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< September/October 2003
	Features
Old Schoolers Who Still Rock the Boat 20 paddlers over 60 who stay young with paddling

By its very nature paddling is low impact (save for a few overzealous portages and the occasional collision with a rock), so it’s possible to keep paddling well unto your golden years. We know because we’ve seen the silver-haired out there, plying the waterways, and we are always inspired. We decided to seek out these elders and hear their tales—stories that would inspire the rest of us to continue to get after it. Stories that would chase our petty aches and excuses into a corner.

Just compiling the list was exhausting, even for us relative youngsters. While originally we planned to focus on 50-plussers who paddle at least 20 times a year, we quickly realized that thousands fit that bill. So we upped it to those over 60 and still had a hard time narrowing down the candidates. But what all the following share, in addition to receding hairlines and pensions, is, thanks to a regular paddling routine, a suppleness of body and more importantly, spirit. In fact, save for a little bit of weathering, they’re some of the youngest people we’ve met.

Carter Hearn, 70
It’s not all training that got Cathy and Davey Hearn to a total of five Olympics in whitewater slalom, and their brother Billy to the U.S. Whitewater team. A lot of it is genetics. Just look at their father, Carter, who, at 70, has nearly as many river miles as all three of his children combined. "It’s still a constant learning experience," says Hearn, who has been paddling for 53 years. "Every time I go out I discover something new."

A long-time racer himself—no doubt expounding at the family dinner table the finer attributes of running gates—Hearn has managed to do what many can only dream about: combine his profession with paddling. An active field geologist, he ventures west every year to such favorite wilderness runs as the Missouri Breaks and Middle Fork of the Flathead where he reads the rocks as well as the river. Helping him broaden his scope even more is his sparkplug of a wife, Ursy. Just as the elder Hearn instilled paddling in his children, it’s been Ursy who’s nudged him into his new love of expedition paddling. The two go on an extended paddling trip overseas every year, most recently returning from Ecuador where Hearn paddled a dugout on the Amazon’s Tano River. As well as paddling all over the U.S., they’ve dipped blade to water in France, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and Chile. "Having taken care of our adult responsibilities, it’s now our turn to be kids," maintains Ursy. "And Carter’s pretty much still a kid at heart."

Of course, between all these trips, you can still find Hearn two to three days a week on his beloved Potomac in Washington, D.C., paddling a boat designed by his son Davey with a suitable name for the septuagenarian: the Fanatic C-1.

—Ed Grove

Payson Kennedy, 70
Burt Reynolds’ stunt double in Deliverance. Founder of the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC). Patriarch of perhaps one of the most distinguished paddling families in the country. Old schooler. That’s just a short sum up of Payson Kennedy, who at 70 still guides paddle rafts three days a week for NOC. He also finds time to enter one or two open canoe races per year, and when he’s out of the country he likes to sea kayak. He says paddling puts him in the "flow state," but he’s not speaking geographically. "The flow state is when you’re challenged by something and have such full concentration that you don’t think about anything else," he says. "I often get into that state when I’m paddling."

Kennedy has been finding that state for 60 years; he was 11 when he went on his first overnight canoe trip. Now he mostly guides raft trips on a mere six Southeast classics, including the Pigeon, Nantahala, Ocoee, French Broad, Nolichucky and Chattooga rivers. While his favorite river is the Chattooga, he likes guiding for the opportunities it gives him to teach guests about flora, fauna and rivers. And he doesn’t even get tired of people asking him about his role in Deliverance. "If you don’t enjoy talking to people about rivers and things like that, you’d probably get sick of it," he says. "But I enjoy it."

—Matt Hansen

Audrey Sutherland (“over 70...well over 70!”)
If you want to annoy Audrey Sutherland, just infer that age is the limiting factor to kayaking, and don’t even think of asking her age (we tried). For the last 20 years the paddling community has marveled at the journeys undertaken by this tough, tiny lady with the slash of silver hair and dazzling smile...and she’s still going strong despite being "well over 70." Mostly she paddles alone—over 8,000 miles since 1980—and has obliged sea kayakers to take inflatable boats seriously, to take women paddlers seriously and to take Audrey Sutherland seriously. This summer, the Hawaii resident is planning a month-long paddle around Baranof Island from Sitka, Alaska. In recent years she has also paddled in France, Norway, Greece, Palau, Pongape, Samoa and Scotland. "Make a list of the 20 things you most want to do and prioritize it; then it is not a matter of if, but how," she exhorts the crowds of admirers who attend her symposium lectures. By example she inspires, while at the same time shaming the rest of us for our compromises.

