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Lightweight Cook Kit
It seems like I’m always tweaking my lightweight cook kit. While preparing for some upcoming bikepacking trips (gasp), I redid my lightweight cook kit yet again. This time it has a new stove and pot. This lightweight cook kit could be used for backpacking, canoeing or kayaking and work out just fine. What I really like about it is that the stove, fuel canister and spoon all fit inside the ultralight mug, which is compact. Overall, I’m in at 15.8 ounces for my kitchen. Leaving behind a stuff sack and elastic band saves me 0.3 ounces, but they also add convenience so I’m going to carry them. Lightweight Cook Kit…
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Circling Shakespeare on Lake Nipigon
Within a minute, the mirror-like surface of Lake Nipigon kicked up as northerly 30-knot winds descended on our island campsite. The calm, silent, evening turned into a rumble. It felt like the air above the entire arctic plains spilled down upon the Boreal forests. We shouted over the breaking waves and the rush of the wind through the trees. “Now!” I heaved the bear bags into the air as Tim ran with the rope. When the slack ran out on the weighty bags the rope stretched and stopped. Then the branch broke sending our supplies to the ground. Trying to race the wind, I threw the rope over the limb…
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Kayakers Dying and Darwin
Natural Selection is a wonderful thing. This was a Facebook response to a news report about a kayaker drowning on the Great Lakes (See: Search for missing kayaker continues). The news report tells us that two men in their 20s went kayaking on Lake Huron. They weren’t wearing lifejackets and both capsized. One of the men couldn’t swim. He presumably drowned. They are still searching for his body. Natural Selection is a wonderful thing. So, instead of expressing empathy with this man’s family, his parents and his friends, the Internet-dude responds that drownings on the Great Lake are a “wonderful thing.” Natural Selection is a wonderful thing. You have to…
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Wooden Boat Show in Grand Marais Trip Report
It’s that time of the year when wood boat builders gather in the northern reach of the state of Minnesota and show off their wood boats. This year wooden canoes, both new and restored, stole the show. Without further ado, here’s the pictures. Seliga Wide Plank, 17′, Restored at the North House Folk School Thompson Brother Indian, 16′, restored by Mike Knuth of Duluth, MN. 20th Anniversary Canoe, 18 ft, Based on E.M. White “Guide” Model, Built at the North House Folk School 1928 Old Town Canoe, model not listed. This was up for auction. The starting bid was $300. Skin-on-frame Canoe, 17′ 6″, Based on the Atkinson Traveler The…
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Siskiwit SOF Kayak Stolen!
In a recent email from Marcelo, who built a Siskiwit SOF back in 2015, he wrote: My wife stole my Siskiwit! LOL Hence, I needed to build another kayak for me, I choose a skin-on-frame baidarka. I added a system of bulkheads and dry hatches for camping gear and a rudder/skeg for trim in winds. Some pics in the Nahuel Huapi Lake: When I asked if I could share the pictures of his new kayak, he sent along some details of the baidarka build. The construction looks just as good as the construction pictures of his Siskiwit SOF (see Siskiwit SOF Detail Page for a few photos). Here are details: I did…
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Jerry Vandiver Plays Northstar Canoes Booth at Canoecopia
Americana, folk-singer Jerry Vandiver, always a favorite at Canoecopia, picked up a new sponsorship with Northstar Canoes. That sponsorship lead to a breakout of music at the Northstar booth at this year’s Canoecopia. Vandiver brought Amberly Rosen and Ashleigh Caudill to play in his band and together they cause a big commotion on the expo floor. Vandiver and crew played several songs including the perennial favorite. Too Many Boats. The crew at Northstar provided a boat for the band to stand in while playing. After song broke out an audience surrounded the booth to watch. Vandiver is well-known in the paddlesport world for his albums and songs about canoeing and canoeing in the…
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Cape Wrath Packrafting and Fat Biking Trip
It’s one of those days when I have a pile of work to do, but just want to watch videos about paddling. And then I stumbled onto this Cape Wrath packrafting and fat biking video. After about two hours of dreaming up trips to do with a fat bike and packraft, I think I better get back to work! This is a fun video.
