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A perilous journey
It wasn't long before Guiders imagined journey
met with reality. “The plan and the dream were
purely romantic notions,” says Guider, who had
little previous canoeing or camping experience.
“Reality has a way of being a little more ugly than
a dream.”
Some of his journey's perils included overcoming
4-foot-high wakes from ocean-going freighters,
negotiating around 200-foot-long river barges, and
the time a docked barge accidentally discharged a
spray of sewage into his parked canoe, destroying
$5,000 worth of cameras and film stock.
And then there were the deadly whirlpools lurk
ing along the riverbanks. "They are
like monsters, roaming the river like
inverted tornados,” says Guider of the
swirling 30-foot-wide menaces. “They
don’t seem to have a path. You try to
avoid one only to have another come at
you. If a whirlpool gets you, it could
suck you down 90 feet and you might
never come back up.
“Every day on the Mississippi, I
would ask myself if I wanted to live or die,” says
Guider, who also had run-ins with a bear, coyotes
and pair of deadly cottonmouth snakes. “There was
no gray area, you did what you had to do. It was
basically being a caveman, and at the end of the
day, I was just so exhausted that 1 could barely set
up the tent.”
He undertook no specific training regimen for
the ordeal either, electing to paddle his way into
shape, losing 30 pounds over the course of the first
leg. It was a blessing in disguise that Guider began
his adventure on a small creek before graduating to
the larger rivers.
“Each river had its own experience and its own
challenge, which prepared me for the next,” Guider
says. "Had I gotten on the Mississippi at the start,
1 would’ve died.”
Meeting real Americans
But the journey also provided wonderful sur
prises, like the people he met and photographed,
such as George Rye, an elderly fisherman from
Encountering river wildlife
“His conversation lifted my spirits,” says Guider,
who adds that no matter where he went, people
along the river were full of generosity.
“People looked out for me wherever 1 went,”
he says. “From the guys on the harbor tugs who
offered me food and showers, to the people in the
towns and riverside campsites who would drive me
to the market to replenish my supplies. Every per-
Cumberland City, Tenn., who regaled
Guider with yarns of old trips to
Alaska and the joys of early morning
fishing on the Cumberland River. Rye
was the proud owner of a 30-year-old
pickup truck that evoked questions
from friends as to how long it would
be before he'd sell it. Rye joked that
he planned to die in it, thereby saving
on the cost of a casket.
(Continued on page 8)
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“Every personal
meeting was
memorable.”
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Locals at Jim’s Place Restaurant in Greenville, Miss.
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A harbor worker at Louisiana’s Madison Parish Port
Page 6
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