By TARA BARNWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com

Talk about huge goals and going after them … meet Neal Moore.

He’s an explorer. He’s an adventurer. He’s an athlete. He’s a journalist and a teacher. He wants to get the story right.

Dubbed “a modern-day Huck Finn” by CNN, Moore is on an adventure of a lifetime.

“I started canoeing from Astoria, Oregon on the Pacific Coast, across our country, down south to Louisiana,” Moore said. “My final destination is Lady Liberty in New York City.”

“My big idea is not only to explore how the rivers and waterways connect but how we, as Americans, connect,” he said. “I’m looking for the ingredients of the American experience.”

That’s a lot of water miles; 7,500 to be exact. Twenty-two rivers and 22 states, all in 22 months. Quite a goal.

“I’ve always been interested in historical communities, those that are rich in history. Plus, I’m a big baseball fan. Cooperstown fit nicely into my schedule,” he said. “I actually hiked here from Little Falls; I left my canoe there and will return for it to continue my journey. I could have gotten a ride here, but I felt like walking here honors this community. I had the chance to step into the rhyme and reason of the village.”

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Moore spent his summers in Hawaii and England.

“My only brother died when I was young, and my parents didn’t want me to grow up without other children around,” Moore said. “We had relatives in Hawaii and England, and I would spend my summers there. I think that’s where my taste for travel and adventure started”.

“I’m an explorer at heart, but my profession is journalism and I teach English in Taiwan,” he said. “I saved money for a year and a half for this trip. I also deal in old relics, photos and books that sell at auction. That helps pay the bills.”

Although Moore was an Eagle Scout, he only completed half of his canoe badge at 12 years old and didn’t get back into a canoe until he was 38.

“I really wasn’t thinking about canoeing at all, but my friend had a dream to canoe up the Amazon River,” he said. “We made a plan to do it together. He ended up backing out but I decided to canoe solo down the Mississippi. That got me back into a canoe.”

His current cross-country canoe journey is a tough trip.

“It’s physically demanding — and mentally demanding as well,” he said.

He’s had some interesting encounters with wild animals. The most memorable was an encounter in the middle of Montana with a grizzly bear.

[And then there was the giant gator down in Louisiana. “I didn’t see the alligator at first,”] he recalled. “When I did, I froze, then I started clapping my hands. He [kept on coming, so I shined my bright diving light, and he] ended up walking away. He had no interest in me.”

A bull shark in Biloxi, Mississippi, did a “bump and bite” on his canoe.

“The shark hit my canoe hard three times, thankfully he wasn’t interested in me either!” he said.

Moore appears accustomed to taking care of things on his own terms.

“My folks cut me off financially after college,” he said. “The good part about that was that every success was mine, but then every failure was mine as well. It gave me confidence in life, I have very few fears. This trip has taught me a lot.”

Moore’s end game is paddling down the Hudson and ending up at the Statue of Liberty on Tuesday, December 14. “The final hurrah and paddle around Lady Liberty will be great. A number of paddlers I’ve met along the way and various NYC-based canoe and kayak clubs will greet me and paddle with me. Then we’ll celebrate in Midtown Manhattan.”

“The Beacon Hand of the Statue of Liberty is extended to all of us. I will earn and have an understanding of what liberty means, not only for this country but for the world at large,” Moore said. “This journey isn’t about me, its about a perfect blend between nature, wilderness and community.”

THE CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

With Mark Wenzler

You never know who will show up on Chautauqua’s shores, any time of year! Today we’re excited to profile Athenaeum Hotel guest Neal Moore, who is taking brief respite at Chautauqua as he prepares for the tail end of a 7,500-mile canoe trip from coastal Oregon to New York City. Neal’s Chautauqua stop is part of his trip *from* New Orleans — yes, upstream — via the Mississippi, Ohio, Allegheny, Chadakoin and Chautauqua Lake. Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative Director Mark Wenzler, himself a veteran of long-distance solo trips under one’s own power (see his bike trip from Washington, D.C., to Chautauqua in June) spoke to Neal this afternoon about the purpose and findings of his unique two-year voyage.

Read more about Neal’s trip here: https://22rivers.com/

See a map of his nation-spanning route here: https://bit.ly/3fhvOyI

You also might notice some similarities between Neal’s story and our upcoming #CHQ2022 week on “The Wild: Reconnecting with Our Natural World.” Join us next summer! Details are here: http://2022.chq.org/

By Sebastian Foltz 

The Butler Eagle

Some of us dream about packing up and hitting the road.

Maybe it’s a fantasy about buying a camper and driving the blue highways.

Maybe it’s quitting a job and moving West, dropping everything.

Few of us get to do it. Neal Moore, 49, did.

In some ways, the Los Angeles-born expatriate has been doing it his entire adult life — mostly living abroad in South Africa and Taiwan since age 19. All that time abroad contributed in part to a desire to reconnect with his home country and explore it from coast to coast.

