-
PaddlingLight was Philosophical about Paddling in 2012
PaddlingLight was Philosophical about Paddling in 2012! In past years, I’ve tried to stay much more focused on practical issues about building kayaks and canoe, kayak and canoe tripping skills and general how-to articles, but for some reason in 2012, I got philosophical about wilderness and paddling (Perhaps because wilderness is now under extreme threat in the U.S. This is the first congress to NOT protect any additional land in the U.S. in modern times). One of the nice things about blogging is that I set the sites agenda, and I usually set it on a week by week basis that depends on what I’m thinking about at the time, but as…
-
This vs That in Kayaking
Over on PaddlingLight’s Facebook page, I posed a question and some thoughts about paddling sponsorship. Basically, I noticed that more sponsored paddlers are getting sponsored without having to go out on expeditions. I wondered what that does to the look and appeal of paddling (from a manufacturer’s standpoint, it may make sense this way: you get your gear out to the influencers; they influence the hard core paddlers who buy your gear; the hard core show it off to their friends who buy it; and then it trickles down from there). My thought was that I’d rather that sea kayaking look like National Geographic instead of some kind of extreme sport. That…
-
Living in the Last Scrap of the Golden Age of Wilderness Paddling
After reading an article on the potential sale of more than 1,800 hectares and 30 kilometers of undeveloped Lake Superior shoreline potentially to developers who plan to develop the untouched bays, it occurred to me that we, as in the kayakers and canoeist alive right now, might be living in the last scrap of the golden age of wilderness paddling in the Great Lakes basin. And, I wonder if there’s any stopping the development of the remaining undeveloped areas on the Great Lakes. And, I wonder, even with the current protections, if those will remain as more people desire their own little piece of the big lakes. Wilderness paddling in…
-
Learn to Kayak Because Zombies Can’t Swim
I’ve gotten enough requests for the Learn to Kayak Because Zombies Can’t Swim t-shirt that I’ve decided to offer it from a print-on-demand t-shirt company. This means that if you didn’t get a chance to buy a Kayaker vs. Zombie t-shirt during the first run, you can get one now. You also have several options for the designs as well. I’ve included t-shirts that are similar to the original versions which have the North Shore Expeditions logo on the front and the Learn to Kayak Because Zombies Can’t Swim design (pictured below) on the back. I’m also offering t-shirts with just the Kayaker vs. Zombie design on the front. Even…
-
The Joy of Canoe
The ripples slap against the sea green hull of my canoe and the light wind rumbles in my ears as I paddle towards the clam, leeside of Devil Track Lake. Kneeling in the center of the canoe, leaning the boat to make it easy to reach the water, I take strokes only on one side of the hull. A bow draw blended with a forward blended with a “J” keeps the canoe going straight despite the wind. When my attention wanders, the wind changes my course and I have to pull harder on the draw and push harder on the pry until the canoe reclaims the correct direction. Whether I…
-
Dreaming About Belcher Islands Kayaking
Today, I was going to write an essay about my view on rough water sea kayaking and whether or not this specific subset of sea kayaking really fits in with my view of what sea kayaking is and whether or not the continued emphasis on rough water paddling is good for the sport, but I got sidetracked, probably for the better, by the Google maps on GeoGarage while trying to identify several lights that I saw last night from across Lake Superior. What I saw on Google maps that blew my mind was the Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay, and the cool thing: the islands have a history of kayaking that goes…
-
Save the Boundary Waters From Cell Towers Letter Writing Campaign
The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) is one of only two federally designation canoe wilderness areas in the United States of America. It’s also America’s most used federally designated wilderness area, an area that Americans set aside to protect and preserve under two separate pieces of bipartisan federal legislation. It consists over 1,000 lakes connected by portage trails within a million acres of roadless wilderness. It also has primitive campsites that allow canoeists the possibility of paddling for a month without seeing anything man-made intruding. Aldo Leopold argued that outdoor recreation is valuable directly proportional to the experience’s intensity, and “to the degree to which it differs from and contrasts with workaday life.” And it’s this reason that…
-
Two Pictures: Tettegouche State Park and Pigeon Bay Kayaking Trips
This summer, I started a new kayak guiding company and am one of the few Grand Marais kayaking companies. One of the reasons that I started this company was because I love paddling and wanted to share it with more people and many of the locations that I guide weren’t being guided anymore since a friend of mine sold his business several years ago. In Grand Marais, no one was guiding the Fall River Trip. No one was guiding the full Tettegouche State Park trip, although two places do half the trip, and no one was doing Pigeon River. Additionally, no guides in the area were running multi-day trips along…
-
Photo: Have a Good Caption?
