Badfish Book Club: Water Borne — A 1,200-Mile Paddleboarding Pilgrimage

A review and interview with author Dan Rubinstein

A little peek behind the curtain… we get a lot of emails from people asking us to send them free boards.

In today’s social media–driven environment, everyone has a plan to become a one-person marketing engine for your brand, if you could just, please ship them a board, free of charge. No shade to all you hustlers out there looking for a deal… keep ’em coming.

But in early 2023, one email caught my eye.

I was doing my usual scan of the inbox when I saw another board request. I started reading quickly… and then slowed down. This guy wants to do what? Paddle from Ottawa, Canada to New York City—and back again? Is there even a waterway that connects those two places?

A quick consultation with Google Maps to confirm just how crazy this plan actually was, and I was firing off a reply to the email’s author, Dan Rubinstein, with a big thumbs up. Let’s send this guy one of our self-support paddleboards—the Selfie—and see if this is for real.

Fast forward to late 2025.

I’m queuing up a podcast while doing dishes and, without paying much attention, I hit play on The Outside Podcast from Outside Magazine. Five minutes in, a wave of recognition hits me.

Wait a minute… I know this guy.

The guest being interviewed is a pleasant-sounding Canadian who just published a book about his 1,200-mile, four-month paddleboard journey from Ottawa to NYC and back again.

I immediately searched my inbox as the whole thing came rushing back—and yep, that’s the guy.

Okay, so I was distracted back in 2023. We had just opened the Surf Shop, and I’m embarrassed to admit I kind of forgot about Dan and his trip. But after hearing that interview, I ordered a copy of Water Borne: A 1,200-Mile Paddleboarding Pilgrimage and sent Dan a quick email to reconnect.

I recently finished the book, so here’s my amateur review, followed by a short interview with Dan. Details on how to grab a copy for yourself are at the end of the post.

The Review

Water Borne is a truly unique adventure story.

Dan began this journey literally from his front door, putting in on the Ottawa River in his hometown of Ottawa, Ontario. Over the next four months, he linked rivers, man-made canals, and lakes—including the Great Lakes—to reach New York City. Then he turned around and paddled back via the Erie Canal and Lake Ontario, completing an ambitious loop back home.

The route itself is creative, bold, and deeply inspiring. But what elevates the book is Dan’s storytelling.

Beyond the physical mission, he masterfully weaves together regional history, the ecological damage wrought by more than 200 years of industry, and the modern efforts to restore and reimagine these waterways. The concept of “Blue Spaces”—the mental and physical health benefits of being in and around water—becomes the throughline of the book.

Along the way, Dan meets an incredible cast of characters who are actively reshaping their communities’ relationships with local waterways. As someone who has made connecting people with water his life’s work, that theme obviously hit home for me.

Dan balances serious environmental and historical themes with humor and self-deprecation, keeping the tone light even when the subject matter gets heavy.

I loved this book. If you love paddling, rivers, lakes, or simply the idea of adventure starting at your own doorstep, you’ll love it too.

Below is a short interview Dan was kind enough to do with us.

If you’d like a copy, you can order it through the usual channels. If you want a signed copy from your local highest-elevation surf shop, shoot me an email and we’ll make it happen.

Interview with Dan Rubinstein

One of the most inspiring aspects of your trip was how local it was for you. You literally left your house, put in on the Ottawa River, and began your journey. So many of us think of expeditions in terms of far-off, exotic destinations. Can you talk about the inspiration behind choosing a mission that started right outside your front door?

 

I’ve always been drawn to adventures in my own backyard. When I lived in Edmonton, Alberta, as much as I loved hiking three hours away in the Rockies, I hiked a 200-mile prairie trail that starts and ends in the city. I’ve also walked from my childhood home in Toronto to my family’s cabin northeast of the city, a 130-mile trek that I did over four days. Part of this comes from my desire to discover and explore natural places near urban areas — to affirm that there is indeed “wilderness” close to home. It’s also an opportunity to see what’s happening in the transition zones where development gives way to less populated places. Interesting things are going on in these liminal spaces. There’s a simplicity to trips like this: you just pack up your gear, leave the house and go. This can make the logistics more manageable and can mean you spend more time paddling or walking, which is great if you’ve got a short window for travel. On a deeper level, these journeys connect me to the natural and human ecosystems where I live, especially if I’m doing journalism along the way, and I see myself as part of a larger, diverse environment in which I play a small role.

