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Canoe and Kayak Navigation Articles
Over the past few years, I’ve written articles about both canoe navigation and kayak navigation. I based the articles on the navigation classes I teach with the premise that navigation shouldn’t be confusing, and it isn’t confusing once you understand the basics. To help people learn during my classes, I concentrate on the results instead of the terminology. I think it’s more important that a paddler can take a bearing with a compass, follow that bearing or plot a course than know what the difference between the terms bearing, heading and course. These articles reflect that approach. If you have a website or blog, please, feel free to link back…
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Organizing Camping Gear for Canoe Camping and Kayak Camping
Many checklists that help with organizing camping gear are broken down into categories that don’t necessarily reflect how we live our lives in our homes. For example, a checklist might break the list into paddling clothing, camp clothing, personal gear, group gear and personal items. At a glance, you can’t really tell what you’re bringing. Instead of using broad categories to organize your checklist, narrow your categories and make them reflect rooms in your home. By making them reflect rooms in your home, you instantly can link what’s in each category with what’s typically in that room in your home. Organizing Camping Gear by Category To make your camping checklist…
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Learning the Greenland-style Storm Roll Part 2: The Kayak Roll
This is part two of Learning the Greenland-style Storm Roll. Before reading this start with part one of Learning the Greenland-style Roll. The Storm Roll Now let’s bring all of the pieces of the puzzle together. This time we’re going to capsize and bring the paddle around under the boat with us. The set up is just like a standard layback roll. And right up until you start moving the paddle to initiate coming out of the water the position is exactly the same. So for the first style of the roll we’re going to capsize, set up into the position we were just in doing the last few progressions.…
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Learning the Greenland-style Storm Roll Part 1: The Foundations
Being a Greenland-style kayaker I take great pride in my ability to roll. I’ve spent many hours practicing and honing tiny details to make my rolls smooth, graceful, and quiet. And I am not alone. There are tons of us out there. We are a bit of an odd bunch, even amongst kayakers, because we’ll get together and not actually go anywhere. We just gear up, paddle out a ways into deepish water, roll and then head back in. We call that a really great day on the water. We really work hard on getting better on our rolls. It’s mainly for fun but there is a use for having…
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How to Build a Kayak Stand or Canoe Stand for $20 or Less
Building a kayak stand or canoe stand needn’t take long nor cost much. I whipped up this canoe/kayak stand in about one hour, which included the run to the lumberyard to buy supplies. It packs down small enough to fit in the trunk of a small car, and it’s sturdy enough to support a boat while you work on it. Its small profile stays out of the way for a display. All you need to complete it are a few tools. Materials Purchase the following materials for your kayak stand or canoe stand: Three 8-foot, 2-by-2 boards Two 4-inch, 1/4-inch lag bolts Eight washers (four for the bolts, four for…
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Great Lakes Seiche – The Joys of Kayaking on the Big Lakes
The Great Lakes are five vast inland seas. Lake Superior, the largest, is approximately the same size as Iceland. Taken together, almost two Englands could fit inside the total surface area of the lakes. They’re big. Because they’re contained within smaller basins they don’t have tides like you’d see on the oceans, although the Great Lakes tides are measurable. A significant tide-like event that occurs on the Great Lakes is called a seiche, which is a sloshing of water caused by air pressure or wind. A seiche typically occurs quickly and can drop or raise the water significantly; some seiches are reported to have changed the water levels by 12…
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Shoulder Exercises for Kayaking and Canoeing
I don’t have empirical data to prove it, but I would place a bet, that shoulder injuries are one of the top 5 injuries for kayak paddlers. Probably the primary cause of shoulder injuries is the obvious problem with incorrect arm position during a brace. This places the shoulder in a vulnerable position. Using poor technique during rolling becomes the next obvious challenge. And then there is my least favorite, the often over looked danger of lifting the kayak onto the car roof. Clearly good technique can help decrease the probability of injury. So too can the appropriate shoulder exercises for kayaking, by developing the muscles surrounding the shoulder joint.…
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Kayak Weathercocking vs. Tracking
