Why You Must Paddle Western Newfoundland

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February 28, 2019

Unlike the 1996 thriller starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, this is one Rock you won’t want to escape. Photo: Dru Kennedy

When most people conjure an image of Newfoundland’s coastline, they see waves crashing into rocks. Big cold waves. Big jagged rocks. While there’s certainly some truth to this picture, the west coast of the island is an epic place to experience on a paddleboard—as long as you know how to read the tides and winds and waves, and aren’t afraid to ask locals for advice.

[ Paddling Trip Guide: View all paddling adventures in Newfoundland & Labrador ]

Gros Morne National Park is the main attraction in western Newfoundland

Towering cliffs rise from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, humpback whales and orcas migrate through, bald eagles and ospreys soar overhead, and laidback harbor towns have the essentials—fish and chips, and beer. On Bonne Bay, a double-armed fjord carved out by a pair of glaciers, a sill protects the inner bays and provides generally calmer waters. The scenery here is no less majestic than the open ocean, especially if you’re paddling beneath the Tablelands, a barren, rust- colored, flat-topped mountain formed when the earth’s mantle was forced skyward millions of years ago.

At 1,805 square kilometers, the park can easily keep you in paddleboarding bliss for a week—two if you’ve got the gear for cold-water SUP surfing. There are also inland rivers and lakes, and thousands of kilometers of coastline to explore.

Plan Your Trip To Gros Morne National Park

IF YOU HAVE HALF A DAY:

For a challenging paddle in the national park, hit the shoreline below the Green Point campground. You’ll need booties to negotiate the slippery rocky entry, and a wetsuit if you plan to ride some waves. If you want to surf, take stock of the bigger boulders beforehand at low tide, and bail before you reach the impact zone. Or hit the sandy beach further north at Cow Head instead.

IF YOU HAVE A DAY:

Norris Point, a small town perched on the promontory where the two arms of Bonne Bay meet, is home to Gros Morne Adventures. The beach behind the outfitter’s cozy office and café offers access to the water, and proprietors Kristen and Robbie Hickey can help you map out a route, which could include a stop for lunch across the fjord in Woody Point.The Hickeys plan to add SUPs to their rental fleet of kayaks for the 2019 season.

IF YOU HAVE A WEEKEND:

The Humber River flows past the back lawn of the Marble Inn Resort in Steady Brook. With due diligence on water levels, currents, rapids and other obstacles, an upstream overnighter in the deep green river valley is magical. Stop in at the resort first for a chat with owner Joe Dicks, who runs Explorenewfoundland.com and is a veteran kayak guide. Ask for info about any spot on the island. If he hasn’t paddled there himself, he probably knows somebody who has.

IF YOU HAVE A WEEK:

The problem with talking to Joe Dicks about paddleboarding destinations is you’ll want to visit every place he mentions. Barasway Bay, just west of the town of Burgeo on the south coast, is about three hours from Steady Brook, which qualifies as a short drive in Newfoundland. Here, you can paddle and camp among abandoned outport villages in sheltered waters and, if you’re lucky, spot a local trifecta: an eagle, seal, and caribou in a single glance.

Other Things To Note:

WEATHER

July and August are your best bets for sun and warmth, but with neoprene and fortitude, you’re good from May until at least November.

STAY

Parks Canada’s oTENTiks—half tent, half rustic cabin—at Green Point is worth the splurge for a heavenly home after a day on the water.

DON’T MISS

Western Brook Pond, a freshwater fjord hemmed in by sheer 600-meter cliffs, is a three-kilometer walk from the highway. Unfortunately, paddling is discouraged here.

DIVERSIONS

Icebergs are common early in the season, and whale watching heats up by mid-summer. Hike to the 806-meter summit of Gros Morne Mountain.

LEARN MORE

Parks Canada doesn’t offer SUP-specific info for Gros Morne, but their kayak page will give you all the basics, www.pc.gc.ca.

Casper Steinfath SUPs Across The Skagerrak Ocean

By

Arija Bunkis

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February 28, 2019

Casper Steinfath Paddleboards Skagerrak Ocean — If at first you don’t succeed. Casper Steinfath on his second attempt of the Viking Crossing expedition. Photo: Fredrick Clements

Why did Casper Steinfath cross the Skagerrak Ocean? Growing up on the shores of Jutland, Denmark, paddleboard champion Casper Steinfath dreamed of following in the steps of the Vikings and crossing the 80-mile-wide Skagerrak strait to the coast of Norway.

On February 1, 2017, at the age of 24, Steinfath attempted his first Viking Crossing and failed.

“It was a disaster,” he says. “I was cocky and jumped into something I wasn’t prepared for.”

On his first attempt, Steinfath came up just 12 kilometers short. After 16 hours and 20 minutes, he could see the lighthouse on the Norwegian shore, but wind and waves denied him access. “I just wasn’t getting any closer,” he says.

