold it. we hadn’t even used it yet. wesold it to the outfitter’s brother who lived in saint paul. hesaid “when you guys are finished with it,

if it’s in good shape,i’ll buy it from you.” awesome. so that whole part of the tripwasn’t going to cost us a dime. we just had to get this aluminumcanoe to 500 miles downstream in good shape and sell it to theguy. we eventually did that, which was pretty cool. so, iwould always try to get scott’s goat because we had this lovelychemistry together, and i didn’t really like paddling a canoe allthat much.

it was not really my idea to use a canoe. it wasactually my idea to take like a cheap inflatable, $100 inflatableboat, or maybe a zodiac. a zodiac would be cool, let’s take azodiac, scott. i like saying zodiac. let’s use a zodiac, scott. and let’s get a motor for it. and let’s put lots of gas on itand let’s carry it around 15 dams above the twin cities.

yah,that sounds like a lot of fun. scott said, “no, let’s just get acanoe for $250”. so i didn’t get my zodiac, and i had tosit in a canoe and do this for 500 miles, insteadof doing this, which i wanted to write in my journal. “scott, how about yousit behind me and do this for 500 miles? i’ll do this, and i’llwrite an awesome book. it’ll be great.” and he said “ha,that’s not going to happen.

you’re going to be doing this. we’re both going to be doing this.” so that’s what we did. so iwasn’t the happiest person, on my self-propelled journey that ireally didn’t want, and i didn’t get my zodiac. i didn’t get tosay zodiac every day. so i would blow up from time to time, andthis excerpt is the morning after a blowup. scott, who i thoughtwas making my trip worse, was actually the

glue that was holdingit together. he’s the guy who didn’t say anything whenrod, little rodney was whining, picking brokenbeer bottles out of the sand before he set up his tent…boo-hoo-hoo. he just sat overthere and was quiet, just like the river. many years later, irealized that he was the rock on that trip and i was the one whowas spinning out of control. and i thanked him for that when iwrote this book. with my volatility well slept off, we launchedthe canoe into yet

another overheated morning. the city of saint cloud was a shortfive-mile paddle downstream and we resolved to find some coolrefreshments there. still a bit numb from the night before, butcomfortable in the bow away from the space of scott, the suddensound of whitewater caught me completely off guard as we roundeda bend. “rapids”, i yelled in near panic. i turned to seescott’s very serious face looking back at me.

“run it,” heyelled. standing waves gnashed at our thrashing panelsand as the aluminum hull bonked off unseen boulders,“hard left, roddy,” shouted scott. “hard!” we plunged into a giant white wave,splitting it in two, and drenching ourselves in the process. asthe muddy water drained from my face, i coursed my eyes open andsaw a huge boulder directly in our path.

i braced my legs forimpact and felt scott lean and dig in with his paddle. the canoeglanced off the boulder and fell headlong into a menacing pit ofmadly-circulating water. “hard right!” yelled scott from therear. “dig!” overcoming a fear that nearly froze me immobile,i thrust the paddle deep into the frothy holeand watched the canoe shot crazily sideways, bouncing to a calmeddy near the shore.

“what was that?” “suke rapids” i replied,turning back to look at him. the map said “scout beforeproceeding”. we laughed hard and high-fived each otherwith our paddles. “forget the cold drinks roddy,” said scottwith a chuckle. “i need to change my underwear”. so scott and i went on to have some fun adventures,and other

adventures as well—road trips across theu.s. and road trips across canada. we lived in vancouver, british columbia for20 years, and as luck would have it, we settledin our old hometown of chatham, ontario, canada, where i livedfor the first 20 years of my life and where he lived for the first20 years of his life. he met a lovely woman, named adori. they have two children. they live in chatham.

