In this episode of Travel Tales by AFAR, JR Harris, a septuagenarian traveler, shares his adventures.
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TravelTranscript
00:00 I'm Aisling Green, this is Travel Tales by Afar.
00:07 In every episode, we hear from a traveler about a trip that really meant something to
00:12 them.
00:13 And in this season, we're actually sending people, writers, comedians, playwrights out
00:18 into the world to explore life's big questions.
00:22 In this episode, we're traveling with J.R. Harris, one of the most inspiring travelers
00:27 I've ever met.
00:28 J.R. has been an explorer all his life, ever since he was a kid growing up in Queens.
00:35 He's 78 now and has traveled to some of the most remote locations in the world.
00:40 He's written a book called Way Out There, Adventures of a Wilderness Trekker.
00:44 He's an emeritus member of the Explorers Club, where he serves on the board of directors
00:49 and as chair of the club's diversity, equity, and inclusion committee.
00:53 He also travels around the world giving talks and inspiring other people to go adventure.
00:59 But he has a particular love of Arctic climates and road trips, which recently coincided on
01:04 a trip to Canada and Maine.
01:07 Here's what he found.
01:15 Afar Travel Tales is brought to you by the Marriott Bomboy Boundless card.
01:19 These stories from the road inspire you to set out on your next adventure with a fresh
01:24 perspective and a deeper appreciation for the good that travel brings.
01:27 When you're ready for the thrill of new horizons, get the card that opens the door to extraordinary
01:33 destinations and unforgettable experiences.
01:36 Expand your world.
01:37 Go boundless.
01:38 Learn more at marriottbomboy.com/chasecards.
01:40 I feel a rush of excitement as I slip behind the wheel of my almost new Mini Cooper.
01:52 Metallic gray with a black top, leather seats, and a great sound system.
01:58 When I breathe deeply, I can still smell the almost newness.
02:03 It's a gorgeous, sunny New York day in early September.
02:08 Gas tank is full, suitcases in the trunk.
02:11 All that's left is to select a music track, put the car in gear, and head for the highway.
02:18 My week-long trip will take me to Canada, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine.
02:25 I've done lots of road trips in my 78 years, but the thrill is still there.
02:30 Now I'm a guy who has a Jones for travel.
02:33 I think of myself as a rolling stone.
02:36 Wherever I lay, my hat is my home.
02:39 When the dust hits my shoes, I've got the urge to move.
02:44 So whether I'm traveling by plane, train, bicycle, skis, canoe, skateboard, on foot,
02:53 or whatever, it's all good as long as I'm going someplace.
02:59 But what I really enjoy is a road trip.
03:03 Just get in my car and go.
03:06 My first trip was back in 1966, right after I graduated from college.
03:12 I had an old Volkswagen Beetle back then.
03:15 40 horsepower, two doors, stick shift in the floor.
03:21 It was my first car, and I drove it from my home in New York City to the very end of the
03:28 northernmost road in the Western Hemisphere, about 100 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.
03:35 I went there for one reason.
03:37 I wanted my little beat-up car to be the farthest north on the continent, with no other vehicle
03:44 between me and the North Pole.
03:47 I obviously don't need much of a reason to hit the road, but this time I have one.
03:53 More on that soon.
03:56 That first drive was a hell of a trip.
03:59 Alaska in the 1960s was much more desolate than it is today, a true wilderness.
04:06 People I saw up there were mostly indigenous, and a few hardy outsiders who had gone north
04:12 to get away from the civilized world.
04:15 Back then, free land was still available to homesteaders, and Alaska's oil had yet to
04:20 be discovered.
04:22 It was about 9,000 miles round trip, and I was gone for several weeks.
04:28 I had very little money, so I was sleeping in my car and doing odd jobs along the way
04:33 to make enough to get back home.
04:35 It was the trip of a lifetime, and I was only 22.
04:40 It's now 56 years later, but I still feel the juice rushing through my arteries as I
04:46 release the emergency brake and slowly glide away.
04:51 I like music while I'm driving.
04:54 During my Alaska journey, a popular tune at the time was called "I'm a Road Runner" by
05:00 Junior Walker and the All Stars.