Steinfath is no stranger to challenge. He’s a four-time International Surfing Association SUP world champion and 2017 Red Bull Heavy Water Champion. Unused to failing at something, this became Steinfath’s motivation to try the crossing again.

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: See all paddleboards ]

It was a personal dream, and a challenge,” he says. “What it became was a lesson about accepting failure. I walked in with one perspective and walked out with another. It was a learning process, and the fact I was defeated motivated me to learn from my mistakes.

Steinfath’s second attempt at the Viking Crossing became a personal quest to show humans are capable of anything, as long as we can accept our failure and grow from it.

If at first you don’t succeed. Casper Steinfath on his second attempt of the Viking Crossing expedition. Photo: Fredrick Clements

After his first attempt, he changed his approach to training. Instead of going to Hawaii to train in similar but warmer conditions, he stayed in Denmark to acclimatize to the cold and the darkness. He woke up at 3 a.m. every day to paddle waves in the dark, so he wouldn’t get seasick like in his first attempt. Preparation consumed him.

[ Plan your next paddling adventure with the Paddling Trip Guide ]

Steinfath couldn’t do it alone. In training for the second attempt, his brother, Peter, was a constant support. He also had a dozen people advising on safety, navigation, nutrition and media.

“I realized I could achieve so much more asking for help,” says Steinfath. The most intimate task a friend helped with was lubing him up with Vaseline so his wetsuit wouldn’t give him a rash.

My world was turned upside down

At 2 a.m. on March 18, 2018, Steinfath launched his second attempt. He says he worried the entire 19 hours something would go wrong, and he would have to abort. His team followed on a fishing boat and helped him navigate in the dark. Knowing these people were standing by helped maintain his focus, he says.

[ Video: Paddleboarding Next To The World Largest Whale ]

Twelve kilometers from Norway, the conditions were similar to the first attempt, but this time Steinfath was better prepared. “Instead of fighting the ocean and the current, I came in sideways,” he says. After almost a full day at sea, he arrived on the shore of Norway, the first paddleboarder to cross the frigid Skagerrak strait.

Nine months later, Steinfath is still reflecting on the experience. “My world was turned upside down. It’s cliché, but I learned I’m capable of a lot more than I thought I was,” he says. The crossing has changed how Steinfath approaches competition as well. Where he was once scared of losing, now, “it’s not what defines me.”

[ Also read: Joanne Hamilton-Vale Sets New SUP Records On Yukon River Quest ]

Steinfath hopes expeditions like his challenge conceptions about personal and physical limits. “If I see one person question the limits about what he or she can do based on what I did, then that’s amazing,” he says.

Steinfath doesn’t know what’s next for him in the expedition world, but he’s hungry for the next challenge. And without a doubt, if he gets knocked down, he will surely get back up again.

Why Paddling Is Vital For Human Survival

By

Scott MacGregor

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February 28, 2019

And we see here the elusive magazine publisher in summer plumage with his offspring in their natural habitat self-medicating and pumping up their immune systems. Photo: Scott MacGregor

For most of the last two million years, humans lived in a natural world. Living in a natural world one relies on nature for food and shelter, and early peoples would have spent a good part of their days outside. By comparison, the time we’ve spent indoors clumped together like lab rats in urban dwellings is just a sliver of the time we’ve spent on Earth. This shift from following caribou migration to picking up a box of microwavable lemon chicken in the freezer aisle of the supermarket is very recent and very dramatic. And it’s having powerful effects on our lives and our well-being.

Why Paddling Is Vital For Human Survival

Kuo isn’t a paddler, but she walks to her office on the lush University of Illinois campus where for 30 years she has been studying the effects of nature on humans. Humans living in today’s urban dwellings are like early zoo animals living in captivity, she says. When we are provided just the basics of food and shelter, we get by, but we fail to thrive.

According to habitat selection theory, animals are wired for whatever habitat we evolved in. Humans, just like the rest of the animals on the planet, thrive in a natural habitat physically, psychologically and socially. Kuo equates life in a two-bedroom condo to a 1950s circus zebra living in a cage.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, living in an unfit habitat we undergo social, physiological and physical breakdown.

Society has changed at extraordinary speed. Our DNA hasn’t. If you’re reading this magazine, you are probably getting enough water, food, shelter and feel reasonably safe from predators. We used to believe this was enough for animals in captivity, and anything else was a nice bonus.

It turns out, small perks like access to nature make both zoo animals and magazine publishers less mentally fatigued and better at handling stressful deadlines and challenging social situations.

Without access to nature, humans become more irritable and have difficulty handling conflict in productive ways.

