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The Paddles of Walter Caribou
Grand Portage National Monument in Grand Portage, Minn. marks the lower terminus of the 8-mile Grand Portage used by fur-trading voyagers to transport trade goods and furs from the Pigeon River to Lake Superior. The current fort is a reconstruction of the original fort. Inside the stockade, there’s a display of paddles built by Walter Caribou, a Ojibwe, who lived in Grand Portage. Caribou was known as a great storyteller and a good paddle maker. In the above picture, the paddles from the left going clockwise are labeled: Ladies Paddle Middleman Paddle Francis Anne Hopkins painting “Canoe Shooting Rapids” paddle. U.S.A. Paddle “Rendezvous Awards” Paddle Ladies Paddle. Cribbage board “Distressed”…
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Free Kayak Plans: North Greenland Kayak
Mystic Seaport Museum’s North Greenland kayak appears in Mark Starr’s Building a Greenland Kayak. Starr notes that Admiral Byrd, an Arctic explorer collected the kayak. He thinks it might have been during the 1925 MacMillan expedition to northwest Greenland. This kayak is much different than other kayaks that I’ve drawn. It has a flat bottom, which results from the use of three-part ribs instead of a single bent rib. It’s sides almost rise steeply from the chine to the sheer. The cockpit area looks like a bubble that rises high in a short distance. The turn of the rear stem seems subtle and almost non-existent. For a cedar strip kayak…
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Mocke Racer PFD Review
The Mocke Racer is a lightweight personal flotation aid popular in the surfski racing crowd. The Mockes, a husband and wife, are well-known in the surfski racing side of paddlesports; they both boast impressive wins in many races. They designed the Racer to be comfortable, to stay out of the way while paddling and to give a racer enough flotation to help him swim if he ends up in the water. They claim the mesh allows air to flow, which keeps the paddler cool. In the water, the mesh allows for more efficient swimming, and they claim it allows the paddler to dive easily when needed. The vest consists of…
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Navigation: Variation and Declination
A compass needle seldom points directly to the north pole, because Earth’s magnetic fields pull the compass needle towards what is known as magnetic north. Because the angle between true north, the direction from you towards the north pole, and magnetic north varies from place to place, we must account for that variation when navigating. This difference is known as declination. It’s different from Magnetic Deviation, which is a local magnetic field creating an error. The terms variation and declination refer to the same feature. On a map refer to it as declination. On a chart refer to it as variation. Magnetic declination, also called variation, is the difference between…
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Free Kayak Plan: U.S. Coast Guard Museum Greenland Kayak
The U.S. Coast Guard Museum Greenland Kayak was collected in 1967 and then donated to the museum. When Mark Starr surveyed the kayak, he noted that the skin had shrunk enough to crush the center of the boat. He drew it as he thought it should look with an almost flat keel. He also noted that there was evidence that the boat once had an exterior mounted skeg. The kayak’s sheerline has a subtle curve, and its multi-chine hull shape looks like the Goodnow Kayak. The cockpit coaming is only 12-1/2 inches wide. I doubt someone who weighed very much could fit in the cockpit opening, so I drew it…
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WaayCool Kayak Fishing Handlines Review
I like catching fish, and I like paddling, but I don’t like to catch fish while paddling if it involves carrying rods, tackle boxes and all sorts of fishing equipment — call me a lazy angler. In trying to combine a low equipment method of fishing with paddling, I decided to try handlines, which are line wrapped around a handle. You clip the rope’s end to your deck lines, connect a lure to the other end, drop it into the water and paddle. It’s simple. The homemade handlines that I’ve seen are usually just thick 20 lb. mono filament line wrapped around a plywood handle. Finding a commercially available handline…
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Navigation: Course, Bearings and Headings
The terms, course, bearing and heading, seem to cause confusion among students just learning to navigate. Although, it’s possible to navigate without knowing the meaning of each term, having a common language allows us to discuss navigation more effectively. While I’m sure that you could come up with a rhyme to help you learn these terms, I think it’s best just to take time to memorize and internalize the meanings. Course A course is your planned paddling route. It’s usually marked on a map, although you can also just make a mental note. A course can be a straight line going from your point of departure to your destination, or…
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Free Kayak Plan: Peabody Essex Museum Labrador Kayak 1867
