A good canoe trip takes good planning. Don Starkell knew that better than anyone. He spent a whole decade planning for the one he promised his two boys. Then again, he was planning to take them further than anyone had ever paddled before. On June 1, 1980, Don and his teenage sons set off from Winnipeg's Red River, planning to cover a distance of nearly 20,000 kilometres, through 13 countries, heading for the Amazon. Forty years later, Don's two sons look back on this inconceivable, world-record-setting journey, and the sometimes misplaced, sometimes heroic effort their father made to teach them the meaning of life.