Steve Fisher is a former professional extreme whitewater kayaker and

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

. He is best known for his undelivered controversial Kickstarter campaign for a kayaking instructional film, his first descents, and expedition kayaking. For the Kickstarter campaign, he partnered with Kayak Session and recruited many of the world's extreme kayakers as instructors including Eric Jackson, Pat Keller, Ben Marr, and Dane Jackson. With nearly 850 backers contributing more than $83,000 to the project, Fisher failed to deliver on the majority of his promises. Instead, backers were treated to sporadic reports detailing multiple paddling trips to exotic destinations. The last such update was posted on March 17, 2017. Steve is also known for his films with Pat Keller such as ''Pat's Blind Kayaking of Gorilla'' and the first legal descent of Merced in

Yosemite Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

along with films with other kayakers. He was a sponsored

Red Bull Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks of Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With 38% market share, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2019. Since its launch in 1987, more than 100 billion cans of Red Bull have been sold worldwide, inc ...

athlete. His best known film work was his team's kayak down the Congo river. Steve and the others on the Congo kayaking team were one of the 2013 National Geographic Adventurers of the Year recipients. His kayak films includes work with

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Motors ...

and ''Outside Magazine''. As of July 26, 2019 Steve was no longer listed as a Red Bull athlete and was no longer a member of Team

Jackson Kayak Jackson Kayak is a producer of kayaks and was founded by its namesake, Eric "EJ" Jackson. After working with Wave Sport Kayaks as a team member and as a designer, Eric Jackson and business partner, Tony Lunt formed Jackson Kayak in Rock Island, ...

The Dreamline project

The Dreamline project was started by Fisher and his companies Fish Munga, his production company, Flowstate Narratives and a partnership wit
Kayak Session
The Dreamline project raised $83,079, more than the $55,000 goal, with the project expected to be delivered around June 2016, as per the Kickstart project page. The final project update was on March 10, 2017, stating all the filming had been done and only editing by Steve had to be completed. A Facebook project update from Steve came on November 3, 2017 with no information on when the DVDs owed to

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

funders would be delivered. Facebook users comments to the post ranged from calling the project a

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compen ...

or a

scam A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers hav ...

to posts saying the film would be epic when Steve released the film. Steve actively marketed himself on Facebook, although his last post to his Facebook page was October 7, 2017 (as of July 26, 2019). Kayak Session last posted about the project on November 21, 2016.

commented that they do not know why the project was not completed, but that Steve Fisher was active filming and working on other projects around the world.

Corran Addison Corran Descy Addison (born February 6, 1969, in South Africa) is a slalom canoeist, whitewater kayaker, surfer and surfboard designer. He is now based in Montreal, Quebec. Beginnings Addison began kayaking in South Africa in the mid-1970s. In ...

a kayak designer and kayak company owner stated, "I paid Steve’s way to fame, giving him tens of thousands of dollars from riot over the years, promoting him and paying for his trips. But when he’d milked me for all he could get out of me, he just moved on. When the dreamline thing unravelled, I never said much, but I was most certainly not surprised."

The Grand Inga Project

The Grand Inga project was a project Fisher created to kayak the first descent of the Inga Rapids in the

Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. Fisher had two close calls that could have resulted in his death. The team was successful and were one of the 2013 National Geographic Adventurers of the Year recipients.

External links

Dreamline Ninja: What Happened?

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, Steve Whitewater sports people Kayakers International whitewater paddlers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)