Karl Kruger is Not Extreme
Profile of a human
An article of mine for Soundings magazine hit the racks. Unbeknownst to me, as is often the case of a contributing writer, I had no clue the piece was online for weeks. Oh well, such is the life.
I had the pleasure to spend a weekend sailing the San Juan islands with stand up paddle board racer, bone fide waterman, and arctic roamer Karl Kruger and his fiancé Elyn Oliver. Pleasure? No, that’s not right. Honor, perhaps? No, not quite right there either.
Fortune. Funny word, fortune. One definition is synonymous with luck or chance. But another definition is the future as dictated by fate. And yet another definition is a pile of wealth. Yes. Fortune in all three senses I say.
So yes, it was my fortune to go sailing with Karl. For those unfamiliar, Karl Kruger caught international press when he became the first person to stand up paddle the infamous 750-mile Race to Alaska (R2AK) in 2017. He has since spent two summers paddling >400-mile stretches of the Northwest Passage. That’s right, the wild arctic route over the top of Canada. He’s preparing to tackle the final 1,000ish miles, hopefully this summer. He will be the first human to accomplish this feat.
I was embedded in a trial run of an artist-in-residence (artist-in-sail?) program of his aboard Raven—a steel hulled Bruce Roberts design that’s circumnavigated the Americas with the previous owner. After the arctic paddle is complete, the next goal is to embark on a multi-year Figure 8 expedition looping the Americas and Antarctica. In addition to sating his restless soul, the broader mission will be to bring along artists. Throughout our hikes and onboard whiskey sessions, the theme came up again and again—art and human connection are needed the most right now on our planet. No more goddamn data collections or corporate partnerships or political appeals. No #hashtag movements or academic degrees.
Art. Humanity. Connection. The core things that came so naturally for thousands of years yet seem to require relearning today. What we’re doing ain’t working and we need to stop the war against ourselves. Our ancestors, bodies, and natural instincts are our friends, not our enemies. They know things we need to tap into. Or else.
A fundamental theme was Karl’s struggle with being called “extreme” by the broader public. Sure, his accomplishments have been epic, but his view is that reconnecting to humanity’s core self via dipping the paddle is the opposite of extreme. The fact that we view what our ancestors did as extreme seems to wound Karl in a spiritual sense. Alienation sets in.
Another powerful insight was a life altering epiphany he had when he first started paddling the arctic. From the piece:
“Post R2AK, I got up there and I realized that the only thing that mattered to me was learning about the place,” explains Kruger. “I didn’t want to go fast. I wanted to slow down. I wanted to spend more time. I wanted to dive into the place and sink my teeth into it.”
In addition, a surprising reaction swept over him. “Then came the shame of going up there, gunning after a title,” says Kruger. “There’s no honor in going into someone’s backyard claiming to be the first to do something. When you go up there you see all the signs of all the people who have lived there for millennia. The old camps. The tools. Obviously, the people who still live there. You hit the beach up in the Arctic and it’s all bones,” he adds with reverence.
The competitive stopwatch-driven athlete ran smack into the timeless power of The Real. He transformed. The arctic was not there to conquer; not a race to be won. There was only becoming the arctic. Now Karl wants to slow down as much as possible and fully surrender to that sea ice water baptism.
Honestly, there’s so much more to the story than what made it to the final <1,500-word magazine cut. My original piece was over 6,000 words and said more of what I wanted to say. Alas. Maybe those words will appear in a different project I have cooking in the oven. My beat of sea people and culture doesn’t tip the political scales, decide wars, or budge the stock market. But there is fortune here too—all three aforementioned kinds. And sometimes you get a reaction like this when you go to press. How do you beat that?
You can, and should, follow along with Karl’s mission here. He’s a great human seeking to do important work and could use support. I’m not going to spill too much tea here, but a handful of our prominent communities here in Puget Sound have let him down in truly pathetic 2020s contemporary style. But I stand with Karl Kruger and can’t wait to see what he does next. SKÅL!
Consider buying my book, Salmon in the Seine: Alaskan Memories of Life, Death, & Everything In-Between! Available wherever books are sold, including Amazon, Powell’s City of Books, and Third Place Books. It’s won eight notable independent/small press book awards, so hey, it can’t be that bad, amirite? Leaving reviews on Amazon helps a ton too.
You are the man Norris!! Braver than most and a good friend. Skål!!!