Paddling 1,200 Miles from Ottawa to New York with Dan Rubinstein

0:03A moment that I talk about a fair bit is we're paddling hard head down. There's a campground, like an actual campground where I was going to spend the night. And I just kind of wanted to get there, set up my tent, go to sleep. And I heard somebody yell, take a break, have a beer. And I looked over my shoulder and there was a marina and there was a group of people on the back of their boat hanging out. And my first thought was, I'm just going to keep going and, you know, give them a wave. But I was like, no, why not? Why not take a break, have a beer? I'm only a mile from where I want to be. And I went over and they helped me up into the boat.

0:35And we just had this amazing conversation. They were so joyful and supportive of somebody who was doing something weird just because he kind of wanted to do it.

0:47Wild Ideas Worth Living:Dan Rubenstein is a journalist from Ottawa, Canada, who spent years exploring how he connect with the natural world. Back in 2015, he wrote a book called Born to Walk, all about the science of walking outside. But after that project was done, Dan's curiosity began to shift from land to blue spaces, like rivers, lakes, oceans, and other waterways. He loved stand-up paddleboarding and would head out on the Ottawa River whenever he could. Before long, he started to wonder, what does being near water actually do for our brains and bodies? With that question in the back of his mind, Dan came up with a wild idea.

1:29Wild Ideas Worth Living:In 2023, he set out to stand up paddle 1 ,200 miles from Ottawa all the way to New York City and back. Along the way, he met with experts who helped him understand the physical, mental, and social impacts of spending time in blue spaces. He later wrote about his experiences and findings in his book, Waterborne. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.

2:05Wild Ideas Worth Living:Dan Rubenstein, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I want to start with your really wild idea. How did you come up with a wild idea to stand up paddle 1 ,200 miles from Ottawa to Montreal New York City, Buffalo, Toronto, and back to Ottawa for 10 weeks? There's a long answer and a condensed answer to that question. And the kind of short answer is that I love stand-up paddleboarding. I had been doing it for about 10, 12 years before my trip in 2023. And it was kind of taking over my life. And at the same time, as a journalist, I was really getting into exploring the idea of blue space of what happens to our bodies and minds when we spend time in, on, or around water.

2:54And I wanted to kind of combine my love for paddleboarding and my journalistic exploration of blue space into a book project. And I had some ideas, you know, there's a lot of people I wanted to interview. And a writer, a friend of mine said, you need to wrap this around a journey of some kind. So I started thinking about routes I could do. And this trip took shape. And once I realized it was kind of feasible. It was all systems go.

3:19Wild Ideas Worth Living:How did you even get into stand-up paddleboarding in like Ottawa? I don't know anything about what it's like to paddle around there. Yeah. So this is going back to like 2014, 2015, thereabouts. And I had just finished writing a book about walking, which was coming out. And I don't know if I was consciously looking for a new pastime or passion, but my wife and I had seen people on SUPs in and around the city. We've got one main river, the Ottawa River, a couple smaller rivers, the Rideau and the Gatineau Rivers, and a big canal that runs right through the city, the Rideau Canal. So I started to see people on paddle boards, and it looked kind of ridiculous.

3:55We're a country of canoers and kayakers, and SUPs were relatively new, and it looked inefficient and just kind of weird. But something made me really want to try it. So we were camping at a park not too far outside the city with some friends, and some folks in our group wanted to rent canoes and you could rent paddle boards there. So I rented a SUP and it was kind of love at first paddle. It felt right from the start, you know, the balance wasn't too difficult. You could move around on the board. So you didn't, I didn't feel confined. Like I sometimes do sitting in a canoe. It was easy on my back, easy on my knees, but the very best thing, which to me, I think is still my favorite thing about paddle boarding is when it's hot, you can just step off the board and swim.

4:34And you can't do that when you're in a canoe or kayak as easily. And it just felt like a really kind of intimate way to engage with water.

