Petoskey Man paddles way through Great Lakes Canoeing enthusiast plans to travel perimeter of each lake

By Morgan Sherburne Petoskey News-Review PETOSKEY, Mich. (AP) -- His trips can last as long as three months and, during them, he weathers bugs, wind, and three and four foot waves. But paddler Stephen Brede's trips also include viewing early morning sunrises, views of lighthouses from a perspective few people experience and paddling with a hardcore biker with a penchant for kayaking. Brede, a Petoskey resident, quietly decided three years ago that he would try to paddle the perimeters of all five Great Lakes, a goal mentioned by another famous Michigan paddler, canoe legend Verlen Kruger. "I had been thinking for a long time about a non-motorized trip," said Brede. Bicycling would not take him far enough from cars, and horses were out -- he had only ridden one once. That left Brede with one option: paddling. Brede had gotten back into the sport after moving to the area in 1988, and began paddling with a group from Ponshewaing. Last week, Brede started in on his third Great Lake. He left from the Detroit area to begin paddling around Lake Erie. To date, Brede, 61 at the end of June, has paddled the perimeter of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Huron was his first endeavor. "My Lake Huron trip was serendipitous," he said. "Nothing went wrong." Lake Michigan was a touch more trying. High winds marooned him on a beach near Arcadia for five days, and wind remained Brede's largest adversary. While paddling, Brede has dumped his canoe -- just once, in three-foot waves -- saved a monarch butterfly from drowning and cooked for a shy man on whose beach Brede camped. "I think he only ate canned food," said Brede. "He thought my dried food was some sort of delicacy." In his journeys, Brede doesn't hurry and doesn't set a schedule. He audio blogs and photographs his trips. He sleeps suspended in a hammock, and, sometimes, in his canoe: Brede is particularly excited this trip about a tent specifically designed to pitch over his canoe. And when he's not paddling -- his trips take about three months, 60 days of which are spent paddling -- Brede sets a month's worth of time aside to visit friends in other cities as well as visits from his wife, Ruth Brede, a registered nurse in Petoskey. Occasionally, Brede has to navigate the issue of private land. Usually, he says, people let him camp on their beach. Occasionally, they will invite him to stay with them or on their boat. "People are unfailingly nice," he said. "I think it's in the basic nature of people to look out for each other, and people looked out for me." Brede plans to paddle lakes Superior and Ontario -- sometime, at some point, in the future. But for now, he's just taking his challenge lake by lake. "I don't plan where I'm going to be when," said Brede. "My philosophy is, it will work out. It's just like every day. You're just doing it somewhere else." For more information, visit Brede's website at www.greatlakescanoe.com. Brede's website includes a tracker, so you can follow exactly where Brede is on his journey. Published: Wed, Jul 25, 2012