Author Eddy L. Harris Gives Rousing Keynote at Gateway Outdoor Summit

Eddy L. Harris is not a fan of smartphones. Speaking onstage in a ballroom at the St. Charles Convention Center in mid-November, Harris explained that smartphones prevent us from truly connecting with each other. As he made this point, a woman in the front row departed the room with a cell phone to her ear.

“See?” Harris quipped. “Smartphones.”

Harris was addressing the crowd as the keynote speaker of the Gateway Outdoor Summit, a veritable meeting of the minds of the Midwest outdoor industry. During his address, Harris, a St. Louis native, recounted the story of a canoe trip that forever changed his life.

It happened in 1985, when Harris was a “practically suicidal” young man who had spent eight years trying to become a writer, without success. That’s when he climbed into a canoe in northern Minnesota and began a journey down the Mississippi River.

“I thought the first day was going to be my last day,” Harris remembered. Floating through chilly Minnesota in October, Harris was freezing. His feet were cold and wet. He thought he might die. He passed a barn and considered burning it down for warmth. But he persisted. Looking back, October turned out to be a good time to paddle, noted Harris. “Once I got past the wintry part of the upper Mississippi, I reached the warmer parts, and there were no mosquitoes.”

Eventually, Harris reached the Gulf of Mexico, then wrote a manuscript about his 2,000-mile adventure. After being rejected by 55 publishers, Harris found a small publishing house that agreed to release the book. Published in 1988, Mississippi Solo received critical acclaim. More books followed, then a documentary, River to the Heart. Over the years, Harris has also worked as a lecturer and professor of literature. For the past three decades, he has lived in France and traveled the world.

But none of this would have occurred without Harris’ initial leap of faith. During that first paddle, as on future trips, Harris was struck by the generosity of the people he met. He recalled one interaction with a woman in Iowa. She opened her door, gave him a place to stay for the night, and made him soup. Most of his encounters were like this, what Harris called “real connections.”

“It makes you wonder whether people in fact live a kind of double existence,” Harris said, “professing one thing but living their lives almost counter to what they would seem to profess.”

Harris spoke for about half an hour, then — after a standing ovation — answered questions for another half-hour. In his gentle voice, he emphasized the importance of taking risks in life and fondly reflected on his favorite river, the Mighty Mississippi.

“The Mississippi River and the solitude and the camaraderie — and even the dangers overcome — saved my life, saved my soul, saved my spirit,” Harris said. “Along the way, I not only discovered what I was made of, but I also discovered a world that was entirely new to me, this wild world which deserves to be preserved and deserves to be shared. Because it has so much to teach us if we care to learn and to listen — about ourselves, about this country, about each other, and about all the intertwining connections which make us whole.”

Watch Harris’ full keynote speech here.

Author: Shawn Donnelly is the managing editor of Terrain Magazine.
Top Photo: Eddy L. Harris speaks at the Gateway Outdoor Summit. (Alex Noguera)