Learn to control your kayak and paddle more efficiently when faced with strong winds by using these tips from Aria Kooy of the White Squall Paddling Centre (whitesquall.com) in Parry Sound, Ontario.
Why There’s Never Been A Better Time To Be A Canoeist
Murmuring along at 30,000 feet over one of Canada’s great rivers, shoehorned into a coach seat of an unnamed domestic air carrier (whose motto appears to be, “We’re not happy ‘til you’re not happy”), I’m doing some serious thinking.
Though canoeing hasn’t enjoyed the recent explosive growth of paddleboarding, or even the slow upward tick of recreational kayaking, it’s not a pastime destined to fade into obscurity, as some have claimed. No, in my estimation, there’s never been a better time to be a canoeist.
Why there’s never been a better time to be a canoeist
Perhaps it’s my sardined hips talking, but if there ever was a remedy for dashing from point A to B in densely packed straight lines via airplanes, highways and subways, it would be meandering through the crannies of fresh- and saltwater ways, packed with everything you need to sustain the quiet comforts of trail life. If there is an antidote for microwave dinners and rushed meals eaten on the go, it has to be a steaming camp coffee, the time to daydream, and dawdling one-pot meals lovingly cooked over an open fire.
Today’s canoeists are lucky. It has never been easier for beginners to get involved. Whether in the name of physical fitness, recreation, socializing, or just trying something new, operators in cities from coast-to-coast now offer introductory lessons and rentals.
When those basic skills are mastered, there are ever-more semi-wilderness locations and outfitters offering cleared trails and easy portages that are user-friendly. These places are far enough out of the way to commune with unpeopled spaces and see the electric-light-free splendors of the night sky.
Progress of a different kind
2016 boasts a dizzying array of material choices, technological advancements and all-new canoe designs. From detailed plans and videos to build your own stripper canoe, to beginner-friendly starter packages, right on up to high-end, feather-light, ultra-strong canoes and accessories, there’s something for the most demanding and discriminating paddler. Whether you want to go light, go long or just go now, there is something on the market for everyone.
[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: View all canoes ]
Of course, the true joy and promise of paddling is not in the stuff, and not even in the many wonderful places where paddling is possible in North America—it is in the fulfilling act of self-propulsion itself. There is something restoratively simple, almost purifying, in reaching forward with a paddle and pulling a vessel suspended between earth and sky into a new place in space and time.
Paddling offers progress of a different kind. For each action of the stroke, there is the reaction of glide and recovery, an iterative meditation of immediate, visible and tangible cause and effect. In this mediated age of disconnected sound bites, infomercials and a 24/7 personal news cycle, silent craft can still quiet the mind and meld body and soul in the fluidity of unfettered motion.
In that silence rise the imponderables, not least of which is the value of those ever-disappearing truly wild places, where meaningful reconnection to nature and to self is still possible. When we commune with water we’re intertwined in a system much larger than ourselves—one only needs to glimpse a waterway’s snaking tendrils from an airplane window to see how water connects and binds everything on land.
If there ever was a time when we needed those disappearing, wild and watery places—when we need those off-grid strokes to remind us of who we are, what we should be, and how we should live our lives—then that time is now. Taking a leaf out of H.D. Thoreau’s book, “Everyone should believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing.” You?
James Raffan is the former executive director of the Canadian Canoe Museum, a passionate canoeist and dedicated traveler (he wrote this piece over the Peace River en route to Whitehorse). Tumblehome is a regular column in Canoeroots.
“I’m a believer.” | Feature photo: Dawn LaPointe / Radiant Spirit Gallery
Canoe Review: Echo Echoee
I am sitting in my boat clenching my fists and shivering. It’s a rainy May afternoon, a week into a 10-day solo canoe instructor course. Lined up in the eddy, we watch as our instructor, Andy Convery, demonstrates a flawless carving front surf. It’s irritating—everything he does looks effortless while my own moves feel like a slog.
