Chicagoans on the South Side may have seen an odd sight Sept. 19 — a man in homemade clothes and a pirate hat walking along Archer Avenue with a canoe in tow as he traveled between the Des Plaines River and Lake Michigan.

For Peter Frank, it was just another leg on an ambitious journey that has spanned more than 450 days as he attempts to complete the 6,000-mile “Great Loop” across several states, the Great Lakes and along the East Coast and back.

And he is doing it backwards, or upstream — the same route French explorers Louis Joliet (who the Chicago suburb is named after) and Jacques Marquette took in the late 1600s.

Frank, who has chronicled his journey online and has more than 75,000 followers, has attracted a legion of followers — and admirers.

“People who do things like this brin

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