Boreal Odyssey

About the Book

Sometime in his mid-teens, Steve Simpson decided he wanted to become a hermit.  Socially awkward and athletically inept, he felt isolated from his classmates in a huge suburban high school.  Finding no joy in the company of his peers, he sought his joy in nature; in the forest preserves and state parks of the Midwest and in kayaking the waters of the region.  He read Walden at an impressionable age, and the movie Jeremiah Johnson helped to reinforce the notion that true happiness could be found alone in the wilderness.  This book describes his experiences as he paddled a Klepper kayak 3000 miles through Lakes Michigan and Superior and along the Canadian network of rivers, lakes, and portages commonly called the “Voyageurs Highway.”    During those travels he experienced fear and triumph, depression and joy, profound loneliness and the growth of true friendship.  It became the defining experience of his life.

About the Author

Steve was born in Aurora, IL and grew up in the NW Suburbs of Chicago. After completing the journey described herein, he took a summer off to work for Ralph Frese at the Chicagoland Canoe Base before completing a third season of paddling from Fort McMurray Alberta to the mouth of the Yukon River with his friend Bill Penn. The rocks and landforms he saw during these travels inspired a deep curiosity about the Earth, and he started taking classes at Oakton Community College in Skokie, IL. He worked various jobs between semesters including factory work, canoe and kayak sales and repair, and working as a deckhand on barge tows on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Enrolling at the University of Montana in 1980, he earned a B.A. and M.S. in Geology and spent 30+ years teaching Earth Sciences at Highland Community College in Freeport, IL. He retired in 2018 and currently lives in Wisconsin.