six stories of adventure

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NOVEMBER 24–30, 2016

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VOL. 41 NO. 47

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MADISON, WISCONSIN

They lived to tell the tale SIX STORIES OF ADVENTURE

MICHAEL HIRSHON

Paddleboarding into the wild BY CAT H E R I N E CA P E L L A RO

ISTHMUS.COM NOVEMBER 24–30, 2016

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ince he was a child, Andy Elkins’ extended family has taken many excursions into the untrammeled wilderness between northern Minnesota and Ontario known as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It’s a tradition he carried on as a leader of his son Ethan’s Boy Scout troop and with his wife, Kathryn, and daughter Emily. But everything changed for Elkins in 2003 when his car flipped and rolled near Monroe and he suffered a traumatic brain injury. Less than a year later, he hit his head installing a soda fountain while working for Coca-Cola Company. “I had serious balance and cognitive speed issues, nausea. And I ended up having visual triggers from that,” says Elkins, who grew up and and lives in New Glarus. These triggers — including fast motion, bright lights, loud sounds, snow and flashing lights — were everywhere. Elkins received a disability diagnosis and went through “all kinds of therapy,” but his recovery reached a plateau. Instead of being an intrepid adventurer, he had to stop working, and he couldn’t drive. In 2015, Elkins finally found some relief in a study at the UW-Madison’s Tactile Communication Neurorehabilitation Laboratory (TCNL) where he was treated with a device that retrains brain waves called a Portable Neuromodulation Stimulator. After completing the study, Elkins felt good enough to revive a lifetime dream — crossing the “border route” of

the Boundary Waters. This journey involves 200 miles of wilderness travel, traversing five rivers, 43 lakes and more than 10 miles of portage. It’s a challenge few people undertake. And when they do, they usually travel in canoes. But Elkins set a high bar for himself: He wanted to use a standup paddleboard, which he had found to be a helpful addition to his physical therapy regime. He began soliciting donations of gear and money and also set up a small charity called Silver Paddles as a fundraiser for the UW lab that helped him. “I was inspired to give back, pay forward,” says Elkins. Then he began assembling a support team that included his son Ethan, now 22, who lives in Whitewater. On July 30, after practice runs in Governor Dodge State Park, the six-person team departed for a 14-day journey from Crane Lake to Grand Portage, Minnesota. The logistics were daunting. Andy and Ethan captained the paddleboards (sturdy inflatables from Red Canoe), while the other four shared two canoes. In addition to the watercraft, they needed to carry 14 days of food and supplies, including fuel for stoves and rain gear. They had to “double portage” because of the weight of the packs and watercraft. “It was a pretty serious challenge,” says Elkins. “What we ended up doing was taking our gear 500 feet, stopping, resting, picking up and taking it another 500 feet and leapfrogging that way.”

And so they continued, across lakes, rivers and forests. Elkins’ symptoms, triggered by playing a card game, held up the expedition for a half-day. One of the most harrowing moments on the trip was being caught between two fast-moving thunderstorms. Elkins was surprised to find that the paddleboards were better off in high waves than the canoes. Elkins says his brain injury has reduced his ability to multitask, and this journey tested his mental and physical skills in equal measure. In the Boundary Waters, there’s really no turning back. “You have to designate your entry point, but then they don’t track you after that. You’re on your own,” says Elkins. “There are no low-flying airplanes allowed and no means of emergency exits — that is what scares away most people.” “I think we all had questions if we’d make it, including myself,” he says. Most stressful, he says, was that he would likely be “the person that would cause the failure of the crossing.” The trip ended in mid-August, and one of the things that pleased Elkins the most is completing his “Mount Everest” with his son: “I couldn’t have been more proud of him or happier to take him. He was excellent company and also knew the most about my condition and the most about the Boundary Waters. He was a great asset. It was a big bonding time.”

