July 24, 2024 • 58 mins
Do not attempt the feats described in this podcast unless with a trained guide or professional. Always practice safety on the water. Find paddlecraft info on the US Coast Guard's website, here
Adventurer Dana Starkell shares his awe-inspiring journey, starting from his unique upbringing with an eccentric father who turned ordinary days into extraordinary adventures. Listen as Dana relives his vivid childhood memories of rescuing crows and exploring forests, which ignited his lifelong passion for nature and animals.
Dana takes us through the monumental canoe trip he undertook with his father, which doubled the existing world record. Dana emphasized the value of shared experiences over mere records. From navigating ice-laden rivers to crossing Lake Winnipeg, Dana’s story is a testament to mental stamina and the psychological advantages of focusing on the ultimate goal. Discover the critical safety measures they took, like maintaining water supplies and dealing with food scarcity, and how these adventures shaped Dana's unrelenting spirit.
Finally, explore Dana's multifaceted life beyond canoeing as he recounts his journey as a musician and his eventual move to the Quad Cities. Learn how he turned his father's travel diaries into the best-selling book "Paddle to the Amazon," and how a chance connection during a book tour led him to a new chapter in his life. Dive into the charm of the Quad Cities, from its extensive bike trails to community events like FloatZilla, and get inspired by Dana’s continuous efforts to foster community spirit and record-breaking participation.
Find the Paddle to the Amazon book here
Watch the Paddle to the Amazon documentary here
QC, That's Where is a podcast powered by Visit Quad Cities. Through the people, partnerships, and personalities woven throughout the Quad Cities region, you'll meet real Quad Citizens and hear the untold stories of the region.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
you, you Thank you.
Where do you find a family ofcommunities connected by the
storied mississippi river, whereyoung explorers and dreamers,
investors and entrepreneursthrive?
Where can you connect with realpeople living and creating in a
place that's as genuine as itis quirky QC?
That's when.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Welcome to QC.
That's when I'm Katrina, yourhost, and I'm so pumped today to
be talking to adventurer DanaStarkel.
Dana, I want to toss it rightto you immediately because
you've got some really awesomebackground.
You've got a world record underyour belt.
You've got some greatexperience with activating our
(01:51):
Mississippi River.
You're a musician by trade, soI want to start where you want
to start.
Who is Dana?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
wow.
So you know, typical kid when Iwas, when I was, you know,
growing up, but the the bigdifference, I would say, is that
my dad was very eccentric, um,and I mean eccentric to the
point where that's like, whenyou live in a neighborhood,
everybody knows that house, it'sthe house where the crazy
people live, and and when I saycrazy, I just mean I really mean
eccentric, like you always knewthat when you passed by our
(02:31):
house there was probablysomething weird going on or
something's up, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Like what.
What was going on?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, infinite numbers of things.
But as an example, like youknow, we had a neighbor whose,
whose yard our next doorneighbor, nice guy, and
everything he had, his, hiswhole yard was like a golf
course.
It was so trimmed I mean, weused to joke that he would get
his scissors out to make sure ablade was just right, you know.
(02:58):
And then we had my dad's house,where I live, our whole, our
whole yard in Our whole yard ina big city of a million people
looked like a square area, likea quarter acre of wild forest,
you know, we had giant poplarsand everything blowing into his
yard and everything imaginablethat could drive this poor guy
(03:20):
crazy.
And he thought my brother and Iwere a bunch of wild Indians and
I was going to attack and andthen, anyways, when I was a
young kid, I had big imagination.
I was always looking at thingsI wanted to do when I got older.
And well, one of the thingsthat I wanted to do was be a
(03:40):
veterinarian.
I liked animals and differentthings, and my dad knew that too
.
So when I was a young kid, Iremember one time we went out.
We used to go for long, long,like five, six, seven mile walks
every weekend and we noticedthere was a bunch of crows going
over towards this farm field,across this farm field and then
into a forested area.
(04:01):
So my dad said you know, when Iwas was a kid, I had a pet crow
.
Um, I bet you they have somecrows over there.
We should go check it out.
So we did and sure enough, wefound some nests way up this
really, really high tree.
So my dad had me climb up tothe top of this thing to to
check out the nest and I said,yeah, there's eggs in there and
(04:21):
everything, and of course thecrows were attacking me and
everything.
We'll come back in a littlewhile.
And he says typically a lot oftimes if there's three or four
crows uh, young ones, they willstarve.
One of them will end upstarving to death.
They'll just feed the strongestones, he says so we can, we'll
pick the weakest one and we'llsave it, you know.
(04:41):
And so, sure enough, we wentback and I climbed back up the
tree, but this time I built alittle tiny, almost like a
little birdhouse, with a littleroof on it and that, and a
little opened up and I climbedup to the top and I remember I
went up there and I was, I waslooking at these birds that are
getting dive, bombed andeverything, and I picked one out
(05:02):
and I had put it into the strawand and then my dad, from way
down below, he goes dana, don'tforget, pick the smallest one.
Because as I was putting theminto the net, into the straw,
because my dad's had a crow, hisname was timmy and we were
going to call this one timmy too.
So I'm putting him into thestraw.
I'm like, oh, timmy, you know.
And my dad says, don't forget topay for this one.
(05:23):
I'm like, oh, so I took himback, put him back in the nest,
took another one, the smallestone.
I said, oh, timmy.
So then, anyways, we took themall.
But you can imagine, like myneighbor, this is like a typical
event.
And we're coming home, we gotthis big birdhouse I'm carrying,
and the next thing, you know,we got a crow flying around
attacking his tomatoes andeverything, and it was always
(05:45):
something.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So all of this sounds like, first of all, excellent
bonding with your dad.
I want to talk more about himin a little bit.
So just like a wild experiencegrowing up and we talked before
we started recording You're fromCanada and you said 150 miles
north of Grand Forks If you'retrying to visualize it.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
you know, if you think of Fargo, there's the TV
show Fargo and then you go about75 miles north of that, you
would get Grand Forks, okay.
And 150 miles straight north ofthere, almost on a straight line
, is Winnipeg and that highwaythere, that interstate highway
that goes to winnipeg, and that,that highway there, that, that
interstate highway that goes towinnipeg.
(06:27):
Well, the last section of it incanada is not interstate, but
that's the old, that's the oldpioneer walking roads, any of
the innate, even the nativewalking roads originally, where
people used to walk along beforethere were roads and everything
else so that's what eventuallybecame those highways so,
growing up that way, you know, Imean, what kind of?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
what kind of piqued your interest into what you
ended up doing?
Um, as an adult like you, youhave a fabulous um canoe trip
record that I want to ask youabout.
But what kind of um?
What led you to being thisadventurer?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
well, it was my dad, I mean, you know.
So he had a, you know, reallytough background because when he
was a young kid, growing up inwinnipeg, he was with abusive,
an abusive family who drank alot, used to lock him out of the
house in the middle of winter40 below weather type thing and
he got taken away by children'sservices and then he was in a in
(07:31):
a children's home, which waskind of like an all-over twist
type experience for years.
And then him and his sister,who were both there, although he
never, hardly ever, saw hissister because all the girls and
boys were separated heeventually got adopted into a
family and the lady, after acouple of months she, died.
Then he went back there andthen he got adopted again.
(07:52):
But to make a long story short,he just he was just a young kid
.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That didn't have family.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
He didn't know he had any ability to do anything.
He was very insecure about alot of things.
But when he got adopted thesecond time it was a real strict
family.
They were Welsh and he had acouple of stepbrothers and all
of his stepbrothers wereinvolved in canoeing and were
(08:20):
part of this canoe club up inWinnipeg and my dad was kind of
curious about it, just becausehis brothers were, you know, but
he hadn't really thought aboutit that much.
But then what happened was theyhad this massive flood in the
city and it flooded all of thehomes around where he lived and
(08:41):
a lot of the people like theyhad cars jacked up into trees to
save their cars and stuff likethat and um, and nobody could
get their groceries becausethey're all the roads were
blocked.
So, having canoes, my dad jumpedin a canoe and he went around,
he started delivering groceriesto people and for the first time
in his life he had this sort ofa sense of freedom and
(09:05):
something that he could do thatwas meaningful, like helping
people, and people appreciatedthis, and I think that little
experience of just having thatfeeling was the first time he
ever had this sense of himself.
You know, you know, and so then,as he got a little bit older,
(09:27):
he knew he had a chance to jointhis canoe club and start racing
, which he really wanted to do,and and so he did that and he
started entering a couple of theraces and he started winning,
but not not just winning likeagainst young kids, like he was
at his age, like I think I don'tknow how old he was then, he
was probably 17, 18 years oldbut he started beating some of
(09:48):
the top canoeists in Canada andhe didn't even really think
about it, but there was anOlympic kayaker who was a part
of that club and he my dad hadbeaten him in one of these races
and this guy had been in theHelsinki Olympics.
And he goes who is this guy,you know?
And so he came up to my dad, hesaid I'm going to start
(10:11):
training you and he said we'regoing to go in the Canadian
Championships and then go on tothe Olympics in a few years, and
my dad just couldn't evenbelieve it, you know.
but anyways, they became racingpartners and they raced for
years and different things, butthe thing that my dad used to
say about that experience.
He says, you know, like growingup when he was younger, the
(10:31):
biggest problem was that henever had anybody to really give
him a kick in the rear end andto tell him that he could
actually do things, that if heput his mind to something,
whether it was sports oranything else, that he could
achieve something.
But he, if you worked, workedat it, you know.
And so that was the thing thathe got from this.
(10:53):
Uh, olympic kayaker, billbrigden was this started to have
some self-confidence withwinning these races.
It really helped him a lot.
And then, as he got a littlebit older, the thing was he kept
thinking about well, I didn'tknow that I could do any of
these things what else could Ido?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
and?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
and how far could I push myself?
So he would start making theselittle personal challenges like
he's like.
Well, in the spring, I'm goingto put on a wetsuit and I'll
jump into the river with ice andI'll swim.
You know, 15, 20 30 miles downthe river and see how far I can
go in the ice flow, wow.
And he would just do stuff likethat and just see, and he would
(11:32):
do these things and peoplewould think say well, that's
really a crazy.
He says yeah.
He says I know, it's just uh, Ijust I would.
I thought it would beinteresting and fun to do, you
know he wanted to swim across.
Lake Winnipeg, which is thismassive like, he ended up
swimming almost 30 miles acrossthis lake, um, and he did it
with another guy, but the otherguy eventually got hypothermic
(11:53):
and he had to drop out, but mydad was able to get across it.
He would just love challengeslike that and one of the things
that he started thinking more ashe got older and say like he
said well, you know, I setmyself these goals I I set it to
be something that I think wouldbe really a good challenge.
But I, he says, it seems likewhenever I set these goals I
(12:14):
always achieve them and that'sgreat and that's fun and
everything he says, but italways leaves me with this empty
feeling that I should have setit a little bit higher the bar,
you know we're going a littlebit further.
You know so in 1970, partlybecause of all the craziness of
my dad going off on, like, forexample, a 104 day canoe race
(12:36):
when my brother and my sisterand I were all just a year apart
, 10, 9 and 8 years old,actually 67, 67,.
I was only 6, so 6, 5, and 4.
So imagine my mom had threekids all by herself for 104 days
and my dad's off gallivantingaround Canada going off on his
big canoe race.
Well, things like thateventually my parents split up
(12:59):
when I was 10.
So now my dad was in asituation where he never wanted
to be because he had come from abroken family.
He didn't he never, wanted thatfor his kids.
And at first all three of uswere living with my mom, and
after after my dad came backfrom another race that he was on
(13:19):
, I just came back home.
I wanted to stay home.
I thought my mom would comeback home too, you know, but
that never happened.
But my dad now I'm at home, andthen a year later my brother
came to stay with us too.
But my dad says you know, weneed something more than just
kind of going to school everyday and, you know, then going
off to university.
(13:39):
We need something that's kindof monumental.
And he was looking for a realbig challenge.
And when I was a young kid Ihad this crazy idea of walking
to the jungle because I had readtarzan.
I became like when I was ingrade six I just became so
thrilled with this involved withthat book and I had this crazy
(14:00):
idea I was going to just walk tothe jungle and live like tarzan
thing.