I took this of Andrea Knepper at the Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium. Clearly she’s having fun, but what’s she doing? Do you have a good caption for this photo?
-
Three Waves from Safety
Today, I had the most exciting rescue of the year. In the morning, I left the harbor with someone who had kayaked before. We went out on the lake into about 1.5 feet of chop and swung around a point into a protected bay where we paddled around for an hour or so. During our time paddling, the wind picked up slightly to about 10 knots with gusts to 15 knots. On our way back, we had a choice to make. We could either portage from the bay back into the harbor which would avoid the rough water or we could paddle back around the point and into the choppy…
-
While the rewards may be great, you might not like the consequences
At one of the entrances of Yellowstone National Park, they collect the innocent and naive questions that some of the visitors ask when they come to the park, such as “When do the rangers pen up the bison for the evening” or “When do they turn off Old Faithful?” They also collect stories of some of the dangerous things that tourists do there. Years ago a friend of mine related to me an incident that she witnessed as a park employee. A park visitor placed his toddler on the back of a bison, walked off, took and picture and luckily retrieved the kid without incident. When my friend confronted the…
-
What’s Our Burden as More Experienced Kayakers?
I had an interesting experience yesterday afternoon. I went out paddling on Lake Superior in 1- to 3-foot waves, sub-40 degree Fahrenheit water temps and air temps in the 50s. There’s a really rocky and nasty surf break near town, so I paddled there to ride the outside of the break, then I made my way back to the parking lot landing in dumping waves on the beach here and there just for fun. A rec boater apparently saw me paddling and thought it looked fun. Just as I was about to go to the car, I noticed her without a lifevest and no wet/drysuit trying to get out through dumping waves.…
-
When They Want to Take Away Wilderness
On PaddlingLight, I try to steer clear of politics, but one of PaddlingLight’s missions is to increase wilderness protection so I have to stick my toes into it now and then. Recently, we had some alarming numbers on wilderness participation rates, and with an increasingly anti-environmental U.S. congress, which according to some numbers is the most anti-environmental congress in the existence of the United States — as of September 2011 they made 125 votes against the environment and 33 votes to undermine protection for public lands and coasts — I feel like it’s my duty as a paddler, a blogger and a lover of wilderness to speak out. Especially now with…
-
Courage in Wilderness Travel
courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty In February of 2011, I was thinking about courage and how technology can change the amount of courage that a wilderness trip requires (see: Modern Technology and Courage in the Wilderness). I concluded that certain types of technology can reduce the risks of wilderness travel and reduce the courage it takes to tackle the trip. In a more recent article a commenter made a remark about how boat type can affect courage. In his example, he used an inflatable kayak in an area where the norm is hard-shelled sea kayaks. While his choice may or may not make…
-
Should You Buy That New Piece of Paddling Kit?
This post isn’t going to have a lot of meat, but, hopefully, this flow chart will help you decide if you should buy that new piece of paddling kit. It’s inspired by guitarsquid.com’s flow chart for buying music equipment. I changed it up slightly and added an additional step. And simplified: Enjoy. I kind of like this flow chart idea. Anyone have any other perplexing paddling questions that need to be answered by a flow chart? If so, I can throw one together for you.
Or if you use a RSS Feed Reader subscribe via our RSS Feed.