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The Writing is on the Wall for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
We just spent a week in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which currently faces the threat of copper-sulfide mining on its border. The BWCA is one of America’s greatest treasures and to think that people would want to build a type of mine with 100% track record of polluting right next to it for 20 years of jobs shows the writing on the wall for this special place. The only thing protecting the BWCA is a law, and it wouldn’t take much for the law to be repealed. Recently, we saw this with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the largest national wildlife refuge in the country, which was…
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How to Cook Bannock on a Stick – Campfire Bread
Fresh bread on an extended paddling trip feels like a treat, especially after eating hard crackers, bagels or pitas for a week. One way to make this treat is by cooking bannock. For over a 1000 years, bannock, a simple bread made from the flour of a variety of grains, has filled the bellies of adventurers sitting around campfires. Its attraction is the simple base ingredients and its ease of cooking. A favorite way to make bannock is to cook it on a stick over a campfire. Preparation of the Bread Dough At home mix all the dry ingredients into a plastic bag. You can substitute or remove some of…
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How to Pack a Sea Kayak Part 1: Selecting and Packing Dry Bags
Despite their small size, most sea kayaks can carry enough camping gear and food for a multi-week kayak camping trip, which is one of the main draws of paddling a sea kayak. You can travel far away from the car and camp in comfort. How to pack a sea kayak is the tricky part. You need to balance the trim, accessibility, kayak performance and ease-of-access. Additionally, when you pack a sea kayak, you need to make sure your gear, especially your sleeping bag and clothing, stays dry. To keep the gear dry, you pack it into dry bags, which are waterproof storage bags. Dry Bag Description A dry bag is…
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How to Dispose of Fish Guts in the Boundary Waters
This is a picture of how not to dispose of fish guts in the Boundary Waters and Minnesota. You don’t just leave them on the ground at a campsite for birds and animals to get into. We found this pile on Saturday. It wasn’t really a pile. The skins and guts were scattered by animals all over the campsite, which caused the campsite to smell like dead fish. It was unpleasantness incarnate. I piled up everything for the picture. So, how to dispose of fish guts in the Boundary Waters and Minnesota? If you don’t want to read everything, skip to the end. The Best Way: Pack them Out The…
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Ode to Scratching the Snot Out of Your Canoe
Years ago, I worked for a guy who had an obsession against setting a canoe on the ground. He believed there were two places for a canoe. One was in the air not touching the ground, and the other was in the water. He’d wade out into the water, place the canoe on it and then proceed to load the canoe while standing in the water. He’d do it just to make sure he didn’t scratch the bottom of the canoe. He went so far as coming up with an eye-rolling but pithy saying about it. Then he printed t-shirts with the saying. That’s not how I am. I like…
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Tupik Kayaker Fly
There’s an interesting tarp on Kickstarter right now. It uses two kayaks and two paddles to setup. It looks big enough to fit a couple of people and one of the pictures shows them camping under the fly in a bug netting of some variety. It looks pretty sweet. If I had the spare cash, I’d back it. The way that Gearlab Outdoors describes the tarp sums it up nicely: Tupik is a tent fly that works with your existing kayaks and paddles to instantly upgrade the beach experience. No extra anchors, pegs, nor poles to mess with, just swift and easy setup in 90 seconds or less. With this…
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Best Kayak Bilge Pump
Many websites claim that they recommend the best kayak bilge pump, but they list every possible kayak bilge pump in existence. They really don’t tell you anything. The reason being is that the writers of those websites probably haven’t used multiple kayak bilge pumps over the years to be able to tell what the best is. You’ve seen these sites, and the only reason they exist is to get you to click on a link. If you buy from that link, then they get a commission. We do that here as well, but the difference is that I’m not going to beat around the bush and claim that all the…
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Kayaking Accessories for Beginners
