Verlen Kruger, canoeist extraordinaire, paddled over 100,000
miles, more miles than any other person in recorded history. He also designed
and built his own canoes. Verlen died at the age of 82 on August 2, 2004. I
spent two days interviewing and paddling with Verlen eleven years ago, when
Verlen was seventy years old.
On one trip, starting from a tiny tributary of the Missouri River, he and a partner paddled through the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, then down the entire west coast to Mexico, then the Grand Canyon upstream. He finished that trip by portaging roughly 30 miles over the Continental Divide, and then paddling home to the river that ran by his backyard. He set time records for paddling the Mississippi River, both upstream and downstream. He paddled from the Great Lakes down the Mississippi River, across the Gulf of Mexico, up the Amazon River and ended up at Cape Horn. On another trip, his first major trip, he paddled from Montreal to the Arctic Ocean.
In the two days I spent with him, he emphasized both his ability to dream and the effort he put into preparation. He said to me, "I may be the best preparer in North America." But the fundamental aspect of his philosophy had to do with the power of dreams
There is a law—nothing happens by itself. For every effect, there is a cause. The acorn didn't fall to the ground until something happened. Nothing happens by itself. If it is to happen, somebody has got to put some energy behind it someplace.
At a seminar once, a young man came up and handed me a slip of paper that read: "Happy are they that dream dreams, and have the courage to make them come true." That has stuck with me ever since. You have got to have a dream, an idea, a concept. And then you have to do something about it. There is no big merit in just being a dreamer. But there is a lot of merit to dreams. If you are just willing to go with some of them, things happen. Some very outstanding things will happen to people who dare to dream and dare to do something about those dreams.
You dream a dream, and you go with it. You may think you know where you are going, but you will never know where it is going to take you. It takes you to places that you never thought. But there is a price. There is a price.
Another quote from our interview:
“The concept of lifelong learning is more than a concept. It should be what everyone experiences. By learning you continue to grow. It’s like life itself. It seems to be one of the principles of life that if you don't use it you lose it. You either grow or you dissipate. It’s largely a choice, rather than just that some people do and some people don't.”
Robert Service said: "Something is hidden. Go and find it. Go beyond the ranges." There is something you are reaching for beyond the horizon, something maybe you can't see. Maybe something beyond your ability. But still its worth reaching for. Some people might tell you that you are reaching too far. People may tell you that you can't do that. You can't paddle up the Grand Canyon. But if you have some reason, something in you, it’s still worth the effort.
I wouldn't have felt bad if I had not made it up the Grand Canyon. But I would have felt bad if I couldn't at least have tried. Because I had come face to face with it. I was trying to get home. I didn't want to avoid it because it was hard. Or difficult. Or even impossible. (laughs) Who says it’s impossible? Some who haven't tried. Haven't been inclined to push in those directions. Even the fact that we exist should tell us that we are created for something.
It is surprising how many rapids we paddled through. I find it still hard to believe that we paddled 90% of the Grand Canyon upstream. A lot of it is just having courage to try. People who had been down the Grand Canyon said it was impossible. How can you even think that you can paddle up the Grand Canyon? I remember wondering, when we got to the first difficult spot, how we would ever make it. But we made it. You would think that it couldn't get any worse. The next one was even worse. After a while you don't know what to think. When you think that there is 200 rapids and waterfalls, at least. You think that what everyone told you was right. But yet we couldn't stop. No way could we stop. You think that it is impossible to go on, impossible to go back. What do you do? The momentum of 20,000 some miles carried us. We'd come too far not to try. If the Canyon stopped us, that's okay. But we weren't going to stop easy.
We were twenty-three days coming up the Grand Canyon. When I finished, I felt I had whipped my weight in wildcats. That was the best shape I had ever been in my life. The same thing can tear some people up. It’s an attitude. Your body responds to your attitude. Some people would have gone through the Grand Canyon dragging. I came through feeling on top of the world.
The idea of paddling to Cape Horn, at first thought, seems like stretching it. It was hard to believe that it could be done. Then you come to think that it can be done, but at what price? When you approach the challenges one at a time, singly, you realize you can do it. Then you face the next challenge.
If you are on a big river, there are many branches. You have to make a decision as to which way you go. Sometimes it is tough to know which way to go. Sometimes the current carries you on by the choice. Sometimes you plan to take a certain branch but when you get there the circumstances lead you to a different choice. But it still helps to have a plan.