4:49Wild Ideas Worth Living:Stand-up paddleboarding made Dan feel relaxed and more clear-headed. He wondered if there was a scientific explanation behind the way humans are impacted by water. After looking into the literature on blue spaces, Dan was inspired to do some research of his own. He hatched a wild idea to stand and paddle a 1 ,200-mile loop from his home in Ottawa all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and back. Starting on the Ottawa River, he'd head east to Montreal, then south to New York City. From there, Dan would head north to Toronto via the Erie Canal, Niagara River, and Lake Ontario. Finally, he'd return to Ottawa via the Rideau Canal.

5:33Wild Ideas Worth Living:So talk to me about the paddle. Like, where did you start? Where did you go? Where did you stop? And how did you even plan this route? How did you train? Tell me about all of it. I didn't really embark on a formal training routine. I'm pretty active in decent shape. I kind of amped things up in the months leading up to my trip. I run. I do some weights. I cross-country ski a lot. So I did my first week as a bit of a proving ground. So I paddled from Ottawa to Montreal over the course of about five or six days just to see, can I do 30 miles a day for a few days steady and camp and do the journalism I wanted to do and continue that kind of day after day?

6:14And yeah, it kind of worked. So when I began, you know, I just kind of set out and I had a bit of a schedule because I set up interviews along the route. So I had people I wanted to meet and I kind of would give people windows. You know, I'll be in Beacon, New York within these two or three days. Can you meet me there? And then as I would get closer to a place, I would be in touch with folks and kind of agree on a day and a time and a place to meet. So I did have a bit of a schedule to keep. So my one kind of regret is that maybe if things were more open, I could have had bigger days, smaller days, kind of followed more serendipitous opportunities along the way.

6:54But I wanted to do the journalism. And as I write in the book, normal people have schedules to keep, so I couldn't keep people waiting. But yeah, I just kind of went and, you know, tried to stick more or less to my schedule. There were a lot of surprises and changes along the way, but it more or less worked.

7:11Wild Ideas Worth Living:In June 2023, Dan set out on a stand-up paddle expedition. After the first week on the water, he realized he could tackle more than 20 miles a day and still have time to interview people and take notes. But in order to cover that much distance, Dan had to fill up on calories, travel as light as he could, and use the wind to his advantage.

7:38Wild Ideas Worth Living:How many miles did you actually paddle a day? Probably average 20, 25 miles a day. I think my biggest day was about 40 miles with a bit of help from tidal current on the Hudson. That was a long day. But because you're standing, because you can shift around, because the majority of the movement relies on your core, on the bigger, strong muscles, it's sustainable, right? I could not canoe for 10, 12, 14 hours, but I can and have paddleboarded for 10, 12, 14 hours. What did you do for food? Where did you put your – did you take a computer with you? Like how did you – No laptop, just a phone. and I'm an old school notepad.

8:15So a lot of notepads and then I would mail them home when I had filled a bunch of them up.

8:20Wild Ideas Worth Living:You trusted the mail to like keep your notes? Yeah, I know. That is crazy. Yeah, I actually, and I mailed home like extra clothes and stuff because I realized it was hot. I did not need long underwear, you know, in July in New York state. So I ended up mailing stuff home as well. I brought freeze dried meals. So I had something no matter where I ended up, as long as I had water. I brought a lot of energy bars and shakes. But as you know from paddle boarding, you burn a lot of calories. So I was hungry all the time. And because it was so hot and because the temperature inside a dry bag is roasting, even the stuff that I would take on a hiking trip, like dried sausage or hard cheese, I didn't want to risk it melting and going rancid in the sauna in my dry bag.

9:05But because my route goes through really populated places, there were cities and towns everywhere. So there was restaurants, there were supermarkets. And if I was staying in or near a town, depending on the night, I might eat my freeze-dried meal or I might walk to a restaurant. And I would just, I'm 5 '5", I'm a small guy, but I would order the biggest thing on the menu and eat all of it and then go to the gas station next door and buy half a dozen donuts and a couple of ice cream sandwiches and eat that too. And I would still be hungry when I went to bed. So I was just eating all the time, everything, everywhere.

