Somewhere inside all of us hides a quiet daydream of running away. It’s been there since the first time we read Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet” or were told to sit still in school.
It’s what whispers to us when we glance at the photos in Outdoor Life and imagine standing on the side of a mountain many broad valleys away. We go there in our minds when we need to, or when we can. Occasionally, we organize our life to whip through the realm of Total Freedom and, quite furtively, dart out a toe.
This land is a real and tangible place, though, rock hard and life-supporting. I know so because I’ve met someone for whom it is their home address.
Peter Frank, notionally of Escanaba, Mich., but actually of Anywhere, Earth, is as close to a real, live Lost Boy as surely might possibly be. The Lost Boys, characters in J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play “Peter Pan,” are known to live far away in Neverland, and that’s generally where Frank can be found. That, as it turns out, is just where the boy wants to be.
Today, Neverland lies somewhere along the upper Mississippi River, where Frank is heading upstream under his own power – a 24-year-old traveler in a 70-year-old racing canoe. His quest to complete the Great Loop is set to wrap sometime in the coming weeks. There’s no telling what he may do next, but Frank has never been one for looking too far ahead, really. He’s a one-adventure-at-a-time kind of guy. It’s just that his adventures are somewhat beyond what might be called “grand.”
From a unicycle ride all the way across the country and canoe trips down the Mississippi, to a hitchhiking jaunt across the Desert Southwest and many smaller journeys galore, the days of his life reach the scope they do because they occupy every ounce of his living.
Presently, and that word is even more apt than it might seem, he’s focused on paddling his canoe. That’s where he is, what he is, and who he is. As much as the human mind might be, he is present in every single moment each day. He’s been more than 400 days about it on this particular journey.
A life-defining injury befell him when he was 14 and, upon recovering, he found himself changed in ways far beyond the physical. Unicycle treks, other padding voyages, bicycle journeys Homeric in length – these aren’t, for him, exceptions for his life or isolated escapes from the mundane, they are what he wants to do and how he wants to live, and so that is the way he will be.
You may rightly think of Frank as lucky and blessed, but you shouldn’t think of him as a spoiled scion reveling in infinite monetary wealth. His parents are Regular People, and he lives day by day mainly all on his own. People do occasionally give him a few dollars, but mostly he lives off the land, purifying his own water, eating the fish he can catch and making his own provisions by hand.
There’s no doubting he is quite wealthy, though, it just rings for him in other, simpler ways. What he loves most about being alive is breathing fresh air, feeling the warm sunshine, listening to the lap and ripple of flowing water. In those columns, his balance sheet could not possibly be more full. It’s wealth we often overlook.
“There’s a lot to be done and a whole life to get there,” Frank offered.
That sounds like a wealthy man to me.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected].
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