05:03 For this trip, it's going to be another great traveling tune, "Truckin'" by the greatest
05:09 band in rock and roll history, the Grateful Dead.
05:15 Traffic is fairly light as I head for Grand Central Parkway and the Bronx Whitestone Bridge.
05:21 I drive through the neighborhood where I grew up in Queens, past the building where I live
05:26 with my parents and two siblings in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in a city-owned public
05:32 housing project.
05:35 This is where I departed for Alaska all those years ago.
05:42 I was born with an urge to wander.
05:44 It's as simple as that.
05:47 As a kid, I always wanted to be an explorer.
05:50 I used to read about the Lewis and Clark expedition that took place in the early 1800s and the
05:56 trappers, traders, and mountain men who followed them into the Rocky Mountains.
06:01 I also read about York, who went with Lewis and Clark, and about Matthew Henson, the African-American
06:08 explorer who accompanied Robert E. Peary to the Arctic in 1909 and is now considered the
06:14 co-discoverer of the North Pole.
06:17 Curiously, neither of these guys were ever mentioned in school.
06:23 I had to find out about them on my own.
06:26 More I read, the more I wanted to explore.
06:29 I imagined it would be an exciting and adventurous life, but to be honest, it wasn't a very realistic
06:36 dream for a young guy like me, an African-American from a working-class family.
06:44 My folks didn't have much education.
06:47 Mom worked for a time in a factory where she assembled ballpoint pens.
06:52 My dad, I called him Pops, was a waiter in the dining car of an overnight train that
06:58 ran between New York and Chicago.
07:01 When air travel became popular, he and the other waiters lost their jobs, and for the
07:06 next 26 years he drove a truck, a job he liked.
07:10 In fact, he's the one who instilled a love of driving in me.
07:16 But I didn't know anyone who was an explorer, and I didn't have a clue how to become one.
07:22 My parents insisted that if I wanted it badly enough and I tried hard enough, I could make
07:27 this dream a reality.
07:30 When I was 14, they enrolled me in the Boy Scouts and sent me to summer camp in the Catskill
07:35 Mountains.
07:36 They felt that summer in the inner city was not a wholesome environment for a teenage
07:41 boy.
07:42 I had never been in the mountains, and I wanted to stay home and hang with my buddies.
07:47 So I went kicking and screaming.
07:49 But my initial reluctance vanished when I started learning the skills needed to survive
07:54 in the outdoors.
07:56 How to read a map, use a compass, make a fire in the pouring rain.
08:02 Next thing I knew, I was doing extended backpacking trips in the wilderness.
08:07 That's when I began to believe I could really become an explorer.
08:12 Years later, I won a scholarship to college.
08:16 I studied social psychology and became fascinated by people who managed to carve out an existence
08:22 in remote environments around the world.
08:26 After that, it was easy to combine my love of travel, the survival skills I learned in
08:31 the Scouts, and my curiosity about people living off the grid.
08:36 A week after I graduated, I jumped into my VW and drove to Alaska.
08:42 I was living my childhood dream to explore.
08:49 Since that first trip, I've done more than 40 expeditions worldwide.
08:54 I've taken most of them alone, visiting remote locations in places such as Greenland, Northern
09:00 Canada, Lapland, the Australian outback, Iceland, the Andes Mountains, Patagonia, Tasmania.
09:10 I even wrote a book about my travels called Way Out There, Adventures of a Wilderness
09:15 Trekker.
09:16 But I have a special love for the Arctic, which is the very reason for this road trip.
09:25 I'm across the Whitestone Bridge and heading north toward my first stop, Montreal.
09:31 It's funny how I'm always drawn north.
09:33 Have been since I was a kid reading about the Arctic explorers.
09:38 One of my favorites is Matthew Henson, you know, the guy who co-discovered the North
09:42 Pole.
09:44 In addition to our ethnicity, Henson and I share a strong attraction to polar regions
09:50 and the people who live there.
09:52 Henson spent 20 years in the far north, and I've been above the Arctic Circle about 15
09:58 times.
09:59 A few months ago, I hosted an event at the Explorers Club, where I've been a member since
10:05 1993.
10:08 At the event, held in New York, we honored the four Greenlandic indigenous hunters who
10:14 accompanied Piri and Henson to the North Pole.