9:39Wild Ideas Worth Living:Where would you sleep? Did you sleep in a tent on the side of the shore? Would you find a hotel? Mostly tenting. So I lightweight tent. But you were in cities. So like, how did you just pull up on the shore and camp? On some of the waterways, like the Erie Canal, at lock stations, paddlers and cyclists are allowed to camp and they have drinking water and bathrooms. So that's all I need. Because I was doing journalism, I talked to folks in advance about potential places to stay. And, you know, if you call up a marina or a maritime museum or a nonprofit and say, hey, I'm paddling through. I want to talk to somebody from your organization about how you relate to and connect with water.

10:18They're A, going to agree to an interview most likely. And then if I say, you know where I can camp, often they would say, well, you can camp on our lawn or you can camp here. So I camped at a lot of marinas, which are really accommodating and have showers, which is really, really nice. But I would talk to people. There was always somebody walking their dog or fishing. I would say, hey, I'm paddling through on a long trip. I need someone to camp. Do you think I'll have any trouble camping here? And usually people said, yeah, you should be fine.

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11:39Wild Ideas Worth Living:That's REI.com slash MasterCard dash podcast. Terms apply.

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12:50Wild Ideas Worth Living:In June 2023, journalist Dan Rubenstein strapped 50 pounds of camping gear to a stand-up paddleboard and pushed off from shore in Ottawa, Canada. Stand-up paddleboarding is a very exposed sport. If it rains, there's nowhere to hide. And if there's lightning, you're a target. The tiniest bit of wind can make a big difference in how quickly you move. Not to mention, conditions can change in an instant.

13:19Wild Ideas Worth Living:So what was the biggest day you did, like mileage-wise? It was July 4th. I was at a hotel in Troy, New York, and I just stopped myself at the breakfast buffet and then hit the Hudson River at dawn. And I had a couple of marinas where I could have spent that night, but I was enjoying the ride. Sun came out, got really hot. The water was clean, so I swam every 20 minutes. And I just kind of kept going and going and going and stopped in a town, got a burger at like supper time and realized that I could probably get to Catskill, New York, to another marina where the owner had said, yeah, you can stay here, no problem.

13:54So it was probably like eight, nine o 'clock. It was getting dark. There were fireworks, you know, in towns on the shore. And then I realized that some of what I thought were fireworks was actually lightning. And there was a big thunderstorm kind of bearing down on me from the north. And I had to really bust it the last mile or so and got to this marina and got to a dock, used my leash to tie the board up. And I left all my gear on it because I thought it could blow away if I stripped it down and ran into the nearest building. And it turned out it was the bar. It was closing, the bartender said.

14:28But I saw a few folks still finishing their drinks. So she gave me a beer and I chatted with a few of the locals until the storm blew through and then set up my tent and had a very good sleep.

14:41Wild Ideas Worth Living:Those unexpected moments were some of the best parts of Dan's trip. He enjoyed the interviews he'd scheduled with researchers and conservationists, but he ended up being more moved by the chance encounters. It was always fascinating to discover what was around the next bend.

15:02A moment that I write about and talk about a fair bit is we're paddling hard, head down. There was a campground, like an actual campground where I was going to spend the night, And I just kind of wanted to get there, set up my tent, take a shower, have some food, go to sleep. And I heard somebody yell, take a break, have a beer. And I looked over my shoulder and there was a marina and there was a group of people on the back of their boat hanging out. And my first thought was, I'm just going to keep going and, you know, give them a wave. But I was like, no, you know, why not? Why not take a break, have a beer?

15:32I'm only a mile from where I want to be. And I went over and it was a guy named Matt Donahue and his wife and son and some friends of theirs from the UK. and they helped me up into the boat. And we just had this amazing, amazing conversation. And they asked me so many questions about my trip. They were so curious. They were so joyful and supportive of somebody who was doing something weird just because he kind of wanted to do it. And then they told me about their lives and their community. And the two kind of anecdotes that I really love from that encounter was Matt told me that I was about halfway through the area at that point.

