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I remember one of my first adventures screaming downhill on a flexible flyer across an ice-encrusted snow at what seemed like breakneck speed. It thrilled my second-grade mind. Flashforward to my first experience on cross country skis. We skied from near the back door of my high school to the football field, across the practice field and straight down a steep slope. I’d never been on skis before, and it was terrifying. Eventually, I learned how to snowboard and that resulted in many trips from the Midwest to Colorado. It took until I moved to the north shore of Lake Superior before I took up xc skiing again. Cross country…

If I thought more like an affiliate marketer instead of a I-wish-it-was-still-the-glory-days-of-blogging blogger, I’d be on the ball about promoting all the sales going on across the internets. Instead, I’m dreaming about how I can finish my Winchell documentary (is there anyone out there that wants to help for free?). Or if I was feeling motivated today, I’d spend less time dreaming about how I need to get my dry suit’s neck gasket fixed so I can go winter kayaking, and I’d just get that done. Anyway, here’s my attempt at promoting sales across the internet. First, go check out the long-time advertisers of this website. For Black Friday weekend,…

I joined Twitter in November of 2008 because I was planning a trip and needed to secure sponsors and funding. At the time, that’s one of the steps that you’d take. The whole influencer thing wasn’t what it is now. While doing that, I helped create a thriving sea kayaking and canoeing community on Twitter with the help of other bloggers (remember those days) and other paddlers. The paddling companies embraced it. There was authentic dialog between the companies, the users, and sponsored paddlers, and it was great. I raised a bunch of sponsorships in gear and cash for the trip I was planning to do. I ended up failing…

This time of year feels bitter sweet. Ice has started to form on the lakes, so it’s time to hang up the canoe paddles, oil the gunwales and store the canoes for the winter. Next up is xc ski season. But, there isn’t enough snow to xc ski yet. After the maintenance is done on the canoes, it’ll hopefully be time to get the skis waxed. Here’s a canoe selfie from sunrise, and here’s raising the paddles to the end of another great paddling season. I hope you had a great season of paddling.

This year, I made a Minnesota 2023 Canoe Country Calendar. These are images from northern Minnesota and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I’ve taken these images over a number of years, so this won’t be a yearly calendar. It’s just a special one that I made this year. The images are mainly beauty shots and include an image that was taken on the same morning as the image that inspired the post Ranting about Painters — WITH a Paddle in IT! There are a few shots that include paddlers, but mostly it’s pictures of canoes on the shorelines of calm lakes. Here are all the images in the calendar.…

Knives are basic outdoor tools that every outdoors person should know how to safely use. You should probably have one with you. They are handy and helpful. While paddling and when working with tow ropes, painters or otherwise, you should have a paddling knife handy. The knife is the fall back if something fails in your rope handling skills, and you end up with an entanglement issue that you need to cut someone out of. Rope handling skills should be your priority, and you should learn them from a qualified instructor. The more rope handing skills that you have the less of a chance of needing a knife. Also, if…

For …umm… reasons, the Exped Mini Pump wins The Annual Camping Tallywhacker Award. “What is the Mini Pump?” you ask. Will it pump you up? The mini pump is a 1.9-ounce (on my scale) pump designed to inflate Exped’s excellent line of sleeping pads. The pump has also been hard to find in the US over the last couple of years. It’s finally coming back in stock at stores. For several years, I’ve been using an Exped sleeping pad. The new version is the Exped Ultra3. It’s by far my favorite of all the pads that I’ve tested. As a side sleeper, the long air tunnels feel extremely comfortable and…

Canoeing and kayaking are the most elegant forms of human-powered travel beyond walking and swimming. To travel on water without a craft, unless competitively skilled, requires one to flail arms and legs in the water to move forward at a speed easily matched by even an unskilled paddler (even when under load). To use a canoe or kayak requires no mechanical parts. Body English and human power provides all the motion and maneuvering power. Other human powered watercraft include the raft or the glorified raft known as a paddleboard. Tying together boards into a mainly flat rectangle lacks the design choices to be considered elegant. Elegant defined as a solution…

With the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness canoeing season (and canoeing season elsewhere) kicking in, I thought it would be a good time to write about ways for someone in the wilderness to communicate with someone outside the wilderness. Basically, it comes down to a Satellite Messenger vs Satellite Phone. This seems like a pertinent topic this year considering all the paddling accident reports, including this near death experience in the Boundary Waters. As I see it, you have few options to communicate in the wilderness. Of the options that you have, you have satellite phones, satellite messengers, VHF or other radios and cell phones. I’ll cover them as I…

I’ve long admired Martin Step’s canoe builds. His cedar strip canoe builds are works of art. Years ago, he posted pictures of a solo canoe yoke that seemed impossibly beautiful and functional. Martin recently released plans for his Agawa Bay Solo Canoe Yoke. If you’re looking for a unique yoke plan, it’s worth checking out. The plans show you how to build a contoured yoke and then build the attachment system. The attachment system requires some modification to a solo canoe’s wooden gunwale, but after that’s complete it should be easy to detach and attach the yoke to the gunwales. If you don’t want to build the yoke, you can…