As far a having a long-range plan—I haven't had one. My first hundred-mile trip was complete. I had no idea that I would go on the trip from Montreal to the Bering Sea. I thought that trip would be my last, and I entitled a travelogue I wrote about it "Once in a Lifetime." Obviously once wasn't enough—it was only a beginning. In the process something happens and you find yourself wondering what is around the bend. What's over the mountains? You get the itch.
When people say to me that they wish they could do what I’ve done, what goes through my mind is that most of those people are in a better position to do what I did than I was. Financially. Family. They would like to. They are capable. But they won't. Why not? What is the difference between them and me? A lot of it is one simple thing. They won't pay the price.
When Verlen said that to me, I asked him what the price is.
The price is to let go of the other things you want. To make the decision to take one fork in the river, and go with it. You can't sit there undecided or take two forks at once. You might do a little bit with that, but you can't go very far. You can't go all the way. There is a price to pay. And we are not always sure when we start out what that price is.
On the Ultimate Canoe Challenge I would never have left home if I had known the price it was going to cost me. My wife and family. My family is still there, but I have a number of grandchildren who do not know their grandfather. Not really. So I haven't been a grandfather to them. I miss that. I was doing something else.
Before I started going on these trips, I had a very traditional, Christian lifestyle. I brought my children up well. They are all very good, solid American citizens. Staunch, faithful born-again Christians. They believe in that—it is their life. I admire that. Their values are a little bit different than mine—but they are still my values—and if someone was to ask me I would still say the same thing. But how to reconcile how I’ve lived with those values is a little bit difficult.
On fear and fatigue:
Barrens PeregrineBecause I have done long-distance races, I have broken the psychological barriers, the mental barriers, and I am not in trouble if I get trapped on the ocean and can't get ashore for two days. I know I can paddle that long. I've done it in races. If you can race for two days, you can certainly paddle for two days. So you are not threatened simply because you are trapped. And that helps a lot. Because then you are not wasting energy panicking.
Fatigue is more mental than physical. Your body will go along with you if you take fatigue out of your mind. You are still tired, but you don't feel that you have been shot. You can still go on and on and on if you feel excited.
Can you remember when you have been so tired you could hardly move, and something exciting takes place and all of the sudden you are full of energy? You just keep going and live with fatigue. You stop and take a bite to eat and go on. There is some satisfaction in that. There is some satisfaction in doing what you have to do and need to do in order to keep moving. I try to get into those situations of extreme exertion, but I still find some satisfaction in them. I suppose it has a lot to do with proving yourself, particularly when you are young.
My partner on the Ultimate Canoe Challenge, Steve Landick, could push himself beyond what was healthy sometimes. He did his first trip when he was eighteen. He had just finished an Outward Bound course in Maine. He decided he was going to get a kayak and paddle home, instead of take the bus. So he bought a kayak even though he didn't know anything about kayaks or what to buy or anything else. He didn't take a tent or a sleeping bag—he was going to rough it. The outcome was he didn't accomplish what he set out to do. He made it hard on himself. He made it back to the Mackinaw Bridge instead of Lansing. Unnecessary hardship gets old. If it’s necessary, that is something else.
That's my whole philosophy. I want a good night sleep no matter what. If I can't have it, I can accept that. But if I can have it, then I want it. If you give your body a chance, it will rise to the occasion. But you have to give it a chance. So when I was trapped off the Baja in a hurricane—it wasn't by choice—but I knew I could survive, and I did it. There is no question that when we reached shore we were very drained. But not shot. Not ambitious but not shot. I suspect I could have gone another day if I had had to. Weaker of course. There is some satisfaction of having been put to the test and having come through without negative effects.
That was the year of the big el Nino. The ocean was mean that year. The worst storms ever recorded. We traveled the whole length of North America, and the Pacific was constantly acting up. It never seemed to let up. A constant tenseness. Even when the water was dead calm it was heaving. Storms in Japan or Alaska kept sending in swells. When it came close to shore, it would become big, crashing surf. It would crash up against the cliffs. Even on the best days it was dangerous. You can't go ashore when you want. Going ashore was like making a crash landing, usually against rocks. It was a different world, and it was a rough world. The ocean is big—the Pacific seems to go on forever when you are in a canoe—and the shore is often unfriendly. The ocean won't let you close to shore. Always the surf was crashing ashore. You struggle in and then you have a bigger struggle out.
