When I was 14, I was run over by a car and came close to being paralyzed for the rest of my life. Now I paddle, grateful for my life and inspired by the great explorers of the past.

In recent years, I’ve ridden a unicycle across the U.S. for charity and canoed from Minnesota to South Carolina, spanning 4,700 miles over 11 months.

In my canoeing adventures, I’m following in the paddle strokes of the great modern-day explorer Verlen Kruger, a canoeist who lived in DeWitt, Michigan.

He paddled over 100,000 miles in his lifetime and completed the two longest canoe expeditions in human history. 

Beginning high in the Rocky Mountains on April 29, 1980, Verlen and his son, Steve Landick, canoed the length of the Missouri River to St. Louis, where they turned north, up the Illinois River and through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, then down the east coast of the U.S. The route took them around Florida and eventually to the mouth of the Mississippi River. They then canoed the 2,400 miles of the Mississippi River, against the current to the headwaters in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, in 84 days, a feat that had never been done before and hasn’t been done since. 

This expedition, as remarkable as it was, didn’t end there. With summer ahead of them, they journeyed north 4,000 miles to the Arctic Ocean through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories. Then they turned around and paddled to the northwestern border of the U.S., before winter set in. 

They had prepared well for the odyssey. The expedition had been a dream for five years, and Kruger had designed a canoe that could handle the brutal conditions they anticipated facing, but that also could make the voyage efficiently. He built the canoe from Kevlar, a new material now famous for its use in bulletproof vests.

Verlen’s design married the hydrodynamics, fortitude, and speed of a modern kayak, without sacrificing the storing capacity of a canoe. The shell was more than 17 feet long and entirely hollow, with a large cockpit opening to store enough food and water to live on for months on end. The lip around the cockpit allowed for the use of a spray deck for rough water, and the shell was rigged with a rudder system for easy handling. 

Kruger often said, “It is neither a kayak or a canoe, it is neither a duck nor a goose, we call it the Loon.” He later sold the design to Sawyer Canoe Company, to fund these grand odysseys, and the company built them for several years in Oscoda. 

The canoes allowed them the ability to continue their voyage to the Pacific coastline, from Alaska to the Gulf of California, and portage to the end of the Grand Canyon, where they spent 99 days traversing the Colorado River upstream, a feat that had also never before been done. After a series of portages to other rivers, Kruger and Landick completed what is now known as the “Ultimate Canoe Challenge” in Lansing on December 15, 1983, after more than 28,000 miles and 935 days behind the paddle. 

This voyage only accounts for a quarter of Kruger’s lifetime canoeing distance. His efforts were a testament to the indomitable human spirit, proving our challenges are only as powerful as we allow them to be. Kruger and Landick saw themselves as two people following in the footsteps of great explorers, recreating great history. 

At one point in my own travels, I learned about Kruger and his canoes and spent over a year on the lookout for a Loon. It’s likely only a couple thousand were ever made. In summer 2022, I paddled the entire Mississippi River, from Minnesota’s Lake Itaska to the Gulf of Mexico, in 144 days. Near the end of my paddle, I found a Loon listed for sale in Florida. I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to buy one, so I sold my 1982 Blue Hole canoe. Then I biked 700 miles to Florida, acquired the canoe, and circumnavigated Florida as a trial run. 

I have decided to follow in Kruger’s footsteps and recreate a small but revolutionary part of his odyssey: a clockwise circumnavigation of the eastern U.S., known as “The Great Loop.” To the best of my knowledge, this has only ever been done by Kruger and Landick in 1980. There have been about a dozen or so explorers who have kayaked and canoed the Great Loop counter-clockwise, and motorized vessels often choose this direction because it’s easier, more fuel-efficient, and can be timed better with the seasons. 

My voyage will follow a similar route to Kruger’s, and I’ll have to paddle thousands of miles upstream. I’m making this journey in the wrong boat, in the wrong direction, beginning in Michigan and ending in Michigan, in the same canoe Kruger used.

Today, we have charts, satellite imagery, and technical coordination, to the point where most everything we can physically navigate has already been explored. The only thing we have left to truly explore is ourselves, and this journey is helping me do that.

Through the tribulations of nature and long-distance travel, we can discover parts of ourselves we’ve never met before. 

Peter Frank is a canoeist and storyteller from the Upper Peninsula. Follow his journey at whereispeterfrank.com.