Back in 2010 shortly after Amy and Dave Freeman got married, they left on a three-year honeymoon odyssey across North America. They called it the North American Odyssey. They recently completed writing a book about the trip. It’s title shares the expeditions name, North American Odyssey: 12,000 Miles Across the Continent by Kayak, Canoe, and Dogsled. The book, their second, documents the trip across the continent by sea kayak, backpack, dogsled, and canoe.
The trip started in Washington on Earth Day and took them by sea kayak up the Inside Passage to Alaska. From there they backpacked and canoed north to the Arctic Ocean. They then switched to a dogsled to traverse a frozen landscape to the Great Slave Lake. After the rivers and lakes thawed, they continued onward in a canoe until they reached Lake Superior. From there they paddled out the Great Lakes and down the east coast before ending in Key West, Florida. At the end of the trip, they were awarded National Geographic’s Adventures of the Year. While they journeyed across two countries, they beamed the expedition back to over 80,000 grade school kids through their non-profit, Wilderness Classrooms.
Amy and Dave Freeman are no strangers to expeditions, with trips across South America, down the Mississippi River, circumnavigating Lake Superior, and more. One of their more famous trips was when they spent an entire year in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. They wrote a book called A Year in the Wilderness about that trip. They also work as both canoe and dogsled guides. I’ve been lucky enough to know the couple for years. I guided sea kayaking with Amy for several years, and Dave helped out with my old sea kayak guiding company, too. I was lucky enough to join them three times on the North American Odyssey.
Here are a few photos of Amy and Dave.
Here’s a map of the route they took. The Florida section is slightly different, because they paddled and portaged across Florida to get into the Gulf of Mexico, and then they paddled the west coast of Florida to Key West.
The North American Odyssey book covers their adventure across the continent, and it documents what they witnessed along the way. This is likely going to be the best paddling adventure book released this year. It’s worth picking up for your winter reads.
You can get the book here.
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