She herself is not big on compromise. Back in the ’70s, she swam then paddled the North Coast of Hawaii’s Molokai Island (the subject of her book, Paddling My Own Canoe). When her employer denied her request for leave of absence to go kayaking in Alaska the entire summer, she resigned and began her love affair with the Last Frontier. Year after year she returns, paddling the rugged Alaskan and British Columbian coasts, taking her time, and living in remarkable harmony with the wildlife.

Perhaps her greatest impact has been upon fellow women paddlers for whom her message of empowerment and "Go now, go light" seems to hold a special resonance. She challenges our prejudices and our comfortable illusions. "You say that’s what you want, what’s stopping you?" she asks.

—John Dowd

Ann Dwyer, 78
To the other retirees at California’s River’s Bend Retirement Community, a kayak-topped car in the parking lot seems oddly out of place, perhaps belonging to a janitor or visiting nephew. Not to the kayak’s owner, 78-year-old Ann Dwyer, a resident with more spunk than the center’s supervisors. "They wrote up the bit about the kayak on my car in the center’s newsletter," says Dwyer. "I’m trying to find people to go with here, but it’s kind of hard—they all keep dying. Luckily, the young ones coming in—by young, I mean in their 50s or 60s—still have some activity left in them."

When reached at the center, Dwyer, who founded Kiwi Kayaks in1989 and sold it in 2000, had just finished a four-day paddle with a local club on the Class I-II Eel River. The author of Easy Rivers of California North gets in up to 100 days a year, and still leads tours for the California Kayak Academy on the Russian River, which, by no coincidence, flows right by her retirement center. "I love the exercise of it," says the near octogenarian. "I paddle as many days as I possibly can." Indeed, on a recent five-mile trip down the Petaluma River with the Marin Canoe Club, she left her car at the put-in and after the trip paddled back upstream solo, doubling other participants’ mileage. Of course, she’s used to such solo miles. She’s circumnavigated San Francisco Bay, paddled from the Hoover Dam to Mexico, and Kiwi kayaked the Grand Canyon at age 70. She also lectures at local colleges and REI outlets. In fact, the mother of four ("I out-paddle all of them," she maintains) is still as involved with boating as she is with the retirement center bingo games; Kiwi Kayaks’ new owner, Ontario’s PlastiTech, recently hired her as the company’s new rep for the West Coast.

—Eugene Buchanan

Bob Bradford, 60
Bob Bradford only began racing canoes because his teenaged son thought it would be fun for them to enter the Ausable Marathon as a team. Twenty years and hundreds of races later, it’s still all about family for the 60-year-old from LaPeer, Mich. Now, instead of his son occupying the bow seat, it’s Bradford’s 16-year-old grandson, David Phelps.

With a few exceptions. Last summer Bradford and partner Bob Vincent handily won the Yukon Challenge, a 400-mile, 56-hour gruel-fest down Alaska’s Yukon, beating the second-place finishers (a pair less than half their ages) by over an hour. The other exception was this past May’s world record time, set with Clark Eid, for paddling all 2,348 miles of the Mississippi River. While Eid is no relative, Bradford’s family was never far from his mind. His wife, Janet, was a part of the road crew, which prepared up to five hot meals for the tandem a day, and more importantly, Bradford kept a photo of his recently deceased grandson, Michael, taped to the bow for the entire 18 days, four hours and 51 minutes. The race’s purpose was not only to set a record, but to raise awareness for Rett Syndrome, which has affected Eid’s family, and Adrenoleukodystrophy, the affliction that killed Bradford’s grandson. "It was an extremely emotional event," says Bradford. "There’s no doubt the cause helped us through."