It is not that much fun paddling the ocean. The salt water itself, even on a good day, is not friendly. Salt water is hard on your body, your clothes, comfort. You develop salt sores. You can't take a bath in it. You can't drink it. You do bathe in it, but you can't get the salt off of you that way.
Q: What do you tell yourself to keep going?
A: The commitment. You came here to do what you are doing, and that's what you are going to do.
Q: Most people would give up though. They would say nothing is worth this.
A: Well, I suppose that there is a point someplace where you have to give up. I wasn't totally ignorant of the Pacific. I expected what we experienced.
One time we were forty hours from land in the Caribbean, the winds came up and were blowing us around. The waves were sloshing over our heads. Luckily the Caribbean water is warm. It gets a little uncomfortable, and you hope it won't get any worse. You don’t want to get caught by a hurricane. I got caught on the edge of a hurricane once—I don't want to do that again. We couldn't get to shore so you just head into the storm and fight it out. All night long. The lightning crashing. The storm drenching us. The waves crashing over you.
Q: What impact have your trips had on mundane things like supporting your family and preparing for retirement?
A: There have been things I could have done over the years to generate income, but I didn't do them. When I left home on the Ultimate Canoe Challenge, I had signed contracts for over a million dollars of plumbing contracts. I dropped them. Left. It was time to go. I was signing up contracts just in case I wasn't going to go. That was the peak of my business career. If I had of stayed home, I would be comfortable now financially. As it is, I am below zero financially, but comfortable otherwise. I made the right decision.
I can remember back when I was a kid on the farm, one day we killed the last chicken in order to have something to eat. I can remember when I didn't have a pair of shoes. But we never felt poor. We always had a happy family. Nine of us kids. I never felt deprived.
But I don't think about the financial aspects of my life much. I was willing to pay the price. If you are going to buy a new car, you may have to pay $20,000. Are you going to sit there and cry about the car, or enjoy the car? I did what I wanted to do, and I am happy about that.
Q: So now you are going to do it again?
A: I don't believe in forcing it, but if the money comes together I’ll go. The number one step seems to be financing. There are a number of agencies that are offering grants for studies of the Great Lakes. If we can qualify for one of them, that might be a very good way. We can actually do more to promote the Great Lakes than people who are spending millions. We can do it on a shoe string—maybe $50,000.
You can feel good about just having dreams. That is better than having none at all. Better yet is to go with one of them and see where it takes you.
Q: Is there an important reason why one dream fails and one succeeds?
A: Dreams succeed, but they need a catalyst. You get ideas, but you need something to activate it. Activate it in your mind, in your thoughts, in your life. Then they start to come together. In the case of Paddle-to-the-Sea for instance, I had some ideas. That was nice, but they weren't activated. One day a young lady knocked on the door and brought in a dream catcher. It’s there in the window. It’s been there ever since, and also the young lady. I had met her before, but I had to ask her who she was. She became someone that seemed to understand what this was about and was sharing the feeling of it. And wanting to be a part of it. That sorts of activates things. Not that I have to have somebody to do it. I would be just as content to do this solo. I am happy out there alone. But still there is something special about sharing. One person can activate another. And it fits in—the logistics, the idea, the dream and putting it together. But developing the idea, using it in school curriculums is not my talent, but it is hers. It’s another thing that fits. That's something I look at the most. Does this dream fit in meaningful ways? Is it more than just something I want to do? Is it more than just enjoyable? If it is only enjoyment, I can enjoy myself a number of ways. Michigan is surrounded by lakes. The Great Lakes will test your skill. They are like the ocean. I don't have to do this for challenge. But this trip could make the entire nation aware of what a treasure we have in the Great Lakes. That would make me feel awfully good. That grabs me. I just like the idea.
I don't feel that it is my place to tell people what is wrong, so much as it is to wake them up to take a look for themselves. I tend to trust people, instead of distrust. Instead of accusing—instead of saying, "Hey, you're messing up my lake." I would rather say, "Hey, do you see what is happening here?" Then you haven't got an enemy, you have got a friend. You are working together. It is easier and more fun to accuse me. But then you have conflict instead of working towards a solution.
