On Earth Day 2010, Dave and Amy Freeman began a three year, 11,700 mile journey across North America by kayak, canoe and dogsled. They are using journey as a platform for gaining support and protection for North America’s waterways and wild places, while actively engaging over 100,000 elementary and middle school students in their journey though their website and live school assemblies.

Their odyssey began by kayak on the Pacific Coast where they started studying temperate rainforests and marine life of the Pacific Northwest, but this was just the first in a series of six stages on their quest to highlight North America’s wildest places.

After kayaking 1,400 miles from Seattle, Washington to Skagway, Alaska, the team progressed over the history-studded mountains in the footsteps of the Klondike Gold Rush, to the home of Inuit along the Arctic Ocean where polar bears roam. From the Arctic Ocean they are dogsledding and canoeing south through central Canada, kayaking across the Great Lakes, then following the annual whale migration past the salt marshes and sea turtles of the Atlantic Coast, finishing in the mangroves and coral reefs of the Florida Keys.

Through lesson plans and daily web updates, elementary and middle school students learn alongside the explorers through
www.wildernessclassroom.com and adults can follow their progress through www.NorthAmericanOdyssey.com.

They are excited to share their experiences here on iWend.