Exploring America's Great Loop: Artfully Cruising the Rivers and Canals of North America

Join James and Jill Iverson on a year-long journey of discovery as they joyously experience the challenges and

rewards of America's Great Loop. Full color, and illustrated with pages from Jill's sketch journal, it is a fun

enlightening read for anyone interested in the magic of traveling by water.

Ever since I was a little boy I wanted a boat and to have adventureson the water. Even though my family had no nautical history andvery little money to invest in anything as frivolous as a boat, thedream persisted. In adulthood I read everything I could about small boatvoyaging. I read many 'how-to' manuals explaining the physics of sailing.I became fl uent in the arcane technical language of sailors. Yet my liferemained land bound and I began to doubt if I ever would sail over thatmysterious horizon. We lived in the Florida Keys for eight years. One yearI bought a 12-foot aluminum fi shing boat with a 5 HP outboard for twohundred dollars. It was a boat that was made for small inland lakes and wasabsolutely unsuitable for the open water of the Keys. After scaring myselfand putting my young family in jeopardy I traded the boat to a local fi shermanfor some lobster tails.In the early nineties after being sideswiped by Hurricane Andrew, wemoved north to Milwaukee and our financial situation improved. In 1998, Ibought a small sailboat offered by a business acquaintance. Jill and I took sailingcourses at the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center and our sailing life began.Retirement allowed us to expand our sailing horizons; sailing with friendsin the Caribbean and spending months at a time sailing the Great Lakes. I amby nature a rather introverted, cerebral guy and while not a man of faith, myconnection to the natural world is as close to a religious experience as I will everhave. For me traveling on the water is the most real interaction I can have withnature including its peacefulness, sublime beauty, and sometimes its terror.

My family's summers were spent operating a remote fly-inCanadian fish camp, where we made our own fun by the water.Having no electricity or media, we rose with the sun and tookour cues from the earth. Befriending toads, climbing rocks, swimming, andcreative play gave me the background experiences that make me who I amtoday.Creativity and art have always been central to my life. My grandmotherMargaret was a watercolorist and puppeteer who shared her talents with me.I would go on to study art in college but would lose the pleasures of beinga simple maker when life demanded other things from me. Motherhood wasimportant and fulfilling, but being a full-time worker and parent left little timefor art.The question of what to do with my life after our sons matured and worklife ended was an interesting one. My first few years of retirement were focusedon completing tasks in several community volunteer positions.When we began considering doing the Great Loop I realized that lettinggo of all the distractions of life on land could mirror my childhood years atcamp and I could make time for daily creativity. I see the world with differenteyes when I am making art regularly. I would go on to use the simple tools inmy art drawer and my needles and embroidery floss to reflect on the interestingworld I saw from the windows of MV Alvin James and the results wouldoften surprise me.