In the podcast, Kuo shared results from studies where researchers looking at two identical urban housing projects—identical except one had mostly concrete

surroundings and the other a more natural landscape with trees, rocks and grass. Two years’ worth of police records show significantly higher reports of conflict and violence in the paved-over neighborhood than the more natural environment. A similar study looking at local drugstore prescriptions saw substantially fewer mood-related medications administered in greener urban areas. Residents exposed to a more natural world showed fewer signs of dissension, anxiety and depression.

Spending time in the natural world also strengthens our bodies’ natural immune systems.

After spending a few days in nature, researchers find measurable increases in what are known as natural killer cells. Natural killer cells are our bodies’ biological rapid response to viruses.Three-days in a forest reserve boasted these harmful cell crushers by 50 percent. Three days relaxing in an urban setting did nothing. Even better, 30 days later researches still found elevated immune levels of 25 percent in the bloodstream. What family doctor wouldn’t prescribe simple daily exposure to nature and a weekend paddling adventure at least every 30 days?

It’s possible to stimulate some of the positive health effects by misting natural fragrances, listening to the recordings of chirping crickets and changing your screensaver from flying toasters to a lush, green rainforest wallpaper. But the real thing is better. I’m no penned-in zebra but even I know watching an episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom isn’t the same as running free on the arid grasslands of Ethiopia.

My modern, desk-bound urban-dwelling lifestyle doesn’t afford me the time to carve my paddles, craft my boats or hunt my own food. And so, my physical and mental health relies on getting outside using paddling gear like you’ll find on the following pages. Research would suggest yours does too. Thank you, Ming Kuo. I’m beginning to feel better already.

Scott MacGregor is the co-founder and publisher of Paddling Magazine. In the wild, zebras usually live to be between 20 to 30 years old; creekboaters about the same; lakewater canoeists, much longer; standup paddleboarders, too early to tell.

Why The SUP Resale Market Is About To Change

By

Canadian Canoe Culture, Paddling Magazine Staff

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February 28, 2019

Brand consolidation and better industry forecasting will eliminate the glut and overproduction of boards and will support the resale market, according to experts. Photo: Rob Kavcic

There’s a scene in Barbarian Days, William Finnegan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning surfing memoir, when he witnesses two friends huck their mint-condition long-boards off a high cliff.

It’s 1968 and the shortboard revolution has transformed board design overnight. The goal was to use the insurance money from the “stolen” longboards to upgrade to the new design.

Why The SUP Resale Market Is About To Change

In the past decade, a similar quake in the paddleboarding industry hasn’t quite resulted in boards being sacrificed off cliffs, but it’s had a depressing effect on resale, particularly for race boards.

A recent listing on a Distressed Mullet online classified it had a lightly used 2017 Starboard All Star, one of the most popular race boards, selling for $1,000—less than 30 percent of its $3,399 retail price. Compared with the kayak and canoe market, where old boats sell for a healthy percentage of new, this is nuts.

The seller, an Eden, Utah-based paddler named Eric, reveals some of the factors at play. Like a lot of SUP racers, Eric likes to be on the latest model because board designs are constantly changing. In the traditional paddling marketplace, a good canoe or kayak design would retain its resale values for years, even decades.

The SUP industry is more like the ski, bike and automotive sectors.

Each production cycle brings distinct models promising to be faster, lighter, more stable and more durable. Eric buys his boards slightly used from dealers or reps—he picked up his 2017 as a demo from a California retailer for $2,200—hangs onto them for a year and then resells the boards before the models depreciate too much.

This way I never get stuck with a board three or four years old worth almost nothing. I can get something out of it and put it towards a new board.

Being a brand-new sport, paddleboard racing designs have changed markedly over the past few years, creating a kind of arms race in the top echelons, not unlike the surfboard design shift in 1968.

Five years ago, popular race models were 27 inches wide. Today’s top paddlers are on 21-inchers. The racing market is also relatively small and, anecdotally, appears to have plateaued. Big events like the Pacific Paddle Games and the Carolina Cup are seeing reduced numbers after an initial surge in participation.

Steve Martin, owner of the shop Boardsports down the street from me in Toronto, Ontario, estimates the total population of avid SUP racers in his home province is 200, and the entire market for race boards is probably 30 annually– “and very few of those are sold at retail.”

[Read Also: The Future Of SUP]

The SUP industry is fairly lax when giving out pro deals, according to Doug Hopkins, president of Boards & More Inc., which distributes Fanatic SUPs in North America.

“The brands tend to sell a lot of race boards direct to people they perceive are valuable ambassadors to their brand because they want to see a lot of boards on race courses,” says Hopkins. “The manufacturers are making good money on the deal because they’re selling it directly to the racer for a similar price they would have sold it to a dealer. I think this was overdone in the past few years. And those people getting good deals on the boards were able to flip them and get new ones and flood the market.”