10:19 After I spoke, Dr. Susan Kaplan approached me.
10:23 Dr. Kaplan is director of the Piri McMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Study Center at Bowdoin
10:31 College in Brunswick, Maine.
10:33 It's the only museum devoted to the Arctic in the lower 48, and that's no surprise, as
10:39 Robert Piri is a Bowdoin alumnus.
10:42 He graduated in 1877.
10:45 The museum, and especially the special collections unit, has artifacts and correspondence from
10:52 Piri, Henson, and Don McMillan, another Arctic explorer and Bowdoin alumnus.
10:58 Dr. Kaplan said she liked my talk, and then she invited me to visit the school and give
11:03 a lecture about African American explorers.
11:08 My immediate thought was, road trip.
11:12 Six hours after leaving New York City, I arrive in Montreal, a city I've visited many times.
11:19 This time I'm staying in a suburb of Montreal called Longueuil, and my goal is to find and
11:24 take photos of graffiti.
11:27 I grew up during the graffiti era in New York City, and I now have thousands of graffiti
11:33 photos from numerous cities around the world.
11:37 It's an art form I can truly relate to.
11:40 To me, it symbolizes the urban environment I grew up in.
11:45 Seeing it in cities around the world always makes me feel at home, and Montreal is a graffiti
11:50 hotspot.
11:51 The next morning, I wake early and grab my camera.
11:56 I've got a street map that I've downloaded from the internet.
11:59 On it, I've indicated areas of the city where graffiti is likely to be found, like railroad
12:06 yards, industrial zones, playgrounds, highways and bridges, and downscale neighborhoods.
12:13 By midday, I've snapped dozens of photos.
12:17 It's always exciting to turn a corner and find a nice graffiti throw-up, also known
12:21 as a throwie, that's just waiting to be photographed.
12:27 As the day winds down, I feel a need for a cup of coffee.
12:31 The complex Desjardins, an upscale, vibrant downtown mall, is nearby.
12:37 So I go inside and stumble upon a breakdance competition.
12:44 Seriously.
12:46 All around me, young men and women are taking turns spinning, dropping, kicking, and moving
12:51 with incredible skill and dexterity.
12:54 A panel of judges focus on every move while spectators wave and cheer.
13:01 I stand and watch as muscles flex, sweat flows, the music pumps.
13:08 Graffiti is the artistic component of hip-hop culture, and breaking is hip-hop's signature
13:14 dance.
13:15 The music follows me as I leave the mall and head for my hotel.
13:20 The explorer in me is satisfied, for now.
13:26 Back in my Mini Cooper a couple of days later, I'm ready to tackle the 194-mile drive to
13:31 Gorham, a small town in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
13:36 It's time for another visit to Mount Washington.
13:40 The mountain is part of the Presidential Range, which contains the highest peaks of the Whites.
13:45 Its most notable summits are named after American presidents, including Madison, Adams, Jefferson,
13:53 and Monroe.
13:54 As I get close to the town, the ridge is off to my right.
13:58 Today it's obscured by a dense cloud cover, which is not at all surprising.
14:04 At 6,288 feet, Mount Washington is the highest peak in the northeastern United States.
14:11 It is also the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River, and
14:17 for this reason, it is notorious for its erratic weather.
14:23 On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, the Mount Washington Observatory recorded a wind speed
14:30 of 231 miles per hour at the summit.
14:34 This was the world record until 1996.
14:38 Mount Washington still holds the record for the highest measured wind speed not associated
14:44 with a tornado or tropical cyclone.
14:48 I've actually climbed to the summit of Mount Washington four times in six attempts, all
14:53 of them in midwinter.
14:55 This time I have a less extreme but still challenging objective, to drive the 7.6-mile
15:01 Mount Washington Auto Road to the top.
15:05 The road is very steep and has no guardrails.
15:09 Inclement weather makes the drive even more, shall we say, sketchy.
15:15 But if you get to the top, you can claim the coveted bumper sticker that says, "This car
15:21 climbed Mount Washington."
15:25 As I approach the entrance gate and look up, the weather isn't promising.
15:30 No surprise there.
15:32 Deep fog, or maybe low-hanging clouds, begins about 100 feet above me.
