2021 Paddling Recap

Looking back at the spring and summer and early fall of 2021, leaves me wanting for more paddling. While I did do a few trips, including a big one, the Boundary Waters and surrounding areas were closed for much of the summer. Wildfires in the BWCAW closed the wilderness while I had time off and had planned on doing a lot of canoe camping with my kid. We’re hoping to get one more paddling trip in, but it’s looking like snow might come. Here’s a quick recap of my paddling in 2021.

The year started off with a trip I’m calling Following Winchell. In 1879, Minnesota State Geologist Newton Horace Winchell visited the north shore of Lake Superior and took a trip into the interior from what is now Grand Marais to what is now Lutsen Resort. The route was approximately 160 miles with over 30 miles of portages. I decided to follow the route as closely as I could.

I used existing infrastructure when the old portages were gone, although I did have a bushwhack several portages to make the route work. It took me about two weeks and was good fun. I spent several months training for the trip by portaging up and down my road and also by working out on a paddling-specific training program. The training really helped when it came to the long days that I had to paddle on this trip.

I tracked the route with a Garmin InReach. I hadn’t used one to track my exact route before and was really excited that it worked so well. My family and friends were able to track me exactly where I was at all times. I’ll be using this more often when on solo trips. Highly recommended. You can pick it up at REI. Mine is older, but I’d get a Garmin InReach Mini if I was buying today.

I wrote a bunch of posts about the gear I used on the trip starting with one about a lightweight camping cook set.

After the trip, we took several day trips as a family and I did some day trips on Lake Superior with my sea kayak. One day, the surf was so-so, but I felt like I needed some fun. It ended up exhausted and broke my kayak’s seat. It was an easy fix, but still…

As far as paddling rants, I almost did one on ropes and life vest knives. I posted on Facebook about teaching my kid how to paddle a solo canoe. One of the tools that we’re using is a tow rope. The conversation that it started almost had me posting a rant called, “Life Vest Knives and Poor Little Johnny.” I wrote the following:

A couple of weekends ago, we went out solo canoeing as a family. My kid, who is six, paddled a solo canoe. It’s still hard for him to paddle a long distance, so I bring along a sea-kayak-style tow rope and hook it to his canoe.

I’ve been a canoeist longer than a sea kayaker, but I seldom see tow ropes used in canoeing. It’s not a difficult skill to master, but there are dangers involved with entanglement and rope release that the paddler needs to know about. For example, if you are going to tow, you need to know how to avoid getting yourself and others entangled in the rope and have a knife on your life vest to be able to cut the rope off someone if they become entangled. You should also practice in a controlled environment, ideally with an instructor. All the ropes should have quick releases. While I’ve never had to tow a canoe in an emergency (I have had to tow kayakers when I used to guide sea kayaking) I’ve seen it and have heard stories. I’m not sure why canoe towing isn’t something talked about or taught. I think I’m going to write an article about it on PaddlingLight.

That provoked several responses from a friend that somehow morphed into an email thread. My buddy posted this:

Yet folks who think they need knives on the outside of their vest seldom if ever benefit. More likely that encourages little Johnny to need a knife he can’t handle, or results in river trash. Heard one guy rushed to use his knife and without thinking cut someone’s femoral artery. I’ve had one urgent need to cut a rope, and removed a folder from a pocket and cut it. Knives on the outside are an unfortunate macho tradition.

To which I ended up replying:

A sheathed fixed blade knife on the outside of a life vest is a standard safety tool and recognized as such by many experienced paddlers, guides and instructors, including myself. Just because you were able to access your knife in your one specific situation doesn’t mean that there aren’t situations where you wouldn’t have been better served with a knife on your vest. Paddlers should train with it and understand the functions and limitation and dangers. I’m not sure why anyone would give a knife to “little Johnny” without training “little Johnny” in its use just like a person wouldn’t give “little Johnny” a folding knife that he wasn’t trained with nor could he handle, but I suppose you can think that in your imagination. In my life experience parents are good at teaching their children about handling knives.

I sure hope that discussion goes sideways, because I’m looking forward to lampooning it on PaddlingLight.

He went on to invoke, “Broomstick footpegs, cowtails, machines, nonlocking carabiner, sprayskirts with embedded foam for lifejackets…” and he called out my age, “When you get past 50 let me know. And if anyone else you’ve paddled with has.” Of course, I’m past 50 already and nearly everyone I paddle with is over 60. It would have been an epic rant on PaddlingLight to rival the best one: Ranting about Painters with a Paddling in It! Maybe I will turn it into a rant still because it contains the typical paddlers on a soapbox type of stuff that I get so sick of from the kayaking world.

Other than the rant, we found that using a sea kayaking tow rope works well for helping my six-year-old paddle a solo canoe. He learned a lot in our adventures and really started liking canoeing because of it. My favorite tow rope is a North Water Sea Tec Towline. Note: it uses “nonlocking carabiners.” :) Hahahahaha! I added a climbing quick draw to mine because it makes it so much easier to handle when attaching it to a kayak or canoe.

The day the Boundary Waters reopened, we took a day trip into Bower Trout Lake to fish and just paddle around. I don’t remember getting anything, but my kid probably did because he caught lots of fish this summer.

One of the local stores had this cool Sanborn Canoe Paddle display in its window for much of the summer.

And that about wraps up the summer of paddling. When they closed the Boundary Waters after all the fires broke out, it really put a damper in my paddling plans. I really hope that we can get one more family canoe camping trip into the Boundary Waters done this year. On the one we did last fall, we bailed a day early because of heavy, wet snow.

As far as PaddlingLight, I have a few more gear reviews to finish up (about 10 total) and a Holiday Buyer’s Guide. I need to decide on where to submit a story about my Following Winchell trip and decide if I’ll be presenting the trip anywhere next year. I also have an article about installing a NDK High Performance Seat into other kayaks. And, do I write about canoe towing?

Did you do any fun trips this summer?