Dan Cooke and I met 30 years ago at a canoe symposium. I’d given a talk about a 4½ month solo trip through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Ontario, and Manitoba. My trip interested him because I had no fixed itinerary. After we became friends, he expressed a desire to take a similar trip. He wanted to wander the wilderness without a schedule.

Dan operated Cooke Custom Sewing (CCS) with his wife, Karen, for 40 years. He called CCS his nightly obsession; by day he was a mechanical engineer. Between the two jobs, he worked 80-hour weeks, especially during the spring and summer when demand for CCS products was highest.