15:38 If I do this drive, it will only take about a minute before I'm engulfed in whiteout conditions.
15:44 I won't be able to see any of the picturesque mountain landscape now tinged with first traces
15:50 of fall foliage.
15:52 I ask the guy at the toll gate if it's worth it.
15:55 He tells me, "Several cars have gone up this morning, but if you want to spend $45 to drive
16:00 on a narrow, winding road with no visibility, I'll be happy to take your money."
16:06 I decided to wait to see if the weather improves.
16:09 It doesn't.
16:10 I'm disappointed, but a lifetime of exploration has taught me that nature doesn't care about
16:16 my wishes.
16:18 She does what she wants, and I've learned to deal with it.
16:21 I'll come back again next year and try again.
16:24 [MUSIC]
16:29 Has this episode of Afar Travel Tales already got you planning your next adventure?
16:41 We hope that hearing these firsthand stories of life-changing trips will make you think
16:46 about not just where you want to go, but why you want to go.
16:52 Whether you're seeking a new state of mind or the opportunity to immerse yourself in
16:56 a different culture, let the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card take you to a place where you
17:01 can look deeper, listen closer, and care more.
17:05 Because when we explore with passion and purpose, we create a deeper connection between ourselves
17:11 and the world.
17:13 Expand your world.
17:14 Go boundless.
17:16 Learn more at marriottbonvoy.com/chasecards.
17:20 [MUSIC]
17:23 The next morning, I leave early.
17:39 From Gorham, it's a quick two-hour drive to Brunswick, Maine.
17:43 There isn't much to see, but it's a gorgeous day.
17:46 Traffic is light.
17:48 I got music pumping through eight speakers, and I'm enjoying the drive.
17:52 Before I know it, I'm pulling into the parking lot on campus.
17:57 Bowdoin is a private liberal arts college founded in 1794 and sits on a lovely 200-acre
18:04 campus.
18:05 The place is gorgeous, exactly what one might imagine a small college in a quaint New England
18:12 town would look like.
18:14 There's a spacious, grassy quadrangle surrounded by a mix of modern and 19th-century halls
18:20 and dormitories.
18:22 The trees are in full fall colors.
18:25 It's not hard to dream about being a student here.
18:28 My speech isn't until 7.30, so I walk around the campus.
18:33 It's outrageously cool to see my image on flyers posted on doorways, windows, and hallways.
18:40 It occurs to me that Black explorers from the past would never get this recognition.
18:46 Seeing these flyers humbles me while also making me feel like a minor celebrity.
18:52 That feeling continues as I step into the auditorium that evening.
18:56 A sizable crowd has shown up for my presentation.
19:00 Dr. Kaplan and I are a bit surprised because the fall semester has just started, and many
19:05 students are not yet on campus.
19:08 Those flyers have obviously worked.
19:11 A young IT guy gets my presentation uploaded and my microphone hooked up, and I'm ready
19:17 to go.
19:20 My talk is called "Sambo or Superman?
19:23 The Rocky Road to Recognition."
19:26 I spend the next hour sharing the lives of the very few African-American explorers in
19:30 history -- explorers like Matthew Henson, Jim Beckwith, and York, who was a member of
19:37 Lewis and Clark's voyage of discovery in the early 1800s.
19:41 I explain how the accomplishments of Black explorers have often gone undocumented, and
19:47 even when they were recorded, those records were often inaccurate or distorted.
19:54 Then I draw from my own expedition experience to spotlight a group of African-Americans
19:59 whose labors in the wilderness on behalf of their country have been lost in historical
20:04 oblivion.
20:06 As the lights come up, I get a standing ovation.
20:10 The audience is enthusiastically clapping and cheering.
20:14 Even though I've given this talk numerous times, I'm still thrilled to share the lives
20:19 of the people who inspired me to become an explorer.
20:23 I spend a long time answering questions about Black explorers and about my own background
20:28 as a city kid who grew up to become a wilderness traveler and explorer.
20:34 There are so many young faces in the audience, and they're so engaged.
20:39 It fills me with warmth to think that maybe I've inspired a few of them to search for
20:43 their own passion in life and to attain it.
