Kroka Winter Semester 2019

New York City.  NYC.  The Big Apple... o ver the next week we would not only take a bite, but devour the whole thing, core and all. We finished our river journey at the Gowanus Canal, one of the most polluted waterways of our country. We were shocked to see the shimmering veil of oil dance away from the disturbance of our paddles as we skimmed across the murky surface. The smell that hung in the air was no longer the crisp salt spray lifting from the bay, but rather the pungent odor of a mixture of chemical and rot. We would learn that the eutrophication in the canal is so dense that fish regularly die from de-oxygenation. We carefully navigated around the shopping carts and circuit boards that had been discarded in the dark waters.  At the dock we had a moment of silence, to reflect on the distance we had travelled. We had journeyed from the cold snowy reaches of northern Quebec, and then by canoe from the Richelieu River in Quebec to Manhattan (though we were te...

As far as we were concerned, it was an adventure. We’d only been in the lock system for 2 days, completing 4 of the 11 locks, before we learned we could go no further. The northern end of the Hudson was flooding and the NY State Canal Corporation thought it would be better if we took out and put in again in Waterford right before Lock #1. We would need to travel 40 miles over land. Thankfully, instead of spending the rest of our expedition portaging our boats, the abundant hospitality of the canal system allowed us to travel that distance in a day. Though we would have loved to complete the canal on our own, this created a chance for spontaneity and divergence from the plan, an important part of every adventure.  We now had time to live into our Hudson River life and learn the ways of the river, transitioning away from lake life. Unfortunately, the first real difference we saw was an increase in pollution and trash. Little plastic bottles and cans floated mindlessly ...

Spring has come in fast forward for us semester students as we stepped out of the depths of winter and into the waters of Lake Champlain. After our Quebec City layover we exchanged our faithful skis for two lofty 20-foot long wood canvas voyager canoes, crafted by the 2004 and 2006 Vermont Semesters and re-varnished and re-painted by our semester. These new vessels would be our main mode of transportation on our venture to New York City. On the water we met our new instructor, Owen Cunnane, who will be with us for the remainder of our expedition, and reconnected with Miron who would be joining us for a short while in order to mentor us in living on the water. When we were starting out we were apprehensive of what we might encounter. We learned our new camp set-up, which consists of a summer stove, a tarp for group gatherings, and three tents for sleeping. The first night was bitterly cold. I remember that my toes were colder than they'd been in Uapishka, and many f...