The blunt is freestyle’s meritorious intermediate kayak move. | Feature photo: Rapid archives
Remember when you were a Boy Scout or Girl Guide and you worked hard to earn all those merit badges? There was a sequence to them and you couldn’t get some badges before achieving others. The same rules should apply on the river. Before you jump ahead to your aerial merit badge, master the blunt kayak move and you will open the gateway to more advanced boating.
In a blunt, dig your bow into the face of the wave, throw your stern almost vertically off the wave and swing from a front surf to a back surf. Follow these four easy steps to pull it off without a hitch.
1 Start high on the water
Begin high up on a wave so that you can generate speed carving down the face of it and so that you will have room to complete the blunt while still on the wave. You can still blunt in the trough, but it will likely cause you to flush.
Step 1: Start high on the water. | Photo: Rapid archives
Initiate your blunt with one last aggressive forward thrust stroke on the downstream side when you are no more than halfway down the wave. This will give you a boost of speed and allow you to pop the bow up out of the water in anticipation of throwing it back down into the wave.
2 Wind up, plant and tilt
Turn your body aggressively into your spin and snap your boat onto its other edge while putting in a back stroke on the upstream side. This short stroke starts at your hips and ends at your knees.
With shoulders perpendicular to the wave crest, throw your weight forward, forcing your stern up into the air so it pivots around the bow as it slices into the wave. Think of swinging your butt into the air as you keep your eyes looking into the wave.
Step 3: Bow down and stern over. | Photo: Rapid archives
How much you tilt your boat determines how vertical you go. Too little tilt and you end up doing a roundhouse. If you tilt too aggressively you virtually do a cartwheel on the wave and fall on your head.
As your stern comes back down flatten out your edge so you land flat in a back surf. Use a backstroke to accelerate and stay on the wave and give you a rudder at your bow. Enjoy the back surf or spin back up to the foam pile for another blunt.
Step 4: Land flat and back surf. | Photo: Rapid archives
A common mistake is to put too much emphasis on the strokes while forgetting about proper body movements and timing. If you time the body movements correctly—squaring your shoulders at a right angle to the wave and throwing your butt in the air—you shouldn’t even need a paddle to blunt. Scout’s honour!
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2006 issue of Rapid Magazine and in Paddling Magazine Issue 65. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or download the Paddling Magazine app and browse the digital archives here.
The blunt is freestyle’s meritorious intermediate kayak move. | Photo: Rapid archives
“[It] really came quite close to me, actually. I was quite startled at first,” Gauthier said.
He then noticed a group of Ravens, chasing closely behind the owl, dive-bombing it repeatedly. He knew he needed to so something—and fast.
He and a fellow kayaker paddled towards the owl to see how they could assist. The owl was now bobbing in the cold water and didn’t appear to be fending off its attackers, he said.
“We took off to rescue him but it took 10 minutes to get to the owl. I lifted him with my paddle and moved him close to the bow of my kayak. He caught hold of the grab lines and pulled himself up.”
Gauthier says he will never forget the bird’s piercing yellow eyes. Photo: Billy Gauthier / Facebook
The exhausted and waterlogged owl sat there for 15 minutes on the bow of Gauthier’s kayak, too drained of energy to move. During that time, Gauthier and his partner decided to get the bird to shore.
In total, the bird was with the kayakers for a full 30 minutes.
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The owl was happy to receive aid from the kayaker. Photo: Billy Gauthier/ Facebook
“It was so beautiful. Still, I thought, this poor beast doesn’t even struggle. It’s going to drown,” said Gauthier. Photo: Billy Gauthier/ Facebook
“About 20 yards from shore he jumped off the bow and flew to a stump. He stayed there for another hour before he flew off,” said Gauthier.
The bird was later found by wildlife officers and taken in for an evaluation. On closer inspection, it appeared that the bird was in fact a female, not a male as Gauthier at first believed. “She’s in safe hands now, hopefully, she’ll completely recover,” said Gauthier.
