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Alpine Start Instant Coffee Review
After hearing about First Ascent Instant Coffee blasting into space to quench the thirst of decaffeinated astronauts aboard the International Space Station, I decided to order some up from REI. I figured if it was good enough for astronauts, it’s good enough instant coffee for canoe and kayak trips. Unfortunately, REI only had Alpine Start Instant Coffee REI had three flavors: Alpine Start Original, Dirty Chai Latte and Instant Coconut Creamer Latte. The Lattes came with five instant packages and the Alpine Start came with eight. Each cost $9 at the time of this review. You could also buy a bulk bag of 30 servings of Alpine Start. I’m an…
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Life Vest Knives: the Great Debate
Knives are basic outdoor tools that every outdoors person should know how to safely use. You should probably have one with you. They are handy and helpful. While paddling and when working with tow ropes, painters or otherwise, you should have a paddling knife handy. The knife is the fall back if something fails in your rope handling skills, and you end up with an entanglement issue that you need to cut someone out of. Rope handling skills should be your priority, and you should learn them from a qualified instructor. The more rope handing skills that you have the less of a chance of needing a knife. Also, if…
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How the Siskiwit LV Happened
Recently I was looking through old photos and came across a few of my old kayak building photos. I’ve pretty much given up building canoes and kayaks for the moment, but I do have a few that I would like to build in the future. It’s interesting looking back from a perspective of 18 years after I built my first kayak. The first kayak that I built was a SOF using Cunningham’s Building the Greenland Kayak book. I really liked the kayak, but it had way too much rocker to be practical at tripping, which is what I wanted it for. In retrospect, I should have just added an external…
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How to Install a Northstar Solo Kneeling Drop
Guest post from Cliff Fawcett. If you’re wondering how to install a Northstar solo kneeling drop, this is how I did it. I purchased my Northstar Northwind Solo with the standard (sitting) seat drops. If you’re not familiar with the term, the seat drop is the piece between the gunwale and the seat that determines the height of the seat from the floor of the canoe. This is what a standard seat drop looks like for the Northstar Northwind Solo. After paddling the Northwind Solo for the first season with the standard seat drops, I was interested in trying out the kneeling drops. Kneeling drops allow the seat to be…
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Right On Trek Mac and Cheese Review
A challenge with canoe and kayak travel can be finding good food to take canoeing or good food for kayaking. That’s where Right On Trek has come to the rescue. I’ve reviewed their service in the past (Read: Adventure Meals by RightOnTrek Review). The short of that review was that I like it. Recently, they revamped their backcountry meals and sent me over a few samples to try. I thought the Right On Trek Mac and Cheese deserved it’s own review. Spoiler: It’s great! Here’s how Right on Trek describes their take on the classic Mac and Cheese recipe: A no-compromise version of a classic comfort food. Our Mac and…
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Kelso River Dolmen: A Boundary Waters Adventure
Paddling from Sawbill Lake to the Kelso River Dolmen is one of the best BWCA day trips that you can take. The route features big lakes, crooked shorelines, narrow rivers, swamps, easy portages, and carnivorous plants. With the Kelso River Dolmen as the goal of the trip, it offers a set destination. That’s something that other day trips in the area don’t offer. The story behind the dolmen is that Vikings explored North America and found copper nearby. To mark the mine, they built the dolmen. Legend has it that there’s a second smaller dolmen nearby that when used as a navigation range points to the mine. Some paddlers claim…
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Flextailpump Tiny Pump Review
For last several years I’ve been using an inflatable air mattress for camping (I like my Exped Ultra 3), which is more comfortable than the self-inflating Therm-a-rests that I’ve used in the past. Since I started using it, I’ve used several methods of inflation, including pump sacks and the Exped Mini Pump. I’ve had the Flextailpump (yes, they smash everything together into one word) for awhile, and I used it again last weekend. Without further ado, here’s my Tiny Pump review. Is it the tiny camping mattress pump that could? The Flextailpump Tiny Pump is a lightweight, rechargeable electric pump designed to inflate camping mattresses. It comes with a bunch…
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Duk Gear Phone Case Review
Earlier this year, Duk Gear sent me out a phone case for review. I used the case over the last few month for kayaking and canoeing. These are my impressions. What is it? The Duk Gear Waterproof Phone Case is a soft plastic phone case that floats. It holds an IPX8 certification which means that it can be submerged in depths greater than 1 meter. The manufacturer determines the distance, and Duk Gear says it is waterproof up to 65 feet. The plastic is touchscreen compatible. It has a clear plastic opening on the back for your phone’s camera. It comes with a carabiner and lanyard. Multiple colors are available.…
