-
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…
-
The Petzl Zipka Plus vs. the Princeton Tec EOS Headlamps
When I first got into adventure sports, my headlamp was a flashlight combined with a Velcro strap, and the Petzl Zoom headlamp was the headlamp that I lusted over. When I could afford a headlamp, I went out and bought a Zoom and it served me well until Princeton Tec started to introduce lighter and smaller headlights. I was working retail at the time and got a box of samples to try out. That trial box turned me into the corporation’s headlamp geek. I was hooked until a few years later when Petzl introduced its first LED headlamp, which got something like 40 hours of battery life. I got one at the…
-
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…
-
Great Lakes Sea Kayaking Symposium Trip Report
I just got back to Grand Marais, Minnesota after spending a four-day weekend in Grand Marais, Michigan at the Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium, an event organized by Down Wind Sports and Kelly Blades. The symposium gathers together some of the best instructors in the Midwest, combines them with some of the best instructors from Canada and even abroad, then it throws in a ton of sea kayaking students and mixes it up. It makes for a fun four days of adventure. Grand Marais, Michigan is a small town of just a couple of hundred of people, a high school graduating class consisting of seven students, a brew pub and…
-
Kayaking and Canoeing Participation Rates
The Outdoor Foundation recently published the Outdoor Recreation Participation Topline Report 2012 in which it publishes the participation rates in outdoor recreation from 2011. I find these numbers of interest to paddlers, and these numbers are something that we can directly affect be introducing people to the sports of kayaking and canoeing. The report starts out with some good news: In 2011, outdoor recreation among americans reached the highest participation level in the last five years. Nearly 50 percent of all americans ages six and older, or 141.1 million individuals, participated in at least one outdoor activity in 2011, making 11.6 billion outings. In fact, last year, americans enjoyed 1.5 billion more…
-
The Best Shoes for Kayaking: Two Great Wetshoes You Should Own
Over the 15 years that I’ve kayaked, I’ve used a bunch of different shoes and I’ve had my favorites, but I haven’t found a shoe that I loved enough to buy it twice until now. And, now I have two shoes that I consider the best shoes for kayaking. I’ve purchased one twice and the other one, after it wears out, I’ll purchase again. NRS Comm-3 Kayaking Wetshoe NRS’s Comm-3 Wetshoe is designed for outfitters and guided kayaking trips. It’s made from 3-mm neoprene with titanium, which means that it’s durable. I bought my first one out of a used commercial shoe fleet, guided in it for a year and wore…
-
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…
-
The North American Odyssey Expedition
On May 9th, Dave and Amy Freeman, the leaders of the Wilderness Classroom Organization, kayaked away from Grand Portage, Minnesota on Lake Superior for the fifth leg of their North American Odyssey Expedition. The North American Odyssey is a 12,000-mile expedition across North America. It started on Earth Day in 2010 in Seattle. A team of four kayaked from Seattle to Skagway, Alaska via the Inside Passage. After finishing the paddle, half the team journeyed home with the kayaks, and Dave and Amy continued by backpacking over the mountains following the Klondike Gold Rush. Once over the mountains, they canoed north to the Arctic Ocean. After the snow set in, two more adventurers joined…
-
What Kind of Kayak Cockpit Should I Buy or Build?
I recently found this question in PaddlingLight’s inbox (BTW, I answer all questions that I receive. Sometimes they spark article ideas): I am considering the Siskiwit SOF build. My son & I are about to skin a Sea Tour 17 Explorer, but I haven’t formed the cockpit yet. Can you enlighten me on the different cockpit shapes? I see round, oval and egg shaped with “arm rests”(?) at the narrow end. So, what kind of kayak cockpit should you buy or build? Short Answer: I personally like the egg shaped with the “arm rests” cockpit, which is called a keyhole cockpit. The “arm rests” are knee or thigh braces (depending on…
-
Learn to Kayak Because Zombies Can’t Swim
Learn to Kayak Because Zombies Can’t Swim is a t-shirt design that I’ve been working on inspired by the Paddling Instructor website. David got a picture of a sweet billboard about boating with the same premise and came up with the idea “Zombies can’t swim – Buy a Kayak.” I liked the idea, but changed it to “Learn to Kayak Because Zombies Can’t Swim.” I found an artist to draw up a zombie vs. kayaker scene. I found a printer in Grand Marais, MN to make the tshirts. T-shirt Pre-order Now I’m offering up a pre-order for the t-shirts. They run $16.99. This print run will come on black with…
-
Goal Zero Solar Panels: Expedition Solar Power Made Easy
About 10 years ago when I first started to switch from film photography to digital photography, I started looking at solar power options to keep my batteries charged on long trips. At the time, I found that the Brunton SolarRoll did the trick, because it was light, it could charge my batteries and it was easy to pack away. Since that time, I’ve found myself carrying more electronics into the woods. I sometimes carry a GPS, a laptop, hard drives (gasp, even with some movies on them), my Kindle Fire, two cameras with different batteries, a VHF radio, a mp3 player, headlamp and a cell phone (p.s. on trips less than two…
-
Polarmax Comp 4 Tech Fleece Review: the Perfect Layers?
Base layers have been something I’ve battled both in central Canada and now out here in Newfoundland. Balancing bulk to not look like that kid on A Christmas story and still feel comfortable rolling or bobbing around after a incident in a surf zone is a delicate balance. While there are many articles on the importance of dressing for immersion, not many are out there discussing clothing options in cold climates. (You beautiful paddlers in the warm south feel free to enjoy the pic’s and ignore remainder of the article!) My normal paddling base layers kept me warm while moving; yet restricted movement due to its bulk. Many combinations of…
-
Kayaking the Canadian Sauna Islands on Lake Superior
Last week I did a kayaking trip from Grand Portage to Squaw Bay. I was paddling with Dave and Amy Freeman of Wilderness Classroom (Facebook page), their new intern Dan Modahl and John Amren who used to own Superior Coastal Sports in Grand Marais. Dave and Amy just started out on the last leg of their 13,000-mile trip across North America via kayak, canoe and dog sled. They’ll complete the trip next April in the Florida keys. They started the trip in 2010 by kayaking the Inside Passage. John sold his store a couple of years ago, which freed him up to finally do the Lake Superior kayak circumnavigation that he…
-
Kayaking to the Sea: Sault Ste. Marie to Quebec City
Last weekend, Tim Gallaway, a PaddlingLight contributor, left on a 850 to 900 mile long trip from Sault Ste. Marie to Quebec City via kayak. I asked him to share a little information about his trip to PaddlingLight’s readers. The goods are below, but first this is how you can follow Tim’s journey: Soo to the Sea Facebook page Tim Gallaway’s Twitter Kayaking to the Sea Webpage Kayaking to the Sea I’ve had to repeat this bit so many times it has more or less become a script. It’s quite interesting really. I’ve come to recognize what questions are about to be asked and if the person asking me the…
