Tough Girl Podcast

Cory Maria Dack is an Indigenous Latina who recently finished thru-paddling the entire Mississippi River - all 2,552 miles/4,108 km - source to sea, an incredible adventure that took over 134 days.  Born in Ecuador and raised in the U.S. (in Duluth, Minnesota near the Canadian border), Cory has been an adventure guide and outdoor leader for nearly 20 years. She decided to thru-paddle the most famous waterway in the U.S. in part to increase representation of women of color, fat bodied people, immigrants, queer folks, and other demographics often left out of the narrative on the water and in the outdoor recreation world. Cory’s main mission and message on her Mississippi River Trip was to “Decolonize Thru-Paddling,” a play on words that highlighted how she and her paddle partners: 1. Decolonized the concept of a “thru-paddle” (paddling all the way through a waterway, source to sea) 2. Uplifed messages of decolonization “thru” the act of paddling. What does it mean to “decolonize” something?  Decolonization is