Also helping the pair was flooding on the Ohio River, which boosted their progress to 13 mph at one point, and perfect weather. The favorable conditions more than compensated for the all-night grog-fests tempered only with the occasional catnap. "Still, I don’t need to do that again," Bradford says, adding that he does have a full slate of races planned for this summer with grandson Phelps. "And I’ve got two more grandsons and a granddaughter to go, so I’ll be racing till I’m pretty old."

—Frederick Reimers

Dave Gunther, 74
At age 74, Dave Gunther claims to have mellowed out a bit. He’s given up his C-1 and gone back to whitewater kayaking full time and only paddles three times a week on the New, Cheat and Lower Gauley rivers. He has faded to a mere 100 hand rolls a week during winter and lists his annual Fourth of July trek to Canada’s River Rouge as the only true Class V water he still runs reliably. Next thing you know, he’ll stop answering to the nickname "Wild Man."

"I’m pretty tame now," says Gunther, whose e-mail prefix still reads "wildmangunther." "I don’t seek out Class V or the most difficult rivers anymore. With the limited energy of a senior, I realize that aging takes a toll." If this is Gunther on limited energy, it’s difficult to imagine the Wild Man in the prime of his paddling days. In the course of 30 years he’s paddled more than 100 rivers in the U.S., Costa Rica, Guatemala and Turkey, C-1ed the notorious Russell Fork and Top Yough, and out-lived the paddling careers of his own four children whom he taught to kayak. "They don’t paddle anymore unless they come to visit me," he says.

Gunther credits kayaking and dancing– everything from Irish jigs and foxtrot to tango–for keeping him young, especially since he has 20 years of seniority over the vast majority of his paddling partners. "When I sit around with people my age, all they want to talk about is their latest operation and everything that’s wrong with them. I have nothing to say," he says. "It’s nourishing to be with younger people on the river who are engaged in life. I get burned up if I’m not the oldest guy on a river trip." The Philadelphian plans to paddle until he’s 80. "If I’m still in good shape, I wouldn’t think of getting off the river," he says. "I’m thinking I might start to paddle a shorter boat just to see what all the fuss is about over these ‘rodeo’ moves."

—Scott Willoughby

Michael Powers, 62
The first time Michael Powers heard the name "Tsunami Rangers," it conjured up images of aquatic Super Friends and he decided he had to join. "It sounded like something out of a Captain Marvel comic," he says. Fifteen years later, at age 62, Powers qualifies as the closest thing the Rangers have to a superhero.

As the oldest member of the extreme sea kayaking club and founder of the Miramar Beach Kayak Club near his home in Half Moon Bay, Calif., Commander Powers is only out-ranked in the Rangers by club co-founder, Commodore Jim Kakua. But when it comes to sea kayaking the world’s most exotic destinations, there are few anywhere with higher status than this 20-year paddler and career photojournalist. Powers includes Antarctica, Fiji, Tahiti, Easter Island, Chile’s Tierra del Fuego, Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca and vast expanses of the North American coastline from Alaska to Baja (including rides on 30-foot waves at nearby Maverick’s) among his sea kayaking adventures, along with a 1989 trip with three Kennedy (of political fame) brothers down Chile’s Bio-Bio in a failed attempt to save the now-dammed river. But the most memorable of his exploits was a circumnavigation of Norway’s Lofoten Islands in the Arctic Sea for one of several television documentaries produced for the likes of National Geographic Explorer, ESPN’s Expedition Earth and the Outdoor Life Network. "The local people thought we were suicidal," he says. "The weather there is just chaotic."

Many of his travel images can be seen in his book, Extreme Sea Kayaking, and his current coffee table project, Kayak in the Sea, is taking him to Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea later this year. "I’m grabbing as many exotic sea kayak destinations as I can," says Powers, who spends up to six months a year traveling with a kayak. "I hope the book is representational of the whole world."