I have been on all of the five Great Lakes extensively. Lake Superior three times. Lake Michigan about two and a half. Lake Huron twice. Erie and Ontario once. The idea of paddling along the shore line of all five of the Great Lakes at one time is a challenge. I have already had my challenges in life—I don't have to do this trip for that reason. But when you get a feeling that this is where your life is pointing, that is different. To undertake something—like going from the top to the bottom of the world—you struggle with yourself over the decision. Is this the fork in the river I want to take, or not? It changes everything—spending two and a half years of your life with that intensity. Reaching beyond yourself—reaching beyond your horizons. And not being too sure of what lies over the horizon. There is a lot of intensity in that. Of course, when you finally get there you find that it isn't as intense as you thought it would be.
I spent about five months and four thousand miles going through the heart of the South American jungle. The jungle eventually became as normal to me as Michigan. I found it as comfortable as my home here.
Q: Where would you camp?
A: That part of it really bothered me. I spent a lot of time studying the route mile by mile. I couldn't visualize that part of it. People said that we needed a hammock, not a tent. Well, I never did buy that. Even experienced people said “Hammock, hammock.” But I was willing to try it. I am willing to try anything. But as it turned out, a tent is as appropriate and comfortable there as it is anywhere in North America. A hammock would have been a monstrosity to live with. It couldn't have accommodated what I was doing. Trying to live out of a hammock would have restricted me.
Q: Is there anything for people like you or me to be afraid of when we go into the South American jungle, any more than here in Michigan?
A: No, I don't think so. You have to exercise certain precautions. Malaria is probably the biggest danger of all. You can handle that with common sense, and doing what the doctor says. The people that live there don't take prevention pills until they get it. They'd rather get malaria than take the pills. I didn't want to get it, and since I was passing through, I took the pill for the few months. But you can't take them all your life either. People there take the pills after they get it.
...People talk about the trip, the expedition being a great adventure. Which is true. But the real adventure is life itself. It doesn't have to be an expedition to be an adventure. Life—just life—just living life, just getting through life, just doing things in life is an adventure. You don't have to be bored. I don't know how you can get bored. Some people find a river boring. I remember reading an article about someone who paddled down the Mackenzie and he found it boring. Well, he probably never went back. I have been the full length of the Mackenzie three times, and I get more excited each time. I don't find it boring. The adventure is there—you just have to see it. There is always something. That is a principle of creation—even in the desert there is life, there is something. Always movement. Even this wood table top is not inert totally. If you break it down into its molecules and neutrons there is practically a movement of the universe going on. Constant motion. That is God. That is the nature of God. Life. Life. And so there is no such thing as something that is absolutely inert.
But nothing happens by itself. For every effect, there is a cause. Whatever is in motion tends to stay in motion. Whatever is still tends to stay still unless acted upon. There is hardly anything that is going to be handed to us. We need to give some effort. If it was meant to be, it will work. I don't know how you determine that. I guess it is just a feeling. And there are hard spots in making things happen.
Once you do a trip it is hard to stop doing trips. I met someone half way through the Ultimate Canoe Challenge. We had been paddling for two years. He said: "Well, you're hooked. Any person who travels for two years is never going to get it out of his system." I don't remember who said that—just somebody I met. Somebody who crossed our path. Somebody who was hooked.
I believe in abundant life. Abundant life is available to all. But only those that earn it shall have it. It’s there. It’s available. But it’s a choice. We can go through life on a minimum basis, or a full basis. It’s hard to say by looking at someone if they are living a full life or a partial life. Probably no one else knows if you have had a full life or a partial life. I have always been willing to earn it. Instead of thinking that I've got it coming. I have had almost nothing given to me. I have always had to earn everything the hard way. Sometimes it seems that I've earned it twice over. But that's okay—you can have it. Once and a while somebody off the street has luck. But I think luck is mostly perspiration. I don't feel lucky, and I don't call myself lucky for having gone to Cape Horn. It wasn't luck that got me there. It wasn't luck that moved that paddle. If I could find out who lucky is, I might have taken him along.
Effort gets rewarded. It takes patience too. I often have to remind myself that the time isn't right. But on the other hand, there have been times I let the time slip by and I missed the opportunity. That was the time, and I missed it. There is probably a lot of science to timing. A lot of power in there someplace.