On my home waters, there’s probably at least half-a-dozen sponsored paddlers reselling two boards a year into a market of 200 paddlers. This alone is enough to saturate the local market with discount boards over a few years. Even if every racer replaces his or her board in that time, the used board market quickly bot- toms out. Selling a three-year-old board becomes virtually impossible.

Since race boards are so specialized, there’s a schism between what racers want to paddle and what can be sold to non-racers—even with recreational paddlers increasingly being steered towards sleeker touring boards with displacement hulls and pointed noses. The standard race width is now about 21 to 24 inches, whereas so-called performance touring models start around 27 inches, with 29 inches being the most popular, according to Hopkins.

“If you’re trying to sell a used race board your market is limited to racers and they tend to want the latest boards,” says Hopkins. “They know exactly what they want and it’s not a used one from two years ago, or even last year.”

Another factor is the SUP industry’s booming growth over the past decade, which saw boards overproduced, forcing inventory clearouts, which further depressed the market.

Boardsports, for example, has new race boards going back to 2013, some listed for nearly a quarter of the original price; a new 2014 Naish Javelin LE 14’ x 26” is marked down from $5,400 to $1,499.

Outside of racing, the recreational SUP resale market isn’t quite so bad, but it’s still prey to many of the same factors—too many competing brands, the influx of cheap boards from big box stores, and an overproduction of boards due to poor sales forecasting.

“There’s a lot of product out there that isn’t very expensive, which is driving down the end user price,” says Charlie Burwell, general manager for Naish.

However, the market should firm up soon.

Designs are not changing as quickly. “Most of the major brands are down to subtle improvements,” says Burwell— boards aren’t likely to get any narrower. And better industry forecasting will eliminate the glut and overproduction of boards.

“That’s definitely going to be cleaned up and that might be one of the biggest influencers out there. It takes a while. Things don’t happen overnight. But as brands go out of business, stores go out of business, brands get more careful about what they build and the technology slows down, it will all come under control,” predicts Hopkins.

In the meantime, now is a great time to buy a SUP.

[View all SUPs in the Paddling Buyer’s Guide]

The entry point to high- end race equipment has never been lower, hopefully encouraging new entrants. And maybe someday, all the used SUP boards out there will realize their true value, like in Barbarian Days, when Finnegan admits he has no idea if his friends’ insurance scam worked, but he knows those doomed longboards, “simply left in a garage, would be worth thousands of dollars today.”

Author: Tim Shuff

The First Woman To Paddleboard The Straits Of Florida

By

Jessica Wynne Lockhart

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February 28, 2019

Free girl and world record holder, Victoria Burgess, following the Chica Libre expedition. Photo: Courtesy Ryan Pinder

The mere act of listening to Victoria Burgess describe a typical day in her life is, well, exhausting. It starts when her alarm goes off at 5 a.m., giving her just enough time to eat, walk her dogs and stretch before she starts work at 7 a.m.

The 34-year-old fire inspector and graduate student works on the road, so she typically eats in her car, freeing up her lunch break for a run, CrossFit or yoga. Back at home around 4 p.m., it’s only in between chores, dinner and studying when she’s able to squeeze in a standup paddleboard session. And this doesn’t even include a week when she has other things on the go, like coaching fellow paddleboarders, or organizing the RK Sunshine SUP Series, which she runs with her boyfriend.

[View all standup paddleboards in the Paddling Buyer’s Guide]

Victoria Burgess Paddleboards For Women

I am used to juggling a lot at once, but this was on a whole other level,” says Burgess.

This refers to the training she completed for Chica Libre, a SUP crossing of the Straits of Florida, the 100-mile-wide channel of water between Cuba and Florida, done to raise the profile of women in sports.

In 2016, Burgess completed her first open-ocean crossing in Hawaii, paddling 33 miles across the Kaiwi channel in the Molokai 2 Oahu Paddleboard World Championship (M20).

She came in sixth and fell in love with navigational races—later placing third in 2017’s Maui 2 Molokai (M2M) race—but she felt at a disadvantage.

“Hawaii waters are a bit different, and I can’t train for months like most people who live there,” she explains. “So I thought, ‘I have plenty of water around here—let’s see if there are any channels I can cross.’”

Weekends are when she got in her longest training sessions, paddling for up to 12 hours at a time.

But managing the demands of a full-time job, studying and training wasn’t her only challenge. Midway through preparation, she was knocked off course when both her godmother and 17-year-old dog passed away within a short period of time.

“There were days I was just over it,” says Burgess. “The preparation was more challenging than the crossing itself in many ways.”

That’s not to say the crossing was easy. Accompanied by a crew boat, she started in Cuba, heading toward Key West, Florida, but a wind storm meant choppy waters and constant wind coming from her right side. She was so focused on the nose of her board she didn’t even notice when the sun went down—but she did notice when darkness set in.