On this trip, you connected so many types of waterways—rivers, lakes (including the Great Lakes), and man-made canals—and paddled through numerous communities whose relationships with these waters are evolving. What was your biggest takeaway from the people you met and what you observed about how post-industrial communities are reconnecting with their waterways?

People have always been pulled to the water, everywhere. But as our cities and towns grew, and as we dumped more and more pollution into rivers, lakes and oceans, we turned our backs to these blue spaces. Now we’re cleaning them up — North American’s lakes and rivers are a lot less polluted than they were just a couple decades ago — and we’re rediscovering just how good being in, on or around the water makes us feel. There’s an important ecological stewardship element to this reconnection: if you feel a strong bond to a place, you’re going to want to take better care of it. But to me, it’s the chance for connection between people, across lines that typically divide us, that’s the most compelling potential for urban and near-urban waterways. Regardless of your age, gender, race or class, as long as public access is maintained, people are going to go to the water. I experienced this every single day during my trip, and had so many inspiring encounters with so many kind and generous strangers. This reminded me that it doesn’t matter what you see on social media, we human beings are basically seeking the same things: safety, community, opportunity — and maybe some time to dip our toes in the water or jump in for a swim at the end of a hot day.

Anyone who has done a long, multi-day self-supported trip on a SUP knows there are both unique advantages and real challenges to traveling this way. Why was a paddleboard the right craft for you on this adventure?

It was absolutely the right vessel for me. Foremost, it was hot during much of my journey, so I jumped into the water to cool off frequently — like, every 15 or 20 minutes on the most scorching and muggy days. There were only a few times, such as when there had been a sewage spill near where I was on the Hudson River, that I couldn’t swim. Nothing against canoeing or kayaking — some of my best friends are sit-down paddlers — but it’s really hard to do this unless you’re on a SUP. Beyond that, I wanted to travel light and fast (or least as fast as possible on a paddleboard), which meant I had to pare down my gear to the minimum. Traveling for weeks with only three drybags made me keep things as basic as I could. Because I used an inflatable (Badfish’s Selfie 14) I could deflate the board when I was spending time away from the water and had to hop into a car or bus. That portability really came in handy. For me, as well, standing and paddling is an activity I can sustain for 10 or 12 or 14 hours, or however long I’m on the water. My longest day was about 15 hours of paddling on the Hudson, more than 40 miles from Troy, NY, to a marina in Catskill, NY. I can’t imagine how much my back or knees would hurt if I spent that many hours canoeing or kayaking. When you’re standing, you can shift your body around constantly, use different muscles, stretch and so forth — it’s kind of like walking in that you don’t go very fast, but you can do it all day. Lastly, when you’re on a SUP you literally stand out, and since one of my goals was to talk to people, people everywhere saw this weird dude on a 14-foot-long SUP loaded with drybags and asked me where I was going and why. So it was a great conversation starter!

What advice would you give to someone interested in planning a self-supported—or even “credit-card supported”—SUP trip in their own backyard?

Get comfortable on your board, get familiar with your gear (and get some lightweight camping gear if you’re going to tent), do some basic research on hazards and amenities along the waterways you’re planning to travel, and then just go. Because my trip was a journalistic expedition, I did a lot of advance planning, which allowed me to set up interviews with dozens of people along my route, but my one regret was that I didn’t leave more to chance and submit myself more to natural rhythms. I had a rough schedule to stick to and people to meet. But whenever I had to figure things out on the fly, like finding a place to camp or get water or food, those were generally the most fun experiences. Strangers helped me out everywhere: giving me cold drinks and snacks, suggesting local parks where it’d be OK to camp (if it wasn’t technically legal). And I figured things out my own, like bushwacking through riverbanks to get to a fast food restaurant, or carrying my SUP and gear through a string or parking lots to get to a cheap motel. I’d also suggest trying a shorter trip before anything too ambitious; years ago, my first self-supported trip on a SUP was just one overnight. I took a train from the city where I live to a town about 50 miles away and paddled back over two days. That showed me how feasible this type of thing was. And I think you’ll be surprised just how nimble SUP travel can be — how easy it can be to get onto or off the water, how you can shuttle all your stuff to a campsite or motel or portage through a town or lock station. There are risks and variables, mostly wind and weather, but that’s part of the fun! There are lot of little nuances that can make trips smoother, of course: how to pack your drybags, what clothing to wear while paddling and in camp, what type of snacks to bring, how to monitor the weather for storms, but you’ll figure those out pretty quickly, and then make adjustments until you get things right.