During stage 1 we will kayak 1,400 miles from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska. The Pacific Northwest is home to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial animals. We will be studying whales and other marine mammals, kelp forests, salmon, and many other species.
The Pacific Northwest is home to a variety of large land mammals including Grizzly Bears, and Black Bears. Above and below the surface we are sure to find plenty of things to learn about. Many of these large mammals need large undeveloped spaces to thrive and the roadless sections of British Columbia and Alaska provide the perfect habitat.
From Skagway, Alaska we will hike over the Chilkoot Pass in the footsteps of thousands of gold seekers who struggled across the pass to reach the Klondike. Many of artifacts remain from those early days, and we will follow their path all the way to Dawson City along the mighty Yukon River.
From Bennet Lake on the eastern side of the Chilkoot Pass we will canoe through a chain of lakes that form the headwaters of the Yukon River past White Horse and down the swift flowing Yukon River to Dawson City. 
From Dawson we will hike 100 miles through the mountains to the headwaters of the Blackstone River. The Blackstone flows into the Peel River, which flows in the McKenzie River, which will lead us to the Arctic Ocean. The rivers flowing through these rugged mountains as some of the most pristine wild rivers in North America, with hundreds of miles of flowing waterways between towns or roads.
After over 2,600 miles of paddling and hiking we hope to reach the Arctic Ocean before freeze up. We will spend the month of October,2010 training our dogs, and learning about native life in the Arctic. In November we will head south along the McKenzie River by dog team, crossing 1,800 miles of frozen wilderness. There are many remote native communities along our way and we are sure to learn a lot from the people we encounter.
When the ice melts in the Spring of 2011 we will transition from dogsled to canoe and paddle 2,300 miles along the historic travel and trade route pioneered by Alexander McKenzie, Samuel Hearne, and other Canadian Explorers in the 1700's. We will finish this stage of our journey in the fall of 2011 by completing the 8 1/2 mile Grand Portage which will lead us to the rock shore of Lake Superior.
After spending the winter giving presentations and making final preparations we will begin 4,800 mile kayak journey from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Key West, Florida. The first 2,200 miles will take us through the Great Lakes and out the Saint Lawrence Seaway. 
During the final stage of our journey we will kayak the length of the Atlantic Coast from the Saint Lawrence Seaway to Key West, Florida. We will be following the seasonal whale migration from the Bay of Fundy in Maine to the warm clear waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way we will visit cities large and small, and study a variety of ecosystems and environmental topics. We also plan to take side trips into the cyprus swamps and Everglades National Park looking for Alligators, birds, and other critters.
Home 
Green and Simple
Green and Simple
Green and Simple
One of the main goals of the North American Odyssey is to encourage people to make changes in their lives the will leave more time for friends, family, and the natural world, as well as reduce people's environmental impact. The food we eat, the water we use, the things we purchase, discard, and transport all affect our lives, and the environment. Sometimes less is more and this is certainly the case for Amy and Dave's lives on the trail; the water they drink comes from the water ways they use as highways, and everything they need fits into a backpack, kayak hatch, or dogsled. The Green and Simple section of the website is designed to provide information about clean energy, locally grown and organic foods, water conservation, energy usage, and cleaner modes of transportation.
San Francisco is the First City in the U.S. to Count Its Parking Spaces
Sunday, 11 April 2010 06:25
Photo: Flickr, CC
"In San Francisco, housing is expensive for people but free for most cars."
It might come as a surprise to some, but pretty much all cities in the U.S. (and the world) have only a vague idea of how many parking spaces (public and private) they have. But now there's a sizeable exception: San Francisco spent the past 18 months counting its parking spaces. Total: 441,541 spaces. Over 280,000 on streets, 25,000 of which are metered. With this information, decisions about removing or adding parkings can be made ... Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photo: Hyundai
Finally Some New Blood
Hyundai is challenging Toyota and Ford in the mid-size hybrid segment with the new Sonata hybrid which was unveiled today in New York. And at least on paper, it is quite competitive! It gets a slightly different styling from the regular 2011 Sonata (probably because of Toyota's experience with the Prius -- fewer people buy hybrids that look exactly the same as their non-hybrid counterparts), but the really interesting part is what's under the hood. Read on for the technical specifications....