Kayak weathercocking is the tendency of a moving kayak to turn into the wind. It’s caused by a difference in pressure between the bow and stern of your kayak, and it can feel frustrating if you don’t know how to correct for it. Luckily, there are tools and techniques that can keep you on course even when the wind blows. Kayak tracking is the extent that a kayak holds its course when underway. A kayak with high or good tracking stays on course even when a turning force such as a sweep stroke acts on it. A kayak with high tracking can weathercock and without right equipment can be a…
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When the Kayaking Community Goes Wrong
Every now and then I read an article on the Internet that makes me go, “Oh, that’s an interesting approach to sea kayaking.” One such article is by travel writer Bruce Kirkby. It’s called In a kayak, there are some danger signs you can’t ignore. In it he describes how he sets out on a three-week kayaking trip on a committing coastline with a kayak that he’s never used before. On day one he finds out that his kayak leaks so much that he has to end the trip. It takes good judgment and self control to end a “dream” trip, but that’s not the part of the article that…
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Boundary Waters Border Route Trip Report
The Boundary Waters Border Route starts on the western side of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) at Crane Lake in Voyageurs National Park. It follows the Minnesota/Ontario border for about 200 miles until the Grand Portage, a 8.5-mile portage to Lake Superior. Most paddlers can complete the trip in two to three weeks. This fall I joined the Wilderness Classroom to photograph part of their three-year, 12,000-mile trip across North America by canoe, kayak and dog sled. I met them at Crane Lake on the western side of the BWCA and paddled the Boundary Waters Border Route with them. It took us 17 days and included a three-day visit…
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The Risks of Cold Water Paddling
Even during the summer when Lake Superior’s surface temperature warms to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, capsizing in it can kill you. The most obvious form of death comes from drowning, but other not so obvious dangers, such as cold shock, cold incapacitation and hypothermia, are just as deadly, and can occur anytime the water drops below 60 degrees. Lake Superior kayakers experience those conditions for the entire paddling season. Most kayakers visiting Lake Superior aren’t aware of the risks of cold water says Lake Superior kayaker Sam Crowley, who holds an American Canoe Association Coastal Kayaking Level 5 Advanced Open Water Instructor Trainer Educator certification, which is the highest level available.…
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Winter Kayaking Tips and Resources
As the northern hemisphere shifts into winter and the water turns solid, many kayakers will hang up the paddling gear and store their kayaks until spring. It doesn’t need to be that way; winter kayaking can be enjoyable, albeit more dangerous than the other three seasons. PaddlingLight features multiple articles that give you great winter kayaking tips. As a trip down memory lane and to help you find the information you need about kayaking in the winter, the articles with tips are listed below. Winter Kayaking Tips “There is no bad weather, only the wrong gear.” -Minnesota Proverb The original winter kayaking tips article is about dressing for cold water…
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Soo to Hessel: The Curse of the Last Day
As cheesy as it sounds, you don’t have to go far from home to have an adventure. Despite the allure and romance of exploring the long expanses of wilderness in, let’s say, the South Island of New Zealand, Iceland, Patagonia, Kamchatka, or the Himalayas, there are many things worth seeing close to home. I have all of the above listed places (and many more) on my bucket list but at the moment I am unable to wander the world aimlessly by the constraining fact that I am a starving college student and kayak bum. But still the lure of adventure tempted me into a trip. I didn’t have to travel…
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How to Pack a Sea Kayak Part 2: Packing Your Kayak
Learning how to pack a sea kayak for camping isn’t a mystical black art reserved for expert expeditionary paddles who spend most of their life at sea. Instead, it just takes planning and knowledge of boat trim and balance. In How to Pack a Sea Kayak Part 1: Selecting and Packing Dry Bags, you learned how to pick the right dry bags and pack them properly. The next step is to actually pack the sea kayak. Sea Kayak Compartments and Storage Spaces A sea kayak with bulkheads and watertight cargo compartments that are accessed through hatches make packing much easier than trying to pack a kayak without bulkheads and hatches.…
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Launching: New Tandem Canoe — the PaddlingLight Ursa Canoe
Over the last few months, we built a new tandem canoe under a tarp in the backyard. It has been an interesting process plagued with problems, such as humidity and bugs, that we wouldn’t experience in a controlled environment. But, despite all the problems, we managed to get to the point where we could test it out. Yesterday, we launched the PaddlingLight Ursa Canoe — the name Ursa is tentative. The canoe is a prototype that takes its inspiration from the popular Modern Malecite St. John River Canoe plans. I like the Modern Malecite, but I wanted something with more volume and efficiency for tripping. The canoe needed to turn…
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