When it comes to poison ivy, you need to heed the weed. | Feature photo: istockphoto.com
Poison ivy ranges across most of Canada and the United States. Persistent sores and itching beset most humans who come into contact with the plant’s oil. With practice it is possible to identify the plant in its various forms and, if caught early, an exposure need not spell the end of an otherwise enjoyable paddling trip.
The vining form of poison ivy grips a tree trunk with wiry rootlets. | Photo: Melissa McMasters/Wikimedia Commons
How to Evade Poison Ivy’s Itch
Poison ivy grows in many different forms. It can blanket the ground in a dense, low-lying mat; grow in a spindly shrub; stand in shin-high shoots or climb up trees as a vine, gripping the bark with wiry rootlets.
The noxious weed is often found along forest edges, beside portages, on shorelines, in open areas, behind beaches, throughout swamps and across rocky ridges. In other words, just about anywhere.
Whatever form it takes, all poison ivy bears the trademark cluster of three pointed leaves. Leaves are asymmetrical, waxy and droopy with small notches or irregular teeth along the edges.
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Changing flowers, leaves and berries
Poison ivy’s color changes with the seasons. As they unfold in May, the leaves are a reddish purple; in the height of summer they’re bright green; and in the fall they turn bright red. Be on the lookout for bright red patches in sunny areas and yellowish varieties in the shade.
In the summer, greenish-white flowers form in two-inch-long clusters beneath the junction of the leaf and stem. Tiny white or dull-yellow berries cluster on the stalk.
Exposure and treatment
A painful, itchy, blistering rash occurs at least a day after contact with the oil of poison ivy’s leaves. This allergic reaction varies from person to person and ranges from no symptoms at all to mild itching to severe blisters leading to infection. A person’s susceptibility may change over time and after new exposures.
Wash with soap and water as soon as possible after suspected contact. If a reaction occurs, relieve itching with calamine lotion or baking soda and water. In the case of severe blisters, prescription drugs may be required.
Tiny white or dull-yellow berries cluster on the stalk. | Photo: Sam Fraser-Smith/Wikimedia Commons
In the fall, poison ivy leaves turn bright red. | Photo: Marlee Fuller-Morris/Wikimedia Commons
This article originally appeared in Paddling Magazine Issue 65. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or download the Paddling Magazine app and browse the digital archives here.
When it comes to poison ivy, you need to heed the weed. | Feature photo: istockphoto.com
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic 18 months ago, Kelly McDowell told Paddling Business that he’d decided to suspend kayaking courses through the summer of 2020, even though customers were clamoring for instruction.
His shop, the Complete Paddler in Toronto, is one of the biggest paddling stores in North America, with a robust rental and instruction program augmenting the core retail business. As Toronto emerged from one of the strictest COVID-19 lockdowns on the continent in May 2020, demand for paddling gear and instruction shot through the roof. McDowell couldn’t get boats fast enough to satisfy his retail customers, let alone restock the rental and instruction fleet he’d sold off the previous fall. Instructors bowed out too, wary of close contact with students and potential legal liability should someone get sick.
So McDowell pulled the plug on his instruction program. Nearly two years later, it’s still shut down. This comes at a time when paddling instruction is needed more than ever. Participation is up across the board, but with classes and club outings still rebounding after a near-total shutdown in 2020, new paddlers in some areas are still largely on their own.
Meanwhile, the waterways are full of enthusiastic new paddlers, many of whom don’t know what they don’t know, said Trey Rouss, owner of The Power of Water in Lansing, Michigan. “All we have to do in our courses is present these two questions—and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner who’s never paddled before or you’re level five at the top of the game—they’re always the same two questions: Should I be out here paddling today? And do I have a solution for when things don’t sort themselves out the way I expected them to?”
“All we have to do in our courses is present these two questions—and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner who’s never paddled before or you’re level five at the top of the game—they’re always the same two questions: Should I be out here paddling today? And do I have a solution for when things don’t sort themselves out the way I expected them to?”