—sw

Tom Johnson, 84
Tom Johnson wants his MTV. OK, so that may be a stretch, but the 84-year-old from Kernville, Calif., just may be the oldest-ever fan of the X Games and enjoys watching extreme kayaking videos when he’s not gettin’ after it himself on the Kern River’s Class III+ whitewater. "I look at the videos of guys going off waterfalls and say, ‘Hey, if you don’t like to see that, you can blame me,’" he says. "I started the whole damn thing with the first roto-molded polyethylene kayaks."

Even as a dedicated slalom paddler and manager/coach of the 1972 U.S. Olympic Kayak Team, Johnson has always had a progressive attitude toward the sport. He was the first boat designer to make the leap from fiberglass to plastic with the Hollowform River Chaser. Later, he took 13 inches off his favorite boat design, the Hydra Taurus (13’4"), by cutting the ends off and re-molding it with round tips in order to do nose stands and pop-ups. "I could never get the companies I worked for to make a shorter boat," he says. "They were all for slalom, so I made one myself."

Johnson still regularly paddles the Taurus through the slalom course he created for Olympic training on the Kern, although he confesses to not being as strong or fast as he was when he began kayaking in 1963. He remains intimately involved with the local whitewater community, volunteering as a race official at Kernville’s annual river festival as another way to continue a lifetime love affair with paddling that includes founding a canoe club for Los Angeles teens and a stint as the American Canoe Association Commodore in 1968-69. "When I was a kid I used to walk six miles to the town of Riverside just to watch the canoes in flat water. They were the most beautiful things I ever saw," he says. "I never got to ride in one until I got married in 1938. Then I had to have one."

—sw

Jenny Kruger, 76
When 76-year-old Jenny Kruger set out with husband Verlen on a 2,000-mile canoe trip on the Yukon River she never expected to be the star of the trip. After all, the voyage was supposed to be a celebration of Verlen's 80th birthday, but at village after village the locals would crowd around to meet the "little old lady" who was floating the entire length of the Yukon River. For expedition veteran Verlen, sharing this trip with his wife was the best part.

Verlen introduced Jenny to canoeing at the age of 30 when she accompanied him on his first long distance adventure—a mere 100 miles, which seems laughable when compared to his later legendary voyages. In subsequent summers they paddled all over Canada, hopping off trains when they saw a good put-in and flagging them down when it was time to take out. Paddling was even the cause of their divorce in 1983 upon Verlen’s return from the 28,000-mile Ultimate Canoe Challenge. For Jenny the three-year trip was just a little too long. In 1997 they remarried, and in the summer of 2002 they set out for the Yukon.

The couple has no big trips planned but Jenny is still "out there doing it." The Michigan residents recently returned from a 107-mile trip on the Buffalo River in Arkansas. Jenny wants to improve her paddling skills and become a strong solo canoeist so that on their next voyage she can paddle alone. For great-grandmother Jenny, canoeing "has become a way of life."

—Maegan Lokteff

Ralph Colby, 87An 87-year-old, third-generation lobster fisherman doesn’t exactly fit the standard profile in the yuppified sport of sea kayaking. Yet Ralph Colby plies the waters surrounding his Spruce Head Island, Maine, home three or four days a week all summer and fall. "Anytime there’s nothing else to do I grab my kayak and go," says Colby. The lobsterman first tried kayaking in Rotterdam harbor in 1934 while he was in the military, and now, reunited with the sport, enjoys the accessibility to Maine’s complex and often shallow shoreline—Lobster boats are too large and he can cover more ground than in a dingy. That he was willing to pick up the sport at the age of 78 he attributes to, a “willingness to try anything that comes along.”

Colby’s day often begins with a 4:30 a.m. launch. "You might as well jump up instead of laying there thinking about it," he says. His home, where he’s lived since 1921, Colby Road no less, is a stone’s throw from the water. He sets off mornings with his bright pink fiberglass Seaward across the three-mile-wide Muscle Ridge Channel to a cluster of islands in Penobscot Bay, a 20-mile roundtrip. Colby often travels solo, his intuitive sense of Maine’s complex tides, currents and weather honed by a lifetime on the sea. "You don’t fight the thing, you’ve got to go with it," he says. Once a week Colby paddles with 59-year-old Dana Winchenbach, the Spruce Head postmaster who makes a habit of paddling in uniform on his lunch break. "When I’m his age, I hope I’m that good," Winchenbach says. "But I can hardly keep up with him now."