“I wanted to quit at that point,” she says. True to character, Burgess pushed through, talking herself through the blackest hours of the night. “I asked myself, ‘Are you dying? No. So keep going.’ There was no reason for me to stop.”

[Also Read: Why Did Casper Steinfath Paddleboard The Skagerrak Ocean?]

It was after 27 hours, 48 minutes and 115 miles Burgess reached land, making her the first woman to successfully cross the Straits of Florida on a standup paddleboard.

I learned you can pretty much do anything you put your mind to as long as you plan and push through anything that comes your way.

Now, working with the Women’s Sports Foundation—who she dedicated the proceeds of Chica Libre to—she’s sharing this message with girls in local schools.

Burgess believes the accessibility of paddleboarding, much like running, provides a gate- way activity for girls and women to get involved in competitive sports.

“I hope I can spread motivation to even just one person to go out and conquer her goals,” she says.

[Watch: The Best Of The Worst SUP Fails Video]

How Emre Bosut Is Building A SUP-Surf Paradise

By

Dan Rubinstein

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February 28, 2019

Photo: Liv Von Olereich — Build it and they will come. T’ashii is a Tla-o-qui-aht word meaning path on land or on water. Photo: Liv von Olereich

Emre Bosut stands in the middle of a circle of three dozen paddleboarders limbering up in wetsuits and drysuits on MacKenzie Beach in Tofino, British Columbia, the end of the highway on the west coast of Vancouver Island and the surf capital of Canada.

Bosut spreads a laminated chart of local waters and landforms on the sand and, with a finger, maps out a route around Felice and Stubbs islands.

You don’t want to fight the ocean, you’re not going to win that battle

Then he asks us to identify topographic features and weather conditions—such as seafloor depth, swell, winds and tides—that could present challenges during today’s SUP tour. You don’t want to fight the ocean,” says Bosut. “You’re not going to win that battle. Let’s work with the water. That’s always a lot more fun.

Building a SUP-surfing paradise

Bosut, five-foot-seven with a mop of curly black hair and a confident teacher’s voice honed by nearly two decades of guiding, runs Tofino’s T’ashii Paddle School, which specializes in paddleboard surfing and touring. The outing he’s helming on this sunny late September afternoon is part of the SUP Symposium, one of the biggest annual paddleboarding meetups in the country, co-hosted by T’ashii and Victoria-based South Island SUP.

When the event was launched in 2015, modeled after similar kayaker weekends, it was envisioned as an opportunity for skills development and networking among instructors, outfitters and others in the SUP industry. Over the last four years, the symposium has evolved into more of a community gathering, attracting everybody from gear reps to people who just love to paddle. Attendance crested at about 40 in 2018, mostly from British Columbia, but also Ontario, Quebec and the United States. And Bosut, a transplant from Toronto, who was drawn to the Pacific Ocean by his obsession with surfing, has found himself riding the wave of a growing sport.

Born in Germany to Turkish parents, Bosut, now in his mid-30s, emigrated to Canada with his family at age two. He was introduced to kayaking by a high school teacher, who took students on whitewater trips.

This propelled Bosut and his friends into catching waves with their boats on Lake Ontario, which segued into canoe tripping throughout Ontario as a camp counselor, river surfing on the St. Lawrence while studying business at McGill University, summer jobs raft guiding on the Ottawa River and in British Columbia, and a two-month stint in Tofino—the hook on which he would be reeled in.

I’ve made many of my major life decisions around catching wave energy

Montreal’s Habitat 67 standing wave gave Bosut the surfing bug. He’d go at dawn, before class, and in the mid-2000s, the infancy of river surfing in the city, he was often the only person on the water. Driving to campus in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic, still in his wetsuit, adrenalin still pumping, it was like he was living in a parallel universe, a sensation vanquishing any interest in pursuing an office career.

After university, when the appeal of entry-level hospitality jobs wore thin and the transience of work-to-surf gigs in France and Central America began to feel like skimming the surface of cultures he would never become part of, Bosut settled in Tofino in 2011. Right when paddleboarding was starting to spread across the nation.

Initially, he worked as a sea kayak guide, but year-round jobs on the water were hard to secure. Starting a business was one way to carve out a career and plant roots, says Bosut, noting the growth of Tofino Paddle Surf, which is run by lifelong local Catherine Bruhwiler, a national surf champion and paddling instructor who, with her brothers Raph and Sepp, helped put Tofino on the international surfing map.

Bosut opened T’ashii in 2013, which allowed him to purchase five paddleboards at wholesale prices. He had paddleboarded a grand total of once at the time, on the calm tidal flatwater of Tofino Inlet, where T’ashii currently has a rental shack.

[ View all paddleboards in the Paddling Buyer’s Guide ]

“I’ve made many of my major life decisions around catching wave energy,” he says, “but I also love paddling, and SUP allows me to combine these two passions.”

