One Mile at a Time

Journalist Eric Severeid recalls a valuable lesson he learned at seventeen while preparing for an ambitious journey. He and a friend had set out to canoe from Minneapolis to the historic fur-trading post of York Factory on Hudson Bay.

The final leg of their expedition was the most daunting—450 miles of rugged wilderness with only a single permanent settlement along the way. The sheer scale of the challenge left them overwhelmed. But just before they embarked, an old fur trader offered them a piece of…