And my dad took that idea andhis love of canadian and of
history of all the old explorersand he put together this idea
of going from winnipeg followinga total of 6 000 miles of
rivers and 6 000 miles ofcoastline and combined it into
(14:22):
one big, monumental canid tripthat at the time was double the
world record.
My dad was curious.
He said, well, what is theworld?
And it was like our trip wasdouble almost that, but that
wasn't.
It was really nothing to dowith the reason why we did it.
We did it more for theexperience and you know, later
on we're going to be talkingabout Closilla and that's an
(14:45):
important element of that too,because I think you know the
idea of breaking a world recordlike a Guinness World Record.
It's a fun thing to do.
It's kind of neat.
You know, you could look atQuad Cities and see that we're
in the Guinness Book of WorldRecords.
We broke the record of our alltime with Godzilla.
That would be really cool, coolrecords.
(15:05):
We broke the record, we're alltime with them, so that would be
really cool, but I think overtime that's not really going to
be the thing that peopleremember the most I think, that
what they will remember the most, if we do it will be the shared
experience of being there witha friend and and other friends,
and, and that day, and and andjust whatever's happening that
day.
It may be, it may be whathappens that evening when they
get together and have dinner orsomething.
(15:27):
Something interesting happens,but I think that's really more
about what it's about trying tofigure out, because my strategy
is everybody that goes this yearneeds to find one other person
that they can bring in, and ifeverybody that goes this year
(15:48):
can bring in one more canoe,just one.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
We'll break the world record so floatzilla and and
other experiences that just kindof bring people together.
I think I agree it's.
It's about just being part ofsomething bigger than yourself.
Um, it's something that isgoing to be, um, you know, maybe
not necessarily a life-changingexperience, but for sure a
(16:13):
memorable one, something thatyou can tell a story about.
Um, I, yeah, and I, I think youhave the right mindset going in
about the ideas you have tomake this dream a reality for
FloatZilla this year and really,like, kick up attendance to
kick up excitement, kick up, um,just community involvement.
I think there's.
(16:34):
I'm interested in hearing moreabout what you have up your
sleeve.
Um, as far as, like the youknow the record piece, you know
it.
It sounds cool to do, butthere's like a picture behind it
and I'd love to kind of trackback to, to you and your dad,
don, the record that you guysset.
I mean, you were painting abeautiful picture of.
(16:55):
You know it's.
It's an experience.
It's going to be double of whatthe current record was.
So, just, I have the, the statit's 12,181 mile canoe trip, um,
guinness world record.
Can you take me back to thattime?
It was 1980, uh, what yeah,1980, june 1st 1980 okay, so
(17:18):
take me back to that time.
I mean, were you, were youanxious?
Did you know that you weregoing to be embarking on
something so monumental?
Like, how did it all, kind oflike, happen?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Right.
So going back to when I hadfinished reading Tarzan, and had
this idea that was around thetime.
So in 1970, my dad was involvedin another big canoe project
and he was going to be gone forx number of weeks and that's
when my mom let my dad know thatthat was going to be it, you
know, and my dad even was goingto cancel that, but she had
(17:52):
already made up her mind.
It was just too many years ofstrangeness.
And you know what?
My dad was just very eccentric,that way you know.
And then so he told me, hefirst asked me if I would be
interested in doing that when Iwas nine years old and my dad
said I said so, when are wegoing to do that?
He said, well, we'll have towait until you and your brother
(18:13):
are out of school.
And I was, because of my age, Istarted school a year early.
So, even though my brother wasjust a year younger than me, I
had to wait.
I graduated in 78.
He didn't graduate until 1980.
But that was the thing.
My dad says well, we can'treally go until you guys are out
of school because we're goingto be gone for two years.
(18:33):
And so I'm like well then, Isaid, well then I'll be 19 years
old.
And I'm like, oh, my goodness,I'll be like years old.
And I'm like, oh, my goodness,I'll be like an old man, you
know.
And I was like that's that'sreally.
My dad says well, danny saysthat's really the only way that
it's going to work.
I said 10 years, yeah.
(18:54):
He says yeah, and of course, 10years when you're nine years
old, this is like a millionyears, right?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
For sure, it's more than your current lifetime.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
That's right and so you know.
But I never for one second,ever doubted that.
Once I said to my dad that,yeah, I wanted to go, that we
would go.
And not only that, like hepicked relatively right when I
said it, I was going to do it,he went and checked calendars
(19:24):
and stuff and he said we'regoing to leave on June 1st 1980,
which will be a sunday.
He wanted it.
He was hoping it would be asunday and it turned out it
wasn't sunday, it was just afluke, I don't know why.
He wanted like the idea of itbeing a sunday when we left,
just because it would be kind ofa downtime day and not a bunch
of hubbub going on and and sofrom that day forward I knew
this is what we're going to doNow, even when we left.
(19:45):
When I was 19,.
I had a pretty good sense ofgeography.
I collected stamps when I was akid.
I had stamps from all over theworld.
I mean literally almost everycountry in the world had stamps,
and I had them all organized bycontinent.
My dad was very detailedorganized.
I had every stamp in perfectorder and all this kind of stuff
.
Like I had to have every stampin perfect order and all this
(20:08):
kind of stuff, and so I knew Ihad a sense of this geography.
But there is just no way youcan visualize that distance like
you know, you look at it on theglobe.
You know, one way I like to sortof describe it as this is that
sometimes I'll go to do a talkat a school and they they'll say
, well, can you keep it down tohalf an hour?
(20:28):
I said, well, you know.
I said it's hard for me to keepit down to six hours.
Really, I said, if I do it inan hour, like, let's say, if you
give me an extra half hour, ifyou give me a whole hour to try
to explain this story, ourdistance is 12,000 miles.
That means I'm going to have tobe speaking at 12,000 miles an
(20:51):
hour.
The distance, like you know,it's hard to visualize that
distance.
You know when you're a youngkid and I remember my dad saying
to me um, well, because I couldreach my hand across the globe,
from Winnipeg all the way tothe jungle.
He says well, how long do youthink it would take you to go
there?
You know to walk all the way tothe jungle and I thought maybe
(21:13):
a few weeks.
But you know, you just can'tvisualize what 12,000 miles is.
And so anyways that's kind ofhow it started, and even when I
was 19, I knew about a lot ofthese countries, but my dad
didn't want to spook us beforewe even left, you know, because
he was following what had goneon in Jonestown in Guyana, in
(21:39):
South America, where all thesepeople drank the Kool-Aid and,
and you know, the Sandinistaswere had taken over in Nicaragua
.
they were bringing in Russiantanks there and there was all
kinds of turmoil going on andyou know.
But people used to say to mydad well, what, what are you
going to do when you get to theocean?
(21:59):
Like how are you going topaddle this canoe in the ocean?
You know my dad's well.
He said I honestly.
He said I don't exactly knowbecause.
And he said I'm not really thatworried about it because we may
not even get to the ocean.
He said we got a long ways to gojust to get all the way down to
to uh port isabel, texas,before we get into mexico.
(22:20):
He says that alone is over3,000 miles, he says once we get
down there, you know a lot ofpeople paddle the Mississippi,
but not too many people go fromWinnipeg to the Mississippi and
then from there to New Orleansand then from New Orleans all
the way along Louisiana andTexas to Mexico.
That's a big difference.
(22:41):
But that was still really justthe start of our trip.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So along the way did you feel confident that this was
going to happen?
You guys were going to completethe goal, the full thing.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
In some ways, yes, but mostly because I really
didn't know what was ahead.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, which, in this case, I mean, was it better to
have some of the unknown and notnecessarily have it all mapped
out?
I mean for me, I would maybecause some undue anxiety.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, Well, that's, that's interesting what you say
there.
But yeah, no, I think it'sabsolutely true that that not
knowing all of the things thatcould go wrong was very helpful.
You know, and and at the sametime, you know it's not like you
want to go into somethingblindly and not be prepared, but
(23:41):
the truth is you just reallycan't prepare for these things
yeah you know, and I think youknow, the problem is if you look
at a lot of things that peopledo want to do, and whether it's
traveling or anything, really,if you just even wanted to be,
you know, in any particularprofession, that's, that's at a
really high level.
If you try to anticipate allthe things that could go wrong
(24:05):
and that won't work out, I thinkin a lot of cases it could
easily defeat you you knowbecause your mind just plays
games with you after a while.
So, yeah, you know, I think mydad had the right strategy.
He knew that there was a lot ofreally serious things that we
would have to deal with alongthe way, but I think he realized
(24:27):
that it's just, you know, we'llhave to deal with them and in
most cases the things that wehad to deal with were things
that we really couldn'tanticipate that much.
And the things that most peoplewould think would be problems
were never problems at all.
You know, one of the commonthings people say to me like did
(24:49):
you do with, like the snakesand crocodiles and all of these
different things that could getyou right, never was a problem.
Like like on it.
We are 6 000 miles of coastlinethrough some areas that are
just loaded with sharks.
Never had a single incidentwith a shark, but 6,000 miles of
(25:11):
coastline.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It sounds terrifying, you know, knowing that all
these dangers are around you andyou guys had a decade plus to
prepare.
And if we could just like takea moment right now, looking back
, obviously you made it andaccomplished it and you lived to
tell the tale, um, like what,what safety measures just kind
of being somebody who's um, youknow, avid and in water and
(25:44):
adventuring?
Like what safety measuresshould people who you know kind
of have a wild side and want toexplore what things would you
recommend that they just makesure that they're aware of or
have or do?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
right.
So I mean the things that thatwe that helped us be successful
on our amazon trip.
As far as you know, survivalthings go yeah um, you know you,
I could kind of group it intotwo different sections.
One would be when we're on theocean, traveling like along the
coastline, and one when we're inthe rivers, because in they're
(26:19):
very different situations.
Yeah, you know, like when we'retraveling along the coast, what
probably the most importantthing that my dad was always
focused on our, our biggestdanger was running out of water
yeah, okay and we never ran outof water.
You know, he um, we came close afew times but we never did, and
(26:42):
partly that was because of mydad's years of canoe racing.
A lot of times when they racethey cannot stop for a drink of
water, else they lose the race.
And they would be in these longmarathon type races up in
northern canada and they justcouldn't stop, you know, to get
water and and and, uh.
So my dad never wanted to runout of water.
(27:04):
He's so paranoid about that.
Every time we had anopportunity to get water we
would be loaded to the brim.
I used to always think my dadwas crazy.
Like he said, dad, like we,we've had no problem with water.
Like we don't need to carrythis, it's so heavy, you know.
He said, dana, listen to me, wealways keep up our water supply
, you know.
(27:24):
And and we never ran out ofwater.
We never ran out of food.
We came close one time.
We were down to eat rice allday long and we had just a
little bit at one point.
I remember dropping a singlegrain of rice in the sand and
picking it up because I wasthinking I don't know when we're
gonna see our next meal, youknow.
And we even had a dead fishthat swam up on the on the beach
(27:46):
and we put that in the canoeand eventually it was like
rotting in the canoe and westill had this thing because we
didn't know if we're going toget any more food.
You do weird stuff when you'rehungry and you know and um.
But you know, the biggest thingfor our trip, that the number
one thing that we prepared forwas our minds, because that was
(28:09):
the number one thing that woulddefeat us on that trip.
It would be allowing theday-to-day, month after month,
like I mean, even when we weregone for a year paddling almost
every day, you know, with goodconditions, and that you look at
the map and you look oh, mygoodness, it's like, it's like
we haven't gone anywhere.
Oh, my gosh paddle like everyday 30, 40 miles, all like on
(28:35):
the ocean.
We would paddle till the sunwent down.
Sometimes if we had goodconditions, we wouldn't even eat
all day because we just, wejust wanted to make our miles
and think maybe the next twodays the wind's blowing, you
can't even get out on the oceanyeah and and still no matter.
It's just like day after day andyou look at the map and you go
like we didn't even go anywhere,like because the scale is so
(28:55):
huge.
You know, to kind of give anidea of the scale of the maps.
You know, here's a sort of asimple way of thinking about
something that everybody kind ofhas in their mind pretty much,
but it's not really the way itis.
Like.
