This Is Your Brain On Whitewater

By

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July 15, 2014

Why kill me, I give you life. Love from Rupert River.

I stop walking to read this message, spray-painted on one of the copper-colored pillars of a bridge over the river, which, as I glance down, suddenly seems angry—fast, dark water crashing on grey rocks.

When I took my first paddle strokes on the Rupert, I knew only one thing about the river—it was slated to be damned. Twenty-eight days, and almost 400 miles later I knew much more. I knew that the best sound to wake up to is the babble of whitewater. That the rich culture of the Cree people is directly connected to the wild-flowing water of the Rupert. I knew that fire-grilled, freshly caught whitefish melts in your mouth. I knew that this river was once a highway through history. That oatmeal-fed muscles could solo portage a canoe for many miles and that if you got enough black fly bites, your eyes could swell shut.

What I didn’t know was that my time on the Rupert had changed me. A connection had been forged between wild water and I—a connection that I would take with me to other rivers. A connection that would direct the course of my life, without me even realizing it.

The rest of my summer was spent washing dishes. Dam construction was underway, despite my letters, petitions and phone calls. As I filled the sink with water, my mind would fill with questions. Who decided the fate of the Rupert? Had they ever experienced the northern lights as they dance to the acoustics of whitewater? Had they felt the exhilaration of running rapids blind, or the calm of navigating the vast shoreline under afternoon sun?

I connected everyday observations to the Rupert. A sprinkler on a lawn or an idling car. When someone left a light on, or let a tap run. If people weren’t so frivolous, if they didn’t waste so much, rivers wouldn’t need to be dammed to meet their demands.

A decade later as a raft guide, I was daydreaming at the back of the boat when it dawned on me. Maybe I could give the people on my raft a taste of the experience I had on the Rupert. Instead of just getting them down the river, maybe I could share it with them too.

Along with giving them the ride of their life, if I could show people some aspect of the river—a great blue heron fishing on stilts, an osprey circling a tree-top nest—maybe they would take home a sense of pride and respect. Maybe they too would look at things differently. Maybe the environment would climb their priority list.

It’s easy to see the rivers we paddle as strong and free. We feel the thrill, fear and accomplishment that comes with conquering whitewater but it’s not until we know a river and understand its threats—development, damming, diverting and pollution—do we realize it can also be fragile and defenseless.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Rapid Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.

Dubai: In the Land of Sand and Surf

By

Katrina Pyne

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July 8, 2014

Just a couple hundred miles from Rub’ al-Khali, the largest sand desert on Earth, one of the world’s longest and most unusual manmade rivers flows under the scorching desert sun.

The Wadi Adventure whitewater park was conceived as part of a tourism vision for Al Ain, the fourth largest city in the United Arab Emirates, just 90 miles from the glitzy metropolis of Dubai on the Persian Gulf coast.

In 2012, when Wadi opened its doors to the public, 50,000 visitors enjoyed the plush white pillows and shaded lounge chairs of the VIP zone next to the artificial rivers. But mixed in with the tourists was a core group of canoeists and kayakers with a mind to train in the off-season while avoiding an expensive flight to Australia, the usual winter training ground for European paddlers.

Welcoming the international crowd of slalom athletes is Fergus Coffey, the whitewater manager at Wadi Adventure. A lifelong paddler, Coffey guided rivers in North and South America and ran the kayak program at the U.S. National Whitewater Center (USNWC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, before getting offered the gig at Wadi.

“I had the opportunity to come to the UAE and set up a completely new facility,” he says. “It was too odd to pass up.”

Inspired in part by the USNWC, Wadi was originally built as a slalom site, but given the UAE’s tourist traffic, a surf pool was added to increase wider demographic appeal.

Now, as word in the paddling community spreads, Wadi Adventure is becoming a winter wonderland for whitewater paddlers from all over the world, each with a different take on its unlikely desert waterways.

THE UNEXPECTED OASIS

It was 6 a.m. on January 25 when French paddler Nouria Newman and her Caimen Storm kayak arrived at Dubai’s international airport. Along with her coach and four teammates she had driven to the airport in Lyon, France, and taken a six-and-a-half hour flight that landed her in a different world.

The Fédération Française de Canoë-Kayak had coaxed her into signing onto a two-week training intensive in the middle of the desert at Wadi Adventure, Al Ain’s newest city planning success and the Middle East’s first whitewater facility. It was much warmer than the zero degree winter training conditions in Toulouse and cheaper than flying to Australia.

Last year she had managed to talk her way out of the training venture but this year she didn’t get off the hook so easily.

Exhausted from the flight, she nodded off as they drove the E66 towards Al Ain, a route cutting straight south through an otherwise blank desert landscape. When she awoke it was still dark but perfectly spaced streetlamps lit the way, and in the distance the rising sun started to shine on Jebel Hafeet, one of the UAE’s highest mountain peaks.

“When you actually enter the place it feels like Disneyland,”

says Newman, recalling her first impression of Wadi Adventure as the drive from Dubai finally ended.

Paddlers from Italy, Germany, Russia, England, America, Switzerland, Slovenia, Japan, Slovakia and Czech Republic joined Newman and her team. From June to September, Newman’s used to seeing competitors at races around the world, but to be all in one place during the off-season was something new.