he has a much different life now than hedid in 2001. but, he cherishes his memories of the riverand of burning man as well. so the book looks at our friendship and bringsit all up to date at the end. he gets married—i buy a kayak. hence, this book. this one segways right into this one. and i start meeting peoplethat i, five years ago, never thought i would

meet paddlers. iwas a cyclist. i enjoyed riding across continents on my bicycle. in 2005, i road from vancouver, british columbia,to alaska, all the way to the arctic ocean and went for aswim in the arctic ocean and it was very cold, i might add. but i’ve also ridden abicycle across australia from the most westerly point to the mosteasterly point, 5100 miles, and across north america fromvancouver to the far side of newfoundland,

5200 miles altogether. and those experiences really bolstered myself esteem, which was lacking as a kid. so, meeting people who i could relate to ona bike was difficult. but when i got on the river, i started tomeet people all the time. i never would have thought of that,thanks to my sister, and all those friend requests on fort pecklake in 2012. so, 2012 was a very busy year for me and formy

adventuring friends. i was invited to take part in an eight-day,105 mile descent of the wolf river, in northern mississippi andtennessee. if you’ve ever been to memphis, the wolfriver empties into the mississippi river at mudisland, at the foot, close to beal street, the foot of beal street. so, my friend,dale sanders, who is 81 this year—he’s the oldest person thisyear to compete in the mr-340 and finish it. he walked away witha medal.

he was on a standup paddle board with hisfriend, jericho laforte and shane perrin, on a hand-built18 foot paddleboard that was like, i don’t knowhow wide it was—52 inches wide, or something. it was quite a mammoth. it was a standuppaddle barge, i think, is what they called it. it was prettyawesome. he paddled all 340 miles at 81 years old,and that

would seem like a huge thing, and it was ahuge thing, except that the year before, he paddled the entirelength of the mississippi river at 80 years old, in a solocanoe as well, all the way from lake itasca to the gulf of mexico,and he did it in 80 days. and not only that, he met every itinerarystop for media because he was raising money for juvenilediabetes, and he raised over $23,000. he did a lot of media interviews along theway and said “i’ll be at this boat ramp,

at this port, at thistime”, and he met every single one. and i love that. i lovethat part of the journey, because i know how difficult it is todo that, not always show up, or show up, and the media is notthere. and they never show up. well, sometimes they show up. so, it’s pretty cool that he was able todo that and pull it all off.

i was at the gulf to take pictures of himwhen he finished on what’s called the last beach, below venice,louisiana. it ispretty cool to be there with almost 30 other people on threeboats—three motorized boats—one of them was a shrimp boat aswell, which was pretty cool. first time on a shrimp boat for me. and to be there when my friend finished hisjourney. you’ll seesome business cards that i have here. and the thin card has aphoto of me that was taken by dale on the

last beach. he wasthere when i finished my journey in early 2013. so, dale asked me to join him for this eight-dayexpedition. isaid yes. a friend of mine, dave cornthwaite, who isquite an adventurer himself—he’s from england. he has a project called“expedition 1000”, 25 journeys, self-propelled journeys, usingnon-motorized methods of transportation and

each one is more than1000 miles in length. dave has skate-boarded across theaustralian continent. first time anybody ever did that. hestood up paddle boarded the entire length of the mississippiriver from source to sea, in 2011. he has also swam 1000 milesof the lower missouri river, something that nobody has ever donebefore, and coming through this area—through kansas city, yah, itsmells a little bit. smells a little bit more when you’regetting it right in your eyes, right in your

mouth and right inyour nose. it was quite a journey for him. and i love to tellthe story of when he was swimming and dealing with an upsetstomach and he would vomit then swim through his vomit. thatjust really encapsulates the whole journey for him—swimmingthrough your own vomit and finishing. there’s the race, rightthere. so i was there at the arch when he finishedhis 1000

mile swim, after he lost 30 pounds or whateverit was, on his thin frame anyways. and i gave him a big hug and said“congratulations”. earlier that year, he was in memphis. earlier, just before that, he said “hey,i’ve been given a four-wheeled bicycle. it looks like a car without a car body. it’s got two drive trains and two seats,and a steering mechanism of sorts.