On dreams:
At a seminar once, a young man came up to me and gave me a slip of paper that read: "Happy are they that dream dreams, and have the courage to make them come true." It would be good for a person to take the time to think more about who they are. Based on all of the write-ups and interviews of me that have been published, I get the feeling that very few people know who I am. I don't think that anyone has yet written about me who has captured who I am. It’s very similar to the question: What does it feel like to paddle from the top to the bottom of the world? You can try to tell the story. You can try to get people to feel like they are there with you. But, there are some things that are impossible to say. What it feels like to paddle all day and then find you have to paddle all night and on to the next day before you can get clear of danger? What does it feel like? What does it feel like to be blown around the Gulf of Mexico and not see land for two days? Knowing that the current is carrying you where you don't want to go. The wind is blowing from the wrong direction. You don't know how to compute just how far off course you are getting. You still can't see land. You can say: "Well, I just kept on going." But do you know how I felt? Some things you have to be there to know.
On confidence:
As to who you are—I don't know that the average person knows who they are.
I have learned more from the scriptures than anything else. One of the titles of the devil is the deceiver. Deception is always going on. Even a little baby is good at deception. They will put up an awful fuss just to get some attention, to try to fool you into believing there is something wrong. But the greatest deceiver of all is self. Nobody can deceive me like me. Nobody can fool me into believing what I want to believe. We don't fool other people like we fool ourselves. It is easier to see that in somebody else than it is to see it in ourselves. I've been close to other people, and I have seen them fooling themselves.
There are books that will tell you to think highly of yourself. There are other books that will teach you to be humble, and not think more of yourself than you ought to think. You can have confidence—that's different. You can have trust. I don't think it is against the wishes of God to love yourself. Some people have been programmed to think it is wrong to love yourself. It is a lot different than being “in love” with yourself. That's a different thing.
On money and family:
I have thought a lot of times: What if I had been a little more conventional? And I was for a while. But even when I was a stable, staunch family man, making money never was very important. As long as I had enough for the family, things were fine. It would have been nice if I could have afforded to send them to college, but I couldn't. But I did offer to help any of them that wanted to go through. And I did encourage them to do it. Three of them did go through.
On living in nature:
I have lived comfortably with nature. I belong there. I feel as much a part of the rivers I travel as the beaver and the moose. But I don't feel that it is necessary to try to play games doing it. I don't feel I have to play Indian. Or reenact the pioneers. I am living today. McDonald's may be along the river today, and if it is, that is where I eat. If there is a nice hotel and a bath, I'll take it. That is what the land has to offer. I am a modern day explorer. I am living here and now. I feel the same way about the great cities of North America. It is interesting to paddle through them. I wouldn't want to spend any time there, but they are legitimate. They are a part of this great continent. That city has a right to be there. And so do I. As long as they don't block my path! (laughs)
On being different:
I am doing my own thing. My own way. My own time. I think that's legitimate. I am using a canoe as a vehicle. The canoe is the oldest, most primitive yet most efficient vehicle ever invented by man. Even the most primitive designs are well-designed.
On God:
Everyone has to have something that they can reach out to that is bigger than themselves. Not everyone, perhaps, acknowledges God in the same way I do. But mankind is a creature that has a certain basic God consciousness and finds himself, a certain part of himself, reaching out to something bigger than himself. Some people relate it all kinds of ways, but it kept me going when nothing else would have. It kept me going because it didn't depend on me entirely. There was somebody there with me that knew the answers—even if he didn't tell me—and I knew he knew, and that was a comfort. And so I never ran into the problem of running up against the wall. Because it wasn't just me.
But that is a hard thing to say because people might not take it right. If you come on too strong they think you are some kind of religious nut. If I leave it out, I am leaving out the thing that makes the difference. People who get into life with intensity are a little more prone to think about things beyond themselves...to think about God. There have been a couple of occasions when I thought I was just about to die, and I didn't. I felt somebody answered my prayers. But I never had to hang on by a thread. Maybe close to it but not aware of it. I have never run out of food. I have run right down but never run out.
On being an adventurer:
I have spent a lot of time thinking about what it is—it is no big thing—but there is a slight difference between me and Tom or Dick. One does and one doesn't, and yet they are both essentially the same caliber and skills. I remember paddling through Boston and someone read about me in the paper and he made a point to come to the beach where I was camped. We talked for a couple of hours about some of the things he had done. He was supposed to be leaving in a couple of weeks to walk the Great Wall of China. He said to me: "I'll bet a lot of people don't understand what you are doing." I said: "Yes, that's true. I have talked to a lot of people, and most of them don't understand, and so I don't get into it." He said, "I understand what you are doing." And I felt he did. But he was one of the very few.
