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Illusory Truth Effect and Sea Kayaking (Sort of Off-Topic)
In a recent Facebook post, a person that I’ve known for over 10 years and someone who has authored several articles for this website, said, I don’t need to support my views with facts because I know that they are true. It was as if Stephen Colbert’s truthiness joke was manifest in reality. This person was arguing something that had no real evidence, but had been said over and over and over again — heck, it has been said enough times that I believe it, too, even though I’ve never seen any real evidence that could be used in court to prove it or convict the people involved. There’s a cognitive…
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Is Your Silent Sport a Fad?
Silent sports defined by a sports sole reliance on self-propulsion is the category of sports that paddlesports falls into. It’s joined by other sports such as biking, mountain biking, fat biking, hiking, running, climbing, snowshoeing and many other sports that don’t rely on fossil fuel or electronics to participate. Within the silent sport category, many sports have shined for a short time only to die out as a fad. Remember inline skating, anyone? Here are a few silent sports that have stood up to the test of time as well as some that ended up as fads: Canoeing – not a fad Biking – not a fad Cross Country Skiing – not…
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PaddlingLight to Become PedalingLight
After a long debate with our publishing partners, authors and advisors, we decided that PaddlingLight will shut down within a week and change our focus to biking. Our new domain name is PedalingLight. PedalingLight’s mission is to provide information on lightweight bicycle travel, touring and bikepacking while promoting the protection and preservation of our federal, state and local lands. It will continue PaddlingLight’s belief in the DIY culture by providing drawings and free plans for bike frames. Over the last five months, we’ve been working hard at converting all our articles from sea kayaking and canoeing to articles about biking. All the current content that was relevant to biking has…
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KayaLeg: Help or Hassle? Making Entry Into a Kayak Easy?
Recently, Ralph Wirsig, the owner of KayaArm, contacted me to introduce me to his new product. The new product is called KayaLeg. Both the KayaArm and KayaLeg offer kayakers a new and potentially easier way — at least for some kayakers — to get into a kayak. The KayaArm is a product that you permanently install on a dock. It stabilizes the kayak while you get in. I actually think that the KayaArm is a pretty cool product and if you’re lucky enough (or rich enough) to live on a lake with a dock, then the KayaArm is something to consider adding to your dock. Especially if you have any flexibility…
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Sandals! You’ll hurt your feet!
Sandals are awesome to wear for paddling trip. When wearing sandals and you step into the water, your foot gets wet. You take it out of the water and it dries. The sweat dries off your feet quickly, and, well, they’re pretty darn awesome. Sure there are some downsides, such as they don’t offer the support of a hiking boot and sandals that have open toes don’t protect your toes and they suck in mud (although you can wash your feet when you get to a lake). These disadvantages are common sense no brainers, and the awesomeness of wearing sandals outweighs the disadvantages. Still, there are some who can’t imagine…
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And you have to believe in wilderness.
While we usually don’t post just quotes here, this one has to be one of the best. Kirk was the founder of the Canadian Canoe Museum, located in Peterborough, Ontario. I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation of his once and meeting him afterward. This quote really sums up for me what life is about. You have to do what you can, do your best with what you are. And you have to believe in wilderness. If you do that you can’t go wrong. -Kirk Wipper
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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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Kayaking Adventures in 2014: My Paddling Year in Review
It’s January 2015 and I thought I should look back at 2014 and see what fun I had kayaking and canoeing. 2014 was a busy year for me otherwise. We bought a house that needed (and needs) lots of work. My kayaking company, North Shore Expeditions, hired its first full-time guide other than myself and my photography business was busy, busy and more busy. That left very little time for personal kayaking and canoeing. I actually didn’t get the canoes out once this year. Kayaking this year was mainly work for me. I paddled very little for personal reasons and when the season was over, I didn’t paddle at all after…
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Protect Wilderness and Our National Parks with Your Vote
One of the missions of PaddlingLight.com is to grow paddlesport participation in order to increase wilderness protection. The belief is that as people start to paddle and enjoy the woods more, they’ll want to preserve it. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “”The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.” Unfortunately, Canoeists Are Getting Older and Introducing Fewer New People to the Wilderness. When you have fewer people interested in the wilderness and the national parks, there’s a smaller chance the people of all political philosophies will want to protect it. In the past, we’ve had Presidents and candidates from both political parties that wanted to…
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Should Kayakers Pay for a Rescue?
Every now and then someone does something stupid or someone does everything right and gets into trouble, he finds himself in a situation that he can’t get out of on his own and calls mayday (see How to Call Mayday When Canoeing or Kayaking). This happens to both professional and recreational boaters and it happens to kayakers and canoeists. We rarely hear about the rescues of people from freighters or off of cruise ships, but if a kayaker or canoeist gets into trouble, there’s no doubt it will make the 6 o’clock news. That news is often followed with the pundits calling for the person that got rescued having to cover the…
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Namby Pamby, the Kayaker and Minnehaha Falls
Minnesota is in flood. We’re getting lots of rain on top of lots of rain, which means that many of the streams and rivers are at some of their highest levels ever. If you’re a whitewater kayaker, your ears probably just perked up a little, because you know that the legendary whitewater rivers of Lake Superior’s north shore run the best during the spring runoff when the water is cold. It’s June and the water is somewhat warm, which means warm whitewater on the north shore. But that’s not all, 53-foot Minnehaha Falls on the Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis hit an all time record high yesterday. Apparently, there was a huge…
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Spring Kayaking
The ice just won’t leave. It’s going. At the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Sawbill Outfitters up the Sawbill Trail from Tofte reports that the ice thickness has dropped from 27 inches to 22 inches from the 2nd of May until the 5th. At that rate, assuming a linear ice melt, the pace of ice melt puts ice out on the 18th of May. That’s when Devil Track Lake, the lake I currently sort of live on, went out last year. We broke a record. I wonder if it’ll happen again. There’s something about this time of year, especially this year with the 1 to 2 feet…
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How to Pick the Perfect Campsite
At the end of a long, hard day of kayaking or canoeing finding the perfect campsite can boost your morale and make the day’s effort feel more rewarding. With limited daylight and no desire to paddle further, and a just okay campsite at your bow, it’s tempting to paddle on just to see what’s around the corner. Follow the advice on this How to Pick the Perfect Campsite flow chart, you’ll find the perfect campsite every time you start to look. Click the image to view it larger.
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Press Release: Attempt to Circumnavigate the World Suspended
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Unattempt to Circumnavigate the World by Kayak Suspended Grand Marais, Minnesota (April 1, 2013) — Today expedition paddler Bryan Hansel indefinately suspended his attempt to attempt a never before attempted kayaking route in the pursuit of becoming the first person in the world to circumnavigate the world by kayak. He was attempting the solo expedition to bring attention to the slowest growing religion in the world, The Church of the Latter-Day Dude. The expedition was set to start on the Great Lakes, travel to England via Greenland and Iceland. Then journey to the Mediterranean Sea to the Suez Channel and around India, with a short jaunt below…
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Winter Canoe Paintings
Each winter photographers and painters from around the Midwest gather at the YMCA canoe camp Menogyn for the Grand Marais Art Colony’s Winter Arts Festival. This year, the art’s festival ran from January 25th to February 1st. During the week, plein air painters, Neil Sherman, Matt Kania and Tom McGregor painted canoes racked for the winter at the camp. The contrast between the white snow and blues, reds and greens of the canoes popped off the wall during the show that runs all of February at the Grand Marais art colony. (Featured painting by Tom McGregor.) I caught up with each of the painters and asked them a few questions: PaddlingLight: Canoes,…
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