T’ashii has developed incrementally since then, now offering SUP rentals, tours and surf lessons, and indigenous cultural canoe outings led by Nuu-chah-nulth guides.

In a town where every other vehicle has a board on the roof, there has been some friction between prone and paddle surfers over lineup etiquette.

At South Chesterman Beach, a great beginner’s break, somebody affixed “no paddleboarding” stickers to a sign near the parking lot.It’s intermediate surfers, frustrated with their performance on the water, who bark at paddleboarders, Bosut speculates. Although, SUP surfers who naïvely snake waves are also to blame.

Regardless, in a place like Tofino, which has so many consistent breaks, Bosut sees mutual respect as the key to harmony.

[ Also Read: The Ultimate Guide To Buying A Standup Paddleboard ]

That’s certainly the vibe at the SUP Symposium, which is open to anybody with advanced flatwater skills. Guides can maintain credentials and small business owners share ideas. Amateur paddlers can learn to surf or tour in dynamic ocean conditions. And people connect on the water and around the campfire, drawn together by their shared attraction to SUP and Tofino, and stoked to spread the gospel of both.

Why did I ultimately choose SUP over so many other things?” asks Bosut. “I suppose because it gives you versatility on the water. You can move around on the board. You can jump off and go for a swim. You can catch waves, or go camping.

There are lots of nuances, and you make split-second decisions when SUP surfing. But as you gain more experience and more control, time slows down. You relax and adapt to the situation you’re in. You’re not going to power through and win. That’s a pretty good metaphor for paddleboarding, and for my life as well.

Camp Wapomeo Women Complete 50-Day Canoe Trip

By

Canadian Canoe Culture

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February 28, 2019

several young women hugging each other surrounded by canoes in Algonquin Park, Ontario. — Good times never seemed so good. | Photo: Mike Last

Three canoes are rafted up in the middle of Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park on a picture-perfect, blue-sky day. There’s a light breeze, which is a change from the usually confused headwinds from all directions.

It’s the end of August and the shores of Camp Wapomeo, located on an island in the middle of Canoe Lake, are lined with young women who have all completed their own canoe trips this summer, ranging in length from a simple overnight to 42 days.

“They probably don’t want to come in yet,” one of the staff members suggests to a camper as they watch the canoes hesitate offshore. Word of this group’s return spreads faster than the wildfires the season has become infamous for and campers and staff begin to crowd the docks and beach to welcome the voyageurs home.

Each summer Camp Wapomeo sends out four 50-day canoe trips

It is a tradition since the first 50-day expedition in 1985. The longest trip the camp offers, this rugged trek through the wilderness by portage and paddle is only available to the oldest campers who have previously completed at least a 36-day canoe trip.

The young women now returning worked with staff members to plan the route, starting in the northern ghost town of Biscotasing, Ontario, on July 2 and paddling approximately 1,000 kilometers to return home on August 20.

[ Also read: The Best Canoe Trip Packing Checklist ]

It wasn’t an easy summer. Record-breaking heat and little rain contributed to wildfires across the province, necessitating daily satellite calls to camp, forcing near daily route adjustments and a majority of the summer cooking by gas rather than a campfire.

Every cabin group completing a canoe trip over 20 days maintains their legacy in the form of a plaque in the Camp Wapomeo dining hall. However, trippers who complete the 50-day expedition go down in the history books, commanding a level of respect and adoration from their younger peers and alumni.

As the paddlers take up strokes again, just 30 meters from the end of their journey and with the gathered crowd eagerly waiting to celebrate their arrival, the emotion is just too much to contain. Tears stream down the cheeks of several paddlers.

After 50 days with only each other and the rhythm of their paddles for company, they are overcome with thoughts of the journey’s end, the sun setting on summer, and perhaps the dying embers of their own days as campers.

Theirs is a feeling anyone who has completed a canoe trip can relate to. The glimmer of water at the end of a difficult portage or reaching the shore of a campsite after a long paddle through a headwind. That full body relief of achieving a goal.

Good times never seemed so good. Text and Feature Photo: Mike Last

Explorer Will Steger On His Next Arctic Paddling Challenge

By

Conor Mihell

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February 28, 2019

Will Steger visits North Star Canoes to see his modified expedition model made by Ted Bell. | Photo: Brian Peterson

Leave it to one of the greatest polar explorers of all time to dream up an audacious 70-day shoulder-season traverse of the Canadian barren lands involving a canoe, skis and—as it turned out—very little open water.

Over the past 20 years, in between record-setting dogsled expeditions to the North and South poles and establishing a Minnesota-based non-profit to document the effects of climate change, Will Steger has embarked on several early spring ski and paddle trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, adjacent to his hometown of Ely, Minnesota.

Will Steger will be traveling solo with a custom-designed canoe

Traveling solo, Steger employed his vast experience to devise ways of dealing with extremely hazardous conditions, hauling a custom-designed canoe sled over ice and paddling open leads of flowing water when necessary.

