protagonist of the film ‘The Current’
The protagonist of Joe Kane’s excellent book ‘Running the Amazon’ and the first person in the world to have kayaked every kilometre of the river from its source to its mouth (in 1986). A member of the legendary Polish Canoandes ’79 expedition, which, during a three-year journey across the Americas, paddled twenty-three mountain rivers (thirteen of them for the first time), and most notably, in May 1981, conquered the Colca Canyon in Peru (Chmieliński paddled the route from start to finish; he returned there many times in subsequent years). A graduate of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, and co-founder of the ‘Bystrze’ Academic Canoeing Club. He lives in the United States and remains an active canoeist.
