About Brett

Welcome to Brett Rogers’s official blog, the best way to stay informed about Brett’s current projects and future expeditions.  Learn more at http://brettonthewater.com/

To date, Brett has led expeditions on the Mackenzie, Yukon and Mississippi Rivers – spanning a total distance of 9,000 kilometers, over a total of 10 months, all without burning a tank of gas. The focus of these expeditions has never been to be the first or the fastest, nor to re-enact past expeditions or periods in history but rather to capture the unforgiving experiences of the modern day journey, propelled by the compelling people, secrets and dangers encountered along the way.

From these expeditions Brett has been featured on Breakfast Television, Daily Planet, Canada AM, The Weather Network, ABC News, the National Post, KW Record, Toronto Sun, Advocate of Baton Rouge, Hamilton Spectator, Waterkeeper Magazine, CBC Radio, and National Geographic Traveler. Brett has completed keynote presentations regarding his expeditions, highlighted by lectures at Columbia University, Louisiana Art and Science Museum, TEDx McGill, and the GreenXchange in Los Angeles, California.

Brett is a Graduate of Geography from the University of Waterloo. In his 4th year at Waterloo, Brett led his first expedition on the Mackenzie River from Fort Simpson to Inuvik on a home-made raft. From this expedition Brett produced his first documentary, Into the Midnight Sun, which aired on The Documentary Channel for three consecutive years. After University Brett served as the Canadian Field Coordinator for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance where he gained a thorough understanding about the pressures facing Canada’s fresh water supply and gained a firsthand appreciation for the power of grassroots advocacy in Canada.

As a filmmaker, Brett has been mentored by Les Stroud, (Survivorman), who has helped guide Brett into becoming a storyteller. Les is the Executive Producer of Brett’s last two expeditions, the Yukon and Mississippi Rivers. The Yukon documentary, 100 Days, is a firsthand account of Brett’s expedition down the Yukon River from Whitehorse, Yukon to the Bering Sea. This documentary will be aired on television in Canada in May 2011 and in the United States in September 2011.

Brett’s last expedition, known as the Old Man River Project, was a 110 day undertaking on the Mississippi River from northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico in a historic York Boat that was constructed specifically for this expedition. This expedition ended up being the last full river expedition before the BP Deep Horizon Oil Spill and provides some of the last documentation of the Gulf of Mexico before the infamous spill. During the expedition, Brett ran a blog that was connected to Facebook and Twitter and by the time the expedition reached the Gulf of Mexico over 10,000 individual people from over 42 countries had visited the blog at least once. This expedition is currently being produced into a 2 hour special for TV and will be aired in Canada and the USA in the Fall of 2011.

Aside from his own projects, Brett has worked in television on Survivorman, Les Stroud’s Beyond Survival, Megaworld, Mighty Ships and Top Chef Canada. As an instructor of TV Documentary at Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ontario Brett continues to emphasize that passion and creativity are the fundamental elements required to tell compelling stories. Brett has undertaken camera assignments in Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Peru, Chile, Antarctica, South Georgia Island, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and throughout the 10 States that boarder the Mississippi River.

Brett is a recent and proud member to The Explorers Club. Founded in New York City in 1904, The Explorers Club is an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore.

Brett believes storytelling can change the world.