This spring, from March to May 2025, Dartmouth College students Sumant Sharma and Ben Shaman will undertake a roughly 86-day, 2700-mile canoe journey across Europe from Nantes, France, to the Black Sea. This is Part Two of their journey.
***
This trip, which has now reached its halfway point, is the product of a single night’s homework procrastination. Instead of writing my final paper for who knows what class, I was reading expedition blogs: backpacking South America, descending the length of the Yukon River, and eventually one on canoeing the European Continent by James Warner Smith. I thought, “That could be me!”
My roommate Adam told me, “Ben, no making major life decisions after 9 pm.” But I had the expedition bug and couldn’t seem to shake it. In a week I had an outline; it was laughably easy to convince Sumant to join, and the rest is (now) history.
Why do this? Many of you, the DTD readership, may feel you know already, and I thought I did too, but the further along we get, my answer continues to change.
I learned how to canoe in middle school. I’m very grateful to have gone to Westtown School, which has a robust outdoor education program. I knew I wanted the outdoors to be part of my college experience, so I was thrilled when I found out that Dartmouth has the oldest collegiate canoe club in the US (with a number of Olympians to show for it). Since then, canoeing has been an integral part of my life. I paddle at least a few times a week when the Connecticut River isn’t frozen over.
I’ve long idolized people who thru-hike or thru-paddle. The draw is the idea of getting to experience the world at a slower pace; to wake up and have only to care for basic survival needs and make another day’s progress. That idea comes, at least in part, from a desire to escape the “real world” and this looming sense that I’ll have to be an adult soon. Some of my friends rushed to become neophyte bankers and consultants, but I’m not quite on that same wavelength.
That said, this trip has not been so carefree. Not only did the “real world” not magically disappear, but we’ve also diverged from our planned itinerary now too many times to count. There’s more than ample time to take in the Windows Lock Screen-like views of rolling hills, pastures and fields of golden rapeseed flowers. Even views that good can’t hold my attention for 8-10 hours a day. Instead, I find myself thinking about life back home, about future sections of the trip or about the Wawa hoagie I’ll have when I get back.
A theme of this trip has been managing expectations. So, what I’ve found on this trip, then, is not an escape from the “real world.” However—and maybe in another month and a half I’ll contradict myself—the most impactful moments for me so far have been our interactions with the people we’ve met, particularly those who’ve helped us out in our (already many) times of need. Let me indulge in a few stories.
On day 10 we met Jon, a seasonal construction worker who we caught on his way back from a winter of surfing in Spain and Portugal. He was taking his surfboard out for a spin on the canal, using it as a SUP. If we thought we were crazy for being in the canal in a canoe, look at this guy!
We paddled alongside him up to his van parked by a picnic table for lunch. His van was incredibly messy, but also very well equipped with a water pump, stove, storage and dried sausages hanging from the roof. We brought out our lunch fare and he proceeds to pull out an incredible array of items. Lovely looking grapes, cheese, chestnut preserves, Dijon mustard, but most importantly the remaining piece of a leg of jamón ibérico. He kept insisting we share his food.
I will never forget the taste of that jamón.
That’s when this trip became real for me: I made a new friend. A friend I may never see again, but if you feed me jamón ibérico after meeting on the canal, you are my friend for life.
Just a day later we found ourselves in a bit of a pickle. We’d just been kicked off the Canal du Centre by an officer of the Voies Navigables de France (VNF), who threatened to call the police and have our boat impounded if we continued. Apparently, as of a couple years ago it became illegal to canoe on the canal, which was not posted anywhere near the water or online.
In the midst of our confusion and scramble to come up with a plan, we met Lillian, also a VNF officer, but much kinder than the one we first encountered. We gave him our story, how we’d been doing this for over a week with no issues, and how now we’re essentially stuck. He told us to try emailing the boss of the VNF overseeing the canal and appeal for special authorization to canoe this section.
When our authorization came in at 8 am the next morning, Lillian drove back out to meet us and send us off. He smiled, shook our hands, and told us we remind him of his kids. He joins an ever-growing cast of strangers who’ve offered us invaluable help, just out of the kindness of their hearts.