Just by talking to folks in his shop, McDowell can see they’re doing risky things without knowing any better. “One person paddled out into the middle of Toronto harbor and capsized in the busiest and widest section,” he said. “They were lucky they didn’t get run over by a ferry or succumb to the effects of the cold water because they weren’t dressed properly, either.”
Not everyone has been as lucky. According to the most recent U.S. Coast Guard data, paddling fatalities in the U.S. surged last year to 164 people, an increase of nearly 20 percent over 2019. Tellingly, almost three-quarters of those deaths involved people with less than 100 hours of paddling experience. Many who took up the sport in 2020 had little access to instruction because it just wasn’t available for much of the year.
“What we heard anecdotally from our instructors is that 2020 was just a wash. Most people were not teaching at all,” said American Canoe Association (ACA) President Robin Pope. “This past season, 2021, everything picked up dramatically and every instructor I know was teaching as much as they wanted.” The ACA certifies instructors in all paddling disciplines, and while it doesn’t track how many people take paddling classes each year, it has a very good handle on the number of certified instructors. That number dropped 17.9 percent, from 4,573 in 2019 to 3,821 in 2020. Most of those who did teach last year taught fewer courses.
“Normally, I’ll teach between 18 and 25 courses a year. Last year I gave three,” said Mike Aronoff, a veteran instructor-trainer and long-serving member of the ACA’s Safety, Education and Instruction Council. Like many of his colleagues, Aronoff adjusted the way he taught to mitigate the COVID-19 risk. He reduced his class sizes to no more than three people and sought groups already in close contact: a husband and wife, a brother and sister, and a group of coworkers. This year he’s on track to teach 28 courses, keeping some common-sense precautions in place and requiring all his students to be fully vaccinated.
Aronoff leaned heavily on the recommendations of an ACA panel led by Dr. Steven Henkind, an MD-PhD and ACA Level 4 instructor. The group included Pope, who works as a physician’s assistant by day, and other paddling instructors with medical training. The group’s guidelines for operating in a COVID-19 world was the most read email sent by the ACA in recent years.
“Fortunately, most of us weren’t very busy because we were in the middle of a lockdown for Covid, so we started with a lot of reading, pulling together best practices and CDC recommendations and figuring out how to apply those when we’re paddling,” Pope said. “Using paper surgical masks is great, but it doesn’t work when you’re wet.”
Photo: Adobe Stock
The group drafted core recommendations and vetted them with epidemiologists, public health experts and the wilderness medicine community, Pope said. “We essentially wrote a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation on it and then summarized it for the ACA website. To my knowledge, nobody that followed those practices had a problem with infection.”
That’s heartening news for the paddlesports community. The barrier to instruction now isn’t so much the risk of infection, but the logistical hurdles that come as a result of the pandemic. While he’s still wary of the virus, the reason McDowell hasn’t resumed classes in Toronto is because he can’t spare the boats and instructors are in short supply. He can’t teach courses himself because he’s needed on the retail floor. His store is chronically understaffed.
However, even at the height of the pandemic last year, some found a way to continue teaching. Rouss hosted the Great Lakes Sea Kayak Symposium in July 2020, even as similar gatherings were canceled. He made the call in May, at about the same time McDowell decided to suspend instruction in Toronto.
“We had to make a decision, and what we discovered was that people were going out and doing stuff anyway. So our approach was to give them a little more structure and accountability to each other within the confines of what the CDC is recommending.”
“We had to make a decision, and what we discovered was that people were going out and doing stuff anyway. So our approach was to give them a little more structure and accountability to each other within the confines of what the CDC is recommending,” Rouss said. He implemented several protocols, from temperature checks and alcohol wipe downs to reducing the number of participants and assigning them to small pods. Everything was done outdoors, and none of the approximately 50 participants and instructors got COVID-19.
While many jurisdictions were tightening restrictions at the time, the host community of Grand Marais, Minnesota, welcomed the paddlers. “They were begging us to come up there, so that wasn’t an issue at all. In fact, we were more concerned about their lack of taking it seriously,” Rouss said.
