Features - Chasing Guinness

So you want to set a world canoe record? Start off by having no canoeing experience; don't do any research about where you're going; get no sponsorships and go broke before you reach halfway; begin each day late and end early; pick up some frostbite on the Mississippi; portage—and battle heat exhaustion—75 miles with an armed guard across a Colombian desert; crash into rocky beaches; get robbed; dodge bullets and mosquitoes and biting flies and killer bees; and have an enormous amount of luck. Above all, don't set out to set the record.

That's the way we did it. After 9,966,420 paddle strokes we set a new world record by traveling 13,028 miles by canoe—from Medicine Hat, Alberta, to the mouth of the Amazon River at Belem, Brazil. And it only took us three years.

We know some paddlers do it differently. Don Starkell, whose 12,181-mile record of 1980-1982 we broke, had canoed most of his adult life and planned his trip from Winnipeg to Belem for 10 years before he ever set out. Verlen Kruger, perhaps the world's greatest canoeist, not only planned his every move over several incredible treks but even designed and built his own boats to do it.

We just drove to a canoe shop and bought what looked good and what folks told us we might need. Verlen says he never carried a thing that wasn't essential and it had to be the best. We just loaded up until we had 500 pounds of junk crammed into a 17.5-foot Clipper Tripper—Neil's father called it “fitting 10 pounds of shit into a five-pound bag.” We had about two inches of freeboard when we set out that gray morning July 12, 1993.

Not much thought went into leaving from Medicine Hat either. The original plan was to leave from Winnipeg, where Don started his record journey. If we had retraced his route, all we would have done was equal his record. By starting 847 miles further west, we would break that record, but that wasn't the reason we started in Medicine Hat since we had no idea at the time that we'd be going on to Brazil. The real reason was that Neil doubted the canoe would survive on an old rack on an old car traveling the 800 road miles from Medicine Hat to Winnipeg.

Neil believed we could get to Winnipeg on the water. The South Saskatchewan flowed into Lake Diefenbaker and on the map it looked like the Qu'Apelle River might connect the lake to the Assiniboine River into Winnipeg. Neil called parks officials to see if it was possible. One ranger said although the Qu'Apelle was usually very low at that time of year, recent flooding might have given it enough water to float on. It was possible, but we wouldn't know for certain until we got there.

Originally, we were going to paddle from Alberta to the mouth of the Rio Grande in Mexico. Everyone made such a big thing about our lack of canoeing experience. What's so difficult about paddling? we thought. You just stick the thing in the water, pull it back and do it again. By deciding to leave from Medicine Hat, though, we'd already altered the original plan. That many more river miles meant an additional month of paddling. The three-month holiday was suddenly four. Little did anyone know we'd be gone for three years.

Even though we didn't know what we were doing, simply because we were doing it people assumed we were experts on canoeing. It was unsettling to have bona fide experts ask our advice on paddling matters when we didn't have a clue. We'd just kind of laugh and turn the question back on them: "Well, how do you do it?" When people asked why we were doing this, we had a difficult time answering. People wanted us to say it was some life-long dream, or perhaps some other personal quest with soaring aspirations. We really just wanted to have an adventure, to have a good time and do something a little different. Canoeing is a sport, it's healthy, and it's a great way to meet a lot of people.

That's all that gripped us. And for Chris, it wasn't even that important. His view of the trip was just a couple months floating down a river, a little summer diversion. If he'd known the three months would become three years, he might have said that it wasn't the sort of adventure he had in mind. People were shocked when we talked about the distances, even when we were still just going to Mexico. When we'd say we were paddling to Mexico, there'd be complete looks of horror and amazement. Nobody could quite come to grips with this distance in a canoe. And why in a canoe? Why not take the bus or fly. Where's your motor? Why not a big boat?