Flash forward six years, and I’m paddling the Echoee, a brand new boat built by Convery himself. Within minutes on the water in the new boat, I feel like the canoeist I’ve spent half a decade trying to become—fluid, strong, graceful.
It’s not just my time and practice that has made the difference: Barely tipping the scales at a mindboggling mere 28 pounds fully outfitted, the Echoee paddles like a feather.
Every stroke is powerful, like I’m pulling myself over the water instead of dragging my boat through it.
I achieve momentum with next-to-no effort. A single stroke accelerates the Echoee to speed, and the energy saved lets me flick around the river for hours of fun.
“Who has designed all our equipment? Big burly men. ‘I’m big and strong, what do I care if my boat is big and clunky?’” says Convery, describing the problem with boat building. “By scaling it down, everyone wins.”
With the 18-pound hull and 10 pounds of saddle, thwarts, straps and gunwales, plus my weight of 130, the Echoee and I weigh a grand total of 158. It makes for a rodeo-like experience when I first hit larger features—there simply isn’t enough mass for me to plow through a hole like I might have done in a heavier hull. It is, however, easier than ever to control where I end up in relation to each feature, and finessing my way on and off waves, over and around holes, and slicing across currents and eddylines feels like a ballroom dance between me and the river.
The Echoee demands to be paddled. On entry to a rapid where I’d normally line myself up, float to the sweet spot and then lay on the power, I get pulled around by little boils and currents during the “float” phase. I need to be active to keep this boat on line and it takes amazingly little effort to do so.
While the rest of the canoeing world has been in a tizzy over the so-called Royalex Crisis, Convery believes it’s a huge step forward in the evolution of paddling.
“The perception is that lightweight equals fragility, and it’s going to change the way we paddle,” he says. It’s true: There is something about being in a composite boat; I was more intentional than ever about where in the rapid I wanted my boat, and I could put it there with unprecedented ease. “We won’t just toboggan our way down rocky rivers like we used to,” Convery adds.
I know what you’re thinking, though—what if?
When I do smash rocks, the Echoee can handle it. Seriously. I wasn’t so sure at first either. When I picked it up to put on my car—a task that until now, I had to pretend was easy—it almost felt too light to trust on a whitewater run. But besides some superficial scratches on the outer Innegra-basalt layer, I couldn’t hurt it.
“I’ve put this thing through hell trying to figure out what the breaking point is. I’ve been approaching rapids looking for the class IV rock line that I’d never even take my Royalex boats down,” says Convery. “I’ve been astonished.”
It’s not that he didn’t put wear and tear on his prototypes. In fact, beating the crap out of them is how he landed on the ideal layup. Here’s the nitty gritty: three layers throughout the whole hull using carbon, Kevlar and Innegra-basalt, plus two extra layers in the chine at the bow and stern for tough, built-in skid plates of Kevlar and Innegra-basalt, and a foam core and another layer of fiberglass in the bottom.
If repairs are ever needed, Convery is standing by his product. “Bring it back anytime in the first year and I’ll repair it for free,” he says.
As the founder and craftsman of Quebec-based Echo Paddles, Convery has been working with these materials for 20 years. He says infinite repairability is a huge advantage of composites— you can fix them with the same materials they’re made from.
The Echoee has the dimensions of Frankie Hubbard’s original 1996 Dagger Ocoee, arguably the most popular solo canoe of all time. Flat-bottomed and hard-chined, it is unbelievably maneuverable. When I get the outfitting just right in Echo’s lightweight version, I can turn the boat one way or the other just by aiming my hips, like it’s an extension of my lower body floating on the water. But you don’t have to take my word for it: Convery debuted the boat at the 2015 Gull River Open Canoe Slalom Race, where it took all three top finishers to the podium.
ECHOEE SPECS
Length: 11’2″
Width: 25″
Depth: 16″
Weight, Raw Hull: 18 lbs
With Gunwales and Outfitting: 28 lbs
Price, with Wood Gunwales: $2,100
With Gunwales and Outfitting: $2,550
echopaddles.com
This article originally appeared in Rapid Spring 2016 issue.