So you can imagine, like youthink of Panama, the country of
(29:17):
Panama in Central America, andyou imagine going in a boat, say
a ship, through the PanamaCanal and you start out you're
on the Caribbean side, so you'dbe on the eastern side, and you
paddle through the and you gothrough the canal in the ship
and now you're out on thePacific and the question would
(29:39):
be what direction did you go andwhere are you?
Like?
In other words, you went fromthe Caribbean on the east to the
Pacific on the west.
You've gone through this long,long canal which is miles long,
right, where are you?
What direction have you endedup when you've gone through
there?
And the crazy thing is you gothrough from the Caribbean to
(30:05):
the Pacific.
You actually end up furthereast.
That doesn't even seem possible, right?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
No, it drives me for a loop, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But if you look at it on a map and you blow up the
map and you look at Panama, yourealize that Panama doesn't run
north to south, it runs east towest and when you cut through
the canal you cut through on anangle from west to east.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
And you end up actually further east.
You are on the other ocean, butyou're actually further east
than when you end up.
Actually further east.
You are on on the other ocean,but you're actually further east
than when you started yeah andit's just what you know.
But the thing is when you'restanding there on the beach
after you've landed in the canoeand you're looking out at the
ocean and I've got my map thereand I'm thinking like I'm
looking straight north and yetthe coast is this way.
(30:52):
So it's just weird.
So that's the beautiful thingabout traveling the way that we
did.
Everything is so slow and it'sso blown up.
You look on a map, you thinkPanama, you just think of this
little country down there.
You don't realize there's 365islands off of panama, just on
(31:14):
the caribbean side wow and thatand the only people that live
there are indian people thesekuna indians and they live like
primitive people from, you know,a thousand years ago.
They have all the traditionalclothes and stuff and we come in
there they think we come fromouter space.
They're stealing hairs out ofour head and stuff you know oh
(31:36):
my god, what a, what anexperience, my gosh.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And then you know, you just knew along the way just
keep keep going.
The course you're maybe lookingnorth when you feel like you've
been.
You know, paddling and paddling, but just that mental stamina
is really what got you guysthrough.
Yeah, you know that's andpaddling, but just that mental
stamina is really what got youguys through yeah, you know
that's, that's really a big partof it is that you know the
bigger the the project you have,the more that it's.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
It's a mind thing you know, because you you have that
.
You know that that is like ourstrategy was simple.
It's like we get up everymorning and we try to see how
many miles we can get done thatday, like on the rivers we would
say pretty much what we'regoing to paddle 30 miles,
depending on how the current islike, if we're going against it
or with it right huge difference, but we kind of knew how many
(32:24):
miles or what time of the day wewould stop.
we used to like to start stop inthe early afternoon, before the
sun was really extremely hot,but on the ocean then it was
different.
It was like ocean was alwayslike if we get on the ocean
we'll paddle as many miles as wecan, as long as the weather is
good, because we never know howmany days it might be before we
can get back out again.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Through the breakers.
But you just know like.
You know like, as an example,like there was times on the
ocean where we couldn't paddlebecause the way the wind was,
and so we knew that from the assoon as we got up in the morning
, we look out at the ocean.
We're like there's no way,we're launching today, so we're
going to spend all day at homeat on the beach.
So I'm going to have lots oftime to practice guitar and my
(33:09):
dad's going to be wandering thebeach looking for coconuts or
whatever he's going to do, thatand which he loved to do, and
and that's it, you know.
And so the end of the day comes,and the problem is is that now
you've still got 7 000 miles togo, and yet you didn't go an
inch yeah and you don't travelat least one inch.
(33:32):
So what we used to do is my dadand I, we grabbed the canoe and
we pull it a foot forward.
Now I know that that sounds socrazy, but at least we could go
to bed that night thinking we'rea little bit closer.
Yeah, and like literally, whenpeople say, like you know, you
know these long distances, alldone one inch at a time, it's
(33:52):
true, like as long as you havethis mindset that every day
you're going to push forward andfind some way to make some form
of progress, then you, in mostcases, if you keep going, you're
gonna, you're gonna achieveyour goal so two years, you guys
are out there.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Talk to me about that last mile, when you finally you
got there, you did it, you setfoot on land and your journey
was done.
What?
Speaker 3 (34:22):
was that feeling?
It was a very sad feeling.
Yeah, in a lot of ways it was avery sad feeling, because can
you imagine?
So I started the trip I was 19and now I'm 21.
So for me, thinking back, likehow much we put into planning
that trip, like my dad put 10years of planning into it, for
(34:43):
me 10 years of mentallypreparing for it and and then we
actually were able to do it.
But for the whole two years ofthat trip, every single day, we
were on the adventure, we werein it and and so we were living
this incredible adventure.
When we got to Belem, in themouth of the Amazon, that's it,
(35:04):
the adventure's over the like,even though I was.
It was a relief to be there andit was over.
It was.
It was sad in the sense that Iknew that there was never
probably going to be a time inmy life when I would ever do
anything like that again.
But it's not like something youjust go.
Well, next year let's go to theAmazon again.
(35:27):
But even by the time we finishedthe trip, things had changed so
dramatically in the world thatif you did that trip a second
time, it would be a completelydifferent experience.
You'd stop in all differentplaces, the telecommunications
would keep improving, peoplewould know that we couldn't
bluff them anymore.
If we tried to do that today,you couldn't bluff the pirates
that came out with their gunsand say, oh yeah, the United
(35:50):
States Army is following us andthey know where we are and
everything.
No, they would get on theirphones and make a few calls and
they'd go.
These guys have nobodyprotecting them, just you guys
out in the open, yeah.
We can do whatever we want.
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I didn't expect that, uh, that sentiment of sadness,
but it makes so much sense.
Um, you know the all the prepand and everything you put into
it and, um, you know, goingforward, you know you had
mentioned that you had broughtyour guitar with you, so did you
like, did you leave that tripknowing this is my next chapter?
(36:34):
I mean not that adventuring wasgoing to end, but I mean it
sounds like you really put a lotof hours probably into like
harnessing that skill while youwere accomplishing another bowl.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, for me, music wasalways kind of my number one.
My dad was a canoe adventurerand canoe racer and all that and
I loved canoeing.
The funny thing about canoeingis, I think of canoeing like
similar to like walk.
It's like you know, if somebodywalked somewhere to have an
experience, it's the experiencethat you had.
(37:06):
You wouldn't talk every dayabout how many steps, many steps
they took.
You know it's yeah, it was verymuch about canoeing, but in a
way it really was as much as notanything to do with canoeing.
It was all to do with thepeople we met and the
experiences we had and all therest.
You know, um and, but for me,music was always my big thing,
(37:28):
you know.
So I had stacks of classicalguitar music that I brought
along.
I was memorizing measures everyday and.
I had this goal of coming backand playing in a restaurant.
I just had this crazy idea thatif I got back and I had a whole
bunch of pieces memorized theclassical guitar music I could
find these really nice quietrestaurants where there was no
(37:50):
smoking because I was asthmaticand I couldn't be playing in the
bars at the time when theystill had smoking and I could
play in these restaurants and Icould make a living playing
guitar.
That was the idea and I got.
When I got back home I phonedevery restaurant in the whole
city and I only got a few peoplethat even were interested in
doing it.
The first place was a pizzaplace and that didn't work out
(38:12):
very good.
The wrong atmosphere yeah andthen and then I got into this
place called the round table,which was set up like a like an
old uh castle, oh, and it hadlike uh, six dining rooms with
fireplaces and I would sit atthese fireplaces and play class.
It was perfect.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I ended up playing there for seven years oh my gosh
, you were the house guitarist,the musician.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
That's great yeah, prime rib dinner every Tuesday
night.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I was like this is the best yes, they better feed
you for being the entertainment.
Oh my god, so so did musicpropel you further.
I mean, where along the line?
I apologize for jumping, butlike, where along the line did
you end up in the Quad Cities?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
so what happened was um, our book.
After my we got back home, mydad wanted to write up his
diaries.
He just wanted to have a goodrecord.
So he had diaries that he kept.
There were 1400 pages ofdiaries and he wrote it all out
in, because now he was, you know, sitting at home with a good
pen and everything and he wrote,went through the whole diaries
(39:17):
and wrote it out legibly andclearly and fleshed out some of
the things that he was too tiredto write out at the time and I
helped him along the way.
Like so, for two, for almosttwo years, I would my dad was
writing this out and I washelping him and he was doing it
all he did all it all ontypewriter.
He did the whole thing ontypewriter.
He was constantly redoing pagesbecause he wanted it to just be
(39:40):
right.
Then we put it into the hands ofa publishing company.
It was just too big for them.
They couldn't figure out whatto do with it.
There were too many pages.
We got it back from them.
Then we got it into the handsof a writer who we didn't think
had hardly ever been out of hisliving room, but for some reason
he was just a really goodwriter and he could make sense
(40:01):
of this stuff.
And he put our book togetherand it ended up becoming an
international best-selling book.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And the book is called.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Paddle to the Amazon.
So it came out in Canada in 87,five years after we finished the
trip, and then two years laterin 89, it came out in the United
States.
So we ended up doing about a twoand a half month book tour,
traveling to all the majorcities in the United States,
radio and TV and televisionshows, just yacking about our
(40:31):
adventures and just telling thestory and that's all we were
supposed to do and we had somuch fun doing that, it was just
endless.
But on that trip when we werein New York, we ended up doing
an interview with Jane Pauley onthe Today Show and a lady from
the Quad Cities just bycoincidence she was watching TV
(40:52):
that morning and she thought oh,and she was kind of a really
adventurous type.
She saw it and said I've got toget that book.
So she went and got the book,she read it, she really enjoyed
the story and so she.
She said I need to thank theauthor.
So she phoned up my dad inWinnipeg and said you know, I
just finished reading your storyand they ended up talking for
like half an hour on the phoneand my dad says, well, you know,
(41:14):
if you're ever up this way.
You're always welcome to come byand say hello or whatever you
know, and she goes I'm coming upto the morning thing.
So she got her mom.
Her mom at the time I think wasin her 80s and her young
daughter, young kid.
They jumped in their car andthey drove all the way up to
Winnipeg.
I think it took them two daysto get there from the Quad
(41:39):
Cities and they ended up stayingwith my dad for a little bit.
They end up staying with me.
I had just bought my firsthouse and they were staying with
me for a few days and then shesays well, you know, if you ever
want to come back to QuadCities.
You always got a place to stayhere, you know.
So that that winter came comingup, I had bought my first car
when I was 28 years old.
I was trying to wait till I was30 years old, but I bought a
car when I was 20 years old.
I couldn't drive the stickshift on it.
(42:02):
My brother told me to get stickshift.
I couldn't figure this out.
I was teaching at a school andthere's a teacher there, the
teacher.
I said I was in the staff room.
I said this guy looked like heknew how to timer guy.
I said hey, do you know how todrive stick stiff?
He goes.
Sure, I think he's from norway,I said.
(42:23):
I said do you want to go to thequad cities this winter for
holidays?
He goes where.
I said quite city.
I said where is that?
I said it's in iowa, on themississippi, and he goes yeah,
maybe that'll be fun.
I said, okay, great, let's doit so.
So we came up and here in inchristmas of 89, 89 or 90 I
think it was 89, though, andyeah, it must have been 89 and
(42:48):
um.
And so this lady, her mom,lived on forest road right
across from jimmy leach's house,the, a congressman who was the
longest serving congressman, Ithink, of all time.
He was from Quad Cities but hewas in Washington, of course.
But then he came home for theholidays and she said you know,
(43:09):
he's going to have this bigshindig over at his mansion
there overlooking the river, andyou know, it'd be really nice
if you could go over there andplay classical guitar for his
party, and I'm like that wouldbe amazing, like you know.
So that's what happened.
And then, when I was there, hefound out about our story.
He thought it was a good story.
He thought it would be good forme to go and speak at some of
(43:31):
the schools and inspire the kidsto follow their dreams and
different things.
And so he said I can get you aspecial work visa.
You know, because you're doing,you'd be doing something.
That's like we have specialvisas for things like that.
