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What weighs 13.8 ounces and is made from wood?
Right now I’m testing out a prototype wood canoe paddle that weighs 13.8 ounces on my scale. It feels feather light in the hand. It’s stiff but has just enough flex to feel good. Plus it looks really sexy. More to come as I test this paddle throughout the summer. Here are a few pictures:
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First SUP Crossing to and Circumnavigation of Isle Royale
I ran into an interesting post on a friend’s Facebook page the other day. He posted this cut from the Cook County News Herald’s Cook County Law Enforcement briefs. It’s from a call placed at 6:57am on May 5th. It said: Grand Portage: Caller said her husband paddleboarded out to Isle Royale and is now disorientated and can’t make it back. Now that’s interesting. My knee-jerk reaction was that some idiot on a SUP did something stupid, and at least it wasn’t a “kayaker” this time. Before I made a wise-ass crack on my friend’s wall, I decided to drop Rhonda Silence, the paper’s editor, an email to see if she…
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Used Wilderness System Tsunami 175 and 165 Sea Kayaks For Sale -SOLD
SOLD – All boats are sold. I have Tsunami 175s and Tsunami 165s for sale. These are used but in great shape. These are a great sea kayak and perfect for Lake Superior, the Great Lakes, oceans or inland lakes. They’re stable, handle rough water and work well for beginners and advancing intermediate paddlers. You could circumnavigate Isle Royale in this kayak or take off on a 20-day trip if you wanted. They’re also perfect for day trips and have excellent handling. All have rudders and upgraded seats for additional comfort. The seat is a $60 upgrade from the stock boat that you’d buy at a retailer. New they run $1685 plus…
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Skin-on-frame Têtes de Boule Hunter’s Canoe Built
Several years ago Alan Sinclair downloaded the free canoe drawings for the Têtes de Boule Hunter’s Canoe, a 9-foot, 8-inch pack canoe. A year or so later he sent in a contribution of $50 to help cover the costs of the time spent producing the drawings. Then he began construction with no clue how to do anything. He made it as skin-on-frame, regretting the departure from tradition, because he thought that would be simplest and would make a very light boat. It’s taken a very long time but he finally got it finished. Alan sent several pictures and a thank you upon completion of the canoe: Thank you so very much for letting me get the plans…
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Website Note: PaddlingLight Got a Facelift
Just a note in case you haven’t clicked through to PaddlingLight recently: we got a facelift! After years and years of the old design, we updated the look and features. This was one of those things that was on the back burner, but with Google’s recent changes to search we were forced to do it or risk losing our page ranks on mobile. Many of our readers are reading on tablets or smartphones, so it also made sense to make the change. The two goals with the redesign were: Make the website responsive for all screen sizes. You can see this in action by resizing your browser or surfing to…
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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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More Tower Problems for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness
The sky was so crystal clear last night. I stepped out of my house to go get something out of my car and noticed that the treeline in my yard would make a great night photo. I shut off all the lights in the house and made this shot. I live in northern Minnesota near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The Boundary Waters (BWCA or BWCAW) is a designated wilderness area with no development except for portage trails tying together 1,200 miles of canoe routes and some 2000 designated campsites. At over 1 million acres and 150 miles along the Minnesotan and Canadian border, it is the largest wilderness…
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Slightly Off Topic: GOP Wants to Make Hikers and Bikers Pay to Hike and Bike
Recently in Minnesota members of the state’s GOP proposed that hikers and bikers pay user fees to use state trails (not to mention they already pay for a park pass). I wouldn’t be surprised to see paddlers targeted as well for using state water trails. The reason the GOP cited was because snowmobilers pay user fees, everyone else should for fairness. I wanted to see how much snowmobilers pay and where the funding for the state’s 22,000+ miles of snowmobile trails actually comes from. The biggest source of funding is the gas tax paid by all drivers. I put together this info chart from the data I was able to…
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National Parks Traveler’s Guide to Paddling the Parks Is Out
The 2nd Annual Essential Guide to Paddling the Parks by National Parks Traveler is out. The cover photo is mine and I have an article about paddling through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from Voyageurs National Park to Grand Portage National Monument. There are a ton of great articles in the magazine and it’s worth spending some time on this winter day looking through its pages.
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Free Kayak Plans and Free Canoe Plans
For years, PaddlingLight has been giving away the free drawings of historic and recent canoe and kayak, but I didn’t know how many plans people were downloading. In the last year I decided to start tracking just a few of the downloads to get a grasp on how many were actually being downloaded. I picked 5 of the 35 free drawings that I offer: a popular historic kayak design that has been built many times, a history canoe that has been built many times (most often in Italy), a canoe that looks interesting but hasn’t been built often (if at all), an original yost-style, skin-on-frame kayak and another historic kayak…
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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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Launching Your Kayak in Light Surf
One of the challenges for new kayakers is launching your kayak in light surf, especially if you haven’t had any instruction and haven’t developed a sense of balance or gotten your sea legs. A light shore break can feel mighty challenging if you’ve never paddled out before, especially one with a slight dumping wave. The viral video making the rounds on the Internet right now shows a man trying to get through the surf break on a sit-on-top kayak. He fails big time, ends up mowed over by his kayak several times and eventually ends up on the rocks. While the video is suppose to be humorous, it shows the…
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Welcome to Minnesota. Show Me Your Boat Trailer Papers, Please.
This law was repealed! You now have to affirm that you understand the AIS rules when you register a boat or get a out-of-state fishing license. Next time you trailer your canoe or kayak in Minnesota, you could be pulled over by a conservation officer who demands to see your papers. Well, it might not be that bad and your papers are a decal on your trailer, so it’s really not like that at all. But, next July if you trailer your canoe or kayak in Minnesota, you’ll be required to have an Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) decal on your trailer. This new law is another attempt by Minnesota to…
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Vargo Titanium Ascent Tent Stake Review
Most campers put little thought into the stakes that they use. With newer tents, you almost don’t need to because they often come with v-shaped stakes. It wasn’t always that way. Just a mere 10 years ago, most tents were shipped with flimsy aluminum pegs that bent the second that they even saw the ground. Not so today — at least with the tents that I’ve bought recently. So, any aftermarket stake that you buy has to be something special. For me that means a lighter and stronger stake beats out the stakes included with a tent any day. With that in mind, I had a chance to test out…
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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…
