George Meegan

Since neither could speak the other's language, they couldn’t hold a conversation during the walk. Just 300 yards and Yoshiko stopped, sat down on the mud strip road, and started to cry. He proclaimed, "Don’t worry, love, only another 19,000 miles to go!" Yoshiko changed her mind to continue when, shortly, an escaped convict pointed a revolver at her head. They escaped, and walked over three weeks to the Strait of Magellan, which separates Tierra del Fuego from the South American mainland.

Kobe is the leading national university of maritime science in Japan. As the only Westerner on faculty on the maritime side of the grounds, Meegan, 5’ 10", 150 pounds and with blonde hair, stood out. He reported that the kids often told him he was the best teacher in their experience. At present, Japanese students go to study English in Portland or Disneyland. However, in George's time he took them and students from other departments on major expeditions in the Alaska Labrador, and such places that were in his real situation. The most publicized was to the Alaska 2000 event—"the most significant international adventures from Kobe U since WWII."

He noted that Hikikomori is not just a condition of Japan, though in sheer numbers it leads, but is growing throughout the world. Similar problems are emerging in his own Great Britain and the Asian tigers of Hong Kong and South Korea. Then, in a follow-up paper "A Blueprint for a Way Forward," he summarized his solution. He would set up a program to harness the power of youth and youth dreams, to haul them out, step by step, from the darkness. The program would be a trajectory to educate, good citizenship, and a happier life. He spoke of the flattened lives being pulled up by the principles of Democracy Reaches the Kids. It is a simple alternative curriculum whereby the kids who don’t fit in are given a clear alternative route through education, and to success in society.

At age 14, Meegan's son, Geoffrey, and his sister set out to walk across India from Bombay to Madras. During the 5-month trip, Ayumi became friends with Mother Teresa. She wrote Santa Pont’a Journey (2009) in English and Japanese about a young boy who embarks on foot in search to find God. In 2013, in London, Geoffrey was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and currently lives in London with the help of his family. Meegan, in Ecuador, awaits a decision from the Ministry of Education so to begin his work among the peoples he first met 35 years before. It seems The Longest Walk is not finished after all.

In America, the ‘world walker’ was preceded in town-to-town media coverage signifying that, for many Americans, while in their country, Meegan had discovered the American Dream. In 1981, Jimmy Carter invited Meegan for a chat at the president's Plains, Georgia, home. Later that year, Meegan reached Washington, D.C., where People magazine greeted him. Friends and followers arranged several meetings with high government officials and dignitaries.

His culture-based curriculum is also called Democracy Reaches the Kids, for which the US government awarded its highest endorsement, the E11 visa. Meegan accepted the E11, an honorary citizenship from Barrow, and left Alaska with the gift of 100-year-old sacred eagle feather. Also the lesson that, at root, modern schooling is acting as a ‘cultural destruction agent,’ which can be corrected by a ‘snowroots’ demonstration led by one person. Meegan left Barrow for Japan, England, and, currently, the indigenous children of the Ecuador Amazon.

As the book The Longest Walk took off with readership around the world, during his 17-year tenure at Kobe, Japan took the lead. It was judged ‘inspirational’ and is included as a segment of the Japanese national high school curriculum. The adventure has been excerpted as an elective text for Japanese universities. The book is held at the US Library of Congress, and he is pictured in the Guinness Book of World Records, Japan, Great Britain, and the United States.

Daughter Ayumi, which literally means ‘walking’ in Japanese, was a scholar, and liked jazz. After graduating high school in Kobe, she moved to San Francisco and performed jazz, travelling also to perform. She sang *The Star-Spangled Banner" in front of 2000 folks, plus VIPs, at the annual dinner and press conference for her father hosted by the Explorers at the NY Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

"All a wonderful adventure; and yes, I stood in the General Election for where I grew-up as a boy! As I only had a week to campaign, beforehand, I specially set-up a YouTube presence, some three dozen clips for the connected generation. Right from the start, there was a bit more of a buzz whenever this unlikely candidate spoke. ‘MEEGAN’ was printed on the ballot paper, right next to a symbol of Rochester Castle. Of course, I had no chance of winning. I was going head-head with all of England's political machines."