Where people they're, they havea unique ability or something,
and it would be good for theUnited States and yeah, so
that's how, and I always wantedto get away from the cold
(43:53):
because I grew up in Winnipeg,which is, for me, is too cold in
the winter.
So I thought this is my ticketto the excited my dad used to
call it the excited states ofAmerica.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Oh, that's fun, I love that.
Oh my gosh.
So did you continue to do music?
Then?
Here you find that to be astaple for you.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, I mean when I first got got here, just shortly
after I got here, it took meabout a year to get my work
permit and all that.
And then my first place that Istarted playing was this little
restaurant in East Villagecalled Christie's.
It was like a nice littlerestaurant there and so I
started playing there and I wasonly there maybe, I think for
maybe a year or two years, andthen they ended up moving up to
(44:39):
the East Coast, but that was myfirst thing.
And then I started doing thewedding things again and then,
before you know it, I was doingtoo many weddings.
There was just so many weddings.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Oh sure, so all the while now, okay, so now you're
in the Quad Cities and I have totout the Quad Cities.
I think everybody who liveshere and everybody who visits I
mean you can't deny the majestyof the you know the mighty
Mississippi River and so that'snow at your fingertips, which
I'm sure was incredibly excitingto you given your background
(45:09):
and your interests, and so youknow the activation that we have
on the Mississippi River likevisit Quad Cities.
We want to be a world-renownedMississippi River destination.
I think our community does afabulous job of activating that
asset.
There's there's river action,you know there's.
You know Float Zillow, there'sevents like that.
(45:30):
There's our other river, theRock River.
You know the Backwater Gamblers.
They put on shows and kind of,you know, have fun just honing
their water ski talents andthings like that.
I mean, I'm sure you found atthat time there was just so much
coming up to do to reallyappreciate that natural asset.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Oh yeah, I mean one of the reasons that I'm living
in the Quad Cities and I knowthat some people might think
this is crazy but one of themain reasons that I love living
here is because of a bike trailcould go easily over a hundred
(46:21):
mile bike ride if you wanted togo in a single day.
Go straight, uh falling,towards clinton and further out
you could.
You can have these incrediblebike trips, and all along the
river and every time you gothere's different boat traffic.
You know, sometimes you'll seethese paddle boats.
I think one of the the coolestthings that the quad cities has
done in recent history wasdesignating the quad Cities as a
port so that we actually havethese tour boats that come all
(46:42):
the way from New Orleans andstuff will stop here, and I
think that's also some a thingthat is that maybe is a treasure
that is not utilized as much asit could be, because getting on
one of those cruise boats andtraveling to New Orleans and
back what an amazing experienceto be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Oh, absolutely, and it's so fun for us and you know
our business partners who hostthem and do tours and show them
around a little bit whilethey're like stopped here.
It's fun for us to see theexperiences that they have and
take back.
And you know, the Quad Citiesis kind of like a hidden gem,
like you know.
You said to you know peopleback home like I'm going to the
(47:23):
Quad Cities, well, where is that?
It's funny, because we are sucha significant like metro area
with a pretty good population inthe Midwest remains so unknown
to so many and um, and I thinkwe're trying to combat that
because we know we have a lot toshare and a lot to experience
here.
(47:44):
And when people come here, um,a lot of times they come with no
expectation, simply becausethey just haven't had the
exposure, and then they leavewith a positive um memory or
experience and then want to comeback yeah, there's, I mean it's
in quite cities.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
It's an interesting the way the whole, all those
cities come together.
You know, like each city, likeMoline and East.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
East Moline and.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Rock Island and these different areas.
They all have their own kind oflike.
When I go on my bike and goacross the bridge, I sometimes
feel like I'm always going intoa different country.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
It's it feels different, you know, I know what
you mean from, yeah, from cityto city.
Like it's funny because, as wellas they work together and and
hold events together, like youknow the QC marathon, which
which runs across you know thebridges and into each different
city, um things like that, likethey work so well together and
(48:36):
yet each of them still carriestheir own vibe and their own um
like points of interest andattractions, and it's super cool
, um the people who live in eachdifferent city, kind of you
know, have different likeindustry that they work for, and
yet they all work together sosuccinctly yeah, exactly, yeah
(48:58):
it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
It's interesting for me because, I mean, I grew up in
a city where I'm in the centerof the country and even to get
to the border of our provinceforget it, I mean it's 150, 200
miles each way.
So that never happens.
But here you know on a dailybasis.
You know you go across to adifferent state and different,
you know different.
(49:19):
You see different flags andstuff and the streets are
different.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
The way that they organize their streets is
different, just little things ohyeah, the Illinois side streets
are mainly numbered and thenthe Iowa streets have actual
names.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I've always found that kind of funny yeah, it's
different, yeah, it'sinteresting and also oh, oh,
yeah, oh no, I was just going tosay I noticed a lot of times in
the Illinois side, like a lotof times I would go on these
streets but I could never getanywhere because they always end
up in a big hill somewhere, youknow.
So, they'd have to like how theheck am I going to get from
(49:53):
point A to B?
I can't figure this out.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
And eventually I'd get to a main thoroughway, would
go through, but a lot of themdidn't.
You know, yeah, and it kind ofspeaks to like just like the
deep-rooted history here.
I mean this this community isold, like we've we've seen a lot
and and have you know, um, alot of like streets that were
made a long time ago that havelater been incorporated into,
like, our larger network of, youknow, connecting the Iowa and
Illinois side and everything.
So it's cool that we still havethose streets, that kind of you
(50:23):
know, dead end or whatever, andyou know, you know, say, rock
Island, just because you knowthere's the historic district
and they're very, very old homesand very old streets.
Um, but yeah, it's very cool toexperience kind of the
different the modern, modernside, the historic side.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Yeah, wait, katrina, I'm just.
I'm getting the the heap holehere from the librarian.
I think I've got like 10minutes left All right, let's do
yeah.
So maybe, if there's any I could, we could always continue this
on.
Like I I'm not.
I just happen to be at thislibrary today, but we could
always find another place if youhave more questions to ask.
(51:00):
But I was just thinking ifthere's any like with Floatzilla
or anything, if there'sanything in particular that you
wanted to take care of, just incase I do get booted out of here
.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Sure, yeah, we can definitely.
We'll wrap this and get to thefinal nuggets and I appreciate
your time, so start here.
So I do want to hear about yourideas for Floatzilla.
You've mentioned everybody.
Bring a friend.
How else are we going to makethis record happen this year?
Speaker 3 (51:26):
right, you know.
So the way that I think of itis this is that right now, we're
in July.
Before you know it, in a blinkof an eye, floatzilla is going
to be here.
So maybe the the easiest thingwe could, it could do
collectively, is this Everybodystarts off with saying, okay, in
the next, say this week, orthis week, or by the end of next
(51:48):
week, I have to find one moreperson that has a canoe, even if
that person doesn't want to goin Floatzilla, but they just
they have a canoe, and and thento find somebody that also would
be willing to pick up thatcanoe and join in for the event.
Right, so that would be stepnumber one for everybody that
(52:12):
plans on going this year to putit in their mind this week I've
got to find.
So every time you're in aconversation with a group of
people, or whatever a number ofpeople, do you know anybody who
has a canoe?
Oh, are they going to FloatCivil this year?
No, okay, great, because we'rebreaking the world record this
(52:32):
year and I need to get onecanoeist to join in that wasn't
there previously, or or thatwasn't going to go this year.
And and that's the first step.
And then the second step is to,of course, just make the plans
that how am I going to get thiscanoe down to the, to whatever
boat launch or wherever I'mgoing to put this canoe in?
(52:54):
And if I'm not really good atpaddling, who can I find?
Who's a good paddler who canjoin me?
And you know you, I think youcan literally almost put in
right at the location and justkind of be there.
I'm not exactly sure of all thelogistics of how that starts
there, because I've never beento it myself.
I've already got anothercanoeist lined up who I want to
(53:14):
join me this year, so I've gotmyself it's going to be new,
I've never been there before andI have another canoe lined up
that I know has never been therebefore too.
So I've kind of got my twoalready in place.
But the idea is for everybodyto do that.
And if everybody did that, thatwould.
That's all.
That's all it's going to reallytake.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
I love that idea and I think our community is really
good at building in that waywith just person-to-person
connectivity, so I'm hoping thatthat tactic works.
Um, we'll, we'll help push thatout as well.
And then I'd love to hear,before we wrap up and I let you
get on with your day, I'd loveto hear what you've got going on
with river action for the restof the summer okay, good, so
(53:54):
going.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Just one quick last thing about Godzilla.
What I was going to say to sayis imagine a person's here in
the Quad Cities, and I don'treally know anybody in the Quad
Cities that has a canoe, but Ido know somebody over in Madison
who has a canoe and it's a goodfriend of mine, and what you do
is say, well, hey look, I'mgoing to call them up and
(54:15):
they're going to come to theQuad Cities with their canoe.
We're going to go up and we'regoing to come to the quad cities
with their canoe.
we're going to go up, we'regoing to break the world record
and they're going to have agreat barbecue this that evening
with our friends who we haven'tseen for three years or
whatever, and you just make itinto a really cool event and we
accomplish both things like thatum as far as um, you know the
as far as river action goes, thething that I've been involved
(54:37):
with them off and on for thelast number of years is the
channel cat talks and it's justso much fun because, you know,
sometimes there's a lot ofpeople who've never been on
those channel cats but but ifyou get on there they have a
nice, the captain takes you on anice tour around the river
locally and the last captain Iwas with we ended up stopping on
(54:57):
shore having a little shorebreak.
People got out into kind of areally remote area on an island.
Never experienced that before.
It was really cool.
And I'm just telling all mycrazy stories about the Amazon
trip.
I've been down to Mississippithree times so I just sort of
add in different little storiesabout the Mississippi, because
that's really what it's aboutChannel Cat talks about the
(55:19):
Mississippi.
So I kind of do a mixture ofMississippi adventures and the
Amazon trip.
You know, kind of relate themtogether.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Love that.
It's like the back of your hand, the experience you've got and
what you have to share on thosetalks.
So we will get those posted onour events calendar so that
people can find those andinteract with you as well.
Floatzilla is August 17th, sofind a friend, get there, make a
memory out of it.
And on that note, dana, I justwant to say thank you so much
(55:51):
for everything that you've doneto help harness this community's
excitement and everything thatyou're going to be doing forward
with Floatzilla.
I would love to have you, pertradition on this podcast, fill
in the blank.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
QC, that's where.
Okay, oh, that's this.
Okay, so QC, that's where.
And I have to figure outsomething that I've experienced
in the Quad Cities that's reallycool, that happens here.
Yeah, yeah, or, or you knowjust what.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
What makes you tick in the Quad Cities?
That's really cool, thathappens here, yeah, yeah.
Or you know just what makes youtick in the Quad Cities?
Anything, it could be musicrelated, it could be eagle
watching.
I mean anything that strikesyou.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah, well, you know, if I had to say about the Quad
Cities, when I think about theQuad Cities, at least on a river
basis, the Quad Cities wherethe, where the Mississippi runs
east to west as opposed to northto south, which is kind of
there's only a couple places onthe entire Mississippi that are
unique that way, and also theQuad Cities, which is one of the
(56:50):
I think it would be last majorcity on the entire Mississippi
that doesn't have a completeflood wall.
So, you can actually go down tothe downtown riverfront and you
can get out there and actuallysee, you know, kind of walk down
to the river.
Most of the major cities thesedays, a lot of them, even
(57:11):
smaller ones.
The whole riverfront has got abig mass of seawall.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (57:19):
Yeah, so people don't always have that luxury, and I
know that's something that thequad city says.
You know, of course we, we paya price for that with, yeah,
with look, with flooding and uhand I sometimes make the joke
that we should have the annualflood fest, but, but, but if we
also have the advantage ofactually being able to get down
to the, to the riverfront, andsee it kind of like it used to
(57:40):
be, you know, like where you canactually get right down to the
river.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
That's kind of a neat thing.
As far as you know myexperiences, I think you know
the big things here are themusic there's, you know there's
all of these different musicfestivals we have here the jazz
festivals and stuff fix and theseven mile run there's.
There's so many cool thingsthat happen here, but for me, I
my my thing will always be thebike trails.