Sailing ’round the world

BY JUDITH DAVIDOFF crewmates went to the rescue, eventually transferring all of the people from the fishing boat to Ladybug. They stayed aboard for four days before transferring to the Fezzano. Reis says his crew later contacted the U.S. Coast Guard to learn the fate of those rescued; they had suspected the boat was illegally heading to the U.S., and they were right. The rescued men were eventually sent back to the Bahamas. At the time of the rescue, Reis and his crewmates had been at sea for about two years. It was June 2002. Reis was born in the United States but grew up in Rio de Janeiro. His father was from Brazil, his mother from West Allis. The two met in college in Wisconsin. Reis says his mother followed his father back to Brazil after graduating from college, though she did not know a word of Portuguese. He credits his adventurous spirit to them.

NOVEMBER 24–30, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM

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arajo Reis, his girlfriend, Laurie, and another couple set out from Madison on a 37-foot catamaran to sail around the world. They were looking for adventure. Along the way they saved some lives. The crew first heard about a boat in distress at about 1:30 a.m. “It started as a crackle,” recalls Reis, who was sleeping in the cabin of “Ladybug” when word about an ailing boat came in on the scanner. “As we got closer, it got clearer.” They soon learned the disabled vessel was a 48-foot wood fishing boat from Haiti with eight people on board. The boat, anchored just off Lobos Cay, Bahamas, was taking on water. A freighter in the area, Fezzano, was too large to approach the boat. After a couple of hours, Reis and his

“Between the two of them, that’s where I got the bug,” he says. Reis returned to Wisconsin for college at UW-Madison, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering. He learned to sail with Hoofers and fell in love with the sport. He soon became a sailing instructor, graduating to larger and larger boats. He found freedom in sailing, especially at night: “Everything gets quieter, the senses get more acute. The stars come out. I thought, ‘this is wonderful. Who gets to do this?’” In 1999 he and some friends decided to sail around the world. They spent a year saving enough money to buy a boat (they bought and later sold the boat for $100,000) and finance two years at sea. They spent the first year in the Caribbean and sailed most of the rest of the world in the second year. Most of their adventures were less dramatic than a boat rescue, involving things like navigating customs and immigration in the Third World countries where they stopped. But that’s where the magic often happened. Reis says it was not unusual to show up in a village and be invited to whatever wedding was going on. “Those are the days you are going to remember,” he says. They also ended up having many guests on board. “We invited 400 different, complete strangers on the boat,” says Reis, who kept a log of visitors. “It was a great day for them, and for us.” He says his travels put a lot of things into perspective, including the pursuit of material goods. He says you don’t necessarily need great wealth to pursue a sailing adventure, but making certain choices can help. He doesn’t own a car, for instance. Reis advises those with adventure dreams not to wait. He and his friends were in their 30s at the time, but most of the sailors they met were retired. “Invariably the vast majority said they wished they had done it at our age,” he says. “It’s an experience you take for a lifetime. It changes your attitude forever.” “Those were happy years from life,” he adds. “You quickly realize maybe the money is not as important for quality of life. The notion of accumulation of wealth is good for business, but not necessarily for your life.”

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An intercontinental love adventure

ISTHMUS.COM NOVEMBER 24–30, 2016

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BY DYLAN BROGAN

omewhere high above the Atlantic Ocean, Jess Schuknecht played out the scene in his head for the umpteenth time: He’d arrive at London’s Heathrow airport early Sunday morning. Traverse the English countryside up to Coventry by bus. Then, show up — unannounced and in a foreign land — at Sarah Schwartz’s 21st birthday party. It was a romantic gesture so grand, so completely insane, it would surely sweep her off her feet. Jess spent the rest of the flight putting together a scrapbook professing his love. It contained ticket stubs, pictures and other mementos from the magical summer he and Sarah had just spent together. “I don’t know what sparked the idea. But I remember thinking, this is going to be awesome,” says Schuknecht, recalling the daring scheme. The year was 2002. Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” was blowing up the summer pop charts. Jess, 25 at the time, was a hotshot at Comedysportz Madison. Sarah was a house manager at the improv comedy club. It wasn’t long before they were hanging out nearly every day. “We had a really good friendship and were pretty much inseparable. We liked the same stuff. We just had a great time together,” says Schuknecht. “At some point, it seemed like it was becoming something more.” Jess and Sarah saw movies together. Shared countless meals. Went to Chicago to see concerts. They even traveled to Spring Green to see Shakespeare. As mild June days slid into hot August nights, Jess’ affection for Sarah grew., “People definitely thought we were dating,” says Schuknecht. “We were spending so much time together, it was like we were a couple. There just wasn’t any physical component to the relationship.” When fall arrived, Sarah left to study abroad for a semester at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England.

