This tale took me by surprise. It’s a non-fiction modern mystery about an unconventional traveler who’s lasting impact on those he meets along his way becomes poignantly clear.
Dick Conant had paddled his canoe thousands of miles along American waterways until by providence, on Labor Day 2014 he skirted past author Ben McGrath’s Hudson River home in Piermont, New York.
McGrath, like dozens he would come to meet, found something about Dick Conant and his self-directed quest to be unforgettable. They met a few times before Conant continued on his latest endeavor; to canoe from Canada to Naples, Florida.
The book includes a map of the many waterways Dick Conant navigated throughout his life, as well as photos of the man and his own journals. During his exploits, he took on the famous and the lesser known bodies of water and didn’t limit himself to just rivers. He traveled The Ohio, The Allegheny, The Mississippi, The Yellowstone, The Missouri, The Snake, The Holston River, The Timberidge River, The Mobile River, Lake Pontchartrain, The Gulf InterCoastal Waterway, Matagorda Bay, and ultimately The Hudson and Chesapeake Bay.
There is a quiet power to the story and I’m able to imagine the same was true of Dick Conant.