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First Look: MyCanoe Review
The MyCanoe is a foldable, origami-style plastic canoe designed for easy storage and transport. This 14′ 6″ canoe folds up in a similar style to the more familiar Oru Kayak, and it packs down into two cases. The first case, created in part by parts of the canoe, measures approximately 37 inches wide by 25 inches high and 8 inches deep. The second case is soft sided. It measures about half the height of the other case. Both cases easily fit inside the trunk of a compact car such as a Toyota Corolla. The entire package weighs about 52 pounds and has a claimed capacity of 400 pounds. I had a chance…
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The Audacity of Winning Bold Kayaking Arguments on the Internet
If you have been a long time reader of the website, you know that I’m officially out of the kayaking business. After years in the canoe and kayak retail business, years of guiding and then years of owning a kayak guiding business, I got out of it — it is now a hobby of mine. As a hobby and as a business one of my main goals and beliefs is that we are in this sport together and if we work together as partners we can make the sport better. Like everything on the Internet and maybe in the world, discussion is devolving to the point that partnership is no…
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Chestnut Chum Revisioned as the Lynx
The Chestnut Chum canoe is one of the classic canoes when you ask about old canvas and wood canoes. Paddlers respected it for it’s ability to carry lots of gear and still remain stable. The Chum struck a chord with canoeists looking for day tripping boat as well as an extended trips. Several years ago, I worked with a paddler who wanted to build the Omer Stringer version of the canoe. According to Wooden Canoe Issue 25, the differences were this: Omer’s canoe is also unique. He began with a 15-foot Chestnut Chum, built in New Brunswick. When it was under construction, he asked that the cedar plank-and-rib shell be left…
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Ranting about Painters — WITH a Paddle in IT!
Here we go again. It’s that time of the year when paddlers make silly points on the Internet. I never understand the silly need of people to comment about how a photo of a canoe or kayak that they saw on social media doesn’t meet their idea of what a canoe or kayak should be or some other silliness like that. To be completely honest (cliched phrase on purpose, because it’s like a cliche that you going to get someone who thinks they are the know-it-all paddler to comment on a photo that they have no knowledge of), I just don’t even have the energy to continue describing this type…
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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.…
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A Simple Menu for a 12,000-mile Backcountry Journey
On backcountry kayak camping trips, a varied and robust menu seems a given. There are dozens of camping cookbooks devoted to the topic, and 100s and 100s of recipes and even magazine columns devoted to cooking tasty treats while on the trail. All that food planning and preparation takes time and effort, so you might be tempted to ignore all that advice and just pack mac and cheese. National Geographic Adventurers of the Year Amy and Dave Freeman did just that on their 3-year, 12,000-mile kayak, canoe and dogsled journey from Seattle, Washington to Key West, Florida. They ditched the fancy menus and simplified each of their daily meals to…
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The Canoeist and Kayaker Holiday Gift Guide
Paddlers being the picky, hard-to-please group that they are, are extremely hard to shop for during the holidays. Most paddlers already own everything they want, except for that new boat. While that new NDK Romany or Northstar Magic would look great under the tree spending a couple grand probably isn’t within everyone’s idea of a perfect gift. Here are a few unique gifts for canoeists and kayakers. It’s something to surprise them with and maybe something unexpected as well. Jon Turk’s Crocodiles and Ice A more detail review is coming on this book, but in essence this book details several adventures including Turk’s kayak and ski circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island. The…
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Xshot Dome Port Review
Like many paddlers, I bought a GoPro camera. I used it for a season to shoot lots of video, but didn’t do anything with the video — because most of it was pretty boring. Eventually, bored of shooting action video, the GoPro sat in the corner of my office gathering dust. That is until I got my hands on an XShot Dome Port to review. The XShot Dome Port is a 6-inch dome port designed to allow you to use your GoPro Hero 3 or Hero 4 to get “half-and-half” waterline shots. This gives you a picture that is half above the waterline and half below the waterline. It also…