I just love the bike trails,the how they go up and down
(58:08):
along the side of the river andyou can go up there and just go
as long as you want, all daylong and just biking and very
peaceful.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah, where the American discovery trail and the
great and very peaceful yeah,where the American Discovery
Trail and the Great River Trailcollide.
I love that, and it sounds likeyou have numerous QC.
That's when instances, so I'mexcited to hear that you've
landed here and you're having agreat experience, and so thank
you again, dana, for thisawesome chat.
I really, really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (58:37):
Oh, you're so welcome , Regina.
Have a great day.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
You too.
I'll really appreciate it.
Oh, you're so welcome, regina.
Have a great day.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
You too.
I'll talk to you soon.
Thank you again.
Sent straight to your phone,that's V-I-S-I-T-Q-C.
One word to 38314.
Message and data rates mayapply.
you, you Thank you.
Where do you find a family ofcommunities connected by the
storied mississippi river, whereyoung explorers and dreamers,
investors and entrepreneursthrive?
Where can you connect with realpeople living and creating in a
place that's as genuine as itis quirky QC?
That's when.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Welcome to QC.
That's when I'm Katrina, yourhost, and I'm so pumped today to
be talking to adventurer DanaStarkel.
Dana, I want to toss it rightto you immediately because
you've got some really awesomebackground.
You've got a world record underyour belt.
You've got some greatexperience with activating our
(01:51):
Mississippi River.
You're a musician by trade, soI want to start where you want
to start.
Who is Dana?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
wow.
So you know, typical kid when Iwas, when I was, you know,
growing up, but the the bigdifference, I would say, is that
my dad was very eccentric, um,and I mean eccentric to the
point where that's like, whenyou live in a neighborhood,
everybody knows that house, it'sthe house where the crazy
people live, and and when I saycrazy, I just mean I really mean
eccentric, like you always knewthat when you passed by our
(02:31):
house there was probablysomething weird going on or
something's up, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Like what.
What was going on?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, infinite numbers of things.
But as an example, like youknow, we had a neighbor whose,
whose yard our next doorneighbor, nice guy, and
everything he had, his, hiswhole yard was like a golf
course.
It was so trimmed I mean, weused to joke that he would get
his scissors out to make sure ablade was just right, you know.
(02:58):
And then we had my dad's house,where I live, our whole, our
whole yard in Our whole yard ina big city of a million people
looked like a square area, likea quarter acre of wild forest,
you know, we had giant poplarsand everything blowing into his
yard and everything imaginablethat could drive this poor guy
(03:20):
crazy.
And he thought my brother and Iwere a bunch of wild Indians and
I was going to attack and andthen, anyways, when I was a
young kid, I had big imagination.
I was always looking at thingsI wanted to do when I got older.
And well, one of the thingsthat I wanted to do was be a
(03:40):
veterinarian.
I liked animals and differentthings, and my dad knew that too
.
So when I was a young kid, Iremember one time we went out.
We used to go for long, long,like five, six, seven mile walks
every weekend and we noticedthere was a bunch of crows going
over towards this farm field,across this farm field and then
into a forested area.
(04:01):
So my dad said you know, when Iwas was a kid, I had a pet crow
.
Um, I bet you they have somecrows over there.
We should go check it out.
So we did and sure enough, wefound some nests way up this
really, really high tree.
So my dad had me climb up tothe top of this thing to to
check out the nest and I said,yeah, there's eggs in there and
(04:21):
everything, and of course thecrows were attacking me and
everything.
We'll come back in a littlewhile.
And he says typically a lot oftimes if there's three or four
crows uh, young ones, they willstarve.
One of them will end upstarving to death.
They'll just feed the strongestones, he says so we can, we'll
pick the weakest one and we'llsave it, you know.
(04:41):
And so, sure enough, we wentback and I climbed back up the
tree, but this time I built alittle tiny, almost like a
little birdhouse, with a littleroof on it and that, and a
little opened up and I climbedup to the top and I remember I
went up there and I was, I waslooking at these birds that are
getting dive, bombed andeverything, and I picked one out
(05:02):
and I had put it into the strawand and then my dad, from way
down below, he goes dana, don'tforget, pick the smallest one.
Because as I was putting theminto the net, into the straw,
because my dad's had a crow, hisname was timmy and we were
going to call this one timmy too.
So I'm putting him into thestraw.
I'm like, oh, timmy, you know.
And my dad says, don't forget topay for this one.
(05:23):
I'm like, oh, so I took himback, put him back in the nest,
took another one, the smallestone.
I said, oh, timmy.
So then, anyways, we took themall.
But you can imagine, like myneighbor, this is like a typical
event.
And we're coming home, we gotthis big birdhouse I'm carrying,
and the next thing, you know,we got a crow flying around
attacking his tomatoes andeverything, and it was always
(05:45):
something.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So all of this sounds like, first of all, excellent
bonding with your dad.
I want to talk more about himin a little bit.
So just like a wild experiencegrowing up and we talked before
we started recording You're fromCanada and you said 150 miles
north of Grand Forks If you'retrying to visualize it.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
you know, if you think of Fargo, there's the TV
show Fargo and then you go about75 miles north of that, you
would get Grand Forks, okay.
And 150 miles straight north ofthere, almost on a straight line
, is Winnipeg and that highwaythere, that interstate highway
that goes to winnipeg, and that,that highway there, that, that
interstate highway that goes towinnipeg.
(06:27):
Well, the last section of it incanada is not interstate, but
that's the old, that's the oldpioneer walking roads, any of
the innate, even the nativewalking roads originally, where
people used to walk along beforethere were roads and everything
else so that's what eventuallybecame those highways so,
growing up that way, you know, Imean, what kind of?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
what kind of piqued your interest into what you
ended up doing?
Um, as an adult like you, youhave a fabulous um canoe trip
record that I want to ask youabout.
But what kind of um?
What led you to being thisadventurer?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
well, it was my dad, I mean, you know.
So he had a, you know, reallytough background because when he
was a young kid, growing up inwinnipeg, he was with abusive,
an abusive family who drank alot, used to lock him out of the
house in the middle of winter40 below weather type thing and
he got taken away by children'sservices and then he was in a in
(07:31):
a children's home, which waskind of like an all-over twist
type experience for years.
And then him and his sister,who were both there, although he
never, hardly ever, saw hissister because all the girls and
boys were separated heeventually got adopted into a
family and the lady, after acouple of months she, died.
Then he went back there andthen he got adopted again.
(07:52):
But to make a long story short,he just he was just a young kid
.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That didn't have family.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
He didn't know he had any ability to do anything.
He was very insecure about alot of things.
But when he got adopted thesecond time it was a real strict
family.
They were Welsh and he had acouple of stepbrothers and all
of his stepbrothers wereinvolved in canoeing and were
(08:20):
part of this canoe club up inWinnipeg and my dad was kind of
curious about it, just becausehis brothers were, you know, but
he hadn't really thought aboutit that much.
But then what happened was theyhad this massive flood in the
city and it flooded all of thehomes around where he lived and
(08:41):
a lot of the people like theyhad cars jacked up into trees to
save their cars and stuff likethat and um, and nobody could
get their groceries becausethey're all the roads were
blocked.
So, having canoes, my dad jumpedin a canoe and he went around,
he started delivering groceriesto people and for the first time
in his life he had this sort ofa sense of freedom and
(09:05):
something that he could do thatwas meaningful, like helping
people, and people appreciatedthis, and I think that little
experience of just having thatfeeling was the first time he
ever had this sense of himself.
You know, you know, and so then,as he got a little bit older,
(09:27):
he knew he had a chance to jointhis canoe club and start racing
, which he really wanted to do,and and so he did that and he
started entering a couple of theraces and he started winning,
but not not just winning likeagainst young kids, like he was
at his age, like I think I don'tknow how old he was then, he
was probably 17, 18 years oldbut he started beating some of
(09:48):
the top canoeists in Canada andhe didn't even really think
about it, but there was anOlympic kayaker who was a part
of that club and he my dad hadbeaten him in one of these races
and this guy had been in theHelsinki Olympics.
And he goes who is this guy,you know?
And so he came up to my dad, hesaid I'm going to start
(10:11):
training you and he said we'regoing to go in the Canadian
Championships and then go on tothe Olympics in a few years, and
my dad just couldn't evenbelieve it, you know.
but anyways, they became racingpartners and they raced for
years and different things, butthe thing that my dad used to
say about that experience.
He says, you know, like growingup when he was younger, the
(10:31):
biggest problem was that henever had anybody to really give
him a kick in the rear end andto tell him that he could
actually do things, that if heput his mind to something,
whether it was sports oranything else, that he could
achieve something.
But he, if you worked, workedat it, you know.
And so that was the thing thathe got from this.
(10:53):
Uh, olympic kayaker, billbrigden was this started to have
some self-confidence withwinning these races.
It really helped him a lot.
And then, as he got a littlebit older, the thing was he kept
thinking about well, I didn'tknow that I could do any of
these things what else could Ido?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
and?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
and how far could I push myself?
So he would start making theselittle personal challenges like
he's like.
Well, in the spring, I'm goingto put on a wetsuit and I'll
jump into the river with ice andI'll swim.
You know, 15, 20 30 miles downthe river and see how far I can
go in the ice flow, wow.
And he would just do stuff likethat and just see, and he would
(11:32):
do these things and peoplewould think say well, that's
really a crazy.
He says yeah.
He says I know, it's just uh, Ijust I would.
I thought it would beinteresting and fun to do, you
know he wanted to swim across.
Lake Winnipeg, which is thismassive like, he ended up
swimming almost 30 miles acrossthis lake, um, and he did it
with another guy, but the otherguy eventually got hypothermic
(11:53):
and he had to drop out, but mydad was able to get across it.
He would just love challengeslike that and one of the things
that he started thinking more ashe got older and say like he
said well, you know, I setmyself these goals I I set it to
be something that I think wouldbe really a good challenge.
But I, he says, it seems likewhenever I set these goals I
(12:14):
always achieve them and that'sgreat and that's fun and
everything he says, but italways leaves me with this empty
feeling that I should have setit a little bit higher the bar,
you know we're going a littlebit further.
You know so in 1970, partlybecause of all the craziness of
my dad going off on, like, forexample, a 104 day canoe race
(12:36):
when my brother and my sisterand I were all just a year apart
, 10, 9 and 8 years old,actually 67, 67,.
I was only 6, so 6, 5, and 4.
So imagine my mom had threekids all by herself for 104 days
and my dad's off gallivantingaround Canada going off on his
big canoe race.
Well, things like thateventually my parents split up
(12:59):
when I was 10.
So now my dad was in asituation where he never wanted
to be because he had come from abroken family.
He didn't he never, wanted thatfor his kids.
And at first all three of uswere living with my mom, and
after after my dad came backfrom another race that he was on
(13:19):
, I just came back home.
I wanted to stay home.
I thought my mom would comeback home too, you know, but
that never happened.
But my dad now I'm at home, andthen a year later my brother
came to stay with us too.
But my dad says you know, weneed something more than just
kind of going to school everyday and, you know, then going
off to university.
(13:39):
We need something that's kindof monumental.
And he was looking for a realbig challenge.
And when I was a young kid Ihad this crazy idea of walking
to the jungle because I had readtarzan.
I became like when I was ingrade six I just became so
thrilled with this involved withthat book and I had this crazy
(14:00):
idea I was going to just walk tothe jungle and live like tarzan
thing.
And my dad took that idea andhis love of canadian and of
history of all the old explorersand he put together this idea
of going from winnipeg followinga total of 6 000 miles of
rivers and 6 000 miles ofcoastline and combined it into
(14:22):
one big, monumental canid tripthat at the time was double the
world record.
My dad was curious.
He said, well, what is theworld?
And it was like our trip wasdouble almost that, but that
wasn't.
It was really nothing to dowith the reason why we did it.
We did it more for theexperience and you know, later
on we're going to be talkingabout Closilla and that's an
(14:45):
important element of that too,because I think you know the
idea of breaking a world recordlike a Guinness World Record.
It's a fun thing to do.
It's kind of neat.
You know, you could look atQuad Cities and see that we're
in the Guinness Book of WorldRecords.