can you help me get it from eugene, oregon,to memphis, tennessee, because i want to rideit 1000 miles from memphis to miami.” and i said, “that’s the craziest ideai’ve ever heard. sure i can do that!” so it was my job to get itacross the country. all of that, and how i did that, which endedup being far more difficult than i ever imagined, is in thisbook.

and dave, who likes to say “yes”…he’sa “yes man”. he started aproject called “say yes more”. he also said yes to dalesanders’ request to join in on the wolf river descent, eightdays, which sounded easy to both of us. and i have communicationwith dave, and it was like, “dude, all we need to do is like,show up. we are going to have topo maps, we’re goingto have gps. these guys have got all the coordinates.

easy man. it’snot going to take us eight days to paddle 105 miles, that’scrazy!” what we did not know is that we would be goingthrough snake-infested swamps for the first threedays. we would also beon standup paddle boards, which, for some reason, i said “yes,i’ll do that”, even though i’ve never been on a standup paddleboard. i’ll paddle a standup paddle board.

so, they go thestandup paddle boards, we showed up. so did the snakes. weended up not paddling those paddle boards too much because wewere pulling them through the swamp for the first three days. so, what i’m going to do…oh look at that. i forgot that we putthat up there. i’m going to show some footage. this footagehere was taken on day 3.

this is a film that was put together bya friend of mine, a filmmaker in memphis. his name is chrisrays. you will see, lfm—live from memphis. he used to run anentertainment guide in memphis, in 2012. it is now defunctunfortunately. he has moved on to other projects. he does a lotof work with the city there, which is pretty and he puttogether this cool little go-pro video. he was in this 18 footmonstrous canoe with his friend, phillip beasley,

behind him,another musician, and these guys were paddling through—he had thego-pro mounted on the front, and he had like this $20,000 camerathat he was taking all this amazing footage with. andunfortunately, i do not have that footage here tonight, but it isa 40 minute edit, so i didn’t want to show that anyways, but itis very cool. we get to see this. i put together this littletribute to day 3, of the 8 days.

so we are going to look atthis. these guys had a tough day 3, because theywere drinking all night. chris came out—that was chris there withthe cool hat—chris rays came out, phillip beasley,john henry—they came out in a 4 x 4 to meet us at what’s calledpipeline #5. i thinkthere are probably five people that that mean anything to, butthat’s where we camped, at pipeline #5. and they brought lots ofbeer with them, and like an amazing assortment

of food, whichthey then proceeded to cook over the fire. it was incredible. so in the morning, the guy came back witha 4 x 4, took all of our gear, all of our camping equipment, butnot the beer--left the beer—and went away. and basically, we were left without anygear. and the object there was to paddle downstreamto where the gear was, which was all in john henry’struck, at a bridge, actually, the first major bridge on the river,which is called

the new 72 bridge. and that would mean the same to the same fivepeople. but that was our goal for the day, and itwasn’t far. like we probably only had to paddle maybe12 miles or something like that. but we got a late start. dale, the ever diligentnavy man, wanted to start at 7:30 in the morning. oh—brendalaughed. that’s funny.

she knows dale. she crewed for dale onthe mr-340. dale is an interesting guy for sure, and hejust loves to get up and go. but that day, he didn’t go anywhere,because we didn’t get on the river until 11 a.m. so dale juststewed for a few hours, and i had to hear about it. we finally got on the river.

we went through a whole bunch ofcrazy stuff. there is stuff right at the end—when yousee chris at the end, it’s like “oh…” and hisexpletive there that he slowed down. that was getting into the tough part of theday, and the tough part was still to come. there was three-quarters ofa mile at the end of that day that was just brutal. unmaintaineddebris that had just piled up for years, and

it was john henry’sidea to take us all through it…to finish strong. “let’s finishstrong today. let’s drink lots of beer and finish strong”. azodiac might have been a good thing to have there. the comicrelief of me saying zodiac. there was no comic relief on thisday. it was a very difficult day, and it was onlyday 3.

