{"id":35857,"date":"2025-04-29T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/?p=35857"},"modified":"2025-04-22T13:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T20:06:15","slug":"france-to-the-black-sea-a-study-abroad-by-canoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2025\/04\/29\/france-to-the-black-sea-a-study-abroad-by-canoe\/","title":{"rendered":"France to the Black Sea: A Study Abroad by Canoe"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 One of their journey. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

The first time I stepped into a canoe was at 18-years-old. My fishing buddy, Brennan, and I made a 700-mile drive from suburban Philadelphia to the 100-mile wilderness in Maine, seeking trout in those old glacial lakes. We got in at 3:30 pm after our second day of driving and quickly piled into a canoe on the main lake by the cabin. There was a group of men on their 50th annual trip at the lodge watching and jeering as Brennan and I managed to float into every downed tree on the edge of the lake, cursing at our bodies for acting as sails.<\/span><\/p>\n

My second-ever time in a canoe was during winter break of my freshman year of college. I had received an email earlier in the fall from some random club, urging me to apply to their \u201cbreak trips.\u201d To me, it seemed like a free vacation. That December, I found myself paddling off the coast of Florida enjoying 70-degree weather. My group and I bounced from island to island for eight days before I returned home with a healthy tan and a newfound obsession with the Ledyard Canoe Club<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

That single trip completely realigned my college experience. I would show up to club meetings and take every opportunity to go on day trips. I even managed to get into whitewater kayaking. Going into Dartmouth, I had never spent a night outside. I was dead set on going to medical school and becoming a neurosurgeon. That med school dream lasted for a whole three days so maybe this train was bound to derail earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"From that trip on, I would always look for my next adventure, whether it was leading the Everglades trip my sophomore year, going on Ledyard\u2019s annual spring break whitewater kayaking trip, or even a jaunt through the Grand Canyon on the permit I pulled before I even knew what a creek boat or half slice were (a story for another time).<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, this canoe trip across Europe is an extension of that adventure-seeking attitude. After all, it started when Ben approached me a year ago and said, \u201cYou are the only person I know crazy enough to say yes.\u201d Uhhhhhh, sure I\u2019ll take that? In the moment, the trip was an opportunity to become one of the gurus of the outdoors.<\/span><\/p>\n

The upperclassmen at my school who had previously been on prolonged expeditions have done incredible things from first ascents on mountains, breaking the Pan-Am cycling record<\/a>, to completing a source-to-sea trip of the Murray River. They seemed to have this mystical vision of life that cut through the fog of weekly essays and exams, and I wanted in.<\/span><\/p>\n