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Don’t Feed The Shark
Imagine a gaping maw almost five feet wide and filled with 300 rows of tiny teeth. Now picture it right beneath you. Fortunately for you, the largest fish in the world is only interested in massacring tiny zooplankton.
A photographer and global marine life researcher, New Zealander Simon Pierce is fascinated by whale sharks. The average specimen weighs 20 tons.
“Whale sharks are incredibly enigmatic,” says Pierce. “Almost all of the sharks that we see are juvenile males from around five to eight meters long. We still don’t know where the pups live, nor the adults. In fact, in some areas it is rare to even see a female shark. There is plenty of work left to do.”
Sadly, the gentle nature of these ocean leviathans has been exploited through fisheries and high levels of accidental catch. They are now a globally threatened species.
Pierce took this photo at Oslob in the Philippines, where locals have trained wild whale sharks to visit for handouts of shrimp and fish. “It’s a popular tourist attraction,” says Pierce. “It’s a very accessible location for viewing whale sharks but it has some definite negative impacts on the sharks.”
Most of Pierce’s research is conducted via motorboats so the research team can cover large areas to locate the sharks. However, in the Philippines, researchers routinely use paddlecraft, like this outrigger canoe. “The sharks are rarely on the surface, so it’s a matter of paddling for a few minutes, dipping your head underwater with a mask to look for sharks, paddling again,” says Pierce. To take this photo he used a Panasonic GX1 camera in a Nauticam underwater housing, with a Panasonic 8mm fisheye lens and Nauticam dome port.
The fact that whale sharks tend to hang out in some of the most beautiful locations on Earth is just a perk of the job. They like warm water, typically around 270C. “Those places tend to have very rich marine life in general. The nice scenery above water is a fantastic bonus,” says Pierce.
When he’s not crusading for conservation as a scientist with the Marine Megafauna Foundation, Pierce is usually still found outdoors. “There’s a great quote by E. B. White, something along the lines of, ‘I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world, and a desire to savor it. This makes it hard to plan the day.’ I get that,” says Pierce.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots Spring 2016 issue.
Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
Home Sweet Home
It used to be around this time when I’d write a list of 15 new rivers I wanted to paddle that year. I’m not sure why the number 15. Maybe I’d read someone else’s list and 15 seemed right, or maybe we were stumbling home from the pub one-upping each other.
For 10 years, on my days off I’d drive off in all directions looking for new blue lines I had only seen on topo maps and in guidebooks. Then it was back to bouncing between guiding rafts on the Ottawa River and teaching paddling on the Madawaska River.
Looking back at my river logbook, I described each new river as my most favorite ever. Yet, I’ve returned to very few. Instead I’ve logged hundreds more days on the rivers I already knew.
Walking down the now-worn portage trail through the pines that borders the Lorne Rapids on the Ottawa River, the site of the recent World Freestyle Kayak Championships, my friend and Rapid contributing photographer, Robert Faubert, said to me, “You know, everything good that’s happened in my life has happened to me because of this river.”
Twenty-five years earlier, Rob and I were young, goofy and single. We’d met jogging up this trail to run another load of paying clients.
“I met my wife on this river. The friends that mean the most to me are people I met right here,” Rob said. “Look at us. Who’d have thought back then that we’d be bringing our kids here?”
It must have been a slow transition because I don’t remember it happening. My wife, Tanya, hates it when I use the word settle. She thinks it means that I stopped looking for something really good and just settled. That’s not what I mean when I talk about settling in the Ottawa Valley.
To me, settling is contentment. It’s being happy with how things are. Settling is a shift from searching to learning—learning to love more of the things I already have.
Understanding the scale of a watershed or the lives of those who have traveled here hundreds of years before is more than fodder to share with clients between knock-knock jokes on lazy flat stretches.
