Ohio Farmer’s Two-Decade Canoe Journey Across North America Becomes a Memoir for a Late Friend

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A retired Ohio factory worker has published an account of a canoe and kayak journey that started as a 1986 fishing trip and ended, more than two decades later, at the Gulf of Mexico. "Paddle Across America: The North-South Canoe and Kayak Passage," by Joe Altaffer, was released through Page Publishing, according to the announcement.

The book covers a route Altaffer and his paddling partner, Carmon, pieced together over years of trips: from the Arctic Ocean, through Canada’s inland waterway system, down to the Gulf of Mexico, requiring only two portages across the entire continent. The release states the route was confirmed by canoe-route authorities as the shortest passage of its kind ever completed, though it does not name those authorities or the standard used.

Altaffer, who has lived on the same small farm in Montpelier, Ohio, for 57 years with his wife, Janet, spent 45 years working at Chase Brass while raising three sons, per the announcement. He and Carmon finished the crossing in 2008, when Altaffer was 65 and Carmon was 75. Among the moments the book recounts, according to the release, is a crossing of the Mackinac Straits made while racing a lake freighter, and a final push to reach the Arctic Ocean.

Carmon died in 2015. Altaffer wrote the book afterward, framing it as both a tribute to his friend and a record of the trip before, in his words, "my time on earth expires."

"This journey changed who I am — it deepened my faith, strengthened my friendship with Carmon, and showed me what’s possible when you simply say yes to adventure," Altaffer said in the announcement.

The book is available through Page Publishing’s website and through major retailers including Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play and Barnes & Noble. Page Publishing operates as a full-service self-publishing house, handling distribution and production for its authors.

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