ANNAPOLIS, Md.—Peter Frank has paddled from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in June to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland this month in his 1982 Sawyer Loon decked canoe, but he’s still got a long way to go.
The 23-year-old is about a quarter of the way on his planned journey of roughly 6,000 miles to complete the Great Loop route. This continuous watercourse includes part of the Atlantic and Gulf intracoastal waterways, the Great Lakes, part of Canadian Heritage Canals, and inland U.S. rivers.
For Frank, the voyage is largely a way to express his gratitude for still being alive and having the ability to take on the physical challenge, almost a decade after a car accident left him with 14 broken bones and nearly paralyzed. He had been hiding in a pile of leaves to surprise a friend when a carful of teens drove through the pile without knowing he was there….