SETTLING IN A SENSE OF PLACE
When you spend enough time on a river you get to know it well. It gets inside you. This feeling in the stuffy world of academia is known as a sense of place. This sense of place is what drives advocates to fight hydroelectric projects, write guidebooks and return season after season, taking vacation days from jobs with salaries only to push rubber for a measly stipend of $75 per day.
Famed conservationist Martin Litton knew that to protect the Grand Canyon from being dammed he had to bring Americans down the river. The longer the trip the better, because the longer you spend on a river, the more it becomes a part of you. Once it’s a part of you, Litton knew he could count on you to protect it.
If I hadn’t stopped making lists of new rivers, if I hadn’t found a sense of place and settled here in the Ottawa Valley, I probably would not have started Rapid, I may not have proposed to Tanya, and I certainly wouldn’t be walking the Lorne trail with Rob and our kids. My sense of place overcome my urge to keep looking for bigger and better. Like Rob, everything good in my life has happened to me right here.
This spring we created a different kind of list. It’s not a list of new rivers we’d love to go paddle but a list of 15 things—some of them rivers—we love about our home right here in the Ottawa Valley. We hope a couple will make you want to come and play here. If you stick around long enough, maybe you’ll stay.
We did.
Scott MacGregor is the founder and publisher of Rapid.
This article originally appeared in Rapid Spring 2016 issue.
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The New Age Of Kayak Challenges
My first exposure to the kayak challenge phenomenon felt more like cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, I started the challenge in the water. The event was a Greenland skills gathering and organizers had arranged for a portage and paddle race as well as a “seal hunt” using spongy balls for weapons and wetsuit-clad junior guide staff for seals.
So it was I found myself dodging pointy bows, digging sticks and eagerly hurled missiles, while two-dozen enthusiastic paddlers raced for bragging rights and brownies on the beach. Today’s events are considerably more sophisticated, but every bit as exciting.
Overnight odysseys
The indisputable granddaddy of endurance paddling events is the Yukon River Quest. In June, the 17th annual quest saw 58 teams of racers pitting themselves against 715 kilometers of Yukon River wilderness between Whitehorse and Dawson City, riding the powerful current and surviving sleepless nights under the midnight sun to complete the world’s longest annual canoe and kayak race in 3.5 days or less.
But not all multi-day challenges are grueling marathons. Debuting August 2015, the annual Montreal to Quebec Kayak Challenge traverses 260 kilometers of the historic St. Lawrence River in four days. With kayaks, food, campsites, live music and safety boats provided, “it’s an inclusive and laidback atmosphere, perfect for all outdoors lovers,” says founder Mathieu Fortier.
Many new paddlers were among the 130 participants this year, buoyed through 65-kilometer days by the flotilla’s positive group energy. With Fortier aiming for 250 paddlers in 2016, this new paddling event is the largest ever organized in Quebec.
Iconic waterways
There’s no better way to witness the famed sights, sounds and skylines of Manhattan than from the cockpit of a kayak. In August 2015, more than 100 paddlers of all skill levels took part in the 12th annual, all-day tour around New York’s iconic island. Keeping pace with the event’s growth each year, Manhattan Circumnavigation organizers have added guides, safety boats and an on-land support crew.
Meanwhile, two young events in the Midwest bring the kayak challenge model to the nation’s newest national water trail—South Dakota and Nebraska’s scenic Missouri National Recreation River. The 70-mile South Dakota Kayak Challenge has nearly doubled in participation since 2010, reports founder Jarett Bies, with some 140 racers plying the Missouri this May. Then, in July, the 2nd annual Fort to Field 50 Paddle Battle saw all forms of paddle-craft take to the water trail on a 50-mile course.
[ Paddling Trip Guide: View all kayaking adventures ]
Beyond the paddle
Every August since 2009, the Great Canadian Kayak Challenge and Festival brings together arts and culture vendors, kayak races and instruction, leisure paddles, hot air balloon rides, a highland dance competition, a triathlon, two nights of free concerts and camping, and $20,000 worth of fireworks on the banks of Timmins, Ontario’s quietly meandering Mattagami River.