But Jess wasn’t about to let a few thousand miles stand in his way. Barely a month after Sarah’s departure, he used a credit card to buy a $600 plane ticket for a 60-hour trip he’d never forget. “All I had was a backpack, a change of clothes and a few gifts,” says Schuknecht. The plan seemed kismet. On Sarah’s birthday, her beloved Washington Redskins were playing the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field — just 45 minutes away from Jess’ hometown of Chilton. He knew through email exchanges that Sarah would be celebrating at Varsity, the only pub in town airing the American football match. “Before I left, I had a Redskins jersey with her last name and the number 21 made up,” says Schuknecht. “Kind of perfect, right?” He arrived in Coventry exhausted but with enough time to recover with a quick nap. The sun was setting over the West Midlands when he awoke. He changed into his other pair of clothes. The hour was upon him. After slipping in undetected, Jess waited in a booth while a waitress delivered the Redskins jersey to Sarah. Attached was a card saying another surprise awaited her in the back of the bar. From the other side of the pub, Jess saw a look of disbelief come across Sarah’s face as she read the note. “She started walking around, not knowing what she’s even looking for. And it takes her a minute before she notices me,” says Schuknecht. “She stops. Sees me and it was like her brain couldn’t process it right away. Like, there’s no way I could possibly be in this bar, halfway across the world, where I shouldn’t be.” The shock took a minute to wear off but soon Sarah was introducing Jess to all her new friends. They, too, were astonished that Jess traveled 4,000 miles simply to wish a friend

a happy birthday in the flesh. The Brits raised their pints to Jess with toasts of “Righto” and “Kudos my good man.” All of Sarah’s chums seemed delighted by Jess’ unexpected visit except for Dudley Tredger, who just so happened to be a world-class fencer. Dudley was slated to represent her Majesty at the Commonwealth Fencing Championship the following month in Australia. “When we shook hands, we kind of eyed each other up. It was like we were both saying, ‘I know what’s going on here. You aren’t fooling me,’” says Schuknecht. As Packers running back Ahman Green sprinted up the middle for a 24-yard touchdown, Jess caught Dudley plant a “definitely not just friends” kiss on Sarah. She responded in kind. “He was a pretty boy. And by that, I mean he was prettier than me,” says Schuknecht. After socializing for a few hours, Sarah told Jess she had to head home. She was tired from having watched Dudley dominate the competition in a fencing tournament earlier in the day. It started to rain when Sarah gave Jess a hug goodbye. During the embrace, Sarah discovered the scrapbook Jess had made during the eight hour flight from Chicago to London. It was concealed in the back of his waistband. He had mentally rehearsed presenting the handmade declaration of his love at just the right moment. It was destined to be the final domino that would tip this close friendship into true romance. But after witnessing her necking with a champion fencer, he knew the gift — if not the entire trip — wasn’t such an awesome idea after all. Caught, Jess reluctantly handed her the scrapbook. He then told Sarah, “Maybe hold off reading this until I’ve left the country.”

Have laptop, will travel BY ALLISON GEYER

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Turkey, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and Japan — all while working remotely. When Conley left the States he had a job at a startup called Townsquare, a transactional online real estate company. But the startup soon went under — a distressing turn of events, even under normal circumstances. With his planned income source gone, Conley turned to freelance web design and development to fund his travel. It was enough to keep him afloat, but he quickly learned the difficulty of juggling projects, customer expectations and time zones. “With all the highs came a lot of lows too,” he says. He found comfort com-

miserating with others in the Remote Year group: “Everybody went through something like [I did].” The experience was a bit like a study abroad program for working adults; some of Conley’s favorite moments were the meals he shared with people from other cultures. “We talked about everything — politics, how people treat each other, what does dating look like in other countries, how long do people live with their parents,” he says. “To be able to have those discussions in those settings was amazing.” Conley learned a lot during his Remote Year. There were the tangible lessons — how he prefers to travel, how

to earn a living while abroad, what types of work he prefers — but he also learned how to get over a lingering, guilty feeling that his decision to travel the world was, in some way, selfish. “Am I just indulging myself, or am I doing something larger for other people?” Conley recalls wondering. He reconciled these worries by sharing the experience with his family and friends, encouraging them to make time to explore the world. “Travel is the best form of education,” he says. “I want to share that with people so they understand why I find it so important. Because to some extent, you have to do what you believe in and lead by example.”