Steger, 74, felt prepared to tackle a more ambitious spring breakup trip in the Canadian barren lands in March, 2018 He departed Black Lake in northern Saskatchewan on the equinox, bound for Baker Lake on Hudson Bay, 1,000 miles distant.

“It’s impossible without a drysuit,” he says. “The native people wouldn’t have risked it. If you go through the ice [without a drysuit] the odds are really against you.

He planned to finish his journey about the time most wilderness canoeists start packing for northern trips. According to Steger’s research, such a journey straddling the transition season between winter and spring had never been attempted before.

“It’s impossible without a drysuit,” he says. “The native people wouldn’t have risked it. If you go through the ice [without a drysuit] the odds are really against you.

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Besides his waterproof-breathable “miracle suit,” Steger’s other secret weapon is a canoe design he has been tweaking for more than 20 years with Ted Bell of Minnesota’s North Star Canoes.

The pair rounded off the bow and stern of North Star’s 14.5-foot Phoenix solo tripper to better slide on irregular terrain and fortified Bell’s proprietary carbon-aramid construction. The canoe is rigged with a dogsled-inspired runner system, which can be removed if necessary for paddling longer sections of open water.

For its part, North Star’s Bear Paulsen says the partnership with Steger has helped the manufacturer develop a “flexible resin system for maximum durability in some of the harshest conditions on earth.”

His one close call came on April 20, at the headwaters of the Thelon River. Steger hauled overland to avoid flowing water, before veering back onto an ice-covered lake.

Steger’s 2018 expedition began in a deep freeze, with more snow than he anticipated south of the treeline. Winter conditions and frigid winds persisted as he entered the barrens in April.

“I was prepared to travel in conditions from 40 below to 40 above [Fahrenheit],” says Steger, who used a Stephenson Warmlite mountaineering tent for shelter and thawed drinking water and prepared meals on an MSR white gas stove. “This year was so cold I was at the margins of what my equipment could handle. I was fine, but I had to pay attention.”

His one close call came on April 20, at the headwaters of the Thelon River. Steger hauled overland to avoid flowing water, before veering back onto an ice-covered lake. “It was snowing and blowing,” he recalls. “It looked like I was on black ice, but my ski went through. There was hardly any ice at all.”

Steger salvaged the situation and retreated to safe ice, where he paused to reflect on the experience. “I made a mistake,” he admits. The experience reinforced Steger’s mantra to “be in the moment all the time.”

In the end, winter conditions made the entire expedition reminiscent of Steger’s previous Arctic journeys—“but without the dogs and the [polar bear] gun,” he says. The severe weather reaffirmed his efforts to educate the public on the less predictable effects of climate change.“It’s the opposite of what you’d think global warming will be like,” he says. “It’s all driven by changes in the upper atmosphere. A real obvious impact is how the caribou are disappearing up there.” Steger had a deadline to finish on day 70 of his trip.

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After pushing hard for two months, Steger decided to enact a Plan B, ending his trip and leaving his canoe at the headwaters of the Back River, where he’s planning to continue this spring on a 90-day route to the Arctic Ocean.

It’s a new, beautiful territory for me,” says Steger. “It’s all so alluring. I love studying the maps and figuring it out. So many different types of routes are possible up there.

Will Steger visits North Star Canoes to see his modified expedition model made by Ted Bell. Feature Photo: Brian Peterson

Why You Need To Paddle Lake Revelstoke

By

Jessica Wynne Lockhart

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February 28, 2019

two people paddling a canoe on Lake Revelstoke surrounded by mountains — A famed explorer and cartographer, David Thompson was the first European to visit the Revelstoke area 206 years ago. He arrived, of course, by canoe. | Photo: Laura Szanto Photography

If explorer and cartographer David Thompson were to map the Columbia River today, he might find it substantially easier than the journey he took more than 200 years ago. For starters, the aptly named Dalles des Morts (Death Rapids) met their own untimely death in the mid-’80s when the waterway was dammed.

Today, in the place of rapids, sits a calm reservoir known as Lake Revelstoke.

While Lake Revelstoke may be manmade, it appears anything but unnatural. Many of the landscape’s features still appear much as they would have in Thompson’s day. The 125-kilometer stretch of water is surrounded by the world’s only inland temperate rainforest, with glacier-capped peaks filling in views on every side.

Lush and green in the summertime, the mountainsides are even more breathtaking in autumn when golden larches prepare to lose their needles. Shores lined with huckleberries are visited by bears, elk and wolves, and waterfalls trickle around every corner.

It’s a lake made for paddling—

Much of the western shore’s secret beaches and hidden coves can only be accessed by water, while Highway 23 provides ample access along the length of the east side.