Steve McKone, the director of Calleva’s River School near Glen Echo, Maryland, told DCist that after canceling a popular program in spring 2020 and partially refunding customers, Calleva went on to have its shortest and biggest season ever, beating its 2019 numbers by 20 percent. 2021 was another banner year, constrained only by the supply chain. McKone said he started the season with boats, paddles, life jackets and sprayskirts on backorder.
Like the pandemic itself, paddling instruction in the COVID-19 era has been a shifting patchwork of hotspots and empty quarters. It’s a dynamic environment, and as any good paddler knows, you don’t fight moving water. You flow with it.
The same is true in business. When COVID-19 hit last year, Anna Levesque dropped her group courses altogether, accelerating a planned switch to one-on-one coaching. She was lucky to have an established clientele, which, together with a Paycheck Protection Program loan, allowed her business to weather a lean year and come back stronger than ever. “I have a really strong relationship with most of my clients, and so most of them simply deferred to a year later,” said Levesque, an Ashville, North Carolina-based whitewater and SUP instructor who was recently elected chair of the ACA’s instruction council.
Levesque’s instruction business rebounded quickly after pandemic restrictions eased in North Carolina and COVID-weary paddlers returned to the river with the determination of spawning salmon. Her annual Costa Rica whitewater is sold out for the first time in years. It feels almost as if her business, and the paddling instruction game in general, is getting back to normal—or at least something close to it.
Attach a rope to the runaway canoe, wait for your moment, then paddle as fast as you can to shore. | Feature photo: Felix Serre/Unsplash
In the deep, fast rivers of the North and West a capsized canoe could float for miles before being spit out of the current and into an eddy. Often a sprayskirt and tied-in packs will make a canoe-over-canoe rescue impossible. In these circumstances, your next best bet to wrangle the runaway is a rodeo-style canoe rescue. Read on for all the info you need to safely carry out this maneuver.
For the sake of the paddlers, the capsized canoe, the jettisoned packs and the rest of the group, you need a way to get a current-borne canoe to shore.
The paddlers in the water are your first concern—regardless of which food barrel was in their canoe. The canoe will be like an iceberg, more below the water than above, so use caution in shallow water to avoid getting people between the capsized canoe and obstacles, or getting the canoe pinned.
In any rescue, the paddlers in the water are your first concern. | Photo: John Narewski/U.S. Navy
To properly envision a rodeo rescue, imagine yourself with chaps and a lasso, but keep it clean. Think of a cowboy roping a calf at the Calgary Stampede. You’re going to attach a rope to the canoe, wait for your moment, then paddle as fast as you can to shore where you can pendulum the canoe to safety.
You’ll need a number of throw bags linked together with carabiners. On some wide and fast rivers you could use up to four 20-meter throw bags.
Have the ropes ready with the free end of each rope clipped to the next bag’s end loop. When you reach the capsized canoe, you as a stern paddler should clip the free end of the last throw bag to the downstream end of the capsized canoe and then wait beside the floating canoe until the canoes enter a belay zone, a stretch of river where the shore is close enough and the current is slow enough you will be able to paddle downstream to shore and get out of the canoe before the rope goes taut.
The rodeo canoe rescue gives you a way to get a current-borne canoe to shore. | Illustration: Paul Mason
When you get to shore,jump into the shallow water or onto shore, anchor yourself with a safe stance or with the rope braced around a tree or rock. As the rope becomes taut there will be a strong pull. As long as you hold fast, the canoe will swing to shore.
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Be Certain of Your Belay Zone
It is tempting to rush, but if there isn’t an upcoming rapid, it’s better to wait until you have a sure belay zone where the stern paddler will be able to get out of the canoe with the rope while the bow paddler secures the rescue canoe.
As you paddle toward shore you’ll be in slower water so the capsized canoe may overtake you. If you run out of rope before you reach shore, you’ll end up trying to tow more than a ton of canoe, gear and water. The capsized canoe will soon pull you directly upstream of it. Try to ferry toward shore, but if you are being overpowered pull some rope in, turn downstream and overtake the canoe until you see another belay zone.