On day 27, now having switched from the canals to the Rhine River, a Dutch couple on bikes joined us at our tent site. Both retired bus drivers, they left their home near Rotterdam 12 days ago with no itinerary other than figuring it out a day at a time. Their rough idea is to get to Italy before circling back up the French coast to get home. And they have no intention of getting home until at least mid-summer! As someone who always stresses about having a plan, I admire the way they’re able to take life one day at a time. “We have no deadlines,” they told us repeatedly. In the spirit of paying favors forward, I gave them pieces of the nice saucisson we’d bought in Strasbourg… which they took despite being a bit weary of it.
On day 39 we had some of the worst luck I’ve experienced, followed by a lot of good luck that more than balanced it out. We had a long day upstream on the Main River to reach our destination in Bamberg. Only 2.3 km in at our first lock portage, the super glue which had been holding my paddle’s handle together since the first week finally gave out at the worst possible time. The broken handle tumbled down the stairs and into the river, filling with water and slowly sinking to the bottom while we stood there, unable to do anything but watch. It was our tenth day in a row of paddling without a rest day, and we were tired.
I’d jokingly floated the idea of hitchhiking to Sumant right before getting to the lock, but now I was genuinely ready to try it. I ran over to the big lock where a couple boats were passing through. I ran down to the front where I saw someone, but he spoke no English and pointed me back to the captain. He’s young, and thankfully speaks enough English. Once I finally got his attention, I explained what’s up and he responded, “Yes, come over,” pretty much without thinking.
We grabbed our stuff, ran over and get on their boat just in time—before the boat gets too high up in the lock. The captain’s name is Richie. He’s Lithuanian, moved to Germany when he was 12, started this job as a deckhand at 16, and he’s now 36. He’s got two deckhands, Dominic, who I tried to speak to earlier, and another whose name I didn’t quite catch. They were so incredibly kind, giving us chairs, a radio to communicate with them, a place to charge our phones, insisting on lunch and a couple beers—all while refusing to accept any payment. “This is just something you do,” they told us.
The boat Richie drives is named Paul. My grandpa, Paul, passed away on March 19th, day four of our trip. Although I haven’t dedicated a large portion of this post to remembering him (and he probably prefers it that way), I’ll at least share that he was an incredible role model to me. My grandpa unlocked one of the greatest secrets to life: how to be happy, and how to be content with himself, his family and the spaces around him, which he was integral in creating.
I try to face each new challenge with positivity, always keeping his words in mind. What were the odds of Paul being the boat that picked us up? I can’t help but think he must be looking out for us.
Last for now, but certainly not least, on day 40 I met Jochen of Mergner Paddel. Once upon a time he competed at the playboating world championships. But in the last couple decades, he’s dedicated himself to the craft of kayak and canoe paddle manufacturing.
After emailing back and forth in haphazardly Google-translated German, he insisted I bring my paddle to his workshop despite the fact that he was on Easter vacation. Upon arriving, I found he spoke perfect English, and he uses the word workshop liberally to refer to his mad scientist’s lair. Paddles in various stages of production strewn around everywhere—incredibly disorganized, but it seemed like he knew exactly where everything was.
He measured the interior of my paddle. There was a 1 mm difference between mine and the T-grip he had, so he went about chopping some off, sanding it down, bulking the grip a bit, and eventually epoxying it all together. At the end, he handed me the paddle and I asked how much I owed. Jochen refused payment. We went back and forth. Someone giving us a ride on a barge is one thing, but this guy’s a professional who just spent an hour of his time and some real materials to do this. I insisted again, yet he wouldn’t have it. He said he knows what it’s like to be on an expedition like this. People have been kind to him in the past and now it’s his turn to pay it forward.
Dang, now I’m gonna have to find a way to pay this one forward someday.
***
Editor’s note: Don’t Miss Part One of Ben and Sumant’s trip, as told by Sumant.
Guest Contributor Ben Shaman is a 20-year-old from outside Philadelphia studying sustainable food systems and data science at Dartmouth college. Outside of this trip, you can find him at the docks of the Ledyard Canoe Club (where he serves as Treasurer) at canoe racing practice, or in his kitchen R&D-ing for his next pop-up restaurant event.