VANCOUVER, Wash. — It doesn’t take much to get Bryan Southard out on the water.
“Water is so powerful, yet so smooth and calming,” he said, gazing out at the Columbia River.
KGW first met Southard in January when he had just finished paddleboarding the Columbia every day for 365 days in a row, a project he called "Paddle 365."
“If I didn't need to eat or pay my bills, I probably would have set sail a long time ago,” he said. “And I'd look like— what's his name in Castaway?”
These days, he’s still paddleboarding, just not every day. The difference now is he’s got a furry companion: his 3-month-old yellow labrador, Lemmy.
“I think, initially, I just thought like, ‘Oh, cool. It's a dog, and he's going to go out there and be able to hang out with me and have fun.’ But, you know, it's more than that,” Southard said. “I love this dog; this dog loves me too, which is so crazy!”
Southard works in the music industry and spends a lot of time on the road — the name Lemmy a nod to Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister.
“This (paddleboarding) is therapy to me, and the other one (work) drives me crazy, like work does for everybody, right?!” he said.
Lemmy has also become quite the attention-getter on social media; Southard has seen a solid increase in followers to his TikTok and Instagram pages.
But when he and Lemmy hit the river, everything else drifts away. One of his favorite spots is a beach not far from his launch in Vancouver.
“This is what I call sanctuary,” Southard declared. “I like to come here and just chill.”
He gets to chill while Lemmy gets to run. The pup isn’t too keen on swimming yet, but he’s warming up to the thought.
“He's doing really good, and he just sleeps on the thing, for the most part,” Southard smiled. “And then we'll shore up, and then it's like he knows it's time to play.”
Earlier this year, Southard started his own paddleboarding business Bone Local PNW, guiding people along his favorite spots.
“Originally, I wanted to take people that knew what they were doing and hit all these exotic spots,” he said. “And I seem to have found a real niche for taking people that have never been at all and showing them what this is all about.”