"Gillingham & Rainham is a key marginal, and right from Day One, the prime minister was there, pacing edgily up and down Gillingham Station. His candidate was Paul Clark, a Labour Party minister. The thuggish BNP (British National Party) were there too; I asked them to join me. 'Walk with the angels', I said. On a borrowed bike, I had cycled 180-miles and in the process spoke to over 4,000 people. Courtesy of Royal Mail, my poster was delivered free of charge into each of the 41,000 households that make up the constituency. On the final day (5 May), I blitzed a marathon by visiting each of our 35 polling stations There, I saluted the election staffs; ‘On behalf of all the candidates,’ I announced. 'Thank you for your long day and your support of Democracy, and indeed your celebration of Freedom'.

The Waorani or Huaorani, also known as the Waos, are Native Americans of the Amazonian who have marked differences, such as language, culture, and a deep identification with the Jaguar, from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. In the last 40 years, they have shifted from a hunting and gathering society to live mostly in permanent forest settlements such as Puyo. [According to myth, the Waorani are the descendants of a mating between a jaguar and an eagle. In their belief system, a jaguar shaman is able ‘to become’ a jaguar.]

In the course of his walk and subsequent worldwide residencies, Meegan developed a profound interest in indigenous cultures; he sought innovative ways to teach native peoples how to flourish in modern technological society while retaining their language and identity. In 2014, he wrote Democracy Reaches the Kids, a book about how persons of all cultures may best learn what they truly want to know in life, naturally and joyfully, without centralized government compulsion. Meegan lives internationally and has a wife, Yoshiko, in Japan. They have two children.

Seafaring took him to more than 100 international ports of call, including Hong Kong, Bombay, Calcutta, Melbourne, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Antwerp, Dar es Salaam, and Mombasa. A crossing from Japan to Chile took over 30 days. A notable incident (during his anchorage off Lagos, Nigeria) in which Meegan played an important role—maintaining order aboard his ship, the Omar—is now called The Great Cement Scandal of 1975. Meegan's career at sea spanned six-and-a-half years, serving in eleven ships. He finished in 1976 as second mate in navigation.

Following the Dodd, Mead publication, strong reviews led to appearances on the Today Show, CBS Morning News, and Larry King Live. Meegan was invited back multiple times to various programs, and held dozens of TV appearances and radio broadcasts, along with hundreds of worldwide lectures—colleges, Rotary clubs, The Explorers Club of New York, Sing Sing Prison, Ghana, Italy, Japan, and the RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Queen Elizabeth. He was listed as an inspirational speaker by Sports Illustrated.

As associate professor at Kobe (50) — enrollment 16,000 in 2013, 10% international—George taught students to be ships’ officers, and he lectured widely on maritime science on topics from shipboard English to navigation, in and out of Japan... and raised his family. From the university he led 45 students to Alaska in 2000, and then again in 2001. After 2002, Meegan moved about the world "with a purpose," but always returned to Japan and his students until 2011.

From these worldwide journeys emerged the principles of Democracy Reaches the Kids (DRTK)—beginning with the question, "What does each individual child, at the beginning of that great challenge and adventure we call life, need to be successful in the 21st century?" The aim is for education to encompass the whole world of the childhood experience, especially for those kids who do not fit in (like Meegan himself), with holistic education. Though DRTK was never put out for public sale, George distributed them continually while resupplying from the Bangkok publisher.

DRTK proposes that environment—both local and planetary—is the key in the battle of nature and nurture. The six-month pilot program for communities includes environment, culture, health, communication, computer, and social skills, plus a bit of money management. Then the distinguishing topics: talents, inspiration, activities, dreams... inherent to each child, which modern state schooling ignores or suppresses. Meegan suggests that the framework of DRTK enables the individual to soar beyond the nation, while creating an informed and caring citizenry.

There have been many attempts throughout the history of education to improve the world, but George's is aided by the aforementioned unique E11 (US Alien of Extraordinary Ability) visa—the only ever issued in child education, most commonly called ‘extraordinary capacity.’ The US government only grants the E11 if it establishes that a green card applicant is one of the very best in his field of endeavour.