20:46 Hey, I'm just an ordinary guy, and I believe that if I can do it, they can do it too.
20:54 The next morning, I finally get to visit the Peary-McMillan Arctic Museum.
20:59 Dr. Kaplan and curator Dr. Genevieve Lemoine meet me for the tour.
21:06 The museum is small but is rich with history.
21:10 It's been a repository for natural history items collected in the Arctic since the 19th
21:16 century.
21:17 As I look around, it's almost overwhelming.
21:20 The museum collection includes 41,000 objects, 9,000 photographs, and dozens of reels of
21:28 motion picture film.
21:31 One of my favorite exhibits is the Hubbard Sledge.
21:35 Sledges are like really large, sturdy sleds used to haul heavy loads of equipment and
21:41 people.
21:42 And the Hubbard Sledge is believed to be one of those Peary and Henson used to get to the
21:47 North Pole.
21:49 Then I make friends with a polar bear.
21:51 Well, a stuffed one.
21:54 It's also the college mascot.
21:56 Pretty cool.
21:57 No pun intended.
22:00 There are no other visitors, and Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Lemoine encourage me to take my time.
22:07 It's like traveling to the past, and it's easy for me to imagine what it was like to
22:13 be an Arctic explorer in the early 1900s.
22:17 I love seeing firsthand the equipment these intrepid men used and the clothing they wore.
22:25 I think about how different my own trips to the Arctic were, and how the gear and clothing
22:30 have changed over time.
22:32 When I finish at the museum, I head over to the Special Collections Unit in another building.
22:38 Once again, I'm left on my own, this time to pick up and read letters written by Matthew
22:43 Henson in the years following his North Pole trip.
22:48 He wrote a number of them to Donald McMillan, expressing gratitude to McMillan, who was
22:53 instrumental in helping Henson finally get the recognition he deserved.
22:57 It feels eerie to hold these old, handwritten letters in my hand.
23:03 I can't help but notice that, as the son of sharecroppers, Henson's grammar, syntax, spelling,
23:10 even his penmanship, were all excellent.
23:15 After a quick lunch in the cafeteria, I have one final meeting with a student organization
23:20 called the Bowdoin Outing Club.
23:22 The club has more than 400 members and offers more than 150 excursions per year to encourage
23:29 Bowdoin students' spirit of discovery.
23:32 Their meeting hall is right up my alley.
23:35 Lots of camping equipment stacked outside, as well as stacked kayaks and canoes.
23:42 Inside the hall is a large open room.
23:44 Trophy heads of various animals are mounted on the walls.
23:49 And 40 or 50 students are sitting on the floor in a large circle.
23:54 I join them and ask them if they ever got scared while being in the outdoors.
24:00 Nearly everyone nods.
24:01 "Me too," I say.
24:03 "In fact, I've been scared so many times, I consider myself an expert at being afraid."
24:10 I share one of my scariest experiences.
24:13 The time I lost my pack in the mountains of southwest Tasmania and almost perished from
24:19 hypothermia.
24:20 We spend the next hour having a fascinating discussion about fear.
24:26 We talk about what it is, how it manifests itself, the different types of fear, and what
24:33 can be learned from fear.
24:35 It's obvious these students have never given much thought to fear.
24:40 Not many people do.
24:41 They ask me if I have any advice I can give them.
24:47 I tell them that fear, like anything else, is something that can be dealt with rationally.
24:54 That courage is not the absence of fear, but the acceptance of it.
24:59 And most of all, that one should never be afraid of being afraid.
25:04 My final destination is Bar Harbor, Maine, 157 miles north of Brunswick.
25:12 Bar Harbor is adjacent to Acadia National Park, a place I've always wanted to visit.
25:18 The park protects the natural beauty of the highest rocky headlands along the Atlantic
25:22 coastline.
25:25 Although small in size, the park gets 4 million visitors a year, making it one of the top
25:31 10 most visited national parks in the United States.
25:36 After a three-hour drive, I pull into the quaint, touristy seacoast town of Bar Harbor.
25:42 It's got a marina and a seaside path that offer picturesque ocean views.
25:48 And there's a Main Street called, you guessed it, Main Street, with lots of bars, souvenir
25:54 shops, and restaurants along both sides.
