Books, Videos, and Movies

Reviews of books, videos, and movies.

  • Kayaker Amy Freeman embraces falling water under a waterfall near Sugarloaf Cove, Minnesota.
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    The North American Odyssey Book Release

    Back in 2010 shortly after Amy and Dave Freeman got married, they left on a three-year honeymoon odyssey across North America. They called it the North American Odyssey. They recently completed writing a book about the trip. It’s title shares the expeditions name, North American Odyssey: 12,000 Miles Across the Continent by Kayak, Canoe, and Dogsled. The book, their second, documents the trip across the continent by sea kayak, backpack, dogsled, and canoe. The trip started in Washington on Earth Day and took them by sea kayak up the Inside Passage to Alaska. From there they backpacked and canoed north to the Arctic Ocean. They then switched to a dogsled…

  • katyacam mount review
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Camping Toys

    Kayalu Kayacam Review: a camera mount for kayaks

    Kayalu sent me a Kayacam camera mount to test out on my kayak. I decided to give it a go on a calm day (check out the video below) for this Kayalu Kayacam review. The Kayacam mount attaches to your kayak or canoe by hooking into a deck fitting with a stainless steel clip. The stainless clip attaches to a bungee cord, which you tighten until the mount is secure. Kayalu recommends that you use cameras weighing 7 ounces or less when used on a kayak, canoe or other boat subject to rocking. That’s about perfect for a GoPro9, which is the action camera that I’m currently using. It wasn’t…

  • Crocodiles and Ice: A Journey into Deep Wild cover
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Review Jon Turk’s Crocodiles and Ice

    Jon Turk’s latest book Crocodiles and Ice [Buy from Amazon] takes the reader through a half dozen of his adventures starting from when he was a child cutting across an immaculate lawn on a shortcut to his grade school to a hike in the mountains in his late 60s. In short, it’s an autobiographical story of his life – of sorts. In it he describes why he chose the life he chose. He describes his motivations and tells us about some of his trips – while maybe not the defining trips of his life, they seem to have helped shape his life or help shape the narrative that he wants to tell.…

  • Crocodiles and Ice: A Journey into Deep Wild cover
    Articles,  Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Jon Turk’s New Book Crocodiles and Ice: A Journey into Deep Wild Available for Preorder

    Adventurer and sea kayaker Jon Turk has a new book coming out in September. Amazon is now taking preorders. The book, called Crocodiles and Ice: A Journey in the Deep Wild, ties together several of Jon’s expeditions under the theme of a “journey into a Consciousness Revolution based on a deep, reciprocal communication with the Earth.” The book covers Jon’s circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island, which is the trip that won him National Geographics Adventurer of the Year, and several other trips as well. Here’s the description: Crocodiles and Ice is a scientist/adventurer’s journey into a Consciousness Revolution based on a deep, reciprocal communication with the Earth. The book highlights my…

  • rescuing a hurt sea kayaker
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Review: Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown Volume 3

    I’ve been a big fan of the Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown videos. I thought that the first volume was innovative in its approach in that it intermingled the instructional aspects of the video with a journey narrative. The approach kept the instructional components fresh and although you could watch each section separately, it was fun to watch them together. Volume 2 took the same approach and applied it to rescues and towing. I thought Volume 2 was a big improvement over an already great volume 1. In Volume 3, Simon Willis and Gordon Brown take the series a different direction; the journey narrative is gone and the instructional components no…

  • GoScope Extreme fully extended with a GoPro
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    GoScope Extreme Review

    One of the problems with the curved and flat GoPro mounts is, because they don’t move they create a static scene when kayaking. The video ends up showing only one direction, often pointing at the kayaker, which is boring. In a video, about 15 seconds or so of the same angle, especially in action videos, is about all a viewer can handle. If you doubt this, search Youtube for sea kayaking surf videos and see how extremely boring watching someone surf is when the same angle is shown during every ride. To make an interesting video, it’s nice to have multiple GoPro units  mounted all over the kayak. If you’re…

  • Around Madagascar on My Kayak
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Around Madagascar on My Kayak Book Review

    I just finished Riaan Manser’s Around Madagascar on my Kayak and I have mixed feelings about it. It sort of pains me to write this review, but if you have limited reading time for adventure stories, then I want to make sure you know what you’re getting into before you read this book. The short version is, skip this book and read something by Jon Turk instead. The Good First, the good stuff: Manser’s writing style is frank and open. He’s not guarded in what he writes, which allows the reader to at points get into his head. The beginning part about gaining sponsorship and putting together the trip is…

  • Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Quick Review: How to get to THE NORTH POLE …and other iconic adventures

    Tim Moss, an adventurer who has traveled around the world using 80 different types of transportation and who has supported over 100 expedition worldwide, has come out with a new book, How to Get to the North Pole: . . . and Other Iconic Adventures (Kindle Edition). The book centers around seven adventures: crossing a desert, getting to the north pole, rowing an ocean, cycling around the world, sailing the seven seas, getting to the south pole and climbing an unclimbed mountain. To help him write the book, he consulted over 50 explorers. After a brief introduction covering gear and funding, Tim details the seven adventures using a common format…

  • Boundary Waters Reflections
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Review: True and Deep – Songs for the Heart of the Paddler

    Nashville songwriter, author and educator Jerry Vandiver recently released True And Deep – Songs for the Heart of the Paddler, an album of canoe country inspired songs. After getting a copy of the album, I was instantly hooked. The songs capture the spirit of a canoe trip in the northwoods and the arrangement takes you on a journey that includes the excitement of canoeing a whitewater river on More Than A River to connecting with the ancient history in The Spirit Of Fishdance Lake. Catchy and humorous songs like Rock And Roots, Too Tired To Start A Fire and Camp Coffee will have you humming the day away while dreaming about your next trip.…

  • kayaking in the pool
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    5 Canoe and Kayak Books to Read in 2012

    It’s winter in the northern hemisphere and for those of us in the frozen tundras, that means that we have a few choices on what to do this time of year. To get a paddling fix, we can either winter kayak, head to the pool like in the above image or read a book. Included here are five books released in 2011 that deserve your attention. A Book For the Canoe and Kayak Builders Fuselage Frame Boats: A guide to building skin kayaks and canoes by Jeff Horton was the only book that I caught during 2011 for canoe and kayak builders. It’s somewhat flawed (see my review), but offers enough information to…

  • Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown review
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown Review: the Rescues, Vol. 2

    Simon Willis, a journalist and film maker, and Gordon Brown, a world-class BCU 5 Star sea kayaking coach, have teamed up to make Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown Volume 2, the Rescues. This DVD, like Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown Volume 1, combines a sea kayaking journey to a stunning destination with instructional components. The end result is a DVD that you can watch in a couple of ways. You can watch the instruction intertwined with the journey, the journey alone or the instruction alone. It’s like three films in one. For Volume 2, the paddlers head to the Islands of St. Kilda, which are rocky islands west of Scotland…

  • Fuselage Frame Boats
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    Fuselage Frame Boats: A guide to building skin kayaks and canoes — a Review

    Fuselage Frame Boats: A guide to building skin kayaks and canoes documents S. Jeff Horton’s, Kudzu Craft,  method of building plywood-framed skin-on-frame kayaks in a similar method to those developed by Tom Yost of Yostwerks. The idea is to connect a series of frames with stringers to make the basic shape of the kayak or canoe. Over the frame, you sew or attach a fabric skin that you waterproof with varnish or two-part polyurethane. By following the process, you can build a boat quickly and inexpensively. This is my Fuselage Frame Boats review. Fuselage Frame Boats Review Horton borrows the term fuselage from plane building, because this method of boat…

  • the fat paddler book review
    Books, Videos, and Movies,  Reviews

    The Fat Paddler Book Review

    If you visit PaddlingLight often, you might have noticed the new advertisement in the sidebar that proclaims “Recovery Can Be Life’s Greatest Adventure.” You might have also been attracted to picture of a book cover with a man in a kayak under a waterfall who’s grinning a wide grin. If you haven’t, just look at the picture at the top of this post. It looks similar. The ad is for a new book called The Fat Paddler. Sean Smith, aka THE Fat Paddler, wrote a book about his life and how discovering paddling (and eating sausages — well, okay, maybe not sausages but his website does reference them in the…

  • Canoe and kayak building books on the floor.
    Books, Videos, and Movies

    Review of Canoe and Kayak Building Books

    If you want to build a kayak or canoe from the free plans found on PaddlingLight, you should buy a couple of canoe or kayak building books. Most use different methods, which you can combine to make your boat uniquely your’s. There are lots of books out there to cover in a review, so I’m going to break them down into different categories and arrange them from the first to buy to the last. I’ll write a quick one-paragraph review. I’m leaving lots of books off this list, because I think these are the best. Cedar Strip Kayak Building Books Most of the plans that I do are designed for…

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