Calling themselves the Paddlin Madelines, high school camp friends Mitzi Peine ‘14 and Emma Burgeson made up the first all-women canoe team in 2014 to attempt the Yukon 1000, the world’s longest paddling race on the Yukon River in Alaska. Five hundred miles in, they made the decision to withdraw from the race due to a rotator cuff injury.

Recently, Mitzi sailed to Cuba on a ship named, Wolf, with a captain who was returning to Cuba for the first time in over fifty years. A documentary about the journey, The Old Man and the Sea Return to Cuba, premiered May 21 in St. Paul. She is now a guide for Alaska Mountain Guides.