Q: Why would you do a 20,000 mile canoe trip?
A: There is no simple answer. Not really. Some people will give you an answer, but I think they don't even know themselves. Some will say because it was there. Or the challenge. The excitement. The adventure. There is some magic to some of that stuff. But I don't think it is any one thing. I still think there is more to it. Why must the wild goose fly north? Ask the arctic term why he must go from the top to the bottom of the world every year. Or the monarch butterfly—why must it go to Mexico? Make this big circuit that takes several generations to do. But it must do it to be true to itself and its nature.
I don't know where that question will take you. It isn't legitimate I don't think to pursue that too hard, or we would have everyone doing strange things. And who would be left to run the world? But questions surrounding why a person should pursue their self-potential—I think that those questions are worthwhile. You think about those questions on a long trip. Questions like: “Why am I different? Why am I here?” I am not so different really. It is a small thing—the difference between any two people. Between the idiot and the genius. The answer to that seems elusive.
The difference between first place and second, or even last place at the Olympics is small. The potentials in us are not being exercised. The average person does not develop fully. In a lot of cases, he or she is not aware of their potential.
Q: Why do most people not reach their potential?
A: Number one, I don't believe most people know they have it. Our culture doesn't emphasize that point. In fourth grade, our teacher taught us all eight grades. She cared about kids. She couldn't always teach us everything because she had all these different kids, but she could get us thinking. We could teach ourselves. She asked the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” She gave us time to think about it and then she asked each and every one of us. I thought I wanted to be a doctor or a teacher. I thought that that would help someone besides me.
But I came from a very poor sharecrop family. I never finished school, left college and so I did not become a doctor. But she said something that needed to be said, and it made a big difference in my life. It encouraged me to think about what I wanted to be. Not just occupation. But there was one thing she didn't tell me, and that isn't being said, and that is you can be. I could have been a doctor. I didn't know that. Even with that background I could have been a doctor. If I said to Abraham Lincoln: “You can't be a President. You have no education. You never went to school,” he wouldn’t have believed me. Somehow he felt he could be something, and he went and did it. The thing that is never said is: “You can be. Don't let the excuses stop you.” My excuse was my parents couldn't afford to send me to school. But if I had been told that one way or another I could do it, I could have. And I probably would have. But I didn't. I needed that catalyst, and no one gave it to me. Abraham Lincoln did it.
Q: Do you regret that you didn't become a doctor?
A: Not at all. But I wonder what would have happened if I had taken that fork in the river. If I was meant to be anything, may be it was a teacher. I found that in some sense I have been all my life, in one way or another. I have been sharing experiences, teaching fighter pilots in the Air Force. After I got out, I started a plumbing business, and I taught a lot of plumbers in the state of Michigan. Many of them now own their own businesses.
Q: Was there any single event that led to your leaving the plumbing business and getting into long distance canoeing?
A: It was a gradual process. Not a conscious direction or goal. But I can go back to a time when I saw something, when something happened that started me in the direction. Twenty or thirty years ago I was raising a family and I had no particular hobbies. Work was good enough for me. I enjoyed work. I was also a farmer. I was doing both. More than once I worked right through 24 hours. I got my satisfaction from doing that and raising a family.
But my brother-in-law was into fishing up in Canada for a week or two. He tried to get me to go with him. Finally I did go. I liked the idea. I just wasn't finding time to do it. We went up there, up above Sault Ste. Marie, four or five hours back in the bush. Rocky Island Lake. We went fishing and it was great. There were five of us in this big power boat. After a couple of days of fishing we had all of the fish we could eat. I didn't get much kick out of just catching fish. I don't like the idea of waste. I looked at the map and saw all of the other lakes around there, and I hiked into some of them. I decided I would rather be out there looking some of them over. You can't do that with a power boat. So I went out and bought a canoe and went back up there that fall—just my wife and I in a seventeen-foot aluminum canoe. And I got bit by the bug when I found out I could go anywhere I wanted. That was nice. That was it. I slowly ran out of time for the plumbing business. You can't go up two forks in a river at the same time. You can keep more than one apple in the air, but you aren't going to do your best work that way. The difference between first and last or first and second is just that little commitment. It has to have priority.
Q: When you think of all of the hardship, pain, deprivation you have experienced on these trips, do you think you have grown from that?
