#1670 Paddling the Full Lewis and Clark Trail

Clay interviews Montana adventurer Norm Miller, who has undertaken truly heroic canoe and kayak journeys on great rivers of the West. When he was 35, he retraced Scottish trader Alexander Mackenzie’s 1789 2,000-mile journey from Lake Athabasca to the Arctic Ocean. When he was 41, during the Bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Norm floated from St. Louis all the way to Astoria, Oregon, leaving his modified canoe only when there was no longer anything to float, and then making his way overland with a 45-pound backpack. Both stories are amazing — a lone man threading some of the most powerful rivers on the North American continent, keeping a daily journal, taking thousands of old school photographs, affirming the geographic descriptions in the journals of Lewis and Clark and Alex Mackenzie, and meeting very interesting roadside groups and individuals. This episode was recorded on September 13, 2025.