We broke the record of our alltime with Godzilla.
That would be really cool, coolrecords.
(15:05):
We broke the record, we're alltime with them, so that would be
really cool, but I think overtime that's not really going to
be the thing that peopleremember the most I think, that
what they will remember the most, if we do it will be the shared
experience of being there witha friend and and other friends,
and, and that day, and and andjust whatever's happening that
day.
It may be, it may be whathappens that evening when they
get together and have dinner orsomething.
(15:27):
Something interesting happens,but I think that's really more
about what it's about trying tofigure out, because my strategy
is everybody that goes this yearneeds to find one other person
that they can bring in, and ifeverybody that goes this year
(15:48):
can bring in one more canoe,just one.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
We'll break the world record so floatzilla and and
other experiences that just kindof bring people together.
I think I agree it's.
It's about just being part ofsomething bigger than yourself.
Um, it's something that isgoing to be, um, you know, maybe
not necessarily a life-changingexperience, but for sure a
(16:13):
memorable one, something thatyou can tell a story about.
Um, I, yeah, and I, I think youhave the right mindset going in
about the ideas you have tomake this dream a reality for
FloatZilla this year and really,like, kick up attendance to
kick up excitement, kick up, um,just community involvement.
I think there's.
(16:34):
I'm interested in hearing moreabout what you have up your
sleeve.
Um, as far as, like the youknow the record piece, you know
it.
It sounds cool to do, butthere's like a picture behind it
and I'd love to kind of trackback to, to you and your dad,
don, the record that you guysset.
I mean, you were painting abeautiful picture of.
(16:55):
You know it's.
It's an experience.
It's going to be double of whatthe current record was.
So, just, I have the, the statit's 12,181 mile canoe trip, um,
guinness world record.
Can you take me back to thattime?
It was 1980, uh, what yeah,1980, june 1st 1980 okay, so
(17:18):
take me back to that time.
I mean, were you, were youanxious?
Did you know that you weregoing to be embarking on
something so monumental?
Like, how did it all, kind oflike, happen?
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Right.
So going back to when I hadfinished reading Tarzan, and had
this idea that was around thetime.
So in 1970, my dad was involvedin another big canoe project
and he was going to be gone forx number of weeks and that's
when my mom let my dad know thatthat was going to be it, you
know, and my dad even was goingto cancel that, but she had
(17:52):
already made up her mind.
It was just too many years ofstrangeness.
And you know what?
My dad was just very eccentric,that way you know.
And then so he told me, hefirst asked me if I would be
interested in doing that when Iwas nine years old and my dad
said I said so, when are wegoing to do that?
He said, well, we'll have towait until you and your brother
(18:13):
are out of school.
And I was, because of my age, Istarted school a year early.
So, even though my brother wasjust a year younger than me, I
had to wait.
I graduated in 78.
He didn't graduate until 1980.
But that was the thing.
My dad says well, we can'treally go until you guys are out
of school because we're goingto be gone for two years.
(18:33):
And so I'm like well then, Isaid, well then I'll be 19 years
old.
And I'm like, oh, my goodness,I'll be like years old.
And I'm like, oh, my goodness,I'll be like an old man, you
know.
And I was like that's that'sreally.
My dad says well, danny saysthat's really the only way that
it's going to work.
I said 10 years, yeah.
(18:54):
He says yeah, and of course, 10years when you're nine years
old, this is like a millionyears, right?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
For sure, it's more than your current lifetime.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
That's right and so you know.
But I never for one second,ever doubted that.
Once I said to my dad that,yeah, I wanted to go, that we
would go.
And not only that, like hepicked relatively right when I
said it, I was going to do it,he went and checked calendars
(19:24):
and stuff and he said we'regoing to leave on June 1st 1980,
which will be a sunday.
He wanted it.
He was hoping it would be asunday and it turned out it
wasn't sunday, it was just afluke, I don't know why.
He wanted like the idea of itbeing a sunday when we left,
just because it would be kind ofa downtime day and not a bunch
of hubbub going on and and sofrom that day forward I knew
this is what we're going to doNow, even when we left.
(19:45):
When I was 19,.
I had a pretty good sense ofgeography.
I collected stamps when I was akid.
I had stamps from all over theworld.
I mean literally almost everycountry in the world had stamps,
and I had them all organized bycontinent.
My dad was very detailedorganized.
I had every stamp in perfectorder and all this kind of stuff
.
Like I had to have every stampin perfect order and all this
(20:08):
kind of stuff, and so I knew Ihad a sense of this geography.
But there is just no way youcan visualize that distance like
you know, you look at it on theglobe.
You know, one way I like to sortof describe it as this is that
sometimes I'll go to do a talkat a school and they they'll say
, well, can you keep it down tohalf an hour?
(20:28):
I said, well, you know.
I said it's hard for me to keepit down to six hours.
Really, I said, if I do it inan hour, like, let's say, if you
give me an extra half hour, ifyou give me a whole hour to try
to explain this story, ourdistance is 12,000 miles.
That means I'm going to have tobe speaking at 12,000 miles an
(20:51):
hour.
The distance, like you know,it's hard to visualize that
distance.
You know when you're a youngkid and I remember my dad saying
to me um, well, because I couldreach my hand across the globe,
from Winnipeg all the way tothe jungle.
He says well, how long do youthink it would take you to go
there?
You know to walk all the way tothe jungle and I thought maybe
(21:13):
a few weeks.
But you know, you just can'tvisualize what 12,000 miles is.
And so anyways that's kind ofhow it started, and even when I
was 19, I knew about a lot ofthese countries, but my dad
didn't want to spook us beforewe even left, you know, because
he was following what had goneon in Jonestown in Guyana, in
(21:39):
South America, where all thesepeople drank the Kool-Aid and,
and you know, the Sandinistaswere had taken over in Nicaragua
.
they were bringing in Russiantanks there and there was all
kinds of turmoil going on andyou know.
But people used to say to mydad well, what, what are you
going to do when you get to theocean?
(21:59):
Like how are you going topaddle this canoe in the ocean?
You know my dad's well.
He said I honestly.
He said I don't exactly knowbecause.
And he said I'm not really thatworried about it because we may
not even get to the ocean.
He said we got a long ways to gojust to get all the way down to
to uh port isabel, texas,before we get into mexico.
(22:20):
He says that alone is over3,000 miles, he says once we get
down there, you know a lot ofpeople paddle the Mississippi,
but not too many people go fromWinnipeg to the Mississippi and
then from there to New Orleansand then from New Orleans all
the way along Louisiana andTexas to Mexico.
That's a big difference.
(22:41):
But that was still really justthe start of our trip.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
So along the way did you feel confident that this was
going to happen?
You guys were going to completethe goal, the full thing.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
In some ways, yes, but mostly because I really
didn't know what was ahead.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, which, in this case, I mean, was it better to
have some of the unknown and notnecessarily have it all mapped
out?
I mean for me, I would maybecause some undue anxiety.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Yeah, Well, that's, that's interesting what you say
there.
But yeah, no, I think it'sabsolutely true that that not
knowing all of the things thatcould go wrong was very helpful.
You know, and and at the sametime, you know it's not like you
want to go into somethingblindly and not be prepared, but
(23:41):
the truth is you just reallycan't prepare for these things
yeah you know, and I think youknow, the problem is if you look
at a lot of things that peopledo want to do, and whether it's
traveling or anything, really,if you just even wanted to be,
you know, in any particularprofession, that's, that's at a
really high level.
If you try to anticipate allthe things that could go wrong
(24:05):
and that won't work out, I thinkin a lot of cases it could
easily defeat you you knowbecause your mind just plays
games with you after a while.
So, yeah, you know, I think mydad had the right strategy.
He knew that there was a lot ofreally serious things that we
would have to deal with alongthe way, but I think he realized
(24:27):
that it's just, you know, we'llhave to deal with them and in
most cases the things that wehad to deal with were things
that we really couldn'tanticipate that much.
And the things that most peoplewould think would be problems
were never problems at all.
You know, one of the commonthings people say to me like did
(24:49):
you do with, like the snakesand crocodiles and all of these
different things that could getyou right, never was a problem.
Like like on it.
We are 6 000 miles of coastlinethrough some areas that are
just loaded with sharks.
Never had a single incidentwith a shark, but 6,000 miles of
(25:11):
coastline.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
It sounds terrifying, you know, knowing that all
these dangers are around you andyou guys had a decade plus to
prepare.
And if we could just like takea moment right now, looking back
, obviously you made it andaccomplished it and you lived to
tell the tale, um, like what,what safety measures just kind
of being somebody who's um, youknow, avid and in water and
(25:44):
adventuring?
Like what safety measuresshould people who you know kind
of have a wild side and want toexplore what things would you
recommend that they just makesure that they're aware of or
have or do?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
right.
So I mean the things that thatwe that helped us be successful
on our amazon trip.
As far as you know, survivalthings go yeah um, you know you,
I could kind of group it intotwo different sections.
One would be when we're on theocean, traveling like along the
coastline, and one when we're inthe rivers, because in they're
(26:19):
very different situations.
Yeah, you know, like when we'retraveling along the coast, what
probably the most importantthing that my dad was always
focused on our, our biggestdanger was running out of water
yeah, okay and we never ran outof water.
You know, he um, we came close afew times but we never did, and
(26:42):
partly that was because of mydad's years of canoe racing.
A lot of times when they racethey cannot stop for a drink of
water, else they lose the race.
And they would be in these longmarathon type races up in
northern canada and they justcouldn't stop, you know, to get
water and and and, uh.
So my dad never wanted to runout of water.
(27:04):
He's so paranoid about that.
Every time we had anopportunity to get water we
would be loaded to the brim.
I used to always think my dadwas crazy.
Like he said, dad, like we,we've had no problem with water.
Like we don't need to carrythis, it's so heavy, you know.
He said, dana, listen to me, wealways keep up our water supply
, you know.
(27:24):
And and we never ran out ofwater.
We never ran out of food.
We came close one time.
We were down to eat rice allday long and we had just a
little bit at one point.
I remember dropping a singlegrain of rice in the sand and
picking it up because I wasthinking I don't know when we're
gonna see our next meal, youknow.
And we even had a dead fishthat swam up on the on the beach
(27:46):
and we put that in the canoeand eventually it was like
rotting in the canoe and westill had this thing because we
didn't know if we're going toget any more food.
You do weird stuff when you'rehungry and you know and um.
But you know, the biggest thingfor our trip, that the number
one thing that we prepared forwas our minds, because that was
(28:09):
the number one thing that woulddefeat us on that trip.
It would be allowing theday-to-day, month after month,
like I mean, even when we weregone for a year paddling almost
every day, you know, with goodconditions, and that you look at
the map and you look oh, mygoodness, it's like, it's like
we haven't gone anywhere.
Oh, my gosh paddle like everyday 30, 40 miles, all like on
(28:35):
the ocean.
We would paddle till the sunwent down.
Sometimes if we had goodconditions, we wouldn't even eat
all day because we just, wejust wanted to make our miles
and think maybe the next twodays the wind's blowing, you
can't even get out on the oceanyeah and and still no matter.
It's just like day after day andyou look at the map and you go
like we didn't even go anywhere,like because the scale is so
(28:55):
huge.
You know, to kind of give anidea of the scale of the maps.
You know, here's a sort of asimple way of thinking about
something that everybody kind ofhas in their mind pretty much,
but it's not really the way itis.
Like.
So you can imagine, like youthink of Panama, the country of
(29:17):
Panama in Central America, andyou imagine going in a boat, say
a ship, through the PanamaCanal and you start out you're
on the Caribbean side, so you'dbe on the eastern side, and you
paddle through the and you gothrough the canal in the ship
and now you're out on thePacific and the question would
(29:39):
be what direction did you go andwhere are you?
Like?
In other words, you went fromthe Caribbean on the east to the
Pacific on the west.
You've gone through this long,long canal which is miles long,
right, where are you?
What direction have you endedup when you've gone through
there?
And the crazy thing is you gothrough from the Caribbean to
(30:05):
the Pacific.
You actually end up furthereast.
