P EOP LE | PL ACES | SAF E TY | ROCK THE BOAT


NEWS FROM THE PADDLING WORLD Flotsam Jetsam


ARE WE THERE YET? PHOTO: FROM THE PERSONAL


COLLECTION OF DON STARKELL PEOPLE BY CHRIS FORDE


KNOW LIMITS


ting, two-year, 12,000-mile journey with sons Dana and Jeff, from their home in Winnipeg, to Belem, Brazil. Today, 30 years later, both the story and their feat are no less remarkable. In 2001, I joined Don and Dana for part of


WHY DON STARKELL WAS THE WORLD’S TOUGHEST PADDLER


I have to say, I have never encountered anyone like Don in my life. Here’s a man who has pad- dled the equivalent of seven times around the world. He would share tales of his adventures in his living room, seated beside his woodstove as it crackled. His house is a museum—every wall adorned with curios from the places he has paddled. There are gold ingots from ships sunken off exotic coasts, ancient paddles from the Yanomami tribe of the Amazon and an eclectic collection of antique apothecary bot- tles that he resurrected from the murky banks of Winnipeg, Manitoba’s Red River. He is best known for his book, Paddle to the Amazon, the riveting story of his record-set-


a two-month reunion trip marking the 20th anniversary of the original Amazon journey. My goal was to uncover Don’s motivation for his 1980 expedition. He managed to elude my questions until, near the end of our time pad- dling together, he told me, “I wanted to find my limit.” Don went on to continue the search for his


limit when he charted a course through the Northwest Passage by sea kayak. He asked his son, Dana, along for the adventure, but Dana hated the cold. Don made three attempts with different crewmembers, including Victoria Ja- son, who would go on to write a controversial book,Kabloona in the Yellow Kayak, criticizing Don’s reputed stubbornness and tenacity. During his third bid, a solo attempt in 1990,


he found himself alone and frozen in the ice during a storm only 30 miles from his desti- nation of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. He would later report having an out of body experience,


seeing himself from far above,


floating out of his white kayak. It was at this moment that Don’s son, Dana, due to a visceral connection to his father, sensed Don’s distress from thousands of miles away and immedi- ately called the Coast Guard to Don’s rescue. In a remote northern hospital, he recov-


ered from near death only to be told that he would lose all of his fingers and toes to severe frostbite. Knowing it would end his paddling career, Don refused to accept his prognosis. He doggedly persuaded the doc- tors to remove as little of the damaged tissue as possible, and within months had rehabili- tated to the point where he could success- fully handle a paddle again. Like a shark that must keep moving in or-


der to survive, Don never stopped paddling, although he told me, with a wry smile, that he had finally found his limit. Back home in Winnipeg, Don became a local icon and could be seen daily, spring through fall, paddling his kayak on the Red and Assiniboine rivers. Don died of cancer on January 28 at the age of 79. Chris Forde is currently directing the film Pad-


dle to the Amazon, the Documentary. To learn more about Don and this film project, visit www. paddletotheamazon.com.


www.adventurekayakmag.com 23


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