—Gillian Pierce

Dee Holladay, 66
Having rafted the West’s major rivers for more than 40 years, Dee Holladay is as venerable as the canyon waterways he courses. The owner of Utah’s Holiday River and Bike Expeditions, Holladay, 66, has rafted the Yampa, Green and Colorado rivers enough times to be more at home with silty sheets than silky ones, and he still finds new appreciation for wilderness every time he heads out on the river. Though he doesn’t get out as much as he used to, he still guides several week-long trips a year. From the silence of the canyons to the native grasses and ancient rock art, Holladay respects the whole river experience as something greater than himself. Soft-spoken and wiry, he fits perfectly within the hushed canyon walls. "I like the Yampa the best," he says, the crow’s feet around his eyes wrinkling like lizard skin. "It’s quiet and is still pretty much the way it has always been."

The same could be said for Holladay, who began his business in 1966, a dozen years after first floating through Dinosaur National Monument. And it’s obvious that he has maintained an appreciation for history; outside his Vernal office sits one of Norm Nevill’s original wood boats that Nevill floated commercially in the first half of the last century. Holladay also exhibits a decades-old 10-man boat, the first commercial rafts ever used. And even though his permit to float Cataract Canyon allows him to use motors, he sticks with wooden oars.

—mh

Stan Chladek, 65
"I like to prove that I can still keep up with the young guys," says 65-year-old Stan Chladek, describing his reasons for wanting to further an already successful paddling career. Indeed, slowing down or worse—"retiring"—has never been a consideration for the Michigan resident. A seasoned whitewater and touring paddler, Chladek gained attention in 1999 when he, along with Nigel Dennis, accomplished the first sea kayak circumnavigation of the South Pacific’s Easter Island. His touring resume also boasts trips to British Columbia’s Brooks Peninsula, the West Coast of Ireland, and a bold expedition, with Dennis and Tom Bergh, through Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands.

Chladek’s flair for paddling in remote regions, however, nearly cost the Czech-native an appearance at his daughter Petra’s wedding. In July, 2001, midway into a trip to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, he was suddenly struck with abysmally bad weather. He wisely decided to cut the trip short and head for the nearest airport on Unalaska Island. Says Chladek, "The wind was so strong that I wasn’t sure if our plane would take off." Fortunately, the plane did and he made it from the windy isles to the wedding aisle with two days to spare ("That’s just like him," says daughter, Petra, whose sister Dana won the silver in K-1 slalom at the 1996 Olympics).

Occasional adversity notwithstanding, Chladek still has a particular fascination with Alaskan waters. This past June he returned to Alaska for a paddle through the Kenai Fjords, a glacier-carved valley 120 miles south of Anchorage. And while he thoroughly enjoys the travel and adventure, Chladek doesn’t downplay the attendant dangers of his sport. "There are always risks," he says, "especially with the ocean. But I don’t take many risks anymore with whitewater. I used to jump the falls, but now I just like to float down the river."

—Michael Rea

John Dawson, 65
John Dawson is being fired as an instructor with the outdoor program at Malaspina University College in Nanaimo, B.C., because he turned 65—despite the fact that he had the highest student evaluations and is still fitter than almost anyone else on campus. The good news is that he’ll now have more time to paddle and direct his sea kayak seamanship videos.

Dawson mistrusts the word "expert" as being a half step from complacency, but in anyone else’s vocabulary, he has expert status in sea kayaking, kayak surfing, canoeing, sailing, whitewater kayaking, rafting, caving, mountaineering, backcountry skiing and rock climbing. Almost every weekend he is out instructing another group of young paddlers or paddling the west coast of Vancouver Island with friends. An engineer by training, he was born in Yorkshire, England, and switched to outdoor education 40 years ago when he became an instructor at Eskdale Outward Bound School. Later he worked at both Colorado Outward Bound and Prescott College before taking on the job of program director at Keremeos Outward Bound in Canada. Students fortunate enough to take one of his leadership training courses find themselves challenged by more than the sea. Mathematics, astronomy, meteorology, philosophy and environmentalism are all woven into a credo for living. Currently Dawson serves on the board of the National Outdoor Leadership School and promises to continue to run his kayak leadership courses—independent of his past employer.