That doesn't even seem possible, right?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
No, it drives me for a loop, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
But if you look at it on a map and you blow up the
map and you look at Panama, yourealize that Panama doesn't run
north to south, it runs east towest and when you cut through
the canal you cut through on anangle from west to east.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
And you end up actually further east.
You are on the other ocean, butyou're actually further east
than when you end up.
Actually further east.
You are on on the other ocean,but you're actually further east
than when you started yeah andit's just what you know.
But the thing is when you'restanding there on the beach
after you've landed in the canoeand you're looking out at the
ocean and I've got my map thereand I'm thinking like I'm
looking straight north and yetthe coast is this way.
(30:52):
So it's just weird.
So that's the beautiful thingabout traveling the way that we
did.
Everything is so slow and it'sso blown up.
You look on a map, you thinkPanama, you just think of this
little country down there.
You don't realize there's 365islands off of panama, just on
(31:14):
the caribbean side wow and thatand the only people that live
there are indian people thesekuna indians and they live like
primitive people from, you know,a thousand years ago.
They have all the traditionalclothes and stuff and we come in
there they think we come fromouter space.
They're stealing hairs out ofour head and stuff you know oh
(31:36):
my god, what a, what anexperience, my gosh.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And then you know, you just knew along the way just
keep keep going.
The course you're maybe lookingnorth when you feel like you've
been.
You know, paddling and paddling, but just that mental stamina
is really what got you guysthrough.
Yeah, you know that's andpaddling, but just that mental
stamina is really what got youguys through yeah, you know
that's, that's really a big partof it is that you know the
bigger the the project you have,the more that it's.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
It's a mind thing you know, because you you have that
.
You know that that is like ourstrategy was simple.
It's like we get up everymorning and we try to see how
many miles we can get done thatday, like on the rivers we would
say pretty much what we'regoing to paddle 30 miles,
depending on how the current islike, if we're going against it
or with it right huge difference, but we kind of knew how many
(32:24):
miles or what time of the day wewould stop.
we used to like to start stop inthe early afternoon, before the
sun was really extremely hot,but on the ocean then it was
different.
It was like ocean was alwayslike if we get on the ocean
we'll paddle as many miles as wecan, as long as the weather is
good, because we never know howmany days it might be before we
can get back out again.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Through the breakers.
But you just know like.
You know like, as an example,like there was times on the
ocean where we couldn't paddlebecause the way the wind was,
and so we knew that from the assoon as we got up in the morning
, we look out at the ocean.
We're like there's no way,we're launching today, so we're
going to spend all day at homeat on the beach.
So I'm going to have lots oftime to practice guitar and my
(33:09):
dad's going to be wandering thebeach looking for coconuts or
whatever he's going to do, thatand which he loved to do, and
and that's it, you know.
And so the end of the day comes,and the problem is is that now
you've still got 7 000 miles togo, and yet you didn't go an
inch yeah and you don't travelat least one inch.
(33:32):
So what we used to do is my dadand I, we grabbed the canoe and
we pull it a foot forward.
Now I know that that sounds socrazy, but at least we could go
to bed that night thinking we'rea little bit closer.
Yeah, and like literally, whenpeople say, like you know, you
know these long distances, alldone one inch at a time, it's
(33:52):
true, like as long as you havethis mindset that every day
you're going to push forward andfind some way to make some form
of progress, then you, in mostcases, if you keep going, you're
gonna, you're gonna achieveyour goal so two years, you guys
are out there.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Talk to me about that last mile, when you finally you
got there, you did it, you setfoot on land and your journey
was done.
What?
Speaker 3 (34:22):
was that feeling?
It was a very sad feeling.
Yeah, in a lot of ways it was avery sad feeling, because can
you imagine?
So I started the trip I was 19and now I'm 21.
So for me, thinking back, likehow much we put into planning
that trip, like my dad put 10years of planning into it, for
(34:43):
me 10 years of mentallypreparing for it and and then we
actually were able to do it.
But for the whole two years ofthat trip, every single day, we
were on the adventure, we werein it and and so we were living
this incredible adventure.
When we got to Belem, in themouth of the Amazon, that's it,
(35:04):
the adventure's over the like,even though I was.
It was a relief to be there andit was over.
It was.
It was sad in the sense that Iknew that there was never
probably going to be a time inmy life when I would ever do
anything like that again.
But it's not like something youjust go.
Well, next year let's go to theAmazon again.
(35:27):
But even by the time we finishedthe trip, things had changed so
dramatically in the world thatif you did that trip a second
time, it would be a completelydifferent experience.
You'd stop in all differentplaces, the telecommunications
would keep improving, peoplewould know that we couldn't
bluff them anymore.
If we tried to do that today,you couldn't bluff the pirates
that came out with their gunsand say, oh yeah, the United
(35:50):
States Army is following us andthey know where we are and
everything.
No, they would get on theirphones and make a few calls and
they'd go.
These guys have nobodyprotecting them, just you guys
out in the open, yeah.
We can do whatever we want.
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I didn't expect that, uh, that sentiment of sadness,
but it makes so much sense.
Um, you know the all the prepand and everything you put into
it and, um, you know, goingforward, you know you had
mentioned that you had broughtyour guitar with you, so did you
like, did you leave that tripknowing this is my next chapter?
(36:34):
I mean not that adventuring wasgoing to end, but I mean it
sounds like you really put a lotof hours probably into like
harnessing that skill while youwere accomplishing another bowl.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, for me, music wasalways kind of my number one.
My dad was a canoe adventurerand canoe racer and all that and
I loved canoeing.
The funny thing about canoeingis, I think of canoeing like
similar to like walk.
It's like you know, if somebodywalked somewhere to have an
experience, it's the experiencethat you had.
(37:06):
You wouldn't talk every dayabout how many steps, many steps
they took.
You know it's yeah, it was verymuch about canoeing, but in a
way it really was as much as notanything to do with canoeing.
It was all to do with thepeople we met and the
experiences we had and all therest.
You know, um and, but for me,music was always my big thing,
(37:28):
you know.
So I had stacks of classicalguitar music that I brought
along.
I was memorizing measures everyday and.
I had this goal of coming backand playing in a restaurant.
I just had this crazy idea thatif I got back and I had a whole
bunch of pieces memorized theclassical guitar music I could
find these really nice quietrestaurants where there was no
(37:50):
smoking because I was asthmaticand I couldn't be playing in the
bars at the time when theystill had smoking and I could
play in these restaurants and Icould make a living playing
guitar.
That was the idea and I got.
When I got back home I phonedevery restaurant in the whole
city and I only got a few peoplethat even were interested in
doing it.
The first place was a pizzaplace and that didn't work out
(38:12):
very good.
The wrong atmosphere yeah andthen and then I got into this
place called the round table,which was set up like a like an
old uh castle, oh, and it hadlike uh, six dining rooms with
fireplaces and I would sit atthese fireplaces and play class.
It was perfect.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I ended up playing there for seven years oh my gosh
, you were the house guitarist,the musician.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
That's great yeah, prime rib dinner every Tuesday
night.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I was like this is the best yes, they better feed
you for being the entertainment.
Oh my god, so so did musicpropel you further.
I mean, where along the line?
I apologize for jumping, butlike, where along the line did
you end up in the Quad Cities?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
so what happened was um, our book.
After my we got back home, mydad wanted to write up his
diaries.
He just wanted to have a goodrecord.
So he had diaries that he kept.
There were 1400 pages ofdiaries and he wrote it all out
in, because now he was, you know, sitting at home with a good
pen and everything and he wrote,went through the whole diaries
(39:17):
and wrote it out legibly andclearly and fleshed out some of
the things that he was too tiredto write out at the time and I
helped him along the way.
Like so, for two, for almosttwo years, I would my dad was
writing this out and I washelping him and he was doing it
all he did all it all ontypewriter.
He did the whole thing ontypewriter.
He was constantly redoing pagesbecause he wanted it to just be
(39:40):
right.
Then we put it into the hands ofa publishing company.
It was just too big for them.
They couldn't figure out whatto do with it.
There were too many pages.
We got it back from them.
Then we got it into the handsof a writer who we didn't think
had hardly ever been out of hisliving room, but for some reason
he was just a really goodwriter and he could make sense
(40:01):
of this stuff.
And he put our book togetherand it ended up becoming an
international best-selling book.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And the book is called.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Paddle to the Amazon.
So it came out in Canada in 87,five years after we finished the
trip, and then two years laterin 89, it came out in the United
States.
So we ended up doing about a twoand a half month book tour,
traveling to all the majorcities in the United States,
radio and TV and televisionshows, just yacking about our
(40:31):
adventures and just telling thestory and that's all we were
supposed to do and we had somuch fun doing that, it was just
endless.
But on that trip when we werein New York, we ended up doing
an interview with Jane Pauley onthe Today Show and a lady from
the Quad Cities just bycoincidence she was watching TV
(40:52):
that morning and she thought oh,and she was kind of a really
adventurous type.
She saw it and said I've got toget that book.
So she went and got the book,she read it, she really enjoyed
the story and so she.
She said I need to thank theauthor.
So she phoned up my dad inWinnipeg and said you know, I
just finished reading your storyand they ended up talking for
like half an hour on the phoneand my dad says, well, you know,
(41:14):
if you're ever up this way.
You're always welcome to come byand say hello or whatever you
know, and she goes I'm coming upto the morning thing.
So she got her mom.
Her mom at the time I think wasin her 80s and her young
daughter, young kid.
They jumped in their car andthey drove all the way up to
Winnipeg.
I think it took them two daysto get there from the Quad
(41:39):
Cities and they ended up stayingwith my dad for a little bit.
They end up staying with me.
I had just bought my firsthouse and they were staying with
me for a few days and then shesays well, you know, if you ever
want to come back to QuadCities.
You always got a place to stayhere, you know.
So that that winter came comingup, I had bought my first car
when I was 28 years old.
I was trying to wait till I was30 years old, but I bought a
car when I was 20 years old.
I couldn't drive the stickshift on it.
(42:02):
My brother told me to get stickshift.
I couldn't figure this out.
I was teaching at a school andthere's a teacher there, the
teacher.
I said I was in the staff room.
I said this guy looked like heknew how to timer guy.
I said hey, do you know how todrive stick stiff?
He goes.
Sure, I think he's from norway,I said.
(42:23):
I said do you want to go to thequad cities this winter for
holidays?
He goes where.
I said quite city.
I said where is that?
I said it's in iowa, on themississippi, and he goes yeah,
maybe that'll be fun.
I said, okay, great, let's doit so.
So we came up and here in inchristmas of 89, 89 or 90 I
think it was 89, though, andyeah, it must have been 89 and
(42:48):
um.
And so this lady, her mom,lived on forest road right
across from jimmy leach's house,the, a congressman who was the
longest serving congressman, Ithink, of all time.
He was from Quad Cities but hewas in Washington, of course.
But then he came home for theholidays and she said you know,
(43:09):
he's going to have this bigshindig over at his mansion
there overlooking the river, andyou know, it'd be really nice
if you could go over there andplay classical guitar for his
party, and I'm like that wouldbe amazing, like you know.
So that's what happened.
And then, when I was there, hefound out about our story.
He thought it was a good story.
He thought it would be good forme to go and speak at some of
(43:31):
the schools and inspire the kidsto follow their dreams and
different things.
And so he said I can get you aspecial work visa.
You know, because you're doing,you'd be doing something.
That's like we have specialvisas for things like that.
Where people they're, they havea unique ability or something,
and it would be good for theUnited States and yeah, so
that's how, and I always wantedto get away from the cold
(43:53):
because I grew up in Winnipeg,which is, for me, is too cold in
the winter.
So I thought this is my ticketto the excited my dad used to
call it the excited states ofAmerica.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
Oh, that's fun, I love that.
Oh my gosh.
So did you continue to do music?
Then?
Here you find that to be astaple for you.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yeah, I mean when I first got got here, just shortly
after I got here, it took meabout a year to get my work
permit and all that.
And then my first place that Istarted playing was this little
restaurant in East Villagecalled Christie's.
It was like a nice littlerestaurant there and so I
started playing there and I wasonly there maybe, I think for
maybe a year or two years, andthen they ended up moving up to
(44:39):
the East Coast, but that was myfirst thing.
And then I started doing thewedding things again and then,
before you know it, I was doingtoo many weddings.