Attach a rope to the runaway canoe, wait for your moment, then paddle as fast as you can to shore. | Feature photo: Felix Serre/Unsplash
The safest method for retaining your end of the rope is to hold the last throw bag down with your knee. This lets you paddle freely and release the rope quickly if the capsized canoe seems intent on running the next rapid. Make sure there are no loose coils of rope in the canoe that could wrap around your leg.
If you are in the capsized canoe and no cowboys are coming to the rescue you can try to wrangle the canoe yourself by swimming to shore with a rope. For this attempt you’ll need to have the rope already clipped to a grab loop, with the throw bag held down with a shock cord. Be patient and wait until the canoe floats into a very good belay zone so you won’t run out of rope and be towed back into the faster current.
This article originally appeared in Paddling Magazine Issue 65. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or download the Paddling Magazine app and browse the digital archives here.
Attach a rope to the runaway canoe, wait for your moment, then paddle as fast as you can to shore. | Feature photo: Felix Serre/Unsplash
Two kayakers were paddling off the coast of Hawaii when they experienced an uncomfortably close encounter with a whale and its calf.
One of the kayakers, Brittany Ziegler, recently moved from California to Maui in Hawaii, where she films whales during their winter migration to the Pacific Islands.
“I spend every single day on the kayak getting to know all the new babies”, Zieger told Daily Mail Online.
Even for an experienced whale photographer and enthusiast, this up-close-and-personal greeting was a little overwhelming. “I’m really scared right now,” said Ziegler in the video, as the whales moved undersurface just meters away.
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“It’s a brand new baby and it’s still bigger than a car,” said Ziegler in the video. “They’re really intelligent. And they’re obviously just as curious about us as we are with them.”
The footage shows Ziegler shrieking with excitement as the humpback repeatedly breaches close to her kayak. “Oh my God, it’s right under us!”
Whale watching regulations require boaters/kayakers to keep minimum 200 meters away from killer whales and 100 meters away from all other whales at all times. Responsible paddlers endeavor to follow these rules, and rare exceptional encounters do not represent a typical paddling experience.
Tim Niemier sees no end to the growth of paddlesports, and after a few minutes soaking in the legendary waterman’s aura you wouldn’t either. The 70-year-old serial innovator’s life goal is to “put a billion butts in boats,” and since carving one of the world’s first sit-on-top kayaks out of an old surfboard in the late 1960s, he’s done as much as anyone to bring that vision to life. Niemier forged a lucrative design career while staying true to his beach bum roots, though he left his native Southern California for the Pacific Northwest decades ago.
His latest brainstorm is the Origami Paddler, a packable hard plastic watercraft he calls “the world’s first folding standup paddleboard and kayak in one.”
Judging by the response to his July 2020 Kickstarter campaign—it raised more than $3.8 million—that’s just what people had been waiting for, whether they knew it or not. This has always been Niemier’s particular brand of genius. For five decades now, he’s been radically rethinking paddlecraft to appeal to the masses. And while he hasn’t put a billion butts in boats (yet) he’s arguably done more to grow the sport than anyone.
Photo: Courtesy Tim Niemier
Every sit-on-top kayak in the world shares DNA from Niemier’s original Ocean Kayak, the evolution of that first carved-out surfboard, which Niemier began producing in molded polyethylene in 1978. The company’s Scrambler and Malibu became some of the most popular kayaks of all time. They fueled a recreational paddling boom, filled liveries worldwide and ultimately gave birth to kayak fishing as we know it today. Niemier eventually opened factories in Hawaii, California, New Zealand and France, defying predictions demand for kayaks would soon be satiated.
In those early days he watched as one of his dealers in Santa Barbara grew kayak sales from 114 the first year to “200 or 300” the next. “It was the opposite of saturated. It caught fire. Everybody would see these things on top of the cars, and other kayak companies would sell more there too,” says Niemier, who sold Ocean Kayak to Johnson Outdoors in 1997. His bet on sit-on-top kayaks paid off handsomely, and it’s still paying. While some sectors of the
sport have slowed, recreational kayaking continues to grow, driven by accessible designs at affordable prices.