People always said, "You'll never make it." Even when we were around hard-core canoeists, people who we thought might have been a little more supportive, we'd hear negative comments. Like the time we spent in Minneapolis, which has a great canoeing community. Paddlers told us we'd get frozen in before we ever got out of Iowa. We ignored them. It wasn't that we became arrogant, particularly, it was just that we'd heard so much advice from so many people warning us about so many dangerous spots in so many rivers, and yet most of the time that spot would be nothing. Maybe 10 years ago, someone's best friend's second cousin went out and overturned a canoe, therefore that spot's dangerous. It got to a point where we'd listen and be polite, but not pay much attention. We had more faith.

Of course, we didn't believe the Mississippi River could freeze. Wasn't it too big and flowing too fast? (Someone told us it flowed at 40 miles per hour. At that speed, what barge would ever need a tugboat?) Then we saw these photos of barges stuck in the middle of the river and we said, yup, it freezes, but still we figured it wasn’t going to happen to us.

At first, we were still building up our stamina so as soon as one would suggest a rest stop the other would instantly agree. That was especially true when we'd spy a "magic Budweiser sign." We would meet people who would buy us a beer, and sometimes the bartender would even give us a free six-pack. It's not that we'd ask for this, people were just offering it to us all the time and we're very polite, very British. It's rude not to accept. But that meant we were stopping early, drinking and telling tales until the bar would close, then not getting back on the river until perhaps 11 a.m.

Through Canada and much of the northern U.S., we plied our "water trick" in an effort to get the sort of creature comforts most folks take for granted. This is the way it worked: When we got to a city, we'd look for a safe, comfortable campsite. We would go up and ask for water. If we knew they couldn't see the canoe, we'd put our life jackets on just so they'd know how we were traveling. Even if we had water, we'd empty it out and just go up there and look pitiful. The husband would always approach us first and we'd ask him for some water. When he'd give us the water, we'd ask if there was anywhere we could camp, get talking about our trip and ultimately get talking about his yard. We'd ask if we could camp there, and he'd go back and check with his wife. We'd kind of joke about it, to see how long it would take the wife to come out. We knew if it was a long time, they wouldn't want us there. But no one ever refused us. It was always just whether or not they would invite us in for supper. Sometimes we'd spend a little longer putting up the tent, just in case they did. Many times we'd even get a hot shower or invited in to sleep in a real bed. We'd joke about it to ourselves just because it happened with such alarming regularity, but we were very appreciative of it.

By November we were on the Mississippi and heading south. The weather was getting very cold and we started to worry the river might actually freeze before we could get far enough south. Waking up in the morning, we broke ice from the tent, packed up, and cracked through ice with our paddles to make headway. We were miserable. Our original plan called for us to be in Mexico by December, but in mid-December we were only at St. Louis, where we stopped for a couple of days to get warm again.

Chris noticed his toes were swollen and one developed several interesting colors and a disagreeable smell. We saw a doctor who said the problem was frostbite. Chris was thinking the doctor was just going to inspect his toes and fingers, but out came a scalpel and the doctor quickly sliced off bits of Chris's toe. He dug deep because you have to get rid of all the bacteria that's in there. Then he grabbed Chris's finger and started cutting bits off. Chris's only anesthetic was to grip the edge of the bench. Now Chris has something to remember St. Louis by: no top to his big toe and a rather sensuous indentation on his left index finger where flesh once was.

We arrived in New Orleans in February, and spent two weeks recuperating in the City That Care Forgot. We were just in time for Mardi Gras, a celebration we had never seen before. We attended several parades, just watching at first, but it wasn't long before we were diving for those cheap plastic beads along with everyone else.

Once we left New Orleans, we had a leisurely paddle along the Inter-Coastal Waterway to Houston where we officially became the British Canoe Expedition, deciding to see if we could paddle to the Amazon. Why not continue into different cultures? We knew 11 more countries lay ahead, and we could paddle the great Amazon River. All these countries we'd probably never have the opportunity to see again, especially the small villages inaccessible to regular tourists.