Meegan also authored the only example of the English language (International, Basic) that fits onto a single sheet of paper with type on both sides. It was called The Kobe One Page Basic English Dictionary and has 2,000 words, and was later published as Basic English One Page (VirtualBookWorm, 2013). He still uses the One-Page Dictionary during travels to teach English to non-speakers, handing it to hold rather than a seven-pound Random House Webster's Dictionary.

Free from teaching, Meegan sought a change from the safe urban geographic and Cultural Landscapes of Japan. While his family stayed on in Japan, and later England, George set off, as ever, for new horizons. The first stop was Bethel, Alaska. Bethel, in central Alaska, 400 miles west of Anchorage has access only by air and the Kuskokwim River. It is the main port and transportation hub for 58 villages on the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta.

In 2013, Meegan set off for South America to search for a locale to apply the tenets of Democracy Reaches the Kids. He took his text and scrapbook to describe a kickstart program for all the indigenous tribes of Amazonia. The pilot project aims to teach the kids what they need know to live in the modern world while keeping their culture intact. The six-month program will be filmed inside the classroom and, once completed, Meegan will incorporate the footage into a documentary. The objective is to seed Democracy Reaches the Kids to educational institutions around the world via YouTube.

The search for a site in 2013 targeted the Amazonia mountain village of Puyo, the capital of Pastaza Province. In June, 2013, Meegan flew from his annual swing in the United States (to sanction the E11 visa), and on to the Ecuador capital of Quito. He saw a colour picture in the Visiones newspaper of a Waorani with seven spears pushed through him. Studying the photo and reading the report, Meegan thought that these people needed his help. The story was heralded as Puyo, so there he went on a five-hour bus to the jungled mountainside town of 27,000, including many Waorani tribe.

Meegan calls his pilot program "Operation Safeguard: Hope to the Indigenous Tribes of Amazonia". On arrival in Puyo, he arranged meetings among the tribe and on 6 June 2013, presented a lecture called "Stealing the Fire" to the Quito Ministry of Higher Education. It was applauded and put him into the familiar Ecuador ‘slow roll’ of bureaucratic promises with delays. Then, on 17 September 2013, in a speech titled "Save the Indigenous Children of Ecuador" to Puyo teachers and Waorani, he explained that the Constitution of Ecuador "Guarantees the Nationalities of the indigenous tribes, however the education policy (as is common throughout the world) cannot support that guarantee."

He left with a deep regard for Bethel community which he calls the capital of Yupik America. He has many friends, and claims they always return there to be among the friendliest people he has met in the world. It was in Bethel, in 2012, while in good health, that he selected his burial plot. This came about when Mike Calvetti, commander of the Bethel VFW, was shown Meegan's Merchant Navy (UK) Association service medal, allowing him as a member of a VFW sister organization to be buried in the cemetery with Bethel villagers.

George Meegan's position as Assistant Professor at the Japan Marine University in Kobe ended in 2011. There was a retirement ceremony and display of his photo record of eighteen years on faculty. The forty plus albums of his time are currently held at the Kobe University Archive. This has not been done for any faculty member before or since, and Meegan attributes the honour to the special activities he did with students at and away from campus. The sweeping record promotes him, as well as the university.

Meegan's personal letters to public figures to drum up support for educational reform were buttressed by facts, dusted with Shakespearean charm, and always accompanied by a 'cheerio' goodbye. He wrote in a 2011 campaign letter to US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords: "USA: best miracle medicine in the whole wide world. Bravo America!" In another letter to Captain Mark Kelly USN, Astronaut, he proudly featured his E11 visa, "I have been judged at the highest US peer review level, and my deep regard of America is well known."

Author Meegan's articulates his vision and challenge for the 2010s as ‘pioneering the route whereby all our children can become the best they can be.’

