The Missing Boater

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2022

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dick Conant spent years of his life crisscrossing America by canoe, like a Mark Twain character. On land, he worked a variety of jobs and was often homeless, but paddling on a river, he was king. By chance, on a voyage which began near the Canadian border, on his way to Florida, Conant met Ben McGrath, a New Yorker staff writer, outside McGrath’s home on the Hudson River. McGrath’s piece about Conant appeared in the December 14, 2015, issue of The New Yorker this week; here, he tells the story of a troubled man who found refuge in adventure.

Ben McGrath’s book about Conant, “Riverman: An American Odyssey,” will be published in April.

Originally aired December 11, 2015.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.7	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:12.8	One of the very first stories that we aired on this program, episode A, does a matter of
0:17.0	fact, was about a man named Dick Conan, a kind of adventurer who in middle age began
0:21.6	taking trips by canoe, long, extraordinary trips.
0:26.5	Take one example.
0:28.2	Then Trouble the entire length of the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico.
0:32.5	Then he paddled back upstream on the Mobile River, making his way to Tennessee.
0:38.1	Then he gets a ride over the peak of the Appalachians and finally paddles the James River through
0:43.8	Virginia out to the Atlantic Ocean.
0:47.0	That's just one trip.
0:49.1	And by chance Dick Conan met Staff Rider Ben McGrath one fine day on the Hudson River.
0:55.6	Eight years later Ben's book about Conan called River Man, an American Odyssey, comes out
1:00.8	this week.
1:01.8	And so we wanted to revisit this story about a very difficult, troubled, but truly remarkable
1:07.7	life.
1:16.2	So here we're in town of Peer Mountain, New York, which is about 15 miles north of the
1:21.2	George Washington Bridge on the west side of the Hudson River.
1:25.8	I like to go kayaking, usually in the mornings.
1:28.3	The day I met Dick, which was Labor Day of 2014, I was going to take my two-year-old kayaking.
1:34.8	My neighbor peaked his head over that wall and he said, there's somebody in here who I
1:39.1	think you might want to meet.
	...

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