“I’ve always been a fan of the road books,” Moore said, describing some of his inspiration during a phone interview from somewhere between Pittsburgh and East Brady.

You could say he’s doing it backward, going from West to East. You could say he’s doing it in an unconventional way. But he might argue he’s doing it in the most traditional way possible, by canoe.

“I like the idea of the canoe being the first mode of transport,” he said. “The rivers are the country’s first thoroughfare. I thought, what if I did it the wrong way and approached the Statue of Liberty?”

When he’s finished, Moore, will have paddled roughly 7,500 miles from Astoria, Ore., up the Columbia River, down to New Orleans on the Mississippi and up to New York City, including the Ohio and Allegheny rivers and the Erie Canal.

From start to finish, he will have navigated 22 rivers through 22 states. He’s already covered about 6,600 miles.

He hopes to complete his journey in December.

Started in 2020

He started on the Columbia River in February 2020, just prior to the onset of the pandemic in the United States.

“I left Oregon the day it shut down,” he recalls of crossing into Idaho, describing his shelter-in-place as “sheltering-in-canoe.”

The Eagle first caught up with Moore on Aug. 31, as he set out from the boat launch under the Roberto Clemente Bridge in Pittsburgh. A car pulled up to PNC Park with his canoe in tow. Trish Howison, his Pittsburgh host or “river angel,” helped him unload and launch. Then she joined him in her kayak for a portion as he headed up the Allegheny toward the fringes of Butler County.

That’s how it’s worked for Moore. He’s camped, he’s stayed with friends and people he’s met along the way. Sometimes it’s just people who have followed his story and offered to help. Sometimes it includes a cold beer.

Book in works

Finishing at the Statue of Liberty ties into his larger narrative. Moore plans to write a book about his experiences, not just his own, but also those of whom he meets along the way.

He undertook a similar adventure in 2009: canoeing the Mississippi during the financial crisis. A boater that he crossed paths with on that trip sparked the idea to tie in multiple rivers on a larger tour.

Moore said he thinks doing the cross-country trip by water also is a good way to interact with more people along the way.

Watching American news coverage from abroad during the Trump administration inspired him to take on this more-ambitious expedition.

“As a journalist, I was looking at it from the outside,” he said. “I could see the bitterness and that it was getting worse.”

His first attempt at the cross-country paddle was cut short in 2018. Flooding in much of the Northwest — along with a life-threatening capsizing in frigid water in Montana — slowed his travels, so much so that he would not have made his target had he continued.

Rather than pick up where he left off, Moore decided to start over, this time in an election year and, as he would quickly discover, a growing pandemic.

‘What unites us’

“I wanted to drop my preconceived notions about people and party, and listen,” Moore said. “We all know what divides us. I wanted to look at what unites us.”

For the most part, he said he has found that the country is greater than the headlines.

“You find good, honest people who are trying to make things better,” he said of the majority of his interactions. “I found incredible people.”

And the pandemic has only added to his story telling.

“In hard times is when we look out for our neighbors. Friends and community become family.”

But he’s also seen a slice of the nation’s ugliness. Since his 2009 trip down the Mississippi and even his first cross-country attempt in 2018, he said he’s seen the drug culture in homeless camps and other areas increase significantly.

A different person

Camped near a church in Idaho, he heard two addicts threatening to kill each other and the local minister. One demanded Moore exit his tent. The next morning he saw one of the men in a diner and he was a different person, even offering use of his home.

He also has been shouted at.

“I’ve been yelled at. It’s rare,” he said. “People get so worked up over their political identity that they see opposing views as un-American.”

But he said the majority of his experiences have been extremely positive.

“By and large, people are good-natured,” Moore said. “The reality is people have a love of family, community and they absolutely have a love of country. My hope is that those can supersede our division with politics.”

After delays from Tropical Storm Ida, Moore reached East Brady on Monday evening, Sept. 6. He plans to continue up the Allegheny toward Franklin and Oil City this week.

His travels can be followed through his website, 22rivers.com and on Instagram @riverjournalist.

The Daily Sentinel

By Brittany Hively

POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — For the last year and a half, adventurer and canoeist, Neal Moore has turned the lyrics “from sea to shining sea” into a life journey.

Moore set out in February 2020 to explore the United States from Astoria, Oregon to Lady Liberty in New York, crossing 22 states and 22 rivers. The interesting part, he is traveling by canoe.

“The big idea was to connect the rivers from sea to shining sea, from coast to coast, with the Statue of Liberty as the end game,” Moore said.

Moore moved to Africa as a teenager and spent several years in Asia, inspiring his journey to explore his home country more. He is originally from Los Angeles, Calif.