During his last year of teaching in Japan, Meegan took his university leave to England and ran for the UK Parliament. Using Democracy Reaches the Kids as a platform, Meegan ran for 2010 general election as a non-political Independent by gathering 109 personal votes for the constituency of Gillingham and Rainham, where he grew up as boy. It is more accurate to say he bicycled rather than ran for office:

As for politics, Meegan believes that education shouldn't actually have any connection with politics, as would be with democracy kids. In democratic classrooms that would be the case. Each kid would have a framework, as President Clinton said, "to become the best that they can be." Letter canvassing to the general public followed the book publication, and especially to select dignitaries. In a letter to the public titled "Democracy Reaches the Kids!" (2009), the author outlined his plan to Save the Children, and therefore to change the planet:

Cold knocking there on door after door with a handful of news clippings proved unsuccessful, until he met American war hero John Walker, who introduced George to Dodd, Mead and Company. The 199-year-old firm, after a series of non-familial corporate ownerships, went bankrupt. So in 2008, he self-published The Longest Walk: The Record of our World’s First Crossing of the Entire Americas.

While educating he became educated, and began to weave the thoughts of things he had learned and accomplished in recent years into a text of school reform. Democracy Reaches the Kids was self-published in 2002 by Sirivatana Interprint of Bangkok. The two key elements of the text framework are a child's health and a child's culture—both original and adoptive. George, in the next decade, carried the slim book with him wherever he went in the hope that it might register with someone and see its revolutionary educational possibility.

On 23 January 2001, of the new millennium, Meegan reached his goal – land's end of North America – with about 100 Barrow villagers and adventurers from the world. Including Lt. Col. Norman D. Vaughan, representing Mount Vaughan, Antarctica (named for him by Rear Admiral Richard Byrd). The purpose of the Alaska 2000 effort was to complete the hemispheric walk and to bring hope to the indigenous world by developing an alternative educational route whereby they could maintain their endangered culture, and yet be a part of the 21st century, and to appeal to Uncle Sam not to block the option.

At this millennium event, in front of world media, the US government formally apologized to First Nations—the more than 600 Aboriginal peoples spread across Canada and Alaska who are neither Inuit nor Métis—in a public gesture unique in American history. "At Barrow on 1 January 2001, the US government via the White House and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offered sincere apology for ‘the cowardly killing of woman and children’... and other atrocities spelled out in three-and-a-half pages read out loud." Legislators from both Houses of Alaska sent special personal acknowledgments as well.

In 2000, at age 47, and 17 years after completing the 19,019-mile Longest Walk, Meegan returned to the Arctic Circle and walked almost 500 kilometers farther northwest to reach Barrow, Alaska. This put a finishing touch on the hike at the northernmost land point of North America. The last 14 km leg of his walk in the cold blow at -83 °F wind chill from Barrow village to Point Barrow set his 8th Guinness record for the first crossing of the Americas by any other means (besides walking)—be it by road, ship, or airplane.

The year 2000 March was cancelled due to weather until the following 23 January, which is the true Millennium (the 23rd is when the new sun finally reaches Barrow, the 11th most north village in the world). Again in 2001 participants were encouraged to bring along a flag, banner, or sign along on the march... which proved unnecessary: arctic survival gear was provided and John ‘Jumper’ Bitters, formerly of New Zealand's elite Special Air Service, parachuted down with flags as the thirty walkers reached Jumper DZ from Point Barrow.

The Alaska 2000 project also offered the US government a school alternative whereby—via an adjusted education—all Alaska’s First Nation cultures would be revived from extinction. The basis for this cultural/language preservation effort was a model program that Meegan had written up before Alaska 2000, which he named ‘Hope from the Land of the Polar Bear.’

In 2000, when Meegan moved after the Alaska 2000 from Barrow back to Japan, he reacclimatized to professorial duties and his family. He taught in the Kobe University department of Maritime Science and lectured frequently worldwide. He also began to piece together film footage of the Alaska 2000 to produce the documentary Hope from the Land of the Polar Bear (2002). It was shown at the New York Explorers Club Film Festival and lost to James Cameron. There is a copy in the Royal Geographical Society historic collection.

Throughout the 2000s, George taught, wrote, lectured, and made a documentary Hope from the Land of the Polar Bear (2002), and raised his children. During this time, Japan was awash in the phenomenon of Hikikomori, which literally means ‘shutting out the sun.’ BBC did a program "Japan: The Missing Millions" (2002) that describes millions of teenage boys in Japan's cities turning into hermits, and never leaving their rooms. Pressure from schools and an inability to talk to their families were the suggested causes. With his own children in the midst of peer pressure to withdraw, Meegan fought back with a written abstract titled "Hikikomori: New Approach of Hope" dealing with the country adolescents pulling inward by seeking extreme degrees of isolation.