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On a calm mid-summer Saturday morning, we don’t see another boat out on the glassy water. According to tour guide Amy Flexman, it’s just a typical day on Lake Revelstoke. “It’s easily accessible, but it’s never busy,” says Flexman, owner of outfitter Flexpeditions. “You have a feeling like you might be the only one who has ever set foot on the piece of wilderness you are exploring. The vastness is the beauty of it.”

Plan your trip to Lake Revelstoke

If you have a half day:

Put in at the public boat launch above Revel- stoke Dam and head north towards Martha Creek. A few hours is all you need to discover hidden rocky beaches. On windy days, the Columbia River just south of the town of Revelstoke might be a better bet. There, paddle marshy edges at Arrowhead, a former steamboat port that flooded when the dam was built.

If you have a day:

Plentiful snow melt from the surrounding mountains means epic waterfalls. The best way to chase them? From on the water. A circuit starting from Blanket Creek Provincial Park will take you to three waterfalls flowing into the Columbia River, including one with a drop of over 300 feet.

If you have a weekend:

Spend your time exploring all the nooks and crannies near Carnes Creek. Only a 30-minute drive north of the town of Revelstoke, it’s also the site of a camping area with incredible vistas. For a more adventurous weekend, launch on the faster-moving Columbia River. Beginning at the town of Revelstoke, head south to Shelter Bay, stopping to overnight on the wild shore along the way.

If you have a week:

Follow the path David Thompson made in 1811 as he charted the area. Launching at Mica Creek, head south until you can’t paddle south anymore. While the trip can be rushed in three days, stretching it out over a week provides plenty of time to explore the lake’s fjords, inlets and waterfalls.

Things you should know about Lake Revelstoke

Weather:

Multiple outfitters offer canoe and kayak rentals, shuttle service and guided tours, including Flexpeditions (www.flexpeditions.com) and Natural Escapes (www.naturalescapes.ca). For standup paddleboard rentals and tours, contact Fine Line SUP (www.finelinesup.com).

Don’t miss:

Launched in 2017, the Revelstoke Paddle Challenge follows the route David Thompson took over 200 years ago and the route the Secwépemc people used before that. Over three days in July, paddlers travel up to the full 125 kilometers (www.paddlerevelstoke.ca). In August is the nearby Jordan River Festival and Race.

Digital detox:

North of Revelstoke Dam, there’s no cell phone reception. For longer excursions, consider packing a satellite phone or communications device, which can be rented locally from Outdoor Logistics (www.outdoorlogistics.ca).

Diversions:

Year-round, you might spot moose, bighorn sheep and even caribou. However, autumn is the time to visit if you want to see the salmon run, and when salmon and trout flood the creeks and rivers.

Did You Know?

The Columbia River was once home to sturgeon-nosed canoes. Distinctive watercraft built by the area’s First Nations people, the canoe is immediately recognizable from the unusual reverse slope of its bow and stern.

8 Things You Didn’t Know About Yokes

By

Paddling Magazine Staff

-

February 28, 2019

photo: paddling magazine staff — it's not a yoke

1. On a canoe, the yoke is the cross beam in the boat’s center, connecting the starboard and port sides. Hopefully, yours has a curved indentation in the center for better ergonomics while portaging.

2. Non-paddlers might be more familiar with the kind of wooden yoke traditionally used to secure a pair of oxen together, enabling them to pull a load when working in pairs.

3. An ox can pull its own weight, usually between 1,500 and 3,000 pounds. A well-trained team of two can pull up to 12,000 pounds for short distances, according to Lancaster Farming. The word acre was once defined as the area one pair of oxen yoked to a single- beam walking plow could till on the longest day of the year. The measurement of an acre has since been refined to 43,560 square feet.

4. The first yoke used for agriculture dates back to 4000 BC. With such a lengthy history, it’s not surprising the word yoke has connotations of servitude. Common idioms like under the yoke or a yoke around someone’s neck refer to oppressive forces—not portaging a 70-pound canoe.

5. In aeronautics, a yoke, also known as a control wheel, is used for piloting fixed-wing aircraft. The pilot uses the yoke to control the altitude of the plane, and pitch and roll. In November 2018, an Australian pilot of a small, twin-propeller plane fell asleep at the yoke and overshot his landing on the island of Tasmania by 30 miles.

6. Egg yolk is a major source of vitamins and minerals. It contains all of an egg’s fat and cholesterol, and nearly half of its protein. The yolk of the egg is just one cell and provides nutrients to a developing embryo if the egg is fertilized.

7. Replacing or upgrading your yoke is a straightforward, seven-step process any paddler with a drill can manage.

8. To truly make portages comfortable and avoid the pain of the yoke digging into shoulders, some paddlers suggest padding your yoke with tiny, clamp-on shoulder cushions. Meanwhile, traditionalists just shake their heads and tump on by.