In Building a Greenland Kayak, Mark Starr writes that this kayak, collected in 1867, is the most beautiful kayak that he’s drawn. He believes that it represents a kayak in its purist form; just five sweeping curves define its shape. Although noted as a Labrador kayak, it’s actually a Greenland-style boat. While drawing the kayak for these free plans, I didn’t encounter any real problems. The simple curves essentially faired themselves with only a little help from the computer. It’s a pretty simple kayak. I drew the fore-deck to the original drawings, so even in cedar strip, the boat will look like a replica. Near the cockpit, I attempted to…
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Navigation: Read a Marine Chart Part 2
This is part two in a two-part article about learning the basics of reading a marine chart. Part one, Navigation: Read a Marine Chart Part 1, covered reading the basics discovered at first glance, like the chart’s scale, name and variation. This part is about the specific symbols on a chart, like water depths, lights, buoys, underwater features and more. Although there are more symbols than found in this article on a chart, learning to read these basic symbols will help you while studying others. For most paddlers, these will be plenty. Soundings The numbers that appear all over the water portions of the chart are soundings. They show how…
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Free Kayak Plan: MacMillan Kayak
I finished this kayak on Thanksgiving, a harvest festival celebrated in the United States. Tradition says that the original celebration occurred in the early 1600s and celebrated the European settlers surviving their first year with the help of the natives. It’s a grand story that didn’t turn out that great for the natives. Here I am 400 years later, digitizing kayaks that someone used for hunting and the survival of family. Something that they were probably thankful for. Now, we use these kayaks for recreation. Perhaps this kayak plan exemplifies that use. Rear Admiral MacMillan, an explorer, collected the MacMillan kayak at some point between 1908 and 1954. He was…
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Creamy Wild Rice and Chicken over Potatoes
Wild rice and paddling go together. Some of the first canoes were used to harvest wild rice, and if you paddle in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness chances are you have paddled through a rice field. It not only goes with paddling, but it tastes great. A wild rice soup poured over mashed potatoes fills the stomach and makes a satisfying end to a day of paddling. This recipe is quick, hardy and easy to carry. Creamy Wild Rice and Chicken over Potatoes Recipe (Serves 2) Calories: 425 per personIngredients Boil water. Pour 2/3 cup into a freezer bag with the potato buds, add ghee. Mix. Add rice, bouillon…
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Navigation: Read a Marine Chart Part 1
Learning how to read a marine chart is an important part of learning to navigate. A chart, like a map, represents the real world projected onto paper. It helps you figure out where you’ve been, where you’re going, where you’re at and what to expect at each point along the way. There are lots of symbols on a chart, but, for novice kayakers and canoeists, knowing the main features is most important. After learning the basics, the rest come easily with some study. In this two-part article, part one covers the basics like finding the chart’s name, number, scale, variation and other important items to discover at first glance. Part…
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Free South Greenland Kayak Plans
The South Greenland kayak, Figure 208 in the Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America, is a more modern design than both the Southwestern Greenland kayaks (Figure 206 and 207) that appear as free plans in earlier posts. Chapelle notes that later kayaks had greater rake of the stems, reduced deadrise and greater flare. The sheerline seems less sweeping than the older types, too. He claims that these more modern designs were faster and quicker turning than the old types. In the drawings, a bow plate is shown fixed to the bow. This kayak seemed easy to model. The chines and low deadrise faired directly into the stems. On…
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Bushcraft: Making a Willow Basket
I like working with my hands. When doing so, my mind tends to slip into the present and errant thoughts subside. I view this as good and practicing this state helps me focus during daily routines. When I’m not using my hands to create something, I get tense and nervous. I’m not sure why this happens, but I suspect the need to use my hands runs in my blood — my father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all carpenters. Last year, we moved from a house with a big workshop to a small house with a shed that just fits the canoes and kayaks. I lost the place where I built…
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NOAA Marine Chart Converter
NOAA makes its marine charts available for free to the public, but those charts come in a BSB format. If you want to manipulate the marine charts on your computer, unless you hack the file, you have to use a computer program designed to read the BSB format. To make the charts usable in any graphics program or to print your own NOAA charts, you need to convert them from the native BSB format to a graphics format like PNG, JPEG or TIFF. In the past, you had to use NOAA’s somewhat confusing tool or a command-line hack. Bob Webster, feeling our pain, programed an open-source BSB converter. It converts…
