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Paddle and Portage: a New Website for the Boundary Waters
This is a quick bit of interesting news for Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness lovers. Paddle and Portage is a brand new website devoted to telling stories about the Boundary Waters and Quetico. It launched in January 2024. The website is founded by Joe Friedrichs, formerly of the radio station WTIP and WTIP’s Boundary Waters Podcast. Matthew Baxley is also joining Friedrichs’ new adventure as part of the new Paddle and Portage Podcast. Baxley was Friedrichs’ co-host on WTIP’s podcast. He’s also a talented filmmaker and good host. He interviewed me about my Following the Winchell Expedition trip for a past episode of the Boundary Waters Podcast. WTIP’s Boundary Waters…
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Fake Thermacell Mosquito Repellent Refills Sold on Amazon
I recently received an email from Amazon saying that they found that one of the sellers using their platform had used it to sell counterfeit Thermacell Refills. It’s scary that they didn’t list the chemicals found in the counterfeit product and scary to hear that a chemical pad that’s burned to create a vapor that wards off mosquitoes could be counterfeit. If you ordered replacement Thermacell Refills from Amazon, make sure the check your order to see if it was sold by this company. Here’s the email I received. Dear Customer, We’re contacting you about order #xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for the following item(s): Thermacell Mosquito Repellent Mat Only Refills; Compatible with Thermacell…
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Boundary Waters Canoe Area Protected!
We received good news today about the fight to protect the Boundary Waters from toxic sulfide mining pollution. They completed the two-year study about this type of mining and how it could affect the BWCA. They found that due to the potential harm that there was justification for a twenty-year moratorium on federal lands within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area’s watershed. Maybe 20 years will be long enough for the mining companies to develop technology that would prevent this type of pollution. They haven’t been able to do it, yet. It’s the most toxic industry in the country, and there’s never been a sulfide mine around the world that hasn’t…
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Spring Paddling Season is Here!
This is a bit of a site update. It has three parts: Feedburner Subscriptions (aka my email newsletter provider) are being discontinued by Google. That means if you got this post via email that you will not get them anymore unless you take action. See below I’m heading out on a canoe trip that is mainly following a route from 1879. It’s 160 miles and will take around 10-12 days. I’m leaving later in the month and hope to have something to write about when I’m back. The longest portage is about 7 miles. Basically, I’m going from Grand Marais, MN to Lutsen, MN via historic canoe routes through the…
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PaddlingLight News Update
Just a quick news update about the PaddlingLight website. Over the last year, I’ve been meaning to update the website to increase the speed and load times. I finally had a few days to do that, so before the craziness of my fall schedule kicked in I sat myself down into my office and worked on the website. This is step one of getting things updated around here. While doing that, I also made a few changes to the look of the website. It’s basically the same-ish look but with a slightly more compact design with a simpier color scheme. Hopefully, I also increased readability. Let me know if you…
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Siskiwit SOF Kayak Stolen!
In a recent email from Marcelo, who built a Siskiwit SOF back in 2015, he wrote: My wife stole my Siskiwit! LOL Hence, I needed to build another kayak for me, I choose a skin-on-frame baidarka. I added a system of bulkheads and dry hatches for camping gear and a rudder/skeg for trim in winds. Some pics in the Nahuel Huapi Lake: When I asked if I could share the pictures of his new kayak, he sent along some details of the baidarka build. The construction looks just as good as the construction pictures of his Siskiwit SOF (see Siskiwit SOF Detail Page for a few photos). Here are details: I did…
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A Skene Walrus Hits the Water
Another Walrus hits the water. This time it’s a folder. And it looks great. Norman L. Skene originally published the drawings in The Rudder Magazine. Later George Putz published the plans in his book Wood and Canvas Kayak Building. Skene based the Walrus on the 1921 Southwest Greenland Kayak, aka the Skinny Walrus. Markus Kosel, the builder, did a great job as you can see from the following pictures. Here’s what Markus says: I followed you advice and I built the Skene Walrus. The boat is built as a traditional folding kayak, with a wooden frame and a skin made from PVC coated fabric underneath and a canvas deck. The dimensions are those of Skene’s…
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A Year in the Wilderness: a BWCA Adventure