25:57 Lots of restaurants.
25:59 And it seems like all of them brag about their lobster.
26:03 Lobster is a commodity in seacoast towns like this.
26:07 And I wonder how one lobster meal can be much better than another.
26:11 I skip the lobster and head for the park.
26:14 It's like an explosion of fall color as I drive to the summit of Cadillac Mountain,
26:19 the highest point on the eastern seaboard.
26:23 The trees are red, gold, yellow, and green.
26:26 And it gets noticeably cooler as I get closer to the top.
26:30 This is such a popular drive that you need a time stamp reservation.
26:34 Predictably, traffic is heavy and it's difficult to find a place to park, but I get lucky on
26:40 the top.
26:42 It's sunny and pleasant, so I decide to find a rock with a great ocean view.
26:48 Lots of people have the same idea.
26:50 The place is packed, and finding a suitable rock is not easy.
26:55 But I finally find the perfect perch, a flat rock with an unobstructed view.
27:01 I scramble up and look out over the water.
27:04 It's a unique perspective, the highest land-based viewpoint of the Atlantic Ocean from Maine
27:11 all the way down to Florida.
27:14 The ocean stretches out in every direction, bookended by gorgeous autumn foliage.
27:21 How many times have I stood at the top of a mountain and looked at a new view?
27:25 Too many to count.
27:27 I think back on my talk at Bowdoin, on the explorers who paved the path for me to do
27:33 what I spent 78 years doing, exploring the world.
27:38 I think about the students I met at Bowdoin College, about the next generation of explorers.
27:44 I built on the legacy of explorers who came before me, and I dare to hope that I might
27:50 have influenced a few students to spend more time outdoors, and while out there, to not
27:56 be afraid of being afraid.
27:59 Worn by the sun in my memories, I climb down from the rock.
28:03 There's one final item on the agenda, and it's not too shabby.
28:08 The 500-mile drive back home, accompanied by the never-ending sheer joy of being on
28:14 the open road.
28:15 That was J.R. Harris.
28:25 J.R. hasn't yet planned his next road trip, but he is preparing to climb a mountain, specifically
28:31 Mount Kilimanjaro.
28:33 In summer 2023, he'll lead an expedition in conjunction with the Explorers Club called
28:38 Breaking Boundaries.
28:40 He'll bring a diverse group of New York students, ages 18 to 25, to climb with a diverse set
28:46 of African students of the same age.
28:50 Members of the Explorers Club will also join the expedition to host experiments on climate
28:54 change, which the kids can join.
28:57 The goal is to encourage the kids to consider a career in science.
29:01 Read more about the Explorers Club at explorers.org.
29:05 You can adventure more with J.R. through his book, Way Out There, Adventures of a Wilderness
29:10 Trekker, and learn more on his website, jrinthewilderness.com.
29:15 You can also read a fantastic profile about J.R. on afar.com, written by my colleague
29:20 Kathleen LeGroff, which inspired this episode.
29:22 We'll link to all of that in the show notes.
29:25 And don't forget to follow J.R. on Instagram @jrinthewilderness.
29:32 Ready for more travel stories?
29:34 Visit us online at afar.com/traveltales and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
29:40 We're @AfarMedia.
29:42 If you enjoyed today's adventure, we hope you'll come back in two weeks for more great
29:46 stories.
29:47 Subscribing makes this easy.
29:49 You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
29:54 And be sure to rate and review us.
29:55 It helps other travelers find the show.
29:58 This has been Travel Tales, a production of Afar Media and Boom Integrated.
30:03 Our podcast is produced by Aislinn Green, Adrienne Glover, and Robin Lye.
30:08 Post-production was by John Marshall Media staff, Jen Grossman, and Clint Rhodes.
30:13 Music composition by Alan Koreshia.
30:15 And a special thanks to Irene Wang and Angela Johnston.
30:20 I'm Aislinn Green, your traveling as much as I possibly can host.
30:24 I am so happy to be on the road again.
30:28 As we explore the world this year, remember that travel begins the moment we walk out
30:32 our front door.
30:34 Everyone has a travel tale.
30:36 What's yours?
30:37 [MUSIC PLAYING]
30:40 [MUSIC ENDS]
30:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]