Updated June 18, 2025 at 3:50 PM MDT
A direct trip from Ottawa to New York City can take about 90 minutes. By commercial airplane, that is.
Journalist Dan Rubinstein took a longer, greener option. Or, maybe, a bluer option. He elected to paddle his way there and back, completing a 1,200-mile circuit over the course of 11 weeks in the summer of 2023, on an inflatable standup paddleboard.
Down the Ottawa River to Montreal, down the Hudson to New York City, and back via the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes, Rubinstein chronicles the journey and what he learned about humans' relationship with water in his new book Water Borne: A 1,200-Mile Paddleboarding Pilgrimage.
Rubinstein says his passion for paddleboarding began about a decade ago, after he had published a book about walking, Born to Walk: The Transformative Power of a Pedestrian Act. He tried it on a camping trip and preferred it over seated options like kayaking or canoeing.
"You're more intimate with the water, because you can get in and out of it. And then the perspective is different because you're standing," he said. "You can look down into the water. You can see fish. You can see plants. You can see yourself more integrated into this aquatic environment."
He set up reporting trips to Belize and British Columbia, where he was able to learn from local paddlers and write about it.
Inspired by growing research into the positive effects of "blue space," natural environments in or around water, Rubinstein set out to experience that connection himself.
He planned his own exploration: a multi-leg paddling trip with stops along the way to speak with scientists, nonprofits and communities who have built relationships with their local waterways.
Highlights ranged from a placid morning setting out on Lake Ontario to a crowded afternoon carefully crossing shipping lanes in New York Harbor.
"We went out and around the Statue of Liberty. So much boat traffic, so many tour boats, police boats, tug boats, tankers, etc., that it's really important to kind of know the traffic patterns," Rubinstein said.
For the author, what may sound at first blush like a macho story of man conquering nature is not so much about a feat of endurance, but rather about community.
"Blue space does have this capacity to connect people. It makes us feel good. It slows us down. And because of the dangers of water, we tend to watch out for one another when we're around water," Rubinstein said, "So because of those three things, I think it has its capacity to help people see one another as fellow human beings. And that's something, I would say, in short supply these days."
The radio editor for this story was Ally Schweitzer. The digital editor was Majd Al-Waheidi.
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