Our families back home thought going on was great. All the cold weather was firmly behind us. We'd come about 4,500 miles with about 9,000 more to go—we were already a third of the way there. So why not? All we needed was a lot of faith and a little bit of ignorance. After all, ignorance had gotten us that far.

Spending time in Houston helped us significantly. First, Bruce Gillan, a canoe shop owner, gave us much needed instruction, outfitted us with paddles of the correct size, and helped install a rudder Verlen made for us. We went on a radio show and just read off a list of things we needed. We got all we asked for, including vaccinations. We visited the consuls of all the countries we would be passing through, and the British consul, to get letters of safe passage. That idea came from Verlen, and it was probably the smartest thing we ever did. We used those letters all the time, and they got us out of many serious jams. One of them helped save our lives.

As we paddled away from Houston we had about $1,000 each. Not much, but we weren't traveling like tourists. We carried our own transportation and lodging, and food was relatively cheap in Central and South America. Many people thought we had rich families subsidizing the journey, asking us, "Hey, where's your Daddy's gold card?" and all that, but every penny we had we saved from working. In fact, we ran out of money in Mexico. So we learned how to make hats from palm fronds, and that basically subsidized the rest of the trip. Of course, people weren't just buying the hats because they were wonderful hats—although they were quite stylish and well-made—but it was a way of giving us donations and getting something back, a souvenir of our adventure, a way for each of them to feel they were a part of it.

We made considerable money from those hats. Every day we'd go to a dock in Cancun where we knew American tourists would arrive, and would sit in front of the canoe with a big sign behind us that said, "British Canoe Expedition: World Record Challenge. Donations Welcome," making it all quite official, so they could see we weren't joking. We'd sit and weave hats and people would come up and give us money. We got some $100 donations, which was kind of surprising. And some people actually liked the hats.

The first time we were robbed was in November along the Mexican coast when a man came up to our tent at about 2 a.m., poking us awake with a stick and demanding "Dinero! Dinero!" When we stuck our heads out of the tent to see what was going on, he brandished a knife and repeated his demand for money. We'd never seriously thought about robbery before this. Chris shook six pesos out of a bag, hoping the man would leave, but the bandit put his knife to Chris' throat shouting, "Mas dinero!" We didn't panic. We just kept asking each other how to get out of it, speaking in English, while the stranger kept a knife poked at Chris, now almost piercing his side.

We wondered if we should use our pepper spray, but thought if we did, the man might stab Chris in his panic. We thought of the flare gun and scrambled for it while Chris shouted, "Shoot him! Shoot him!" But the thief jumped Neil. Neil slapped the man in the face and fell away to avoid the knife, his heart thumping and his face flamed with anger. Neil found the pepper spray and gave the robber a full dose. The robber and Neil ran off in opposite directions, the thief turning his attention back to Chris. Neil found the flare gun and tried to load it as Chris doubled back to camp. It seemed a comical sight, Chris running by in his underwear yelling, "Shoot him!" as he's chased by a crazed bandido with a scarf over his head.

Chris tired of waiting for Neil to save the day and ran down the beach toward a camp of fishermen, trying to remember the Spanish word for help. What he got out was, "Socorro! Socorro! Loco hombre! Bandido!" The fishermen ran the thief off. That robbery was nothing compared to what happened in July near Sandy Bay Sirpi in Nicaragua, the most traumatic events of our lives.

We camped back in the bush as rain fell. Three men approached in a motorboat, each holding a machete and acting very suspicious. They asked what was in the canoe, what was in our bags, demanding that we let them see. Our bright yellow camera cases held their attention as they shouted something about marijuana and cocaine. We told them we were waiting for friends who would return at any moment, but they demanded to search our bags. They wanted everything we had, our waterproofs, watches, cameras, but we kept refusing. Finally they left, saying they would be back.

