Crossing America by canoe: 2 years, 22 rivers, 7,500 miles
A man in a red canoe paddled down the Hudson River, over ferry wakes and past the skyscrapers of downtown Manhattan and into Upper New York Bay. The canoeist, Neal Moore, 50, of no fixed abode, threw his arms up in the air in celebration and relief, as he finally paddled into New York Harbor on Tuesday afternoon.
His 7,500-mile journey from coast to coast was finally ending. He said it took him 22 months of paddling through 22 states and as many rivers. He said he stopped in more than 100 towns and cities and estimated he may have met several thousand people. Moore began in the Columbia River in Oregon, crossed several northern states and traveled down to the Gulf Coast by last winter. By early 2021, he was headed back up to the Great Lakes and to New York state, where he followed the Erie Canal to the Hudson River and ultimately to the Statue of Liberty.
“I felt like I followed that light shining all the way across the country,” he said later. “My journey was one of illumination. So to finally see that beacon up close, that flame of liberty, after seeing it in so many people I met across this land, it was overwhelming.”
Traveling by river became metaphoric: Just as rivers connect towns and cities, Moore said, he began exploring connections between people often separated by race, class and political stripe.
“I wanted to see the country up close and personal at this interesting time, with the pandemic and all the political strife, to find out what it actually means to be American today,” he said.
Inspired by the travelogues of Mark Twain, Moore set out to roam “community to community” and write about the people he met. He posted regularly on Instagram and wrote lengthier takes on the laptop he kept in a waterproof bag in his canoe.
The trip — he often paddled more than 20 miles a day — was a way to survey from water level a country facing a divisive election and, as became increasingly clear once the trip began, a growing pandemic.
He grew up in Los Angeles and lost both his mother and his only sibling while still a teenager. By 19, he had moved to South Africa and wound up living largely there and in Asia for three decades, visiting the U.S. only sporadically, including two other extensive canoe trips. Being a longtime expatriate gave him a fresh perspective for the journey, he said.
Into his 16-foot red Old Town Penobscot canoe he loaded a tent, jugs of water, a bucket of freeze-dried meals, as well as a sheaf of navigational charts and a marine radio.
He set out from Astoria, Ore., on Feb. 9, 2020, and paddled up the Columbia River, hastening his way out of Oregon and Washington just before both states locked down their borders because of the pandemic.
He then paddled the Snake River for five days and didn’t see another person, he said, and traveled through Idaho and Montana to the Continental Divide, then crossed it by using a set of attachable wheels he carried for transporting the canoe along the side of the road when waterways did not connect or proved unnavigable.
He headed down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers to the Gulf to avoid the northern freeze, and by early 2021 was headed back north up the Ohio and Allegheny and other rivers to Lake Erie, bound for New York City.