How it all started

Karen and Maggie met in Chautauqua County in 1993.  Nearly ten years later, Maggie told Karen of her dream to paddle a canoe from Cassadaga Creek, just 1 1/4 miles from the home she shared with her husband and daughter, to the Conewango Creek and then the Allegheny River and the Ohio River and finally ending up in New Orleans.

Maggie initially thought of doing this in one long, multi-month trip. We started talking about how we could do this together.  We both had children still in school, supportive husbands but not so supportive that they were in favor of us leaving for three or four months, and jobs that did not provide for lengthy vacations paddling down rivers.  So we decided to start in small segments.

It took us eight years to get to Pittsburgh, PA.  Our ability to carve time out from our schedules was hampered when Maggie and her family moved to Santa Fe, NM.  However, we still made it on the river almost yearly.  In 2010, Maggie returned to the east coast living in MA for a few years and then settling in West Windsor, VT, a town abutting the Connecticut River. Karen continues to live in Chautauqua County.  Even without thousands of miles separating us, it is still a challenge to arrange our journeys.  The farther down the rivers we get, the harder it is to plan the trip and the longer we feel we have to be out in order to take full advantage of all the effort that goes into the planning.

In 2011, we entered the Ohio River while at or near flood stage and in 2018 we entered the Mississippi River to the applause of about 20 close friends and family members who travelled to Fort Defiance to cheer the end of that part of the journey. While the original plan was to aim for New Orleans, we decided that getting to the Mississippi was a feat unto itself. Perhaps sometime down the way we will travel by river boat with our spouses the rest of the way to New Orleans.

Other rivers, closer to home, have called our names. So in 2019 we started at the headwaters of the Susquehanna and plan to arrive at the mouth in the Chesapeake Bay in 2021. The Connecticut River is calling to us in 2022 and we hope to “paddle through” on that one, spending three or more weeks on the river at a time with stops for relaxing and replenishing. Both of these rivers have amazing history and gorgeous land around them.

In all cases, the journeys have become the goal. The destinations are only the excuse for the journey. Completing the Ohio River, Maggie wrote these words which reflect our feelings each time we head out.

Reflection on the water

The best things in life emerge in their own time. 

Time is a manufactured entity when we are trying to force something to happen on our terms.

Time is a spiritual entity when we cannot explain its bounds,

when it passes by, leaving in its wake amazing beauty and memories.

We didn’t start our journey down creeks and streams knowing for sure how it would end.

We didn’t know from day to day where we would sleep.

We definitely didn’t know the grace that the river and its people and beauty would offer us.

We did not go expecting anything other than to aim for a distant goal.

We may have stopped the whole dream if we had expected it to happen on our terms.

The wind, the cold, the heat, the mud, the rain, the wind, of yes, that wind would have and could have stopped us.

Sometimes our timeline did not work as we hoped and yet we paddled.

Sometimes our lives did not give us the time to get on the river. 

So we paddled the next year…or even two years later. But paddle we did.

And before we knew it, we had reached our destination, more open and wiser than we started,

knowing, with newfound clarity, that life is not about the destination nor the goal but the journey.