This premier tourist event is the brainchild of Guy Lamarche, Manager of Tourism, Events & Communication for the City of Timmins, who says the on-water festivities this year drew over 100 local, regional and even international paddlers, raising the bar for 2016. Courses range from a 35-kilometer elite challenge to shorter recreational, novice and youth races.
This article originally appeared in the 2016 Paddling Buyer’s Guide issue.
Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
Bibliophilia: Bringing The Right Book On Trip
Bobbing in steep cross-swell and watching the wind blow liquid smoke off of the tops of waves, we don our helmets and buckle down for four miles of grunting into a headwind on an exposed crawl to Island 48. With cliffs to leeward, there’s little margin for error. But it could be worse, I think to myself. I could have nothing to read when I get there.
Bibliophilia: Bringing the right book on trip
When I pack for long trips, I have my gear wired; packing takes a few minutes. I grab paddles, tents, sleeping bags, medical kits, headlamps, and dry bags off of shelves. Food comes out of a pre- dehydrated stash and goes in a bear-proof bag, and the kayak goes on the car. But there’s one piece of gear I agonize over, ask friends for ideas on Facebook, and bring three different options just in case, only to leave two in the car at the last moment.
Most kayaking trips have bad weather days, or times when currents have you stuck in camp. These can be relaxing and joyous, or can involve a stressful and impatient when-will-the-wind-ease, should-we-push-on? pacing back and forth on the beach, trying to convince the group that it’s okay to paddle when you know full well it isn’t. The difference between the two comes down to gear. Specifically, whether or not you brought the right book.
The dangers of being book-less
I’ve learned the consequences of bad planning the hard way. One trip on British Columbia’s Central Coast had 30-knot afternoon winds, so we had to get all our paddling done before 1 p.m. each day. With lots of time in camp, I finished my thick but fast-moving adventure novel by day five of 12 (the whisky was gone soon after). Fortunately, my buddies bailed me out, and I read two of their books on the rest of the trip.
[ Plan your next sea kayaking trip with the Paddling Trip Guide ]
During a three-day, 950-millibar low in the Broughtons, a friend kept tapping on my tent fly, asking me if I wanted to help build a sweat lodge or have a campfire-building contest in the rain. The only book he’d brought was a pamphlet of knots, and he’d already worked through those.
Once, when the VHF signaled a one-day storm a-coming, a biblio-challenged person in the group convinced the rest of the crew to bail and seek a motel room. I had been looking forward to curling up with a great biography of an eccentric marine biologist. Motels were full, so we ended up camping in the rain anyway—without the time to read, or the wild setting, and at $29 per tent.
On another trip, one person wanted to add yet another windy crossing to a 17-mile day with a tired group. It wasn’t a coincidence that they hadn’t brought anything to read, so they got antsy while the rest of us happily flopped on the beach. Being bored in camp can impact our go/no-go judgment as much as conditions or fatigue. I’ve come to fear having nothing to read more than a tough surf landing.
I’m the first to admit my camping bibliophilia is also a bit odd. Books provide an escape, but aren’t we already escaping? I go on extended trips for many reasons, but high on the list is the chance to sit still and watch the tide rise and fall, or watch the light play on canyon walls. More stimulation may be precisely what we don’t need. During one trip down the Grand Canyon, a friend and I made a ritual of sitting on the beach, feet in the river, books in our laps. At the end of the trip, someone finally called our bluff—I’d barely read a chapter the whole time.
What makes the perfect tripping book?
As gear, books are hard items to select. They need to be substantive enough to last through a long trip, but not so dense that they’re no fun. But meaty books (and most library books) are hardcover, heavy, and don’t pack into the tight spaces of kayaks. Thick, easy reads, like Steven King novels or the latest spy thriller look good—until you realize you’ve exhausted two-thirds of your ration in the first lazy afternoon. Tempting as it may be to cram a whole bunch of books onto an e-reader, I don’t want my books running out of batteries. And camping is a way to get away from screen time, not indulge in more of it.
