The Wayfarer
Ben McGrath on the transcontinental canoe trips and disappearance of an eccentric Navy vet.
Conant's red canoe was "packed as if for the apocalypse"—tarps, trash bags, Army-surplus duffels. He was sixty-three, three hundred pounds, with a rust-colored beard and a grip like no handshake I've ever felt. A riparian Santa headed for Florida. He laughed with great heaves of his gut.