Gulf-to-Arctic paddlers enter final stretch

Winchell Delano’s life has been uncomplicated for the last eight months.

“Sleep, wake up, paddle, eat, set up camp and then sleep again,” he said on Tuesday from Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories of Canada.

But only about 700 miles and one month remain on the 5,200-mile journey Delano and his five friends started in January. And then what?

“I’m going to have to like, pay taxes,” the St. Cloud native said. “All kinds of other obligations and distractions of the real world are going to come back. So there’s a little trepidation with that.”

The six paddlers — Cathedral High School grads Delano, Adam Trigg, Dan Flynn and John Keaveny, and Iowa natives Jarrad Moore and Luke Kimmes — are making their final re-supply stop in Yellowknife, putting fiberglass on their canoes to prevent wear and tear and stocking up on food.

As the group prepares for its last push to the Arctic, Delano said he has started reflecting on the trip. A highlight, he said, was one stretch where the group saw a sunset, northern lights, a full moon, and a distant lighting storm in the span of six hours while paddling.

The most difficult stretch was a 12-mile portage that took two days, he said.

The canoers hope to reach their destination within the next 30 days. And Delano said his lasting impression of the trip will be different than he expected when the group set off. It has been less a test of endurance and more like “a parade,” with supporters and new connections at almost every stop. Delano said recently he met with a Sauk Centre native and graduate of Gonzaga, which is Delano’s alma mater.

“I thought it was going to be more internal, about us against the conditions,” he said. “But it’s become about the overwhelming support and people cheering us on.”

Find a previous story about the canoers getting ready for their adventure.

Read about their update from Day 59.

The group reached Mankato 96 days after they launched.