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Exped Mini Pump Wins The Annual Camping Tallywhacker Award
For …umm… reasons, the Exped Mini Pump wins The Annual Camping Tallywhacker Award. “What is the Mini Pump?” you ask. Will it pump you up? The mini pump is a 1.9-ounce (on my scale) pump designed to inflate Exped’s excellent line of sleeping pads. The pump has also been hard to find in the US over the last couple of years. It’s finally coming back in stock at stores. For several years, I’ve been using an Exped sleeping pad. The new version is the Exped Ultra3. It’s by far my favorite of all the pads that I’ve tested. As a side sleeper, the long air tunnels feel extremely comfortable and…
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Following the Winchell Expedition Video Presentation
During the spring of 2021, I retraced the 1879 route taken by Minnesota State Geologist Newton Horace Winchell. The route was approximately 160 miles with over 30 miles of portages. It started on Lake Superior in Grand Marais, MN, USA. Then I followed a route that would have been close to what was called the Iron Trail into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is America’s most visited wilderness area. It’s a million acres of wilderness with over 2,000 lakes and 1,200 miles of canoe routes. I paddled through the BWCAW to meet up with the historic Ojibwe canoe route from Knife Lake to the mouth of the Poplar…
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Canoeing and Kayaking: The Most Elegant Form of Travel
Canoeing and kayaking are the most elegant forms of human-powered travel beyond walking and swimming. To travel on water without a craft, unless competitively skilled, requires one to flail arms and legs in the water to move forward at a speed easily matched by even an unskilled paddler (even when under load). To use a canoe or kayak requires no mechanical parts. Body English and human power provides all the motion and maneuvering power. Other human powered watercraft include the raft or the glorified raft known as a paddleboard. Tying together boards into a mainly flat rectangle lacks the design choices to be considered elegant. Elegant defined as a solution…
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Satellite Messenger vs Satellite Phone for the Wilderness
With the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness canoeing season (and canoeing season elsewhere) kicking in, I thought it would be a good time to write about ways for someone in the wilderness to communicate with someone outside the wilderness. Basically, it comes down to a Satellite Messenger vs Satellite Phone. This seems like a pertinent topic this year considering all the paddling accident reports, including this near death experience in the Boundary Waters. As I see it, you have few options to communicate in the wilderness. Of the options that you have, you have satellite phones, satellite messengers, VHF or other radios and cell phones. I’ll cover them as I…
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Sweet Solo Canoe Yoke Plans
I’ve long admired Martin Step’s canoe builds. His cedar strip canoe builds are works of art. Years ago, he posted pictures of a solo canoe yoke that seemed impossibly beautiful and functional. Martin recently released plans for his Agawa Bay Solo Canoe Yoke. If you’re looking for a unique yoke plan, it’s worth checking out. The plans show you how to build a contoured yoke and then build the attachment system. The attachment system requires some modification to a solo canoe’s wooden gunwale, but after that’s complete it should be easy to detach and attach the yoke to the gunwales. If you don’t want to build the yoke, you can…
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Check Out This Skin-on-Frame Kayak Lamp
You’ve seen Marcelo Rossi’s work on this website before. He most recently wrote about The Sparrow: a modern Greenland-style kayak with an ancient spirit, and in the past, he built a Siskiwit SOF, and back in 2015 he built a baidarka. He returns with photos of a skin-on-frame kayak lamp that he made as a birthday gift for his best friend. Marcelo worked from scaled plans and built the model using scaled wood building materials and glued the parts together. Before skinning the boat, he added an internal light source. He also carved a scaled Greenland-style paddle. After he put on the skin, he mounted it upright on a wooden base. It…
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Get your new life vest (and gear) early this year
Usually I’m writing a review or a how to or something like that, but instead I’m writing about the state of things right now. With the pandemic supply issues still affecting the outdoor industry, you’re going to want to get your purchases done early this year. All the new gear is starting to hit the stores right now, and if you want to get a specific product you should buy now. I’ve needed a new life jacket for a couple of years and when I went looking last year for the vest that I wanted, it was sold out. I figured that it would come back in stock at some…