A: You benefit from all experiences. Hardship toughens some people and weakens others. The same experience that will make one person stronger and positive, will almost destroy someone else. I find that extreme effort seems to make me grow. Toughen up. But it seems to wear some people out. Things like paddling up through the Grand Canyon, which was next to impossible, took enormous amount of physical effort. Hanging on over portages by your fingertips. The Grand Canyon is 240 miles long. There are two hundred portages. Rapids and falls. No one had ever gone up it before. They had attempted it and abandoned the idea after a few days.
The Superintendent of the park refused to give us a permit. He had a pretty tight control of the canyon. We had to go clear to Washington D.C. to get a permit. I don't like breaking the law. (laughs) I probably would have gotten thrown in jail because I needed to attempt it. I hadn't come that far—20,000 miles into the trip—we were on our way home. I just couldn't accept the idea that we were stopped. The Secretary of the Interior, Watts, didn't need much explanation at all. He thought it was a good idea—in the best interests of the country. He said “I think you will get your permit,” and we did within 24 hours. We tried to reason with the Superintendent of the park for four years.
No one ever saw North America the way we did. No man ever saw the continent the way we saw it. A lot of people have seen North America. A lot of explorers have been here and there. But no explorer has ever recorded, ever traveled as many miles as we traveled on that one trip—the Ultimate Canoe Challenge. Not even Marco Polo. Not Christopher Columbus. It is difficult to conceive. Even having done it, it is difficult for me to conceive of a canoe, with a paddle, covering this much of a continent.
Q: What do you attribute your ability to survive to? People have drowned in much calmer water than you have paddled through repeatedly.
A: It’s like being on the highway. You avoid the other cars. The potential is tremendous to have an accident on the interstate. If you get careless or someone else gets careless. Rough water, waves, weather are not much different. I play it very careful—more careful than on the highway. And I've never had an accident on the highway either.
But there are circumstances where you go with things you don't really want to. You try to work things out so you are ready and prepared as possible. I do a lot of thinking about how to handle hazardous conditions. The use of a catamaran is one—it opens up the use of the canoe tremendously. It is simple and effective. I can put together my canoes in a storm in less than a minute. Normally the catamarans that people have done in the past involves lashing canoes together and that can take hours to do. Doing it less than a minute in a storm is a whole different thing. They allow you to rest, prepare a meal, move around, stand up. Whatever you want to do. Sleep. Of course you don't sleep much in a storm.
Q: How did people react to you in the north?
A: No matter where I've been, the response—no matter what the race, color, creed or anything else—people always seemed glad to see me. City or wilderness. I think it has a lot to do with the way you arrive. If you came by jet, they might not have even known you were there. But having arrived under my own power in my own canoe, the people who live in the wilderness see you as fitting in. Maybe people in cities see you as a curiosity.
I suspect if you get dropped off at a tiny village a long way from a road, in a plane, with your obvious tourist paraphernalia, you would get a totally different reception. I really believe that there is a little bit of the spirit of adventure and exploration in everyone. People respond when they see you reaching a little further. There are some nationalities that respond differently as far as showing it. But still the response is there. Among natives, for instance, there wasn't any interest in water quality tests. They could care less about what I was finding. But as far as the friendship and hospitality, it was always there. I think it has a lot do with the way I came. There is a message in a canoe. There would probably be a message in arriving on foot too.
Of all of the things I have seen in this entire world, people are the most interesting. I always enjoy meeting people. I go to great trouble to get to some remote river all alone and see nobody, but when I find people there, I am happy. Glad. Yet I went to all of this trouble to get away from them. But the person that you find there is very likely a person who has a right to be there. He earned the right to get there. Sometimes you find somebody who got there by money—flew in. But the people who paddle in under their own power are there because they want to be there and are willing to do what it takes to get there.
On the MacKenzie River they experimented for a while with a tourist boat. A typical river boat. The people would see the country by standing on the deck. Those people had the experience of a lifetime, but it wasn't what I was experiencing. They were perhaps rugged and far out tourists, but still tourists. I didn't equate them with the people I met paddling down the MacKenzie. I met some of those tourists, talked to them a little bit...but we weren't in the same world. They were as friendly and curious as anyone else. But I guess I just didn't relate. That might have been as much my fault as their's.
---
Verlen designed canoes suitable for the widest possible water conditions, and canoes that would be as comfortable as possible on very long expeditions. Relatives have continued to manufacture expedition canoes to his specifications. To learn more, go to http://www.krugercanoes.com/
