BAY SPRINGS, Miss. — When the light of a new day awakens Peter Frank, he settles his focus on getting into his canoe. Come late afternoon, as the setting sun draws low, he thinks about getting out of it. In between? Lots of paddling. Lots of it. That’s not a problem, though. In fact, it’s a goal — one welcomed by the participant.
The Great Loop, as it is known among adventurers, is a rough oval involving both manmade and natural waterways. It encompasses the eastern portion of the United States, running clockwise from the Great Lakes, over to and down the East Coast, around Florida, west to Mobile Bay, up the Mobile and Tombigbee Rivers, up the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway and then on to the Tennessee, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in that order. The entire ring covers more than 5,000 miles. At 24, Frank is set to become the youngest person ever to complete the loop solo in any sort of craft. The fact he is doing it both in a canoe and against the current is a deliberate choice on his part. Doing things differently, after all, is just what he wanted to do.
More than 400 days ago, Frank set out from a public beach near Escanaba, Mich., near his parents’ home. The youngest of four kids, Frank spent his childhood in the section of the state that lies north of Wisconsin by Lake Michigan. He is the son of a logger, a lifelong outdoorsman and an Eagle Scout. He will be 24 when he completes the loop in a few weeks. He was 22 when his task began. He’s been traveling by canoe and living on the land continuously ever since. It is rugged and difficult and hard, which is exactly what he wants it to be.
“For me, life is about the simple things,” Frank said. “Sunlight and exercise. I didn’t have any inclination to sports or consumerism. I wasn’t interested in buying things. I just liked living in a tent and breathing free.”
He was 14 when an accident nearly claimed his life and, for some time, that life and its mobility were up for grabs. Once he’d firmly reclaimed both, he decided to make his life what he wanted it to be. The year he was 14 he was run over by a car in an incident that shattered vertebrae and left him immobile. The 18 months that followed saw him progress from a wheelchair to crutches to foot, re-learning how to walk and figuring out what to do once he did. It’s an experience that left him changed.
“I got to the point, during my recovery, where I felt very deeply about making every day count,” he said. “I got a second chance in life, and that has made me consider life very differently, in a very different way. Many people look back with a great deal of regret at how their life was spent. I decided to make sure I didn’t do the same.”
Prior to his accident, his favorite activity had been riding his unicycle — not necessarily the safest hobby for a man who now has rods supporting key parts of his spine. He was told to take the safer option of never riding a unicycle again. After some consideration, he selected chose differently — he rode a unicycle 2,400 miles across the United States as a fundraising effort supporting a charity that had helped during his recovery.
“When I went home after my time on the road, everyone in my home town was right in the same place where I’d left them,” said Frank, who was then 19. “It didn’t make sense to me that they were unchanged, and that they lived as though things never changing was normal.”
What was, by then, normal for Frank was continuous exploration and discovery. What next caught his imagination’s eye was the Mississippi River. He enjoyed canoeing and thought he would like to canoe the river’s full length. Furthermore, he also decided he didn’t want to do it wearing “plastic,” so he sewed for himself a set of clothes, choosing fabrics and styles of the sort favored by sailors in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thus attired, he paddled the Mississippi River dressed as a pirate.
“My mom was really worried about me, especially wearing those clothes,” he said. “She thought I’d be taken advantage of and bullied.”
Nonetheless, he spent five months covering the length of the Mississippi, from its most northerly navigable waters to the sea.
When he got to New Orleans, he wasn’t yet ready for his adventure to end, so he sold his canoe, bought a bicycle and headed east along the coast, fishing with a cast net, eating what he caught, camping wherever he was when each succeeding day took its leave.
That trek took him along the coast from Louisiana to South Carolina.
Since then, Frank has undertaken other quests, some by water, some by land, all lived close to the ground. Provided travels go well, he’ll complete his current undertaking some time in the next couple months. Meanwhile, each day continues, both much like the last and unlike any other.
What is next for Frank after this?
“I don’t know,” he said. “Isn’t this enough?”
With the goals only to enjoy fresh air and sunshine, it is.
Learn more about this man and his story at www.whereispeterfrank.com.
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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 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
