John R. Richardson

John Richardson was born in Olympia, Washington, in 1944. He began canoeing on Puget Sound as a young boy but took a hiatus from canoeing for many years when college, his profession, and his family kept him busy. One day after his retirement as a school principal in 2001, he and three friends put their canoes on top of John's truck and headed for Whitehorse and a 700-mile paddle down the Yukon River. His retirement ended just weeks after his return from the Arctic when, for the next fourteen...See more

John Richardson was born in Olympia, Washington, in 1944. He began canoeing on Puget Sound as a young boy but took a hiatus from canoeing for many years when college, his profession, and his family kept him busy. One day after his retirement as a school principal in 2001, he and three friends put their canoes on top of John's truck and headed for Whitehorse and a 700-mile paddle down the Yukon River. His retirement ended just weeks after his return from the Arctic when, for the next fourteen years, he served as a college instructor, an educational consultant, and a leadership coach. Since that Yukon journey, he has paddled more than 2,500 miles on rivers and lakes in Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Washington, and Montana. His most ambitious undertaking, the Mackenzie River, is the subject of this book. At the age of seventy-six, he and his canoe partner, Dan Linnell, still find time to paddle nearly every summer. John and his wife, Susan, live in Burley, Washington, but spend several months each year at their cottage on a remote island in British Columbia. He has two sons, a daughter, and eight grandchildren. See less