There was just so many weddings.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Oh sure, so all the while now, okay, so now you're
in the Quad Cities and I have totout the Quad Cities.
I think everybody who liveshere and everybody who visits I
mean you can't deny the majestyof the you know the mighty
Mississippi River and so that'snow at your fingertips, which
I'm sure was incredibly excitingto you given your background
(45:09):
and your interests, and so youknow the activation that we have
on the Mississippi River likevisit Quad Cities.
We want to be a world-renownedMississippi River destination.
I think our community does afabulous job of activating that
asset.
There's there's river action,you know there's.
You know Float Zillow, there'sevents like that.
(45:30):
There's our other river, theRock River.
You know the Backwater Gamblers.
They put on shows and kind of,you know, have fun just honing
their water ski talents andthings like that.
I mean, I'm sure you found atthat time there was just so much
coming up to do to reallyappreciate that natural asset.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Oh yeah, I mean one of the reasons that I'm living
in the Quad Cities and I knowthat some people might think
this is crazy but one of themain reasons that I love living
here is because of a bike trailcould go easily over a hundred
(46:21):
mile bike ride if you wanted togo in a single day.
Go straight, uh falling,towards clinton and further out
you could.
You can have these incrediblebike trips, and all along the
river and every time you gothere's different boat traffic.
You know, sometimes you'll seethese paddle boats.
I think one of the the coolestthings that the quad cities has
done in recent history wasdesignating the quad Cities as a
port so that we actually havethese tour boats that come all
(46:42):
the way from New Orleans andstuff will stop here, and I
think that's also some a thingthat is that maybe is a treasure
that is not utilized as much asit could be, because getting on
one of those cruise boats andtraveling to New Orleans and
back what an amazing experienceto be able to do that.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Oh, absolutely, and it's so fun for us and you know
our business partners who hostthem and do tours and show them
around a little bit whilethey're like stopped here.
It's fun for us to see theexperiences that they have and
take back.
And you know, the Quad Citiesis kind of like a hidden gem,
like you know.
You said to you know peopleback home like I'm going to the
(47:23):
Quad Cities, well, where is that?
It's funny, because we are sucha significant like metro area
with a pretty good population inthe Midwest remains so unknown
to so many and um, and I thinkwe're trying to combat that
because we know we have a lot toshare and a lot to experience
here.
(47:44):
And when people come here, um,a lot of times they come with no
expectation, simply becausethey just haven't had the
exposure, and then they leavewith a positive um memory or
experience and then want to comeback yeah, there's, I mean it's
in quite cities.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
It's an interesting the way the whole, all those
cities come together.
You know, like each city, likeMoline and East.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
East Moline and.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Rock Island and these different areas.
They all have their own kind oflike.
When I go on my bike and goacross the bridge, I sometimes
feel like I'm always going intoa different country.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
It's it feels different, you know, I know what
you mean from, yeah, from cityto city.
Like it's funny because, as wellas they work together and and
hold events together, like youknow the QC marathon, which
which runs across you know thebridges and into each different
city, um things like that, likethey work so well together and
(48:36):
yet each of them still carriestheir own vibe and their own um
like points of interest andattractions, and it's super cool
, um the people who live in eachdifferent city, kind of you
know, have different likeindustry that they work for, and
yet they all work together sosuccinctly yeah, exactly, yeah
(48:58):
it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:59):
It's interesting for me because, I mean, I grew up in
a city where I'm in the centerof the country and even to get
to the border of our provinceforget it, I mean it's 150, 200
miles each way.
So that never happens.
But here you know on a dailybasis.
You know you go across to adifferent state and different,
you know different.
(49:19):
You see different flags andstuff and the streets are
different.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
The way that they organize their streets is
different, just little things ohyeah, the Illinois side streets
are mainly numbered and thenthe Iowa streets have actual
names.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I've always found that kind of funny yeah, it's
different, yeah, it'sinteresting and also oh, oh,
yeah, oh no, I was just going tosay I noticed a lot of times in
the Illinois side, like a lotof times I would go on these
streets but I could never getanywhere because they always end
up in a big hill somewhere, youknow.
So, they'd have to like how theheck am I going to get from
(49:53):
point A to B?
I can't figure this out.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
And eventually I'd get to a main thoroughway, would
go through, but a lot of themdidn't.
You know, yeah, and it kind ofspeaks to like just like the
deep-rooted history here.
I mean this this community isold, like we've we've seen a lot
and and have you know, um, alot of like streets that were
made a long time ago that havelater been incorporated into,
like, our larger network of, youknow, connecting the Iowa and
Illinois side and everything.
So it's cool that we still havethose streets, that kind of you
(50:23):
know, dead end or whatever, andyou know, you know, say, rock
Island, just because you knowthere's the historic district
and they're very, very old homesand very old streets.
Um, but yeah, it's very cool toexperience kind of the
different the modern, modernside, the historic side.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Yeah, wait, katrina, I'm just.
I'm getting the the heap holehere from the librarian.
I think I've got like 10minutes left All right, let's do
yeah.
So maybe, if there's any I could, we could always continue this
on.
Like I I'm not.
I just happen to be at thislibrary today, but we could
always find another place if youhave more questions to ask.
(51:00):
But I was just thinking ifthere's any like with Floatzilla
or anything, if there'sanything in particular that you
wanted to take care of, just incase I do get booted out of here
.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Sure, yeah, we can definitely.
We'll wrap this and get to thefinal nuggets and I appreciate
your time, so start here.
So I do want to hear about yourideas for Floatzilla.
You've mentioned everybody.
Bring a friend.
How else are we going to makethis record happen this year?
Speaker 3 (51:26):
right, you know.
So the way that I think of itis this is that right now, we're
in July.
Before you know it, in a blinkof an eye, floatzilla is going
to be here.
So maybe the the easiest thingwe could, it could do
collectively, is this Everybodystarts off with saying, okay, in
the next, say this week, orthis week, or by the end of next
(51:48):
week, I have to find one moreperson that has a canoe, even if
that person doesn't want to goin Floatzilla, but they just
they have a canoe, and and thento find somebody that also would
be willing to pick up thatcanoe and join in for the event.
Right, so that would be stepnumber one for everybody that
(52:12):
plans on going this year to putit in their mind this week I've
got to find.
So every time you're in aconversation with a group of
people, or whatever a number ofpeople, do you know anybody who
has a canoe?
Oh, are they going to FloatCivil this year?
No, okay, great, because we'rebreaking the world record this
(52:32):
year and I need to get onecanoeist to join in that wasn't
there previously, or or thatwasn't going to go this year.
And and that's the first step.
And then the second step is to,of course, just make the plans
that how am I going to get thiscanoe down to the, to whatever
boat launch or wherever I'mgoing to put this canoe in?
(52:54):
And if I'm not really good atpaddling, who can I find?
Who's a good paddler who canjoin me?
And you know you, I think youcan literally almost put in
right at the location and justkind of be there.
I'm not exactly sure of all thelogistics of how that starts
there, because I've never beento it myself.
I've already got anothercanoeist lined up who I want to
(53:14):
join me this year, so I've gotmyself it's going to be new,
I've never been there before andI have another canoe lined up
that I know has never been therebefore too.
So I've kind of got my twoalready in place.
But the idea is for everybodyto do that.
And if everybody did that, thatwould.
That's all.
That's all it's going to reallytake.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
I love that idea and I think our community is really
good at building in that waywith just person-to-person
connectivity, so I'm hoping thatthat tactic works.
Um, we'll, we'll help push thatout as well.
And then I'd love to hear,before we wrap up and I let you
get on with your day, I'd loveto hear what you've got going on
with river action for the restof the summer okay, good, so
(53:54):
going.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Just one quick last thing about Godzilla.
What I was going to say to sayis imagine a person's here in
the Quad Cities, and I don'treally know anybody in the Quad
Cities that has a canoe, but Ido know somebody over in Madison
who has a canoe and it's a goodfriend of mine, and what you do
is say, well, hey look, I'mgoing to call them up and
(54:15):
they're going to come to theQuad Cities with their canoe.
We're going to go up and we'regoing to come to the quad cities
with their canoe.
we're going to go up, we'regoing to break the world record
and they're going to have agreat barbecue this that evening
with our friends who we haven'tseen for three years or
whatever, and you just make itinto a really cool event and we
accomplish both things like thatum as far as um, you know the
as far as river action goes, thething that I've been involved
(54:37):
with them off and on for thelast number of years is the
channel cat talks and it's justso much fun because, you know,
sometimes there's a lot ofpeople who've never been on
those channel cats but but ifyou get on there they have a
nice, the captain takes you on anice tour around the river
locally and the last captain Iwas with we ended up stopping on
(54:57):
shore having a little shorebreak.
People got out into kind of areally remote area on an island.
Never experienced that before.
It was really cool.
And I'm just telling all mycrazy stories about the Amazon
trip.
I've been down to Mississippithree times so I just sort of
add in different little storiesabout the Mississippi, because
that's really what it's aboutChannel Cat talks about the
(55:19):
Mississippi.
So I kind of do a mixture ofMississippi adventures and the
Amazon trip.
You know, kind of relate themtogether.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Love that.
It's like the back of your hand, the experience you've got and
what you have to share on thosetalks.
So we will get those posted onour events calendar so that
people can find those andinteract with you as well.
Floatzilla is August 17th, sofind a friend, get there, make a
memory out of it.
And on that note, dana, I justwant to say thank you so much
(55:51):
for everything that you've doneto help harness this community's
excitement and everything thatyou're going to be doing forward
with Floatzilla.
I would love to have you, pertradition on this podcast, fill
in the blank.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
QC, that's where.
Okay, oh, that's this.
Okay, so QC, that's where.
And I have to figure outsomething that I've experienced
in the Quad Cities that's reallycool, that happens here.
Yeah, yeah, or, or you knowjust what.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
What makes you tick in the Quad Cities?
That's really cool, thathappens here, yeah, yeah.
Or you know just what makes youtick in the Quad Cities?
Anything, it could be musicrelated, it could be eagle
watching.
I mean anything that strikesyou.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah, well, you know, if I had to say about the Quad
Cities, when I think about theQuad Cities, at least on a river
basis, the Quad Cities wherethe, where the Mississippi runs
east to west as opposed to northto south, which is kind of
there's only a couple places onthe entire Mississippi that are
unique that way, and also theQuad Cities, which is one of the
(56:50):
I think it would be last majorcity on the entire Mississippi
that doesn't have a completeflood wall.
So, you can actually go down tothe downtown riverfront and you
can get out there and actuallysee, you know, kind of walk down
to the river.
Most of the major cities thesedays, a lot of them, even
(57:11):
smaller ones.
The whole riverfront has got abig mass of seawall.
Speaker 2 (57:17):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (57:19):
Yeah, so people don't always have that luxury, and I
know that's something that thequad city says.
You know, of course we, we paya price for that with, yeah,
with look, with flooding and uhand I sometimes make the joke
that we should have the annualflood fest, but, but, but if we
also have the advantage ofactually being able to get down
to the, to the riverfront, andsee it kind of like it used to
(57:40):
be, you know, like where you canactually get right down to the
river.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
That's kind of a neat thing.
As far as you know myexperiences, I think you know
the big things here are themusic there's, you know there's
all of these different musicfestivals we have here the jazz
festivals and stuff fix and theseven mile run there's.
There's so many cool thingsthat happen here, but for me, I
my my thing will always be thebike trails.
I just love the bike trails,the how they go up and down
(58:08):
along the side of the river andyou can go up there and just go
as long as you want, all daylong and just biking and very
peaceful.
Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah, where the American discovery trail and the
great and very peaceful yeah,where the American Discovery
Trail and the Great River Trailcollide.
I love that, and it sounds likeyou have numerous QC.
That's when instances, so I'mexcited to hear that you've
landed here and you're having agreat experience, and so thank
you again, dana, for thisawesome chat.
I really, really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (58:37):
Oh, you're so welcome , Regina.
Have a great day.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
You too.
I'll really appreciate it.
Oh, you're so welcome, regina.
Have a great day.
Speaker 1 (58:42):
You too.
I'll talk to you soon.
Thank you again.
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