Farmer and Activist Completes 2,000-mile Paddle

By Lorelei Goff

When off-grid farmer and activist Ann Rose left her home in Lansing, North Carolina, on July 7, she had no idea what she was in for on her nearly 2,000-mile kayak trek to the Gulf of Mexico.

The trip, conceived by Rose as a way to raise awareness of water issues facing farmers in her area, took a total of 81 days. Along the way, she hit snags with equipment failures, nearly got swept under a barge, experienced the elements and physical fatigue, and encountered all kinds of people. She wondered at least a couple times if she would make it to the end.

“The Coal Hole is at the bottom of the Mississippi River, where the six largest ports are, where all of the minerals and petroleum leave this country and go across the Gulf to other countries,” Rose explains. “The traffic there is so ridiculous that no one should try to paddle through.”

She adds, “A five-mile-an-hour kayak is no match for a 25-mile-an-hour ocean tanker. It was terrifying.”

One moment in particular stands out in her memory.

“There was a moment on the river where I got into a current in the Mississippi and I got into a spot where I got almost swept under a barge.

“It was right below Cairo, where the Mississippi and the Ohio come together. I had stopped beside what I call a parking lot of barges to eat. There was about a hundred foot section between two packs of barges. The current pushed me and I couldn’t paddle back out to the center of the river. I thought the current was going to push me under the barges downstream of me. It got very, very close. I was afraid that’s where my trip was going to end.

“I was just saying to myself, ‘Paddle! Paddle! Paddle! Paddle! Be stronger than the current!’”

Rose made observations and conducted water quality testing along the way and was shocked by what she found.

The water tests she conducted showed increasing levels of pollution the further toward the Gulf of Mexico she paddled.

In the New River, the quality rating was well above 75, on a scale of zero to 100, with 100 being the best.  

The readings represent an overall rating that takes into consideration turbidity, dissolved oxygen, chemical oxygen demand, total organic carbon, total dissolved solids, ultraviolet absorption, electrical conductivity and temperature.

“But after getting below Kanawha Falls and entering the first area where there was a pile of coal by the river, where barges were loaded, the quality right there dropped to below 50,” Rose says. 

It declined progressively after that, never rising above the 30s again for the whole trip. The meter Rose used didn’t read below 30. 

“That’s because there’s more and more industry all the way down the river, and with the water being so low, I think it was dramatically concentrated during the time that I was there,” she explains. “It was like paddling through a series of lakes. There seemed to be no current most days.”

She adds, “By the time I got to Louisville, they were questioning whether to cancel the Iron Man Triathlon that weekend because of a toxic algal bloom. You normally only see algal blooms in bodies of water that don’t flow. But to have that happen in the Ohio [River] was quite newsworthy.”

Rose left the river for three days because of it, waiting for the count of the algae to drop.

“I tried really hard not to touch the water unless I had to get out of the boat,” she says.

“I had no idea that the Ohio River could be so low,” Rrose says. “I had no idea that the trash pollution piled along those riverbanks from storms was so bad, and with the barge traffic, there’s really not a safe way to be out there picking up trash. It’s a perpetual problem.” 

Invasive species create another perpetual problem in the rivers, especially Asian carp.

“They’re trying to eradicate them, but they’ll never be eradicated,” Rose says. “There’s a system in place at the locks that emits a [sound] frequency that kills only the carp.”

Rose explains that the carp eat the young of more than 20 other species of fish, affecting their populations.

Compounding the problem is the stench created by dead carp floating to the surface and getting washed up on the shore.  

Rose also experienced wonder and awe during her trip. Viewing the mouth of the Mississippi from the surface of the water left an indelible impression.

“Sitting there in that river, in that boat, watching ocean-bearing tankers run in and out, and being there at mile marker zero and seeing how wide it was where the river branches into its three legs that dumped into the Gulf — My pictures don’t even do it any justice,” Rose says. “Photos can’t explain the vastness of it.”

She adds, “You’re so miniscule. You look like a piece of garbage floating by a tanker. There’s no size comparison. Those things are like 1,800 feet long. They’re 10 stories high when they’re empty and about five stories high when they’re loaded and going out. It’s very intimidating.”

Rose returned from her trip to her farm in Ashe County, North Carolina, on Sept. 28, to the shocking devastation left behind by Hurricane Helene. 

“The only thing I could do was cry,” Rose said, saying she had no words to describe the sight of damaged businesses with their contents strewn through the streets, covered by up to 8 inches of mud.

“It was heart-breaking,” she says.

An independent film crew joined Rose periodically during her trek, gathering footage for a documentary.

“All the filming for the documentary is done,” Rose says. “Everything is in the hands of the editors right now.”

Rose expects the documentary to be ready for showing by early summer, and that it will make the rounds of the film festival circuit. A screening of the documentary is tentatively scheduled for summer 2025, at Lansing Park in North Carolina.

For Rose, the effects of her epic journey didn’t end when she climbed out of the Mississippi.

“I’m waiting to see what’s going to change in me because of the trip, and how I can affect my community with my newfound knowledge,” Rose says. “I feel like it’s going to be impactful for a long time for me.”

Read our previous coverage of Ann Rose’s journey from May and August.