Lake Huron. The great lake with the most coastline.

June 2009.

Stephen Brede is a 58 year old journalist and photographer who has thought for many working years of making a non-motorized voyage, a walkabout, though in the end it is a walkabout with a paddle. He plans to circumnavigate Lake Huron in the summer and fall of 2009. Stephen has always been drawn to the water, it brought him from East Lansing to Petoskey, Michigan years ago.  Legendary canoeist, Verlen Kruger, who began paddling at the age of 41 and died 41 years later in 2004, inspired Stephen with stories of his long distance canoe voyages. Kruger also designed the expedition canoe that is Stephen’s new home office, the Seawind.

The trip around Lake Huron began on June 21, 2009 at the south end of the Mackinac Bridge on the first day of summer. His goal is the north end of the Mighty Mack before the storms of November.

June 2010

Circumnavigation of Lake Michigan is the quest this summer. Stephen paddled north from Petoskey Harbor, 6 blocks from home, and returned to Little Traverse Bay from the south in early September.

Bathymetry of Mishigami, as earlier residents named the big lake.

June 2012

After taking last summer off following the death of his father, Stephen is ready to get his beloved Seawind back in the water and follow his dream around the coastline of Lake Erie, the southernmost, shallowest, smallest by volume of the Great Lakes.

Lake Erie, lake of three basins.

Stephen Brede