I’ve decided that the sweet spot is often the classics that I avoided reading in school. They fit the packing guidelines: cheap, soft, and meaty enough to last a long trip. Many are fun to read, now that you don’t have to write a paper about their symbolism. The downside is that your friends will give you a hard time. I caught a lot of flak for being sprawled on a beach log with a flask of bourbon and a copy of Moby-Dick. That is, until a whale spouted in the bay a few minutes later. And, like eyeing a tough move in a rock garden, you can overreach. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make it through One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The right book can also connect us to the place. There’s undeniable magic in reading John Wesley Powell’s journal on the banks of the Colorado, listening to the roar of unseen rapids downstream. Richard Manning or Tim Palmer’s writings on the Northwest coast are ideal companions for any paddling trip between the Columbia River and Kodiak Island. Some books have even had a formative impact on my life. As a teenager, I spent a summer in Utah’s canyon country, along with a copy of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. The trip inspired my move out West, my career in environmental conservation, and my love of wild places. I don’t remember what kind of tent I slept in, what boat I paddled, or what pack I humped down the desert canyons. But I sure remember what I read.
As Groucho Marx said, “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog it’s too dark to read.” It’s time to add one more to the list of essentials. Choose with care.
Neil Schulman paddles, writes and reads in Portland, Oregon. He’s currently collecting suggestions for a book for a three-day trip down the Columbia River.
“Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop the mind from scratching itself raw.” —David Mitchell | Feature photo: Ryan Creary
Next Generation Paddlers: Born to be Wild
A trick-or-treater showed up at my friends Paul and Kate’s house last Halloween. He didn’t arrive in costume. In fact, like all babies, he arrived buck-naked. Canyon Ross Kuthe, son of a paddling instructor and a river conservationist, was born with several in-utero paddling trips already under his belt. We’d been making the usual jokes: he’ll be rolling at one, surfing before the terrible twos, and running waterfalls by four. Every once in a while someone jokes that he’ll rebel and get really into video games. Paul glares at them.
But Paul and Kate have it right. I had similar experiences. Schulman family gatherings inevitably feature stories about camping trips I was too young to remember but clearly influenced my life path.
Children today spend less time in nature
Today’s kids spend less time in nature compared to past generations. With an estimated seven hours per day spent on electronics, it’s not surprising—what kid has time to go outside? Canyon’s adventure-friendly childhood is quickly becoming a relic of the past—and it’s a problem.
Modern medical research has piled up evidence that time spent in nature is essential to happy brains and bodies. We’ve proven that nature sparks creativity—which Byron and Wordsworth already knew from their inspiration-seeking rambles through the Lake District. We’ve shown that people recover faster from illness surrounded by nature—which Edward Trudeau knew way back in 1885, when he started tuberculosis rehabilita- tion in the Adirondacks. And exercising outdoors leaves you happier than working out indoors—which maybe your mom already knew when she told you to go outside and play.
Our connection with the natural world is likely hard-wired. Humans evolved in small bands, slow, clawless and flightless amongst saber-toothed cats. Our brains, social cohesion and opposable thumbs were what got us by. Familiarity with the environment had an evolutionary advantage. Everyone on Earth shares that wilderness-dwelling human heritage, even though most of us live very differently now.
Today 80 percent of North Americans live in cities, and that number continues to grow. We raise kids as independent parents instead of in communal groups. We get more done on screens than with our oppos- able thumbs. This has enormous benefits for individuality, social and geographic mobility, career fulfillment, and the leisure to paddle for fun rather than a desperate need for seal meat. Yet, as we distance ourselves from the natural world we suffer—and so does the next generation.
Grab a boat—any boat—and some kids, and get out on the water. Now, and often. Don’t worry about whether the kids ever learn an efficient for- ward stroke. First and foremost, kids need the opportunity to discover that being outside is awesome.
