The Wayfarer

December 11, 2015 8:47 AM

A solitary canoeist meets his fate. (slNewYorker)

Ben McGrath earlier wrote on Dick Conant for the New Yorker in September 2014.

There are occasional mentions of Conant elsewhere from as early as 2008, if like me you feared the story was complete fiction.

posted by crazy with stars (13 comments total)

I really enjoyed the heck out of this piece.
posted by ph00dz at 9:17 AM on December 11, 2015

Some mornings — a lot of mornings — when I'm driving to work over the creeks and rivers, and through dense stands of trees, I do so dream of living like this.
posted by steef at 9:24 AM on December 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

That was great. I like that there are people out there like that. I'd really like to take a Honda Ruckus from Seattle to San Diego and then from San Diego to the East Coast. Then go North to Maine in the summer and get a lobster roll before heading back to Seattle.
posted by KingBoogly at 9:44 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Well, it's a sad way to die, but he seems to have lived life as he wanted it, which is rare. And made friends wherever he went.
posted by tavella at 9:59 AM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Tracy--a metaphor? Solitude is precious when the alternative is not possible, but it's a curse during the inconvenient times, as when you want to point and say, Hey! won't you look at that. Giving in to the adventure works, but then the journals remain, notebooks that write around the truth the way your canoe brushes past rocks in the stream. Painting was more clear, sure, but it was too hard to bear. Captivate the infrequent stranger with a sketch, let me tell you one more story: Moonlight glints off off the surface, an adventure they barely can imagine. The story wraps a warm blanket around it for those who wish to watch the movie without getting their feet wet. The trip is the alternative, but the warmth of a loving embrace is what rises in the mind during the wee hours of the morning--a second or two of timeless dreaming--when rolling the tired and slumbering body off the pointy thing in the ground under your tarp. Too quickly her smile fades. Won't you see? The trip is the alternative.

They keep telling you how much they envy you, if only they were free. You can rely upon them that way. Counting strokes of the oar, a thing to keep the thread unbroken. This many cycles to the mile, more or less. Do you see the lights along the bank? Lighted windows. The details of the journey are in the water bottle ballast along the centerboard. You would know this. You cannot see their lights from the camp in the bushes along the bank. The ground is damp, and you don't dare a fire this close to a town. Some have treated you kindly.

Dear family, Forgive me if I have offended you.
posted by mule98J at 11:13 AM on December 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

Nice FPP, I really enjoyed that New Yorker piece. Despite the somewhat grim, sad ending, it left me at a kind of peace.

I've always wanted to drop a canoe into the Patapsco river at the foot of the Liberty Dam and just paddle downstream until...whatever.

Just another wonderful thing to do that I can never seem to get around to doing.
posted by sidereal at 11:25 AM on December 11, 2015

I'd really like to take a Honda Ruckus from Seattle to San Diego and then from San Diego to the East Coast. Then go North to Maine in the summer and get a lobster roll before heading back to Seattle.

You are not alone. (jalopnik.com)
posted by sidereal at 11:29 AM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting!
posted by persona au gratin at 2:44 PM on December 11, 2015

I loved this piece as well. I've done some kayaking, and also once did a long bike trip and experienced the interest and generosity of people along the way who want to know what you're up to, buy you lunch, serve you a cold drink, offer you a shower. This was very evocative of all that for me.
posted by not that girl at 4:30 PM on December 11, 2015

“He cut me right to the heart,” Walsh said, choking back tears. “He said, ‘I thank God there’s people like you.’ ” Walsh added, “My wife said, ‘I don’t believe you. You meet all these fucking weirdos.’ ”

It is a great article, and this paragraph captured it for me. Conant was clearly a compelling person whom people enjoyed and connected with. I'm glad that he found canoeing, since so much of modern life clearly didn't work for him.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:25 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

I wonder if I am a distant relation. My mother is a Conant descended from Roger Conant, who arrived in Plymouth, MA in 1623 and was a founder of Salem, MA. I'm glad Mr. Conant seemed to have met his end on his own terms and made at least some peace with his family.
posted by AJScease at 8:17 PM on December 11, 2015

I loved this piece. It (possibly deliberately) reminded me strongly of Joe Mitchell's stuff.

I thought that Tracy's name was interesting and the writer handled that aspect of the story with great sensitivity. Voyageurs would have called the trails they followed les traces, and that is what McGrath navigated on our, and Conant's, behalf.
posted by mwhybark at 9:01 PM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Finally read this; great piece, very sad. I'm not as drawn as many seem to be to the vagrant life, especially when it accompanies (results from) a disordered mind like Conant's. I'm glad he enjoyed what he could in life and made such a powerful impression on the people he met, but I wish he'd been able to enjoy a more normal life and lived a little longer. And fuck whoever gave him LSD without his knowledge in college.
posted by languagehat at 2:56 PM on December 15, 2015