Photo: Courtesy Tim Niemier
Photo: Courtesy Tim Niemier
“I’ve always said there’s 10 times more beginners with not very much money than the 10 percent that have a lot of money,” Niemier says. He recalls an event in Seattle where high-end kayak and paddleboard companies would demo their wares. The vendors would set up on the beach, where they were outnumbered by folks in price-point boats.
“They brought a lot of cheap kayaks that they would get at Costco, Walmart or someplace. It was interesting because all of the kayaks and paddleboards for the event were more expensive, like $1,000 and up. But the people who were there on the beach—the people actually using the beach—were in less expensive boats,” Niemier says.
“People want to get on the water, and a lot of them don’t have much money. That’s the beauty of kayaks,” Niemier says. “They’ve always been the least expensive way of getting on the water.”
To be sure, Niemier isn’t only interested in less expensive boats. He recently caught the surfski bug at his home waters in Bellingham, Washington, and he’s been working on a plastic rendition of the Malibu outriggers he grew up with—a Polynesian-inspired sailing canoe that can be paddled, sailed or motored. The design appeals to folks with a rare set of skills and a few thousand dollars to spend.
Photo: Courtesy Tim Niemier
With the Origami Paddler, though, Niemier is back to his old butts-in-boats formula of accessibility and price. Packable paddling options like packrafts and frame kayaks are continuing to gain market share, as people living in urban areas without garages and big vehicles seek ways to get out on the water. The Origami Paddler meets this audience with a versatile craft that can be used as a sit-on kayak or stand-up paddleboard. It competes on price with kayaks and paddleboards sold through mass retailers, and the setup is intuitive—the user just unfolds the three-piece hard-plastic shell and secures a few cam buckles.
The hardest part is getting one. Niemier and his business partner Paul Hoyt struggled with the Covid-related supply headaches plaguing the paddlesports industry. Boats began shipping in July, and the company is now working through a backlog peaking at more than 20,000 units.
The project may have never even come to fruition if Niemier hadn’t gone over the handlebars of his mountain bike in 2019. The crash on one of Niemier’s regular trails fractured the C2 vertebra in his neck. Laying on the ground, Niemier initially thought he was paralyzed. Sensation eventually returned but he spent three months in a neck brace. Eight months after the accident he watched the Kickstarter campaign skyrocket.
“It was a wake-up call,” he says. “All of a sudden I realized I got to live.”
Tallying his many accomplishments as a waterman and kayak designer, there’s no question Niemier has lived, and lived big. Nor has age or injury dimmed his innovative spirit. His mind continues to churn with new ideas. Currently he’s focussed on a process called thermal kinetic compounding, which he believes could make reclaimed plastics into a viable kayak material. If the technology lives up to its promise, Niemier says he’ll ultimately be able to turn plastic bottles and fishing nets into kayaks in Bellingham for less than the cost of virgin plastic boats produced overseas.
While Niemier has played a large role in bringing kayaking to the masses and made a good living doing so, the prospect of recycled kayaks—craft that connect people with oceans and rivers while also protecting those waterways in a small way—keeps the fire burning in the inventor.
“When people get in the water, they are a small part of a big picture,” he says. “It brings you into the present. Everybody could benefit from that, and it is something I personally have really liked to share.”
This article was first published in the 2022 issue of Paddling Business. Inside you’ll find the year’s hottest gear for canoeing, kayaking, whitewater and paddleboarding. Plus: Industry leaders on surviving COVID, the dirty little secret of pro deals, brand consolidation and more. READ IT NOW »
Cutting Edge: Niemier carves a SoCal bomb circa 1970. At top, he poses with the original SOT and for his 2015 biography, and paddles his next brainchild, the Origami Paddler. | Photos: Courtesy Tim Niemier
“I think we're going to make it!” | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Traveling off-road or back roads is often a necessity for paddlers to get to those hard to reach or too-far-to-walk access points. Where the pavement ends the adventure begins. These are the nine rules of shuttle driving to keep in mind next time the job falls to you.
