Although Joe Zellner and Peggy Gabrielson didn’t kayak 6,100 miles this past year, they had a lot of high adventure and experienced and saw things the great majority of people will never see nor experience. The couple plans to pick up where they left off next June and hopes to finish paddling all five great lakes summer.
Joe Zellner and Peggy Gabrielson ended their quest to paddle all five great lakes in one year earlier than they thought. In a best-case scenario, they would continue their trip until November 1, the start of deer hunting, Joe’s maximum deadline to be back in Cook County.
However, the couple ran into a lot of foul weather shortly after they left Grand Marais on Friday, August 18. Up to that point, they had covered about 2,500 miles in their kayaks.
On their website Peggy posted on September 28 that the couple quit—for now—on September 3, ending their journey at Marathon, Canada. Following a tough two weeks of big waves and bad weather, the decision to call it quits came on September 2.
“It was a rough night, to say the least. In the middle of the night, we had to tie our boats up because we feared they would drift away. We could hear the water getting closer to the tent and even lapping the sides. By six in the morning, we had to get up, we were in the water, a wave washed into the tent, three inches of water inside. We got out and had to pull logs off of Joe’s boat. We moved a log pile so we could move the tent to higher ground and spent yet another day sitting on shore listening to it rain. Wet, cold and not paddling.”
Joe and Peggy began their trip on April 1 from Port Huron, Michigan. The spring was uncommonly cold, wet and windy. In a sign of what was to come, Peggy said, “We missed about two weeks because of bad weather.”
Just when the weather started to warm up, Joe’s sister, who was driving Joe’s camper truck and providing support, was involved in an accident and his vehicle was totaled. Their goal to paddle all five great lakes, a distance of about 6,100 miles, was in serious jeopardy. They were covering 30-35 miles per day when the weather allowed, but at the end, they were paddling 10 to 24 miles per day.
“We made a decision to call a stop to our paddling for the season. We are not making progress we would like to make, the weather is worsening, and we have a lot of totally inaccessible areas coming up.
“The fact that we had our truck totaled and lost five weeks of paddling, the entire month of June. We have lost at least three weeks to weather-related shore time. This time of the year the lake is getting less and less predictable and the weather is not any help either. It’s just foolish to take chances when we know we can’t reach our goal. At this time we can accomplish more at home,” Peggy wrote.
The last day Joe and Peggy navigated 21 miles using GPS in the fog. For now, their bright yellow Stellar kayaks have been put away. Joe is getting ready to hunt deer. Peggy is catching up with chores that didn’t get done over the last half year. But not far from their minds is one of the big reasons they began this trip.
“The inspiration and motivating factor behind our choice to make this trip is a little girl, Callie Rohr. She was diagnosed at age seven and died of a brain tumor five days before her tenth birthday,” Joe said. “Her parents have been raising money for this cause for several years through the Callie Rohr Memorial Kayak Race.”
Joe and Peggy stopped at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago when they were navigating Lake Michigan. More than 173,000 patients are treated at the hospital every year. Joe and Peggy raised more than $3,000 for the hospital on their trip, taking donations for each mile they paddled. “Our website is still up, and we are going to continue to take donations for Lurie’s Children’s Hospital,” said Peggy.
“Joe and I would like to go out next June and finish paddling the rest of Lake Superior and then finish on Lake Huron,” Peggy said.
To learn more about their trip and see pictures of where they have been, or to donate to Callie Rhor Memorial Fund, Google 2 paddling 5.
Leave a Reply