Imagine living in wilderness for an entire year. Imagine living with only a canoe for transportation in the summer and only dogs to haul gear in the winter. Imagine living in a tent in northern Minnesota when the winter temps drop to -40. Imagine watching the northern lights over lakes so clean that you can dip your cup into them and drink the water. Imagine being away from it all for a full year. That’s what Amy and Dave Freeman, 2014 National Geographic Adventurers of the Year, are going to do next. They’re going to live inside the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA), a million acre wilderness and America’s…
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Why I Got Out of the Sea Kayak Guiding Business
According to a study published in APS journal Psychological Science, after receiving an unappealing prize for hard work, a six-year-old kid will hold on to it. Whereas a four-year-old kid who works hard for an unappealing reward will detach themselves from that reward by giving it away. The six-year-old, says the study, “tend to employ a cognitive strategy to accommodate the knowledge that they worked hard to earn an unattractive reward.” They revalue the reward based on how difficult it was to earn it. The four-year-old doesn’t perform that mental jump and sees the prize as it is: not worth it. In this way, six-year-old kids function more like adults,…
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First SUP Crossing to and Circumnavigation of Isle Royale
I ran into an interesting post on a friend’s Facebook page the other day. He posted this cut from the Cook County News Herald’s Cook County Law Enforcement briefs. It’s from a call placed at 6:57am on May 5th. It said: Grand Portage: Caller said her husband paddleboarded out to Isle Royale and is now disorientated and can’t make it back. Now that’s interesting. My knee-jerk reaction was that some idiot on a SUP did something stupid, and at least it wasn’t a “kayaker” this time. Before I made a wise-ass crack on my friend’s wall, I decided to drop Rhonda Silence, the paper’s editor, an email to see if she…
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Used Wilderness System Tsunami 175 and 165 Sea Kayaks For Sale -SOLD
SOLD – All boats are sold. I have Tsunami 175s and Tsunami 165s for sale. These are used but in great shape. These are a great sea kayak and perfect for Lake Superior, the Great Lakes, oceans or inland lakes. They’re stable, handle rough water and work well for beginners and advancing intermediate paddlers. You could circumnavigate Isle Royale in this kayak or take off on a 20-day trip if you wanted. They’re also perfect for day trips and have excellent handling. All have rudders and upgraded seats for additional comfort. The seat is a $60 upgrade from the stock boat that you’d buy at a retailer. New they run $1685 plus…
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Website Note: PaddlingLight Got a Facelift
Just a note in case you haven’t clicked through to PaddlingLight recently: we got a facelift! After years and years of the old design, we updated the look and features. This was one of those things that was on the back burner, but with Google’s recent changes to search we were forced to do it or risk losing our page ranks on mobile. Many of our readers are reading on tablets or smartphones, so it also made sense to make the change. The two goals with the redesign were: Make the website responsive for all screen sizes. You can see this in action by resizing your browser or surfing to…
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Wilderness and Public Lands: You Own Them
In the U.S., we have an extensive system of public lands. If we were to average out how many acres each individual U.S. citizen owns, it would be 1.99 acres of federal lands. Many agencies control the public lands, but the primary big four stewards of our lands are the: U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service. The Department of Defense is the fifth largest steward of land. Over the 20 years leading to 2010, federal land ownership declined by 18 million acres, nearly 2.8%.(1 p.15) That means that if you are a U.S. citizen, your government sold off more of your land than…
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Slightly Off Topic: GOP Wants to Make Hikers and Bikers Pay to Hike and Bike
Recently in Minnesota members of the state’s GOP proposed that hikers and bikers pay user fees to use state trails (not to mention they already pay for a park pass). I wouldn’t be surprised to see paddlers targeted as well for using state water trails. The reason the GOP cited was because snowmobilers pay user fees, everyone else should for fairness. I wanted to see how much snowmobilers pay and where the funding for the state’s 22,000+ miles of snowmobile trails actually comes from. The biggest source of funding is the gas tax paid by all drivers. I put together this info chart from the data I was able to…
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National Parks Traveler’s Guide to Paddling the Parks Is Out
The 2nd Annual Essential Guide to Paddling the Parks by National Parks Traveler is out. The cover photo is mine and I have an article about paddling through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from Voyageurs National Park to Grand Portage National Monument. There are a ton of great articles in the magazine and it’s worth spending some time on this winter day looking through its pages.
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