—jd

Jean O’Steen, 62
For anyone who’s ever wondered what happens to gym teachers after they retire, check the rivers, tennis courts and ski slopes around Frederick, Md. For that’s where you’ll find 62-year-old Jean O'Steen. During the paddling season, she spends as much time in whitewater as possible. While she’s been athletic all her life, O’Steen didn’t learn to paddle until she was in her early 50s. But it didn’t take long for her to become infected with the paddling disease, disproving the theory about teaching an old dog new tricks. She’s paddled the Middle Fork, Grand Canyon and Upper Youghiogheny (to get into shape she paddles up the Potomac) and belongs to not one, but four paddling clubs. "I pride myself on not swimming," she says. "I think it’s really important to be ready for the river before you go on it. It’s all practice, practice, practice."

O’Steen got into kayaking to gain more independence. And even though she’s a relatively new paddler, she likes it old school, holding tough to her Crossfire or RPM. She likes to throw cartwheels (in an RPM, a testament to her tenacity) and the occasional ender, but it’s riding the big waves and the beauty of moving water that draws her to the sport. "There’s no place more beautiful than a river," she says.

—mh

Lloyd Holyoak, 72There aren’t too many people who can say they grew up with the Colorado River. But Lloyd Holyoak is one of them, and he plans to live alongside boating as long as he can. Holyoak, 72, was born and raised in Moab, Utah, and became the first river ranger in Canyonlands National Park in 1964. Though he took time off from boating when he lived in Denver, he returned to Moab four years ago to again work the muddy waters of Cataract Canyon for the Park Service. "Basically, I wanted to go back because I grew up with the river," he says. "I just like to be on it." Now he runs the big Cat about twice a month, preferring oar boats when conditions allow (in June, while training a new 20-something river ranger, he was stationed at Big Drops 1, 2 and 3 to help retrieve flipped boaters, who were running the rapids at 50,000 cfs). While the river runs through his bones, he says the high water this year has told him that sometime soon it might be time to call it good. "I’m getting to the point where it’s time for me to get off," he says. "I can see that." But than again, that’s just working on rivers. There’s still plenty of water near his home where the waves don’t stand as tall as houses, which are perfect for his own canoe as he continues growing up on the Colorado.

—mh

Mercia Sixta, 60Normal people get exhausted just watching Mercia Sixta. Most of her energy goes into volunteering and, as she readily admits, sea kayaking has virtually taken over her life. Sixta gets out on the water a couple of times each week and makes a point of doing four or five 10-day trips each summer. During the winter she teaches every second weekend and tries to get in at least one warm weather trip in the United States. The Thetis Island Sea Kayak Symposium is Sixta (though she insists it’s her legion of friends who really make it happen). This annual nonprofit event attracts 200 people each May to an idyllic camp in B.C.’s Gulf Islands, a distinctly Sixta experience: heavy on education and interaction and refreshingly light on the commercialism.

Not that she’s anti-commercial; on the shop floor of Abbotsford, B.C.’s Western Canoeing, she’s a one-person sales storm. It’s just that she keeps her volunteering and her business activities separate. In 1998 she was awarded Volunteer of the Year by the Vancouver Parks Board for her work with disabled paddlers, and for establishing C.O.R.K. (Creative Options for Recreational Kayakers), an 80-strong team of volunteers which puts victims of strokes, cerebral palsy or car crashes into sea kayaks.

A clue to Sixta’s zest for the active life and dedication to the disabled may well be the scuba accident that left her semi-paralyzed for two and a half years. To better understand the needs of paraplegics, she made it a regular practice to simulate their disability by duct-taping her own legs together then capsizing. "If you want to make a change, get involved!" she says.