We quickly loaded up and launched through surf. We had two options, paddle far off shore to pass town or go back north and hide in the bush. A storm was quickly approaching and they had a motor on their boat, so we knew we couldn't get by them. We headed back up the beach, paddling like crazy against the current and wind, looking for a clearing to hide behind. We dragged the canoe up the beach and about 300 yards into a mangrove swamp. Our plan was to wait until dark, load up and sneak past them.

We sat in the bush, whispering, drinking coffee, and eating biscuits. The rain fell heavier and we started shivering, then, as dusk arrived, so did the mosquitoes. We got the parawing out and just laid it over us, huddling in the middle of that swamp, soaked, as the temperature dropped. We heard a noise. Was it thunder or a gun? We sat up, frozen, waiting, then all hell broke loose. We heard two more gunshots and saw the flashes. We kicked off our shelter and ran.

As they chased us, firing their weapons, we got down on our bellies, crawling over mangrove roots and struggling through vines in the blackness. Before long, we couldn't move and huddled against the roots in six inches of water. “The expedition's over,” we both said, assuming that even if we survived the night we'd have no equipment to finish the trip.

As we shuddered for hours in the rain, providing a smorgasbord for mosquitoes, we hoped the marauders would just take our equipment and leave, but we feared if they found us they would kill us. Every time we thought they had gone, we would hear more gunshots. We moved a few miles down the beach, planning on getting into the surf and drifting in the sea as far as we could. We moved as well as we could in the total darkness, holding on to each other so we wouldn't get separated. We stopped once to check the time, but as we switched on the flashlight more shots were fired. Now we were running for our lives.

We kept moving and praying, heading to the sound of the surf. We crawled down to the water's edge, slid in like turtles and let the current drag us out. For the next two hours we drifted, swam and crawled through the surf. Even though it was black, we were far from invisible because phosphorus trailed from our shoulders. We were exhausted but had to keep going.

At daylight, we dragged ourselves on to the beach, deciding to go to the nearest town and hope for the best. In the light, we could see our hands were swollen from mosquito bites and scrapes and cuts. As we walked into the Miskito Indian town, we were surrounded by villagers. The head man, Garcia Rodriguez, told us his militia had seen two Colombians on the beach with bags full of cocaine and a shotgun. He'd sent his men to search the beach. They found us and assumed we were the Colombian drug smugglers. They had loaded up our canoe with our equipment and towed it to the village.

We told our version of the story. We knew we had to be very diplomatic and didn't want to raise tempers or show anger, but we didn't want to become victims either. Still, we were in a Third World country, an Indian town, in the middle of nowhere, and these people could do anything to us they wanted. Garcia said he was the chief of the Miskitos, possessing a treaty signed by the British in 1915 giving him control over all Miskito Indians and their lands, and his law states any vessel must get clearance from him. We hadn't done that. We showed him our letter from the British consulate and once he saw the stamp, the same seal as on his precious treaty, he listened to us.

Luckily, Garcia's Miskitos felt they had more allegiance to England than to the rest of Nicaragua. After our lengthy explanation of our journey, the chief declared everything a misunderstanding. They took us to our canoe, and what a feeling of relief we felt when we saw it and all our equipment. We did an inventory, discovering some items missing, but most was intact though a little waterlogged. Our wallets were returned with nothing missing. Garcia insisted we stay and recuperate at his house. We saw little choice as the condition of our hands meant we couldn't paddle for days. Once there, we stuffed ourselves with turtle, rice, bread and Kool-aid. Then the chief insisted we had to pay for gasoline, flashlight batteries, and other expenses his militia had incurred, about $30 in all. We joked that maybe we could pay for the bullets they shot at us as well.

Our situation was so ironic it was laughable. We were staying in the house of the man who had given orders to shoot us. They fed us, gave us a roof to sleep under, and had even become our friends. After a few days, we continued on down the coast, deciding this canoeing was not worth our lives. Why were we doing this? We wanted to meet people, to have an adventure, not to dodge bullets and be robbed and hassled. “Let's just think about this,” we thought, so we discussed measures to insure we wouldn't have a repeat. Colombia would be one of them.