Both children grew up in Japan and became bilingual. Geoffrey left at thirteen to attend the famous alternative Summerhill School under head Zoe Readhead in Suffolk, England. The Summerhill philosophy embraced Meegan's own that children learn best with freedom from concern and a strong voice in the classroom. Lessons are optional, and pupils are free to choose what to do with their time. The function of the school is to encourage a child to live his own life, rather than a life according to the purpose of an educator. Geoffrey also studied martial arts, was known for his sense of humor, and led his father's 44 Japanese students in Barrow at the Alaska 2000.

The aim in Puyo is to better the world through the children, primarily by preserving their indigenous languages and teaching them the lessons for living in modern times. This is designed after a successful model he set up in Barrow following the Alaska 2000 event and subsequent US government aid. Operation Safeguard in Ecuador is based on what he calls Preventable Language Extinction. In Alaska, after the 2008 loss of Eyak when the last native speaker died, no action had yet been taken to check this fast approaching extinction of several other Alaska First Nation languages.

Meegan lived in Kobe, Japan for most of the period between 1991 until 2010. He had met his wife, Yoshiko Matsumoto, in 1975 when he had to join a ship in Japan and so crossed from UK on the Trans-Siberian Railway. While hitchhiking to the ship in Kobe, George was picked up by Yoshiko, then they stayed in touch by mail for two years until he decided to break the long-distance hiking record held by David Kwan (18,500 miles).

Ten years earlier, in 1990, George and son Geoffrey had slept behind the couch of an old friend in Barrow named Rex Wilhelm who had since become president of the historic Alaska Commercial. George told Mr. Wilhelm about the destruction of the Eyak culture, and how he could stop it and other such tragedies. Wilhelm immediately suggested Bethel. He gave George a job as a shoe clerk 'grade 3' at his Bethel shoe store from Christmas 2011 to Christmas 2012 that paid him to reach Ecuador in early 2013 and attempt to launch Operation Safeguard to save the indigenous languages of Amazonia.

Meegan's roll into politics started in the northernmost cabin in the United States at Helmericks, on the Colville River (Alaska). He took Geoffrey there in 1990, away from the constrained Japanese classrooms, for a fresh perspective on life. Helmericks is a family homestead village, and the two Meegans increased the town population for by 30% from 6 to 8 people during a one-month stay. His son helped Meegan organize the notes for Democracy Reaches the Kids, and the book was published later that year. One of its earliest supporters was celebrated NY teacher John Taylor Gatto, who used notes from Meegan's book and carried them protected in laminations with him during his lecture days.

Paragon Press acquired the title and the book sold well, including translations in Japan and Italy. In 1988, Dodd, Mead, which did the first Lewis and Clark journal, published the more familiar edition with Meegan's preferred subtitle The Longest Walk: An Odyssey of the Human Spirit. The book has been converted into an audio version distributed worldwide in English-speaking countries.

Meegan returned again to New York in 1988 for a promotion of the new release of The Longest Walk by Dobb, Mead. He also lectured in NYC and made other public appearances. One special occasion, 16 August 1988, at the Brooklyn end of the Brooklyn Bridge: borough president Howard Golden proclaimed George Meegan Day in Brooklyn with dancers and music. "Only in America may such a dream come true", said Meegan.

The crossing continued, through the northern United States, Canada, into the Yukon, and on to the final step above the Arctic Circle. On the afternoon of 18 September 1983, he crossed a strip of tundra to the edge of the Arctic Ocean, and dipped his hand into the cold water. At the age of 31, Meegan had walked 19,019 unbroken miles from end to end of two continents. Walking from Patagonia to Alaska was later done by Karl Bushby (1998 to 2006) and Holly "Cargo" Harrison (2016-2018), though they did not detour to the East Coast making their trip shorter.

Back in England, the Royal Geographical Society made him a fellow in 1983. Also in 1983 a newspaper competition for ‘The Best Legs in UK’ included Meegan. Other candidates were the captain of England's soccer team, winner of the Derby (the horse) flat race, and so on. World decathlon champion Daley Thompson won the competition, but Daley, during training from the LA 1984 Olympics, said, "George deserves it more." So the shield for 'Champion Legs of Great Britain' was presented to George by Ernest Saunders, Chairman of Guinness.