As a first time kayak buyer, you probably didn’t know or don’t know what kayaking accessories to get with your first kayak, and unless you bought from a knowledgeable salesperson, who also kayaks, he probably didn’t get you everything that you needed. The problem is two-fold: 1. Many salespeople don’t understand kayaking. 2. When you first start, the kayaking accessories just don’t seem necessary. A third problem occurs when you run into a salesperson that believes the second point. Although the first problem is easy to fix — just go to a different store — the second is much harder. To fix that second, you can take a sea kayaking…
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New Siskiwit Bay Hits the Water
Kari Moilanen from Haukivuori, Finland recently launched a Siskiwit Bay kayak. Kari writes: Here’s my version of Siskiwit Bay kayak. Made it mainly in the summer of 2019, and finished it this spring. The maiden trip was 28th of May, and it was very exciting. Strips are made from Aspen and there’s also little bit of Grey alder too. Skeg, seat, footrests, and hatches, I bought from Kayak Sport. The model is so good that I think I would like to build a Siskiwit LV, too, after I get the solo canoe that I’m building right now, ready. This build of the Siskiwit Bay looks great! We hope that Kari…
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26 Paddling and Camping Tips for Families and New Parents
We’re now five years into the adventure of parenting. While it has slowed down the number of extended trips — I haven’t done a trip longer than 20 days since our kid was born — it hasn’t stopped us completely. Camping with our little one has gotten much easier as he has gotten older. This is especially true looking back at his first nine-day camping trip when he was six months old. Over the years, we’ve learned a few paddling and camping trips for families and new parents that made our trips much easier. I’ll share some that we’ve learned. Do you have any tips? If so, add them in…
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An Ode to Beaver Dams
We paddlers don’t give beavers enough credit. When we come to a beaver dam that blocks our way, we know it’s going to be a haul over. Often in remote canoe locations, paddlers will have tried to break the dam to make it easier to paddle through. But, we don’t give beavers enough credit. Despite the slight inconvenience of maybe getting your feet wet as you pull your canoe over a beaver dam, beavers, a keystone species that important for the health of environment, create these wonders of the world and create helpful habitat for all sorts of species. They create wetlands by engineering a dam and raising the water…
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NRS Pivot Drysuit Review
Since last August, I’ve been using the NRS Pivot Drysuit for kayaking. This is the second NRS drysuit that I’ve used, and my wife owns a NRS Women’s Crux. So, I was familiar with their drysuits before I got this one. Even though my last two drysuits were Kokatat and I loved them, I felt like I needed to give something else a try. The Pivot with its rear entry looked awesome. So, I went for it. With a significant amount of time spent in the Pivot, here’s my NRS Pivot Drysuit Review. NRS Pivot Drysuit Features The NRS Pivot Drysuit’s main standout feature is the TIZIP® MasterSeal zipper on…
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Top 10 Outdoor Podcasts
In these Uncertain Times, a good podcast can mean… Don’t you hate it when companies lead with “in these uncertain times?” I do. If you’re like the rest of humanity, you’re probably listening to too much news or reading too much news on the internet. You need a break. I need a break. We all need a break. I typically listen to a lot of political podcasts, but right now I’m kinda sick of everything, so my retreat as I shelter at home is to listen to outdoor podcasts and hang out in my garage looking at my canoes and kayaks. What do I listen to? I listen to my…
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Free Boundary Waters Guidebook
Stuck inside somewhere waiting to be released, dreaming of adventures on the 1000s of lakes in northern Minnesota after they thaw or just someone who loves paddling? Then there’s a new free Boundary Waters guidebook for you. The Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness released The Friends’ Guide to the BWCA. The new guidebook is a free ebook available for download on The Friends’ website. If you don’t know the Boundary Waters, then you’re in for a treat. It’s a great treat, because these types of books usually run much more. For example, Exploring the Boundary Waters: A Trip Planner and Guide to the BWCAW runs $16. You can get…
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Jerry Vandiver Releases The Middle of Somewhere
If you have followed alone for awhile, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of Jerry Vandiver. I also consider him a friend. We paddled the Rio Grande together several years ago and have been on several other paddling trips together. He recently put out a new album of paddling-related songs called The Middle of Somewhere. In the past, I’ve interviewed Jerry and you can read that interview here. I’ve also reviewed his Every Scratch Tells A Story album. When you consider all things, I’m not really a music reviewer. I know what I like when it comes to music, and sometimes I can tell you why, but I’m not…
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