Canoeing and Sailing
Every river is a highway waiting to take you anywhere in the world you want to go. It will take you there in a way people have been traveling for millennia, but have mostly forgotten about today. It will take you there in a way that will bring you closer to nature, in a way that will invigorate your soul. When you put paddle in water you are not relying on the workings of Man, you are free.
Mississippi River Challenge
In 2014 and again in 2017, I led a group of four in an attempt to break the record for the fastest decent of the Mississippi River by canoe. While we did not break Bob Bradford and Clark Eid's 2003 record, we learned an incredible amount the experience did a lot to shape who I have become. While we did not set the record, we did manage to paddle over 1000 miles in ten days, multiple times.
The attempt was chronicled in real time on Facebook.
MSU Outdoors Club:
Campus to Coast
The Michigan State University Outdoors Club put on the 160 mi canoe race annually between when I founded the trip in 2010 and 2020. This race drew well over a hundred participants every year and was ranked as the 9th hardest canoe race in North America. Putting this event together is my life's greatest accomplishment to date. The above picture was taken before the start of the second Campus to Coast.
Sailing on the
Great Lakes
The Michigan State University Outdoors Club put on the 160 mi canoe race annually between when I founded the trip in 2010 and 2020. This race drew well over a hundred participants every year and was ranked as the 9th hardest canoe race in North America. Putting this event together is my life's greatest accomplishment to date. The above picture was taken before the start of the second Campus to Coast.
Quiet Water Society
Every year, the Quiet Water Society puts on the Quiet Water Society symposium which attracts thousands of people to Lansing, Mi to learn about paddling from expert presenters. I was invited to speak at the 2015 and 2016 symposia about the Mississippi River Challenge, and then Campus to Coast. The society hosts the symposium to fund its granting program which supports projects that help fulfill the Society's mission of promoting outdoor recreation and conservation. I have been a volunteer with the group since 2013.
"What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other travel. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature."
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
"Everyone must believe in something. I believe I'll go canoeing."
Henry David Thoreau