westill had five more days of this stuff to do, and it didn’t get alot easier. all of those eight days get examined in thisbook. supas. day 3. april 9, 2012 and it was easter monday. johnhenry withdrew his wooden canal panel from the river and laid itdripping atop one of the crafts thwarts. he heaved a heavy sigh,braced his boots against the bottom of the

hull and stoodstraight up in one sinuous motion. suddenly, he was the tallestthing in the swamp. he lifted both hands to his brow andshielded his eyes from the glaring sun, as he scanned the slewfor a navigable channel. “i’m looking for movin’ water”, hesays. earlier in the day, while perched in the samestatuesque stance, “i’m looking for movin’ water”. somehow he found itthen, and i had no doubt that he would find it now.

john’s goodat locating a current, i thought, but he’s not too good atkeeping it. i looked over at dale. his canoe was empty exceptfor an expensive camera, a snack bag and a jug of water. hiscamping gear, like mine, was locked in the bed of john henry’struck. five miles downstream at the highway 72 bridge. if wedidn’t reach the bridge by sundown, we’d

be sleeping in our boatsin the middle of the snake-infested swamp. dale wasn’t scoutingand standing. he was twitching in his seat, like an impatienttoddler in a shopping cart. he wiggled and wriggled and jiggledand squirmed. he fretted and fussed and tossed and turned. andi thought he would leap clean free of the boat and dance ‘crossthe lily pads like a gravity-less goat. but stay in his seat, hedid, against choice, and pursed his lips purple, and silenced hisvoice.

his anger was evidence. his confidence irked. andbeneath his white hair, insanity lurked. i hoped not to see it,hoped not he’d show, how volatile and malicious or low, he couldgo. he’d voiced it before in spurts on day 2,when john henry was absent from this hullaballoo. but now john was near, withineye shot, within ear, within uncomfortable range that filled dalewith a fear so irrational, so silly, so crazy,

so true, that isspread wide ‘crossed his face like a cancerous hue. a blackenedshade, a darkness made, from antiquated thoughts and redundantbeliefs that festered in a mind saturated with grief. ‘tis in mynature to counsel, to guide. ‘tis in my nature, to cower, tohide. ‘tis in my nature, to love to support. ‘tis in my nature,to abandon, to abort.

‘tis in my nature to leave the wolf pack,to stumble ever onward and never look back. but look back i do,and sometimes i stare long and wish for forgiveness for loving,for friends staid and strong, who voice their displeasure withrespect and esteem, who cast off their burdens and admit theywere wrong. surely, think i, there can be such apt closure,such wounds healed from truth, and truthful exposure. a venomousbehavior that no longer favors the goodness of all those whopartake in the complicated crossing of a shallow

dank lake, thatlies in a remote corner of an american state, in the middle ofnowhere, nowhere exists. and with nowhere come questions, andwringing of wrists, and when wrists have been wrung and skinsloughed away, marrow and morrow will cease to decay. a new hopewill spring from a font once kept shrouded and a new path willarise, uncluttered, uncrowded. surely, thinks i, a canoe statueman, with a ginger goatee, who stands here before us like a youngcypress tree.

we’ll find moving water and set us all free. thisway, shouted john henry, pointing off to his right. his gaze ledto a tangled row of cypress trees that towered over the swamp. “follow me”. dale looked unsure. doubt furrowed his foreheadand crinkled the dangling grey moustaches that doubled aseyebrows, on a 76-year-old face.

it was a face that hadweathered more storms than the rest of our group had seencollectively. based simply on longevity, dale trumped usall when it came to experiences on life and onwater. he was a riverguide, used to leading groups on the wolf, but now he was beingled, something he secretly hated. his anger had been brewing allday, all week, all month. in a split second before john perchedhimself back on his canoe and began paddling toward the toweringcypresses, i carefully watched dale’s wrinkled

face for atelltale reaction. there it was. the headshake ofdisagreement, followed quickly by the scowl of impatience and theglare of resentment. he was a silent, seething mess. he wasrelinquishing power. he was following the leader. he was alsofollowing the only person among us who had paddled this sectionof the wolf.

