Writer Ben McGrath displays on his ebook a few man who stop his job, thru-paddled almost each main river in America, after which disappeared
New Yorker employees author Ben McGrath met Dick Conant by chance on the banks of the Hudson River at a good friend’s 2014 birthday celebration in Piermont, New York, when the latter floated up uninvited and docked his canoe at a yard seawall. The 63-year-old wore a trucker’s cap, lengthy Santa Claus beard, battered overalls, and work boots. His canoe brimmed with coolers, canned foodstuffs, tarps, and fishing and tenting gear.
McGrath quickly realized the pleasant stranger had put in close to the Canadian border and deliberate to thru-paddle to Naples, Florida. Conant, who mentioned he had no dwelling however was not homeless, had spent greater than 15 years taking related journeys throughout the nation, but by no means sought media consideration. He had no social media presence, or model sponsorships, nor a want to achieve them.
The encounter impressed a small piece within the New Yorker. Three months later Conant’s absolutely loaded canoe was discovered deserted in a creek on the Albemarle Sound. Haunted by the disappearance, McGrath went on an epic reporting journey to unearth the story of a person whose life appeared the stuff of Twainian legend.
Right here, he talks about his ensuing ebook, Riverman: An American Odyssey.
BRO: What drew you to wish to be taught extra and write about Conant?
BM: Whenever you talked with him, you possibly can inform he was completely different, you’d instantly get the sense he was official. There was nothing pretentious, nothing phony.
To not be overly cynical, however within the web age, individuals doing [these kinds of grand outdoor adventures] appear to be making an attempt so arduous to name consideration to themselves. A lot in order that, on some stage, I are inclined to presume it’s not the love of journey however the consideration that evokes them.
However Dick had no acknowledged goal. He wasn’t making an attempt to set some arcane document. He was simply doing all of this for himself. That truth intrigued me and was solely amplified by the thriller of his disappearance.
Past that, I used to be fascinated by the concept of an explorer in a world with out actual frontiers. Dick was touring [what is effectively North America’s oldest interstate system] and discovering remnants of real wildness and pioneer spirit in a land ostensibly overtaken by firms.
BRO: Tell us a bit about Conant’s life and background. What led him to take up thru-paddling?
BM: Dick was born in Germany in 1951 and grew up as a little bit of a military brat. He lived all over, however most of his education passed off in Pearl River, New York. Again then, that was a reasonably rural space stuffed with nation roads. Dick considered it as Mark Twain’s nation and his love of the water started with a dinghy on the higher Hackensack River, and really led him to discovered a [float] membership known as the Catfish Yacht Membership.
Dick was a gifted scholar. He graduated on the high of his highschool class and gained a full-ride school scholarship. He studied artwork at SUNY Albany. He went to Woodstock and met Jimi Hendrix. By all accounts he was an especially gifted, convivial man who, due to varied troubles, didn’t quantity to a lot within the typical sense. He struggled with psychological sickness and alcohol. His father was an alcoholic. His brother dedicated suicide. There have been hints about attainable abuse by a Catholic priest. A bent towards paranoia led him to guide what he known as a “checkered skilled profession.”
Dick joined and was honorably discharged from the Navy. He labored on the railroad, on oil rigs, in coal mines. He labored as a janitor in libraries and in hospitals. He was a climate observer on the College of Montana. He bought bus tickets for Greyhound.
However Dick was additionally a gifted artist and very nicely learn. He had a knack for making new mates and other people cherished him wherever he went. He may sit at a dinner desk and maintain forth and have everybody riveted. He wrote three unpublished books and hundreds of pages of journal entries.
In 1999, Dick stop his job, gave up his house, purchased a canoe, and set out on a transcontinental [paddling trip] that carried him down the Yellowstone, Missouri, and Mississippi rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. After that, it was one journey after one other. He accomplished at the very least 5 main journeys, together with [thru-paddling] the Mississippi and a visit from western New York to south Texas. When he wasn’t on a river, he was tenting.
BRO: What do you suppose Conant found on the water, and what motivated him to maintain going?
BM: I feel the rivers had been a survival mechanism. Dick actually believed that taking to the water was the start of saving his life, not ending it. Transferring together with the present was the one manner he could possibly be blissful on this planet; it was his manner of being. However right here’s how he described it in a 2008 journal entry:
“Frankly, if any individual prefers the home life, that’s the life he leads or pursues. If he prefers to wander, then he takes off. These things about discovering oneself is a bunch of baloney. I repeat, that I’m not out right here discovering myself. I used to be by no means misplaced. What I’m doing is paddling round, discovering geography I’ve not seen, observing varied trade and transport, experiencing wildlife, assembly new individuals, most of whom are value assembly, and having a jolly good time earlier than I die.”
BRO: Dick Conant’s physique was by no means recovered. Do you suppose he’s nonetheless on the market?
BM: Nicely, he hasn’t accessed his checking account because the canoe was discovered. So if he’s alive, he’s residing underneath one other id. That might be exceptional and I wouldn’t put it previous him, however I personally don’t discover it probably.
That mentioned, I’ve talked to fairly a number of individuals, together with my neighbor, preferring to consider he’s off on one other journey. And I don’t wish to disabuse them of that chance. As a result of for me, that was essentially the most highly effective aspect of Dick’s story: What he did and the way he lived may completely rewrite our preconceptions about what’s attainable.