—jd

Juanita Guinn, 61
Growing up in Panama City, Fla., Juanita Guinn’s life revolved around, in and on top of water. But while she’s always loved water, she didn’t get serious about paddling until the late 1960s, when she and her husband, Roy, started canoeing. It’s been a while since then, but Guinn, 61, still paddles Class III waters near her home in Wartburg, Tenn., usually hitting several week-long trips per season. She’s been an ACA open boat instructor trainer, but recently let her certification lapse because she’s been busy running a Bible and gift shop with her daughter. But she still gets out on the water; this spring she guided a trip down Tennessee’s Obed River. "It’s just being out there in the wilderness and seeing things from a canoe that are hard to get to otherwise," she says. "I like the feel of being out there, and the sounds."

Being involved in the paddlesports industry has been a near constant of her life. In the early 1970s, she and her husband founded Blue Hole Canoe Company. In the late ’80s, Roy co-founded the Dagger Canoe Company. Though Juanita didn’t work at Dagger, she could always be found near a booth or lending a helping hand. She paddles the last Dagger Profit ever made, with her grandchildren in tow. "I’m not an adrenaline junkie," she says. "I just like seeing what’s around the next bend." For Guinn, that motto holds water for life as well as rivers.

—mh

John Heidemann, 81
At 81, John Heidemann had a unique return to paddling after taking it up in the early 1940s as a college student in Minnesota. After serving in World War II and embarking on subsequent assignments, he went back to it again in the early ’60s more for vocation than vacation. As a CIA employee appalled at the traffic leading to the agency headquarters in Langley, Va., he stumbled upon a novel solution when he saw some canoes harbored on Sycamore Island across the river from CIA headquarters. He and friend John Seabury Thomson then did the obvious: They started commuting by ferrying a Grumman canoe across the Potomac. Fog, snow, ice and wind sometimes presented problems (one night they had to chop through ice on the Maryland side with an ice ax), but their antics soon earned them fame. When the New York Times found out about their commute, they ran it as a feature.

Heidemann went on to organize races on the Upper Potomac, teach canoeing and edit the Canoe Cruisers Association newsletter for 20 years. And you can still find him teaching on the C&O Canal and paddling recreationally in order to apply his CIA espionage tricks to bird watching. As for age catching up with him, it can be likened to returning to a CIA desk after a career in the field. "I still love paddling," he says, "but every few years now it seems I have to drop a class in difficulty."

—eg

Cliff Jacobson, 62
At 62, Cliff Jacobson tips the scales at just 134 pounds. But he cuts an imposing figure wilderness canoeing. For Jacobson, fun is paddling into the Canadian wilderness for not days, but weeks at a time. He’s been up to his elbow in caribou on the Tha-Anna River, was nearly munched by polar bears on Manitoba’s North Knife, and got married on Nanuvut’s Hood River. "There’s this notion that you have to be a big, hairy-chested, powerful guy to do these rivers," he says. "But skills are more important. If we just learn to be part of the land, these trips are within anyone’s reach. Getting old is not a recipe for stopping what you’re doing."

It’s certainly not for Jacobson, who has been paddling since age 11 and when not wilderness canoeing can be found paddling near his home in River Falls, Wis. Though he’s dabbled in whitewater, his real satisfaction comes from using a canoe to access the bush. "If I had to choose between wilderness and canoeing, I’d probably choose wilderness," he says. He’s also used canoeing as a prop during his 40 years as a middle school environmental science teacher, oftentimes taking his students on multi-week paddling trips. He has written 15 books on canoeing and camping and produced a video called Forgotten Skills. "To fully respect the land and history, you have to learn the basics first," he says. "The Inuits traveled all these Arctic rivers with families and kids without sophisticated equipment. Too many people place emphasis on consequence, not prevention."

—mh

Jim Michaud, 65
Vernon, Conn.’s Jim Michaud used to fix computers for IBM. Now he’s moved on to a second career in canoeing, paddling more than 125 days a year, with two of his 17 Grand Canyon trips coming in the past 12 months. Not bad numbers for a rodeo star; great when you consider that at 65, most of his peers are on the golf course instead of the river. "In golf," he says, "the only person rooting for you is yourself. In whitewater, everyone’s rooting for you to succeed."

Succeed he has. Michaud began paddling as a Boy Scout and bought his first Grumman in 1967. He later got in