john guided us down a twisting corridor ofcypress trees, their grey/brown trunks rooted wellbelow the water line. the rivers rippled surface parted clearlyaround each tree as the channel flowed under our boats. fallen trees blocked the routeon numerous occasions and we found ourselves atop them, haulingour paddle boards and canoes over the trees and back into thestream. it was tedious work. finally, we reached what appeared to be animpasse.

the foresthad pinched us tightly into a corner. john left his craft andscouted the area ahead for an opening and he returned severalminutes later with the news. “it’s a dead end. no waythrough”, he said as he climbed in his canoe. “we have to goback”. so what i’m going to show now is a filmthat was put together in like, three hours. i don’t know how he did it.

he’s good atthat. it’s dave cornthwaite’s film—that guyright there. he’sfrom england. he likes to interrupt me sometimes. he was there. he showed up on day 4, actually at the endof day 3. he wasstuck—this will be fun to tell--he was stuck in anair-conditioned airport in hawaii, because he had just sailed1000 miles, actually it was a little more

than 1000 miles—he hadsailed on a 70 foot yacht from mexico to hawaii as part of hisbig project. i think he had it kind of cush for a few weekson the boat, although they put him to work forsure. but he wantedto be there with us, right from the source of the wolf, all theway to its mouth, but he missed the first three days. so heshowed up right at the end. still daylight in this video.

wedidn’t get there until after dark. the end of the video before,we were on our way to here. so those three-quarters of a milethat were really tough, are just out of sight. in the shadows,you see those trees back in there? that’s where all the fun is. dave was out here looking like he just steppedoff—well, i don’t know—he hadn’t shaved for a while. but he had it easy for a fewweeks, i’ll tell you that. but as you’ll see, he had hischallenges as well.

he put this together in three hours. itturned out really good. he has made over 200 short films. he isdoing great. standup guy, hard worker. he is an adventurer,author, speaker, and he is doing some amazing work, bringingpositivity and adventure into the lives of a lot of people, sokudos to him. let’s roll this.

it’s april 9, 2012, and it’s time foranother adventure. usuallywhen i start paddling along the river, it’s from the very source,but this time, unfortunately, that is not the case. last week, ifinished sailing across the pacific with the crew of sea dragon,and now, i’m very close to memphis in tennessee and about to putin underneath the beautiful highway 72. for three days, i tried in vain, to fly outof honolulu. in themeantime, a trusty group of friends had already

begun theirdescent of the wolf river, from baker’s pond, mississippi. “first time on a standup paddle board, hereat baker’s pond. wish us luck, because we’re going to needit” as i reclined in an airport seat several thousand miles away,jonathan brown, dale sanders and rod wellington, along with a fewother sectioned paddlers, were dragging their standup paddleboards and canoes through thick, muddy swamp. their short communications out ofthe bush had suggested it would be both their

first and last timethrough that terrain. “are you here yet?” through all thewarnings about hot days, cold nights, mosquitoes, fallen trees,cypress knees and poison snakes, i was sad to have missed thechallenges of the upper 18 miles, as i trudged the highwaybridge, waiting patiently for our gallant paddlers to transpirefrom the undergrowth. the squished blue runner brought me backto reality. just as this venomous snake had tragicallyfailed to

negotiate a manmade route, i was about tojoint a journey through a habitat not designed for humans. “log after log, draggingthrough mud. it was really difficult. i paddled on aheadbecause i fell in, got wet and started getting chills, so i hadto move”. “oh, this is my aqua pack bag”. “now the thing is, i paddled from thereto legrange”. “here we go.

give me the wave, ladies and gentlemen. thankyou!” pulling our paddle boards up over logs andwading through swamps, critical.” “we’re going to go back around here andmaybe jump on that line there, and you can see that as you’re lookingat my i-pad inside this beautiful aqua pack” “the king of subtle advertising—jonathanbrown there everybody.” “you’re looking comfortable back downthere.”