A few years ago, three friends and I were camped on an island deep in the British Columbia fjords. Two weeks of wilderness solitude was broken by an engine, which disgorged 12 kids on “our” beach and motored off. It was like Lord of the Flies. The unsupervised kids made tons of noise, built fires, swam from island to island in frigid water, chased each other through our camp, and kept us awake. At the time it pissed us off. But now I realize it may well have been the best possible thing in the world.
Neil Schulman celebrates kayaking’s diverse heritage in Reflections.
This article originally appeared in the 2016 Paddling Buyer’s Guide issue.
Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
Video: How To Launch and Land Your Kayak
Learn the best way to get in and out of your kayak with these tips from Dympna Hayes and James Roberts from the Ontario Sea Kayak Centre in Parry Sound, Ontario (ontarioseakayakcentre.com).
Learn how to protect yourself, your paddle and you kayak while launching and landing.
Pyramid Scheme: Racing to Secure the Future of Whitewater
As an aging athlete sliding down the backside of my glory days, the role numbers play in claiming oneself an enthusiast in any activity is not lost on me. I have 15 years worth of recorded training data for bike and cross-country ski racing, including distance, time, heart rate and power output. These numbers, when tracked, indicate form and direct performance improvements. These numbers tell me where I am and where I need to go if I want to get better at my sport.
I’m not alone in this. Witness the Fitbit or Apple Watch activity sensor craze, the prevalence of GPS navigation apps, sleep monitors, power meters, and all manner of measurement tools for life. Witness the explosive popularity of people testing themselves in triathlons, adventure races, marathons and similar competitive events. Witness the craze of apps like Strava, where weekend warrior athletes compete on hometown, crowd- sourced, GPS-recorded and timed routes. Real-time results are posted online. There is no entry fee, no prizes.
Almost none of this applies to whitewater paddling. No measurement tools, no participation-based competitions, no Strava routes to test one’s self.
All of this occurred to me while watching the ICF World Freestyle Kayak Championships, which took place on my home river this past summer. While the finals were exceptionally exciting, it was mostly spectacle rather than intelligible competition.
Even after decades on the river, the scoring of a high-intensity freestyle run remains a mystery. As with any judged event, there are limitations to what can be understood from the riverbank, especially when the moves being performed have little to do with what the average paddler does when they run a river themselves. This leaves the top end of our sport detached from its participant base, and where our lack of numbers becomes a problem.
HOSTING THE MASSES
Baseball and hockey fans track statistics and join fantasy leagues and pools, which serve both as a means of connecting to the elite of their sport, and also motivating their own participation at a recreational level. That surfing, road cycling, mountain biking and ski racing are the new boom in fantasy leagues points to the desirability of this connection even in niche action sports like ours.
The fact is, there isn’t an equivalent whitewater participation-based competition structure that feeds paddlers upwards. Competition and whitewater are not mutually exclusive—slalom has been an Olympic event for more than 40 years. Unfortunately, slalom has utterly failed to capture the imagination of most North American river runners, and freestyle kayaking has yet to find a formula that appeals to recreational play boaters.
The rise in downriver racing showed great promise, but it collectively skipped attracting mass participation by largely focusing on class IV and V high-stakes runs. That has alienated the class III recreational participant who is the bread-and-butter of this sport. This is no structure for growth.
What we need are competitive events that are targeted to class III paddlers. One-time avid paddlers who have left the river to race the clock in a marathon or go elbow-to-elbow on a bike may find themselves drawn back. Perhaps slalom gates that are wider than shoulder width apart, timed river runs that don’t require risking ones’ life and fun-for- the-whole-family events can build the mass that is required for hosting participation events.
We need opportunities to turn our sport into a participation pyramid rather than the narrow and sketchy ladder to the top that it is now.
Jeff Jackson is a professor at Algonquin College and focuses his research on risk management. Alchemy is a regular column in Rapid magazine.
This article originally appeared in the 2016 Paddling Buyer’s Guide issue.
Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