We spent 16 days in Cartagena, Colombia, in September, resting and making repairs. The city proved to be everything we'd heard, beautiful and relatively safe. But all the people we met warned us about drug smugglers and Guajira Indians, all of whom would kill us. No one gave us a chance of getting to Venezuela. We called the British Embassy and their advice was to stop the expedition immediately because a British diplomat had been kidnapped just that week by terrorists. That wasn't what we wanted to hear. Stopping never entered our minds.

We decided to avoid the dreaded Guajira Peninsula. We could portage across the peninsula, eliminating 210 miles of paddling through smugglers, thieves and murderers. But the portage meant pulling a 500-pound canoe across 75 miles of desert. We had a boat trailer modified so we could pull it, then hired an armed guard to escort us across the desert. The four-day trek eliminated two weeks of paddling, but it turned out to be the portage from hell.

We never sweated so much in our lives. We stopped for water every 15 minutes and couldn't walk a full kilometer without a break. Neil was dizzy, headachy and at times could hardly breathe, rapidly approaching heat exhaustion. Our armed guide was of little help. His mileage calculations were always wrong, he never knew where the rest stops were, and he didn't even have sense enough to wear a hat in the godforsaken heat.

At the end of the first day, after twelve hours of walking, we camped next to a family's house. They invited us in for dinner but Neil was so exhausted he was cramped up, shaking and couldn't even eat. Chris watched a Colombian football match on TV. We crossed the peninsula successfully, then continued along the coast until the end of December when we paddled into the Caribbean so we could spend Christmas in Trinidad.

As 1996 began we entered the Orinoco River, ecstatic to be out of the surf even though we knew we had 1,000 miles of upriver paddling ahead of us. For 16 months we'd worried about surf and weather. No more. We saw our first toninos on the Orinoco, ugly pink things that look like Elephant Man dolphins. We didn't look much better. We both had multi-colored umbrellas up for shade, Cat Stevens, Phil Collins, Hootie and the Blowfish, Van Morrison or Bob Marley blasting from the canoe. Our river coffee had become T-shirt coffee, because regular filters were too slow. T-shirt coffee is an acquired taste, a little salty and sweaty. When we passed people they would laugh and laugh. We were a sight.
The river bank became a 10-foot vertical wall of green with a canopy of trees and long vines reaching into the water. The sky was abundant with squawking macaws. This was an area untouched by gringos. We were in paradise—if it hadn't been for the biting blackflies, mosquitoes, fire ants and killer bees.

But we hadn't seen it all. In June, on the Amazon, the radio batteries were dead, disappointing Chris who wanted to listen to an English football game that afternoon. We saw a couple small huts, mostly just three-sided, built up from the river bank on stilts, and stopped for water. Our first surprise was that the small community was Japanese. What they were doing in the middle of the Amazon jungle we never did learn, but despite living in primitive conditions, they had a power generator. And a satellite TV dish. And they were big football fans, watching the England vs. Spain match Chris so wanted to hear.

On Aug. 1, 1996 we arrived in Belem, Brazil. We made it on our own, against the odds, and there was no doubting our joy—but it seemed strange. Canoeing had been our lifestyle for three years and now we didn't have to think about paddling the next day.

When we began in Medicine Hat, if we had known everything that we know now, if we had known we would become the British Canoe Expedition, that we would have all these information sheets printed up in Spanish, that we would be written up in dozens of magazines and newspapers in several countries, if we had known we would be filling several dairies, if we had known we'd set a new world's record, we would have laughed. We might have never done it. We certainly would have had a completely different outlook. We're glad we didn't know. If we had, we would have been under more pressure. We would have had to be more serious; and we wouldn't have experienced half the things we did. And we wouldn't have gotten into the Guinness Book of World Records.