“it’s been good today. i’ve enjoyed it. it was fun. it waslong. and i am tired”. “jamie put all this together. it was his idea in the firstplace. this man is amazing. this man is incredible.”

how oldare you now, 105?” “getting close to it. my birthday, i’ll be78.” “seventy- eight? and when’s your birthday?” “you knowwhat—i forgot!” “those of you who watched the mississippivideos from last year’s expedition will remember that dale is notretired, he’s retarded. and he’s been playing around with cottonmouth’s today, snakes.

poisonous snakes on his paddle—very naughty”. “jonathan, what do you think, am i goingto put it on your board?” “yes, i’m the one guy that hasn’t fallenin, so you throw a snake on my board?” “so rod’s from canada, adventurer extraordinaire. how are youfeeling buddy? you’ve done all four days so far? a littlesleepy?”

“yes, i’m tired today, and a little grumpy. i’ve been grumpyevery day, actually, and everybody here has been tolerating mygrumpy mood for the last four days, and he’s laughing, but i’mnot. it’s challenging. we’ve had our fair share of challengesagain today, but we’re pushing through it and we found thisbeautiful little sandbar here to camp on tonight so, yah.” “and dale, he’s unstoppable.

thanks buddy. hey, it’s been hardtoday, but i think the challenge has been worth all the beautythat we’ve experienced, and this sandbar that we’ve found isprobably the biggest and one of the only sandbars we’ve seen allday, so we’ve been pretty lucky. the end of another day onanother river. the fire is burning. am i looking after this? this is beautiful.

time for food.” it’s hard to beat thefeeling of waking up on a sandbar in early morning, however coldit is, and getting out on the water, especially on a standuppaddle board. it is day 2 on the wolf. these are the kinds ofconditions we have had to encounter time and time again, althoughthis is probably the easiest portage of the entire lot so far,just a simple tree trunk. j.b. had a hand at this as you cansee, with his little five-finger feat, makes

it look likesomething out of africa. how are you doing over there buddy? whether the camera is pointed at j.b., he’sincapable of acting like a normal human being. laughter.” the mayor of legrange has come out to seeus. my old friend, tomis here. my brother and i stayed with tom last year. hibuddy—hello, hello.

now the funny thing is, tom has brought hiscanoe. look how clean it is compared to the restof ours. it isa perfectly clean canoe. look at that. oh, by the way, we’vetraveled further in the first hour and a half today than we didthe entire morning yesterday.” “we’ll see about harvesting this hollowlog. how cool was that?” “you may have noticed the water runningoff up through there, and

it runs off into the section we call the famedghost section of the wolf river.” “we’re in quite a fast-flowing technicalsection, dodging all of these trees and stuff. my paddle boat has become wedged under anenormous fallen log. j.b.’s rope is stuck. he just came aroundthis corner and that is wrapped around another log, so we’re in aslight predicament. luckily, we’re first in the line of paddlerstoday.

if we don’t get through this, we’re goingto cause a log jam.” “excellent. you did well. that’s going to be cool, rightthere.” there is dave cornthwaite’s website if youwant to check it out. there is lots of cool stuff there, and moreof his films and links to his films as well. please, if you get a chance, if youonly watch one other dave cornthwaite film,

or a film about davecornthwaite, make it “swim 1000”, the journey that he did—theswim that he did on the missouri river here, an awesome film,done by his friend from florida, miguel andruro, a greatfilmmaker. he is doing some pretty cool stuff for sure,and he does some amazing art, including a piece thatwas sold to j.j. abrams, pretty awesome, and the little filmthat he made for that piece of art, has been viewed over 8 milliontimes on vimeo. so,some pretty amazing people involved in this

project and theproject in 2012. so, a lot of that stuff gets discussed inriver angels. so, i’m gonna wrap this up and i’ll takesome questions. ask me about expeditions if you want, or selfpublishing questions, if you’re interested in that. and we’ll do that. anyquestions?

grand canyon indonesia bandung 2017-03-16T23:50:00+07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Melissa Nur Aulia El-Zulfa