CHICAGO -- Peter Frank sank to his knees as he felt the fresh, clear water of Lake Michigan. Tears ran down his face as he felt peace wash over him.

Frank is back in the Great Lakes after canoeing to Florida and back.

The adventurer set out from his hometown of Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula on June 27, 2024, and headed west through the Great Lakes, Canada and New York before reaching the Atlantic. From there it was all saltwater to Florida where he reached the halfway point. Then, in Mobile, Alabama he began the long arduous river journey north.

The 24-year-old is canoeing the Great Loop, a 6,000 mile trip.

He reached Chicago on Sept. 19, but not without facing extreme difficulties. It was hard for Frank to put into words exactly what he's been through over the past six months, let alone the past year on the water.

In Alabama he paddled by 14-foot alligators and his campsite one day was overrun by fire ants, forcing him to abandon the island he was on. They got into all his gear and even after scrubbing it down he still had trouble.

"It was like four days where I was getting bit by fire ants randomly because I just couldn't find them all," Frank said. "It was thousands of them."

Dehydration was a constant threat under the oppressive summer heat. And always in the back of his mind was the mighty Mississippi, which he would have to paddle northward against the current. He was told it was impossible due flooding in Wisconsin that was draining off into the river basin. But as he got to the swift brown murky waters of the mighty river, he gave it a go.

Making the return

"If there was a way to paddle up that river, I would have done it." Frank said. "Even if it took 5 miles a day. Or even if it took 2 miles a day I would have done it."

The swift current from the floodwaters and the rock jetties that made standing waves in the river meant that Frank finally met an insurmountable obstacle.

"My whole point for doing this was to challenge myself," Frank said. "I came out here to challenge myself and learn something deeply profound about myself in the world and the process. And I did that. I met a challenge that I could not overcome. And that, to me, was success. I reached this wall that wasn't just hard, it was literally impossible."

His Mississippi experience was an emotional one. One that he's not ready to fully talk about yet.

He caught a car ride 218 miles up the river and started paddling again just north of St. Louis in the Illinois River. Not entirely content to leave the Mississippi stretch of water behind, he said he wants to try that particular section again during a drought. With the fear of the Mississippi behind him, another challenge was ahead.

Once on the Illinois River he started taking body blows from invasive carp, primarily bighead carp and silver carp. The invasive fish have been wreaking havoc on the environment and spook easily, leaping out of the water. As Frank paddled against the current, the massive fish often pummeled his body.

He took a weeks-long sabbatical near Peoria before making the final push to Chicago and his ultimate goal, Lake Michigan.

Illinois resident Kennith Johnson met up with Frank around this time and took photos of him as he used the time off the river to work on a new pair of pants.

"I think he appreciates life, every bit of it, the good and the bad," Johnson said of his mentality.

Frank himself says that appreciation comes from surviving getting hit by a car when he was 14.

"He's had the opportunity to come back," Johnson said. "And I think he wants to take full advantage of his time here."

Getting to the Great Lakes

The Chicago Portage was the final hurdle standing between Frank and the Great Lakes.

The route is a connector between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River systems. Native Americans have trekked it for thousands of years and more recently French Voyagers used it as their gateway to explore the region in the 1600s.

Now, there is a shipping canal that connects the waterways, but due to the invasive carp that Frank battled on his way north, the canal is electrified, making paddling it deadly and impossible.

Staying true to his personal rule of moving under his own power if he could, he paddled up the Des Plaines River and then started the Chicago Portage following in the footsteps of of Native Americans.

Two friends he met on his journey, Johnson and Ben Sparks, helped him complete the feat. For the first time on his adventure, he accepted help pulling his canoe, and the three of them transported the boat the 20 long miles across the pavement and concrete of Chicagoland in a single day. Still, Peter insisted that he at least have one hand on the boat.

Passersby and people following his progress came out to meet them and walk with them for a while or buy them a Gatorade. At times they had a little posse making the trek together.

As he approached Lake Michigan, he walked the last mile with his canoe under his own power, solo. After 19 miles walking and working in the heat, his body was spent.

"When I pulled around that corner, I put that canoe down and I gazed off into that water. It was like a wave of peace came over me. And it wasn't peace, like relief. It was like a wave, like, oh, my God. I have been hearing somebody whispering my name for months now, and I had finally saw the face of who that was. That was the kind of peace that came over me."

Frank walked to the edge of the waves and his strength gave out. He sat in the sand and started sobbing. It felt like meeting an old friend. He grew up in Escanaba; Lake Michigan is his familiar friend.

"That's where my soul resided. That's where my spirit was. And so that's where I met myself," he said.

He's now working his way northward toward home and he's finally ready to end this adventure now that's he has met his goal of pushing himself as far as physically possible.

"I had faced the hardest of the hardest...I had faced the dragon." Frank said. "I'm ready to complete this journey now."

Lake Michigan isn't letting him finish easily. Like generations of explorers before him he is at the mercy of the wind and the waves which are tricky on the lake this time of year.

Whenever he arrives, he will be greeted on the beach by grateful friends and family who are waiting patiently in Escanaba.

You can follow Frank's journey in real time on his website or social media channels.

Michigan adventurer returns to Great Lakes after paddling to Florida and back