He’s not exactly your typical 23-year-old. In a rabbit fur hat, hand-stitched clothes, and a 1980s canoe, Peter Frank is currently paddling down the Chesapeake Bay. He canoed here from his home state of Michigan by way of the Great Lakes, New York City, and the C&D Canal.
Now he is enjoying Maryland, crossing the Bay at the Bay Bridge, taking in the local lighthouses and even sailing at the helm of the Schooner Woodwind in Annapolis.
Frank left home more than 125 days ago and he has a long way yet to go. His goal is to complete the Great Loop, a 6,000-mile circumnavigation of the eastern U.S. and part of Canada. It’s a popular bucket list item for some cruisers, which is mostly tackled in trawlers or other large powerboats. Many cruisers do it with running water, air conditioning, and most helpful of all, an engine.
But Frank is doing it under his own human power with no engine to speak of. Even more incredible, he’s doing the Great Loop in reverse, clockwise instead of the easier counterclockwise. That means that after he travels down the Chesapeake and picks up the Intracoastal Waterway, he’ll head to the Gulf Coast and then up the Mississippi River—paddling upstream the entire way.
Those who have met Frank on the Bay so far have rolled out the welcome wagon, meeting him on the water, stocking him up with snacks, even putting him up in a real bed for several nights. But all who meet Frank want to know, “How are you doing this? Why are you doing this?”
As for the how, Frank explains that he carries all of his gear—from tent and sleeping bag to dehydrated meat and potatoes—in the canoe. Properly loaded, it weighs about 300 pounds. He paddles between six and 10 hours a day to keep moving forward. He doesn’t book hotel rooms or any lodging ahead of time. He relies on his tent and, sometimes, strangers on social media.
Frank has been blogging (whereispeterfrank.com) and posting updates throughout his adventure. Those who follow his journey online sometimes offer him supplies (like Jonny and James Towers, Bohemia River powerboaters who delivered snacks by boat) or a room for him to sleep in and a hot shower. That was the case with Bay photographer David Sites, who has put Frank up at his riverfront home near Annapolis for nearly a week before Frank shoves off for his next waypoint in Solomons, Maryland. There, he’ll stay with a host member of the America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association. The Great Loop group has been supportive of Frank’s unusual quest.
Along with the rarity of soft beds and showers (Frank tells us he’s had to go 7-10 days without a shower at times), another challenge has been fueling his body. Frank estimates he burns about 8,000 calories per day from so many hours of paddling. He is limited in how much food he can carry and has no way to keep perishables fresh. Frank mostly relies on dehydrated chuck meat he prepped ahead of the trip, fresh fruit he picks up ashore, and avocados for healthy fat.
While most of us couldn’t imagine functioning that way, Peter Frank is no stranger to roughing it. His past adventures include paddling portions of the Great Loop (the usual direction, downstream on the Mississippi) for 11 months, and a 2,400-mile unicycle trip from Wisconsin to Phoenix, Arizona. He is proud to subsist on only what he needs in a society largely run by consumption.
Why would a 23-year-old American kid take on such epic challenges? Frank says that he felt little sense of purpose after finishing high school, despite being an accomplished Eagle Scout. He floundered until he began adventuring. “Challenge is an easy way to spark purpose in your young life,” he tells us.
Frank had been determined to do something meaningful with his life since he was 14, when a tragic accident nearly killed him. He had been hiding in a leaf pile near the road, intending to jump out and surprise his friend, when a carful of teenagers began driving around the streets looking for leaf piles to drive through. The car struck his leaf pile without the driver even knowing he was in there. The impact left Frank with 14 broken bones, including two vertebrae. The area damaged was centimeters away from leaving him paralyzed.
While Frank successfully recovered, he says the accident changed his outlook on life and following the traditional path. Today, his path is far from traditional. He sold his car and donated most of his clothes to goodwill before the unicycle trip. His clothing choices put him somewhere between a pirate and Daniel Boone. When we ask if he ever thought about going to college, Frank says, “This is my college,” an alternative education. He accomplished most of his adventures with less than $600 to his name. Now at 23, he uses writing to support himself, a skill he discovered with his adventures.
He does have gear sponsors for his trip: a spray deck and a cook set from Redleaf Designs, a Sawyer water filter, which he used for drinking water in the freshwater sections of his trip, custom maps for his live tracker from Zero Six Zero, and special “slit blade” paddles from Oscar Propulsion that displace water pressure.
For all his experience adventuring and proven competence, Frank admits he suffers from loneliness. He only gets to know people for 12 hours or a few days, making it difficult to get close to anyone. He firmly believes the emotional struggle is worth it, though.
Frank tells us, “I have to be out here… this is my form of worship. It’s my reason to live at all.” He hopes his unusual journey may inspire other young people to find their own sense of purpose in an unexpected place.
After Annapolis and Solomons, Frank has no plans for where to stay. If you are in the lower part of the Bay and want to help him out, send a message on Facebook or Instagram, or email Peter Frank.