If you have 4×4, know how to engage and disengage it. Pack along towing equipment and shovels, a cell phone, snack, buddy and comfortable shoes. Just in case.
Swerve only to avoid animals that will hurt you in a collision, like moose, elk, deer and bear. | Photo: ArtHouse Studio/Pexels
2 Know When to Swerve
Swerving to avoid wild animals results in thousands of accidents each year. Swerve only to avoid animals that will hurt you in a collision, like moose, elk, deer and bear. Otherwise, wince and keep your fingers crossed for the little fellow, but motor on. Sorry, Peter Rabbit!
3 Watch for Logging Trucks
Logging operations are often the reason there’s a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in the first place. Be vigilant for logging trucks, and approach blind corners and hill tops with caution. Carry and use radios where required to do so.
4 Avoid Mud
The best way to tackle mud while driving shuttle is to avoid it. Work the edges instead of plowing through the middle. Successfully cross muddy sections by picking a straight course and entering with momentum and maintaining it. Enough so you don’t get bogged down and need to apply more power which will create tire spin, but not so much momentum you can’t maintain your desired course.
Assess water hazards by sending in a walking probe. If the water is too deep or moving too fast to send in a walker, don’t drive into it. Whether your vehicle will power through a hood-deep river crossing or get hung up in a foot-deep puddle of water is dependent on make and model, and the terrain under the water. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
“I think we’re going to make it!” | Photo: Scott MacGregor
6 Use a Lower Gear
Attempt uphills with roots, rocks and ruts in a lower gear and lower speeds but with enough momentum to crawl from one feature to another without wheel spin. If you can’t make it without wheel spin, you should be finding another route to the river. The rule of thumb is to travel down a hill in the same gear you would use to climb it. Engage 4×4 before you begin crawling up or down.
Washboards are the most annoying shuttle road hazard. They impair steering and braking because your suspension can’t keep up to the bouncing to keep the rubber on the road. Getting one side of the vehicle to stop shuddering will double your control. Hit the washboard slightly off center so left and right wheels and front or both back wheels are not in the same rut or in the air at the same time.
8 Drive Slowly!
Exposed rocks and roots present a hazard to the underside of your vehicle. Drive slowly. Sliding over is better than smashing into. It’s okay to unload passengers for a section, taking out six hundred pounds of weight raises your clearance significantly—it’s your car, make them walk a few hundred yards.
The best way to tackle mud while driving shuttle is to avoid it. Work the edges instead of plowing through the middle. | Photo: Ahmad Syahrir/Pexels
9 Call Chuck
Call AAA or CAA and you’ll discover they do not respond to calls on non-serviced roads—roads not maintained by township or city road departments. This leaves you hiking out to find a guy named Chuck who owns a 4×4. Unlike AAA or CAA, Chuck is happy to help and requires no annual membership, but would appreciate a case of PBR on your next trip through. Chuck is, of course, all too keen to pull out dumb paddlers. Towing is the last step for all rescue protocols. Dig, push, rock it, and dig more before you let Chuck haul out the chains.
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This article originally appeared in Paddling Magazine Issue 65. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or download the Paddling Magazine app and browse the digital archives here.
“I think we’re going to make it!” | Feature photo: Scott MacGregor
T he Canadian Canoe Museum (CCM) is launching the public phase of their Inspiring Canada by Canoe Campaign and asking the community to help Move the Collection by donating to move a canoe, kayak, paddle or artifact.
A new world-class Canadian Canoe Museum cannot exist without a world-class collection. And as you can imagine, moving more than 600 watercraft and 500 paddles, along with hundreds of artifacts and an entire archival library collection to a new location is no small feat.
“There is an incredible project underway behind the scenes,” explains Curator, Jeremy Ward. “Every vessel and artifact requires detailed cleaning, documentation, stabilizing, packaging, transportation, a quarantine and inspection process and installation in the new museum. Each step is crucial to preserve this renowned collection and its many stories so it can be shared for generations to come. We need your support to make it all happen.”
