"Crack"

Imagine hearing the sound of your spine snap, in an instant ending life as you have known it for 52 years. Greg Allen was thrown from his burro in 1999, leaving him with a cervical contusion and a ligament injury at his C2-4, C6, C7 vertebrae, and severe head trauma. He was later given the news; the accident had left him paraplegic.

Greg, who has spent his life as a guide and leader in the outdoors, made a decision to never give up his dreams. Inspired by Christopher Reeves, he realized he was still the same person he was before the accident. His dreams may change a little, there may be different challenges, but he was not going to give in to his paraplegia.

Five years after the accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down, with the support of his family and friends, Greg successfully canoed the 1000-mile MacKenzie River, solo!

Heather: Given the diagnosis, paraplegia, some people would be left with a broken spirit, regretting all the things they would never do. Your accident seemed to have had the opposite effect. Where did you find the strength, courage and inspiration to take on such a journey as soloing the MacKenzie River in a canoe?

Greg: You can’t succeed in any endeavor without a support system. I am not any different. Strength and courage for me came from my wife. An accident like mine doesn’t just happen to me but it happened to both of us. It didn’t just change my life, but hers as well. Instead of being a vibrant partner in a relationship, I became a burden. I became someone who needed to be taken care of. I needed help for everything. The biggest loss was the loss of independence. I lost the ability to take care of myself. My courage and strength were reactionary. When I got out of rehab and found myself just laying around, feeling depressed about everything that had happened to me, my wife gave me a talking book by Chris Reeve’s, "Still Me." The similarities were almost identical. His struggle became mine. I remembered who I used to be. I decided I wasn’t going to take all this laying down -- as it were. I got pissed off! When the doctors told me I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life I just said "No, I’m not". I‘m probably still paralyzed, but too stupid to realize it.

Heather: On the river, what were the biggest challenges you faced as a paraplegic on a solo journey?

Greg: The river is a euphemism. It is just a journey. It has a beginning and it has an end. There are challenges in everyone’s life, on every journey. That’s what a river is. The challenge is simple, success or failure. To finish is success, not to finish is failure. Solo means alone. Alone means you don’t have anyone to help you -- or to compare with. When you are solo you are no longer disabled. You’re just you. It took me three hours to setup camp everyday, but they were three of my hours, not yours or his, or anyone else’s. Time’s different when you’re alone. That’s hard to explain but with 24 hours of daylight, everything takes on a different meaning. You can’t be late and you don’t have to worry about running out of time before dark. That’s always been a problem in the bush -- doing this or that before it gets dark. If I have to crawl through mud dragging my gear to shore it doesn’t matter because there is just me. I guess it’s like being naked. If you’re alone it’s one thing, if you're in a room full of people it’s quite something else.

Heather: Tell us about your canoe and how you modified it to accommodate your disability.

Greg: My canoe is a vessel. Its primary function was to get me from one place to another. The canoe had to be stable and accessible. I had to create a system. I pontooned the canoe to a smaller boat -- a kayak. The two became the system. Together they were more stable than each one would be alone. I would fall out to exit, and fall in to enter. It wasn’t very graceful or technical but it worked. Falling isn’t always a bad thing; it just depends on where you end up and if you want to be there in the first place.

Other than that, all I had to do was strap myself in. Sitting up for hour upon hour is difficult when you’re crippled. I used a back support and hooked it up to the gunwales, enabling me to be supported when I sat. Having no feeling below my waist I couldn’t depend on my body. My sense of balance is a joke. I fall down a lot.

I paddled. I sailed. I even had a small outboard motor. Again, I had to succeed. There could be no excuse for failure. If I could get into the canoe, I could travel. Life on the river is benevolent. Because I can stand and walk a bit that was my only challenge -- getting in and out. The river would take care of everything else.

The rig was a solid foundation for me to travel in. My canoe is of the Chipewyan design, with a high curved bow and stern. It is historically appropriate. It was a canoe of the north. The kayak was small, utilitarian and on sale! By hooking them together they served my real disability -- no dough!

Heather: Coming off my first expedition, I must have stood 6-inches taller with the pride and confidence I felt. I also realized that I was much more in touch with my values. Can you share a little of what you brought home with you from the MacKenzie River?

Greg: Like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever" I strutted. For a cripple, that ain’t bad. It was a real rock n roll thing. "Nothing can stop me, nothing can stop me now." It was a real "Bridge Over Troubled Waters."

It was cinematic. It was romantic. It was every cliché there ever was. In a loud voice, in a pub in Inuvik at the end of the trip I sort of shouted, "I’ll buy anyone who has ever come down the Mackenzie by canoe a drink". I still have that money!

Three months later I sat out in the back of my pickup in Florida during a hurricane - Frances, I think - just digging it. My daughter pleaded with me to come inside. I just laughed and told her I’d never been in a hurricane before. Yea I’m crippled, but I just went 1000 miles by river to the Arctic in a canoe, by myself. "Nothing can stop me."