NOVEMBER 24–30, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM

ike many millennials, Andrew Conley dreamed of seeing the world after college. So when he graduated from Indiana University in 2010 and landed his first job as a project manager at Epic Systems Inc. — a position that’s nearly 95 percent travel — he was excited to begin his new life on the road. Each week, he packed a carry-on and jetted off to service Epic customers around the country. He was logging thousands of frequent flier miles and visiting exciting cities, but the demanding onsite work schedule didn’t leave much free time to experience the local culture. Conley left Epic in 2013 to serve as executive director of 100state, a downtown Madison coworking space and tech-focused entrepreneurial hub. But he still had an itch to travel. So in 2015 when he heard about a new program called Remote Year, which allows participants to spend 12 months traveling the world while working their regular jobs remotely, he was intrigued by the opportunity. “To me, it sounded like 100state on wheels,” says Conley, 28. “I was really interested in that concept of exploring new ways of working and the freedoms that allow people to be remote — and taking that to the extreme.” Conley was one of more than 25,000 people who applied for a spot in Remote Year’s inaugural cohort and was accepted along with 74 other so-called digital nomads. About half the group were freelancers and entrepreneur-types — the kind of participants Conley expected to see — but the rest came from the “normal corporate community,” he says. Remote Year provides guidance and resources to people with traditional office jobs to help them figure out a way for them to telecommute. The participants pay $5,000 down and a monthly fee of $2,000, and Remote Year takes care of the rest — lodging, workspaces with 24/7 WiFi access, travel between destinations and community activities while on the road. Participants are free to come and go as they please. Conley skipped the first month of the program while he wrapped up his tenure at 100state, then flew out on July 4, 2015, to meet up with the group. (Pro tip: Conley says Independence Day is a great day to find cheap flights.) For the next eight months, he explored Croatia, Slovenia,

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Epic transcendence BY L I N DA FA L K E N ST E I N

ISTHMUS.COM NOVEMBER 24–30, 2016

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ames Mills is a chronicler of outdoor recreation and the environment. His 2014 book The Adventure Gap profiles African American outdoor enthusiasts and reports on the first all-African American ascent of Denali. He’s been a guide and outfitter and participated in everything from mountain climbing to backcountry skiing. Yet Mills, who lives in Madison, says that he makes it a point “to avoid drama. People assume that those who do what might be considered adventure are implicitly putting themselves in danger. I don’t think that’s true.” He acknowledges the element of risk is exactly the point of an “epic adventure” for some, but feels that many times these exploits happen because people are reckless. Nonetheless, Mills has found himself in dicey situations. “I was on a rope team when one of our partners fell into a crevasse. I was at the Grand Canyon and in the middle of the class 4 rapids, one of our oars broke. My wife and I went

climbing for the first time and we had to do a rappel in the dark in the middle of an electrical storm.” These things happen, says Mills, but he objects to the “look-at-how-brave-and-tough-I-am” school of adventure storytelling: “Back in 2013, I got a casting call to be in the Discovery Channel show Naked and Afraid, and I turned them down. It was clear to me they were deliberately trying to make adventure more dangerous than it actually is.” Mills worries that shows like that and Bear Grylls’ Man vs. Wild “dissuade the average person from doing something as simple as going on a high-altitude hike. Because they don’t want to be on the wrong end of a bad situation, like a bear attack.” Mills prefers to remember the first time he saw an unobstructed night sky, on San Bernardino Peak in Southern California. “I was probably about 14 or 15. We had made a long, very arduous hike. It was a very clear night. We’re in our sleeping bags, and I rolled over and looked up, and the sky was so thick

with stars it was almost white. It was one of those clear views of the Milky Way you never get to see because of the light pollution in the city. I could actually see satellites and more shooting stars than I have ever seen in my entire life at one time.” At that altitude, over 10,000 feet, “the clouds were actually below us,” says Mills. “When dawn came, you could see all the other mountain tops also above the clouds. They looked like a series of islands, floating on a sea of white clouds.” On a hike like this, as Mills describes it, “You can actually climb out of the distractions of life.” At high altitudes, where the atmosphere is thinner, visibility is enhanced. “What oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere do to protect us from solar radiation also prevents the beauty of stars from peeking through sometimes. Light and air, two things that are critical for human survival, can actually obstruct some of your ability to see things,” says Mills. “There’s something to be said for having an experience that makes that kind of thing possible.”