Earlier this fall, The Canadian Canoe Museum announced the commencement of construction of its new museum at the Johnson Property located at 2077 Ashburnham Drive in Peterborough, ON. The new museum will enable CCM to house 100 percent of its collection in a building that meets Class A conservation standards, directly on the water, which allows for increased on-water and in-person programming while being a key cultural tourism driver in what will become a vibrant community hub on the Peterborough waterfront.
“Moving the collection is a unique opportunity for the community to join us on this journey to create a nationally recognized museum and vibrant community hub. This collection enables us to work with individuals and communities across the country, from coast to coast to coast, to share their voices, perspectives, language and cultural knowledge through the museum to a wider public audience. The community has been with us through every step of the way and we know that by reaching our goal, together we can make this final portage to the water’s edge.”
If you are interested in a behind-the-scenes look at the unique challenges and surprises of moving a collection of this size, please join Curator, Jeremy Ward for a virtual tour on November 25th at 7:00 pm. Register at canoemuseum.ca/virtual-tours/
About The Canadian Canoe Museum (CCM)
With a world-class collection as a catalyst, The Canadian Canoe Museum inspires connection, curiosity and new understanding. In partnership with individuals, groups and communities – locally, provincially and nationally – we work to experience and explore all that our collection can inspire. This sees students opening their minds in our galleries; community members connecting through artisanry; people of all ages getting on the water and learning to paddle; and exhibitions and events that spark conversation and collaboration.
About the New Museum
The Canadian Canoe Museum is building a new home for its world-class collection along the water’s edge in Peterborough, ON. The new museum will be located on a five-acre site in Peterborough, ON that will provide stunning west-facing views of Little Lake, a connection to the Trans Canada Trail, and is surrounded by public parks. It will become a vibrant community space for outdoor activities and the Museum’s canoeing and outdoor programs and events.
The Canadian Canoe Museum has a unique opportunity to create a new cultural destination that will inspire visitors to learn about Canada’s collective history and reinforce our connections to land, water and one another – all through the unique lens of the iconic canoe. Learn more at canoemuseum.ca/new-museum
o stranger to adventure, Nouria Newman recently embarked on an epic trip to the mountains of Squamish, British Columbia to be the first person to paddle the Pitt River. The remote river required a solo hike over a mountain pass—in the middle of winter.
As if trudging through the snowy wilderness with her kayak wasn’t enough of an adventure, she managed to run into some big, furry friends along the way.
Navigating fierce winds and dumping snow made day one a tough one. But day two was even rowdier; it involved climbing up and over a steep, snow-covered mountain with a fully packed kayak in tow. For obvious reasons, when she finally reached the end of the snow and spotted a path along a sub-alpine lake, immediate relief set it.
Phew–this hiking trail was super convenient albeit a little peculiar, she thought.
As she walked down the path Quasimodo style ducking away from the multiple low-hanging branches that slapped at her face and gear she came face-to-face with an unwelcome epiphany: “Oh s***, it’s not people who come here. It’s definitely bears.”
Thankfully, her friend had lent her some bear spray for the trip. She decided now was a good time to clip it to her PFD and keep it handy. It didn’t take long for the bear spray to fall victim to said pesky branches and the safety latch to come loose.
“It burns!” said Newman as she recounted the event in the video. “The problem with a loaded kayak in the forest is that you cannot really go anywhere if you’re not looking and breathing.”
Remarkably, despite the literal obstacles in her path, she was still able to deliver her gluey-eyed self to the river. She even ran into a bear when she got there–unfortunately, the only ‘repellant’ at this point was to splash around in the water. Thankfully the bear didn’t seem too interested in her after all.
The Pitt wasn’t the best whitewater but with the right flow it has potential,” Nouria reflected. Despite the fear, the pain, the unfulfilled river expectations, Newman still rates the trip as “a very good mission” and is scheming up her next adventure. Watch the video recap here.
This article was first published in the 2022 issue of Paddling Business. Inside you’ll find the year’s hottest gear for canoeing, kayaking, whitewater and paddleboarding. Plus: Industry leaders on surviving COVID, the dirty little secret of pro deals, brand consolidation and more. 