Though he earned up to a thousand dollars for each lecture, most were gratis and he needed to work to support himself. Throughout 1983–84, he worked in plaster, sheetrock, demolition, and cleaning and thus he was able to finance his way back to England, then to Japan.

By the completion of the Longest Walk in 1983, Yoshiko had birthed a son and daughter during timeouts in Japan, as George marched the unbroken route up the Americas. After the walk, they reunited in Toki, Gifu, where her parents lived. George taught English, like a lot of other foreigners do, until a full Professor at Kobe University in Maritime Science told George that because of his background at the ‘University of High Seas’, they were bringing him to Kobe, where he became an associate professor. George had left school at age 16, so it was the only degree he ever earned. It was the first ‘professor’ rank granted to a non-university graduate in Japan since the Meiji Revolution of 1859.

People magazine, having produced a four-page story on him in 1981, followed with a three-page feature after the 1983 finish. People editor John Drake wrote that Meegan was the most unknown Bio person they ever did. (One photographer, Peter B. Kaplan, would go on to shoot world-famous pictures of the Statue of Liberty.) Following the People publicity, New Yorker, Backpacker, Voice of America, Studs Terkel, various primetime TV interviews, and numerous newspaper articles from the New York Times to the Washington Post showcased the "witty, clean-cut globetrotter".

As he mapped a route, he wrote about his plan to Yoshiko. She was unhappily employed in an office and trying to escape a prearranged marriage. She flew to London thinking George's trip would be by bus, and was shocked to find it was to be on foot. Nevertheless, she joined Meegan on his first step from Tierra del Fuego in 1977 with nearly 20,000 miles to go to reach the arctic.

In 1976 Meegan retired from the Merchant Navy, beginning a several-year odyssey: walking from the bottom of South America to the top of North America, a journey captured in his self-published book The Longest Walk: The Record of Our World’s First Crossing of the Entire Americas (Xlibris). According to the book, George Meegan:

Shortly after George was born, his father left and his mother died from cancer. He was raised by his mother's older brother, Geoffrey Meegan, a former Royal Engineer, and Geoffrey's wife, Frieda, who was an auxiliary nurse at Keycol Hill Hospital. Legally adopted at age three, George's name was changed from Killingbeck to Meegan. He grew up in Rainham, Kent, England, attending schools: Meredale, Wakeley Road, and Orchard Street. At 16, he signed on as a cadet aboard the T.S. Worcester, under the Thames Nautical Training College at Greenhithe. From there he went to sea in the Merchant Navy, first, on the MV Trecarne (1970), then the other tramp freighter Hain-Nourse, which was then a part of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O)—embarking on his childhood ambition for a life of ‘high adventure.’

The store of botanical knowledge among the tribe is extensive, ranging from poisons to hallucinogens. In 1956, a group of five American missionaries made contact with the Huaorani in what was known as Operation Auca, in which they lowered gifts in a basket from a plane to initiate friendly contact. Two days later, all five of the missionaries were killed in a Huaorani spearing raid. Meegan, aware of the precedent spearing where he was going, was more alarmed by the nation's bureaucratic indecision. Despite Quito media reports of other alleged Huaorani attacks, Meegan made his visit.

George Meegan (born 2 December 1952) is a British adventurer and alternative educator best known for his unbroken walk of the Western Hemisphere from the southern tip of South America to the northernmost part of Alaska at Prudhoe Bay. This journey on foot was of 19,019 miles (30,608 km) in 2,425 days (1977–1983) and is documented in his book The Longest Walk (1988). He received substantial media coverage (including appearances on the Today Show, CBS Morning News and Larry King Live) and was featured in numerous public speaking forums.

The new program gave a route to save the threatened Aleut, Athabaskan, Inupiaq, Tlingit, Tsimshian and Yupik languages. The key, Meegan judged, was a culture-based curriculum. Teaching would be primarily in the indigenous languages, along with English (or Spanish, etc.), and accompanied by all necessary tools for successful living in the 21st century. His aim was "to prevent language extinction".