Face-to-face with a polar bear BY J O E TA R R

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The end

NOVEMBER 24–30, 2016 ISTHMUS.COM

efore Mali Moore embarked on a 55-day expedition in far northern Canada with seven other women in 2003, she was given a crash course on bear etiquette. Mali and her friends — on a trip organized by Camp Manito-wish in Boulder Junction, where they worked — knew they might see not just black bears and grizzlies, but also the fearsome polar bear. “With polar bears, there’s not really anything you can do,” says Moore. “But we had been taught not to make eye contact with them.” That advice would prove easier said than done. The group started the canoeing trip in Wollaston Lake in northern Saskatchewan. They then traveled down the Cochrane River, the Thlewiaza River, to Nueltin Lake, up the Thetin River, down the Kognac and Tha-anne rivers and finally into Hudson Bay. With their trip almost at an end, the eight had seen only one bear, a grizzly, without incident. Although they were camped on the shore of the Hudson, it was low tide and the water was several miles from their camp. The group set up their tents around their canoes and gear. It was storming and loud, but Moore and her two tent mates heard something outside. “We heard the paddles cling,” Moore says. “We thought it was a fox or something.” One of the women looked outside and saw a bear, but could not tell what kind. When Moore peeked out, there was no doubt. “When you see black bears, it’s darker than dark. When you see a polar bear, it’s this white glow. I said, ‘That’s definitely a polar bear.’ “We yelled to the other tents,” she adds. “The next tent heard us but didn’t believe us. But then they saw the bear as it was walking to our tent.” And then the world’s largest land predator poked its head and front paw inside Moore’s tent, about three feet from the women. All three did exactly what they were told not to do: They looked the bear in the eyes. “You can’t not make eye contact when its head is in the tent. But it didn’t attack.” The bear disappeared from view, but they knew it was nearby. All of the women eventually converged together in one tent. They had a shotgun, but since it was rusted from the salty air, they were unsure

whether it would fire. They began trying to reach help on a satellite phone and a radio. They also fired a flare in the bear’s direction, but he ignored it. For about eight hours, a frightful standoff ensued. Moore feared for the worst. “I really thought somebody is going to die. I didn’t think it would necessarily be me, and I didn’t think it would be all of us, but I thought, there’s no way we can all get out of this.” At one point, Moore had to go to the bathroom, so she huddled just outside the tent. As she relieved herself, she watched the bear. “It almost looked like a human, digging in our bags,” she remembers. “At one point it laid down with its head on the pack like a pillow. It would eat, but always keep an eye on us. And it would circle us.” Moore believes the group’s food, which the bear readily devoured, might have spared them. It was food that didn’t have to be killed. Eventually, two members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrived on four-wheelers. The officers fired warning shots and fireworks, but the bear didn’t budge. Finally, they lit a stick of dynamite and tossed it at the bear. When it blew, the bear appeared stung and it ran away. The officers chased the bear on their ATVs and the bear was soon out of sight. Unable to evacuate the group on two ATVs, the Mounties suggested a safer camping spot. But the women had had enough. Camp Manito-wish back in Wisconsin arranged for a team from Arviat, about 30 miles away, to come get the group. Moore says that all eight women suffered from post-traumatic stress over the incident. She became obsessed with polar bears, and for years felt defined by the encounter. “I don’t understand why nobody got hurt,” she says. She suspects higher powers might have played a role. Her grandmother, who had died years before, had been very involved in Camp Manito-wish. “When I went on this trip, I felt like maybe I was doing it for her. And so her spirit was maybe with me,” she says. “One of the leaders, one of her best friends, had died just before this trip started. So I felt like we were being protected.”

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