This is a story about two PhDs from Brooklyn who read a book on whitewater canoeing while driving up to Maine to canoe the Saint Croix River. What could go wrong?

The photos are from later canoe trips. I don’t think we took any on the trip that I describe. Yes, despite having the sort of disasters where one mentally say “goodbye and I love you” to your wife and kids, we decided to take some whitewater canoeing lessons from the Appalachian Mountain Club and then go on canoe expeditions almost every year until my friend Matt passed away in 2012. There are a lot of photos of Matt in this video and I suppose it is in that sense a tribute to our friendship. I still canoe and I still miss him. 

Listen and you will hear why canoes are like fortune cookies.