Despite all the warnings, my traverse to Kahnawà:ke is calm and quiet, other than a small outcrop teeming with cormorants and a steady stream of planes overhead. It’s a welcome contrast to the previous day, when I encountered a strong crosswind from the northeast and had to paddle on my right side for nearly three hours during a gruelling slog across Lake of Two Mountains from Oka to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. But that’s part of the challenge when you’re on a paddleboard and your body acts like a sail. Sometimes the wind is your friend. Often, it’s not. Which is fine — because what’s wrong, amid our culture of instant gratification, with going somewhere the slow, hard way? 

Closing in on Kahnawà:ke, I skirt the shipping channel in the St. Lawrence Seaway and enter the marshy bay between the reserve and Tekakwitha Island. The island was created in the 1950s when rock and clay from seaway construction were dumped onto a nearshore archipelago, restricting access to the river that’s the lifeblood of the community. Reaching the end of the bay, I dock at the Onake Paddling Club and phone Robert Rice, who picks me up and drives me back to his comfortable guesthouse on the edge of town. “Make yourself at home,” Rice says as he helps carry my gear to an upstairs bedroom. “There’s juice in the fridge and a hot tub in the backyard.”

The rest of my journey followed a pretty steady rhythm: 10 to 12 hours of paddling each day; stunning sunrises and sunsets at the marinas, lock stations and small-town visitor centres where I usually camped; incongruous urban and industrial skylines when I came to a city; and inspiring interactions with just about everybody I met. 

My route took me down the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, Champlain Canal and Hudson River into Manhattan. I paddled west long the Erie Canal to Buffalo, then down the Niagara River and around the western tip of Lake Ontario to Toronto. Then I followed the north shore of Lake Ontario to Kingston and up the Rideau Canal system back to Ottawa. I did a few transfers over land (bussing up the Hudson to the Erie, getting a lift from friends around Niagara Falls), caught a couple short rides on the water, including an afternoon aboard a tugboat, and took breaks after reaching Montreal and Toronto. Throughout my trip, spending time with activists, athletes, business owners, limnologists, museum directors, canal volunteers and others whose lives revolve around water, I saw the passion and dedication that goes into protecting and carving out public access to blue space.

In Schuylerville, New York, I spend a rainy morning touring Hudson Crossing Park with Kate Morse, executive director of the non-profit that cleaned up this unofficial garbage dump island between the Champlain Canal and Hudson River and created an oasis with butterfly gardens, whimsical sculptures, secret seating areas and free programming that enthrals children and adults alike. The park’s role as a community gathering place has helped revitalize Schuylerville, Morse tells me, explaining that the village struggled in recent decades but is now vibrant and healthy. 

Two hundred kilometres downstream in the small city of Newburgh, New York — recently called one of the most dangerous places in the United States because of its violent crime rate — I take another tour with Duane Martinez. The land trust he works for, Scenic Hudson, has launched a program dedicated to improving access to nature in three cities with large Black and Latino populations. In Newburgh, Martinez shows me a project with great potential: the grassroots-led development of a trail along a once polluted creek to help connect residents to local waterways. It’s a convenient destination for people who might not have the time or means to travel to places where they can tap into the therapeutic power of the outdoors.