If you don’t know the wild story of Oskar Speck, you should.
He’s the man who kayaked more than 31,000 miles around the world, spending 1932 to 1939 paddling his way from Germany to Australia.
To call him an adventurer shortchanges everything he actually did.
Born in 1907, Oskar grew up in Hamburg, Germany. By the time he was 14, he quit school and entered the workforce. Life in Germany’s post WWI was what he would later describe as “catastrophic,” and after losing his job, he refused to accept starvation as the answer. His solution for survival? Kayak his way out of Germany towards a better future.
It was a strange choice for a young man who didn’t even know how to swim. But he owned a collapsible, rubber kayak and used it to start what would become a seven year journey to Australia.
His story isn’t one of those influencer-style journeys that inspire scores of others to join in the fun.
He battled lack of food, dehydration, hostile locals.
He got stranded on an island for a week – with a rotting corpse as his only companion.
He lived through monsoon seasons, malaria, and even survived an intense beating by 20 men who stole his kayak, all his possessions, and left him for dead.
His journeys took him across the Aegean sea, the Euphrates river, and along the coast of Iran. To the Europeans who knew him, Speck was a celebrity. To the locals who met him on his way, he was hailed as either a hero or a villain. Rumors had spread about his kayak being able to fly and dive, but all that celebrity still couldn’t save him from the fate waiting on him in Australia.
WWII had just broken out, and apparently, when you’re a German sailing your way across the world in a tiny boat, people treat you suspiciously. The Australian police knew who he was. They knew he was due to arrive on their shores, and when he did, they said something close to “Hello, nice to meet you. You’re under arrest.”
For the next 7 years, Speck spent his life in an Australian internment camp. It was here where he learned how to cut opal, and when he was finally released, he made Australia his home, becoming a highly successful opal dealer.
Today, Oskar’s story is one of those tales you make a movie about. It was harrowing, brave, and oftentimes, completely unbelievable. Across the world, he was recognized as the most experienced sea-going kayak expert in the world. But at home in Australia, hardly anyone knew him. He didn’t write a book. He didn’t speak about his experiences. He didn’t publish photographs of his journeys.
At the end of his life, Speck wrote to his sister, “I am satisfied,” he said. “Recognition or no recognition.”
He knew he had survived in the world during a time in history where millions had not been so fortunate. “Why shouldn’t I be satisfied?” he asked his sister.
That sits hard with me today – because if you’re a business owner, satisfaction can be hard to come by in a world that measures success by numbers. If we’re not visible, not recognized, not seen or understood, it’s easy to wonder if we have any value at all.
But I think there’s a truth in Speck’s story worth wrestling with. For all of us.
What does it mean to truly be satisfied, recognition or no recognition? And how are we building that kind of world for ourselves and others?