16:06So I had another like 175 miles to go. and he kind of, I think he sensed that I was tired and looking kind of weary and disheveled. And he told me that he used to be a member of the U.S. Navy Seabees and the Seabees are this elite kind of construction battalion that will go and build bridges and buildings and roads and do things that have to be done in difficult situations. And he said their motto is the difficult takes time, the impossible a little longer. And that kind of became a bit of a mantra for me, paddling into the wind, into the current. If it's difficult, it's going to take time. But if it's impossible, it's going to take a little bit longer.

16:43And then when I was leaving, I was hopping down on my board. He gave me a beer for the road. And then Matt and I hugged. And it wasn't just, you know, this is two middle-aged men who had been talking for like maybe an hour and a half at most. And it wasn't kind of awkward, one-arm, back-patting. It was a real emotional hug. And the thing that sticks in my mind from that experience is like, where else the two middle-aged dudes who've just met hug like that, right? I mean, it can happen in different places, different ways. But there was something about meeting him in that context that led to a connection.

17:15And I don't know if he feels the same way at this point two years later, but it felt really real.

17:20Wild Ideas Worth Living:I really love this conversation because my best friends I've met through surfing. I had to go to the ER last week. My mom had pneumonia and she's a little older. And when I got there, I knew the ER nurse because we had paddle battled for a wave and then like made fast friends. I was like, okay, I'm not going to be this guy's enemy. He can surf really well. I'll make him my friend. Found out he was an ER nurse and he was the first guy I saw in the ER. And it's really interesting. I know you got to meet with some really cool indigenous communities on your paddle. Can you tell me about that? Yeah.

17:52So towards the end of the first leg of my journey, just before I paddled into downtown Montreal, all, I crossed the St. Lawrence River on a calm day to a Mohawk community called Ganawhage. And Ganawhage, the name means by the rapids. It's always been there on the water. And in the 1950s, when the St. Lawrence Seaway was built to facilitate shipping from the ocean to the Great Lakes, it basically was bulldozed through Ganawhage's front yard, disturbing their connection to the river. And I spent time with a few folks there, and it was just really inspiring. One were people at a local paddling club.

18:24And they were kind of asserting their right to be on the water, something their ancestors had always done. So it just, it struck me how beautiful and important it is for community and for kids to have an opportunity to do things like that. And then the other guy I spent a lot of time with was he worked for the local environmental department. And when the seaway was built, a lot of the rocks and rubble from excavation were basically dumped onto a few little islands to make one big island. this kind of arid, dry place. And the community has restored it and renaturalized it. And they're just kind of putting the finishing touches on this major multi-year project.

19:00And it now has habitat for native flora and fauna. There's beaches for swimming. There's boat launches. There's a bike path. There's benches. And they've taken this colonial imposition and turned it around into this beautiful, healthy place. And I just, I really love that idea of something you've been dealt with, this kind of raw hand you've been dealt, and turning it around and turning it into a positive thing.

19:29Wild Ideas Worth Living:What about the Statue of Liberty when you paddled around that? That must have been pretty wild. Yeah, I mean, that's the money shot, right? Like, you're going to New York City, you've got to go to the Statue of Liberty. I got really lucky on my way into New York where I had been in contact with a paddleboarder, this guy named Paris Montoya, who had paddled from Buffalo to New York City, where he lives. And he gave me some advice. He introduced me to a boat club on the lower Hudson in Manhattan where I could leave my board and gear, which was really helpful. But the day after I got to New York, I went out with Paris, his partner and a friend of theirs, and we circumnavigated the Statue of Liberty.

20:05And the New York Harbor is bonkers, right? Because there's tour boats, there's ferries, there's water taxis, there's police boats, there's barges, everything is flying around really fast. There's big waves, there's wakes, the water's bouncing around. And, you know, I've paddled in a lot of cities, but never in a place as active as that. So the group I was with, they knew the water. Two of them are licensed guides. They had radios, so they were communicating with the ferry captains. But we went out and then we, yeah, we got to the statue and circumnavigated it pretty quickly. And, you know, I wanted to kind of linger and reflect on the immigrant experience because that's my family story in North America.