“I’ve been an expatriate for most of my life. The big idea was to come back to my home country and to really see it and really experience it up close and personal,” Moore said

Moore has been stopping in small river-towns across America during his journey. Stopping in Point Pleasant earlier this week, he said there is about 1,200 of the 7,500-mile trip left.

“Most days, I launch out at first light and paddle until last light. So, you have the hour after the sun goes down to make camp,” Moore said. “I’m looking for towns and looking for places to make camp.”

Islands, RV parks, a few host families and the occasional hotel stay has been Moore’s way of life for the last 18 months.

“It’s turned into about 10 nights of camping wild and one night with a host family or a hotel or an Airbnb or a RV park,” Moore said.

Moore said he looks forward to the home-cooked meals often offered by host families as they are “too good for words.”

With no tracking or GPS devices and little phone usage, Moore said part of the plan was to really see America without the interference of constant availability. All his worldly belongings are what fits on the canoe, aside from a few resupply boxes along the way.

“When you push yourself out into nature, it’s really a great thing. Water itself it’s a stabilizing experience, I think,” Moore said. “On a journey like this, when you push yourself out into the water and into the wildness and you have the wildness all around you and it’s just you and nature, it’s an incredible feeling. You’re embraced by the wildness and by being in the wild, you have embraced the wildness inside of ourselves as well, which can be scary but a really great experience.”

While navigation is important, Moore must be constantly aware of the weather and any impending storms.

“A couple of side trips, one was up the Kentucky River to see the capitol, Frankfurt, and this other one was to come up the Kanawha River to see Charleston, which I was able to do,” Moore said. “When I was on my up the Kentucky, they only operate those dams on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was setup on Friday morning, continued forward. The second dam was about 30 miles in, so I wasn’t going to make that before dark. As I was paddling up, I just have a couple of new apps on my phone and one of them gave me a warning – flash flood warning. And then right at dark came the second warning which was extreme lightning storm.”

Moore said he could see the storm moving in from the Ohio area into Kentucky and knew he needed to get to the highest ground.

“I found a spot that was just ridiculously high after dark. It was sandy. It’s a really muddy river, just beautiful – wild and natural and muddy,” Moore said. “So, I sort of, climbed up to this ledge with the sand up there and it was so high up. I grabbed all my stuff; I could see the storm coming but it was a dry lightning storm to start with.”

After a quick debate on taking his canoe up the hill, Moore decided it was best not to leave it. Carrying all his possessions and the canoe to high ground, he was able to make camp and rest.

“I slept like a baby,” Moore said. “The next morning when I woke up, I opened the front [tent] and the water was right there. It had come up about 10 feet.”

After speaking with one of the dam operators, Moore learned about more expected flooding and headed back to the Ohio, but not before meeting some locals.

“As I was starting the portage of that last dam before the Ohio these two local guys, they looked like fisherman,” Moore said. “They were whooping and hollering up on the hill, and then high-fiving each other.”

The men thought Moore had found their lost canoe.

“These are local guys who know the area, they had been on the river camping just below where I was, they lost their canoe, they lost all their gear. They had a spot device and they hit SOS, so they were rescued by emergency services.”

This is Moore’s second attempt at the journey. During the first one, his canoe flipped in rapid, frigid waters after turning and being blocked by two large, downed trees.

“The natural environment, she can be beautiful, but she can be wicked at the same time,” Moore said.

Moore has a marine radio to communicate with towboats and said his job is to stay out of their way. He also must stay aware of all obstacles – logs, debris, trash, etc. – that could be in the way.

If completed, Moore will be the first to complete this adventure.

“It’s been done from east coast to west coast, specifically in a canoe, solo and continuous. It has not been done from west coast to east coast,” Moore said.

Moore said his journey along the rivers and river-towns, many the first towns, connects the then and now.

“What I’m trying to do is to see how the rivers and waterways connect across the country, but also to look for and document how we as a people connect… looking for the threads of our common humanity and what it means to be an American,” Moore said. “By the time I get to the beacon hand of the Statue of Liberty I will, in my mind, earned that view from the American side, from the American experience to see where a lot of us had started off back in the day.”

Americans know what divides, Moore said he wanted to highlight what brings them together.

“I think a truism with humanity anywhere in the world you are, when times are tough, this is when we as a people roll up our sleeves and this is when we look out for each other. Families come together and communities can come together as well,” Moore said.

When needed waterways are closed Moore walks, pulling his canoe on wheels. He recently learned he will need to do this for the last 135 miles before reaching Syracuse, New York.

Moore plans to circle Liberty Island in December. He set off from Point Pleasant’s Riverfront Park to continue his journey Tuesday morning with one goal.

“From sea to shining sea to really see and experience and highlight and underscore the positive of where we’ve got ourselves off to and what has come of us as Americans,” Moore said.

© 2021 Ohio Valley Publishing, all rights reserved.

By Sarah Bankston

CBS/CW Affiliate WSAZ