“It’s like a summer camp, coming here,” she says. “We have barbecues and hang out and turn into slalom geeks for two weeks.”

Paddlers all stay in fully furnished chalets just off site and share meals when they can. They go on day trips
to Abu Dhabi. They take camel rides. On off days, some paddlers visit the massive indoor theme park of Ferrari World or the indoor ski slopes in Dubai. Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Maseratis with tinted windows roll past the park.

“Even a Russian oligarch will be able to find something expensive here,” says Coffey.

But at the park itself, cell phones turn off and crystal clear waves flowing from a mysterious water source become Newman’s primary fixation.

Waterpark in Dubai

THE PLAY PARK MIRAGE

While Nouria Newman was making rounds of the Wadi’s three whitewater runs, Ciarán Heurteau, a seasoned slalom kayaker, was taking a break from the scene.

Heurteau made the trip to Dubai with two teammates and a coach as part of the first group of kayakers to pass between the slalom gates after Wadi’s grand opening in 2012. He left feeling unsettled and uneager to return.

It’s no secret that the UAE was built on an oil regime and hosts some of the wealthiest business tycoons in the Middle East. Al Ain itself was home to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, the first president of the UAE. The nearby Rub’ al-Khali, a desert roughly the size of France, is home to the world’s largest oilfield, the Al-Ghawār.

When Heurteau’s not paddling, he lives in a small village in Northern Ireland where he avoids using plastic bags and is conscious of the compost that comes from his morning breakfast. For him, this artificial river was too far from the green lifestyle he leads. “The amount of money that’s just wasted, it blows you away,” he says. “It’s easy to go there to train and just not look at the whole other side of it.”

The crystal blue waters of Wadi’s 1,100 meters of faux river are sourced from municipal lines that pump and desalinate water from the coast in Abu Dhabi, about 100 miles west of Al Ain.

Ninety-four million gallons of water recirculate through the concrete channels with up to a quarter of an
inch of depth lost to evaporation each day. Five vertical pumps run for about 12 hours at a time to keep the water flowing, says Coffey, and two conveyer belts transport paddlers from the bottom of each course to the pond at the top.

For Heurteau, the illusion of a pristine desert oasis was more unsettling than magical, more manufactured fantasy than reality.

“I reckon more and more this is where people will head for training. There are no more races on natural rivers any more so it makes sense to train in places like this.”

The line goes quiet for a few seconds.

“It’s a very different feeling paddling on artificial courses,” he says. “You can see the shift in people’s thinking.”

Named for the lush green spaces that surround its seven oases,
Al Ain is known as the Garden City of the United Arab Emirates. | Photo: MICHAEL NEUMANN

THE BLISSFUL DESERT VOID

Under the black desert sky with the course floodlights turned off and only the sound of running water ringing in his ears, Vávra Hradilek finally found the desert space he’d been seeking.

In the pitch black of the night with only a photographer following him from land on an otherwise empty river, the Czech paddler got in his kayak and began running the course.

“I could only hear the water without any vision, so from memory I just went through the strokes,” he says. “It was amazing.”

For Hradilek it was a moment of pure kayak bliss.

During the day, intervals of 25 paddlers at a time would take turns running the slalom course, watching in front and behind them to avoid a collision. Along with other European paddlers, he and his 34 Czech teammates stayed in a massive block of chalets beside the river and fired up the barbecues to cook their meals together.

Hradilek was even more crowded than most with a film crew following him around for a week tracking his training and off time for a short film.

“I think summer camp is the right word. It’s all the paddlers in Europe in one place hanging out,” he says. “I’ve been in the circuit for a long time so I know most of the paddlers who come out on race days but here there were so many new people.”

The course offered night sessions to anyone interested in taking on the whitewater away from the beaming sun.

For the slalom vet these spacious hours were the highlight of his month- long intensive, his escape from the claustrophobia of a packed whitewater course. Surrounded by the vast sprawling sands of the Rub’ al-Khali—a desert dubbed the Empty Quarter—all it took was for the lights to go out for him to experience bliss in the desert void.

Katrina Pyne is a freelance journalist whose mind is constantly drifting from her desk job to quiet untouched rivers and chaotic whitewater parks. At heart, she’s still a wilderness guide.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Rapid Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.

In the Hatch: Titika Active Wear

Gear

By

Paddling Magazine Staff

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July 4, 2014

The Titika Bolt shorts, $38. Photos: Courtesy Titika Active Wear — The Titika Bolt shorts, $38.

Titika Active Wear is a “Canadian eco-friendly and fashion-foward active wear brand, captures the essence of femininity and strong girl mentality in athletic products that offer the latest technology and innovative fabrics.

Titika Active Wear offers versatile apparel with bold playfulness and refined sportiness. From leggings that combine the much-loved comfort of a basic legging with sexy, yet functional mesh detailing on the sides to oversized, cozy sweaters with floral mesh sleeves.”

Inside the clothing, there are key technologies perfect for paddlers such as:

Anti-aroma silver yarn: silver thread woven through the fabric to inhibit the growth of odour-causing bacteria
Moisture Wicking: keeps sweat away from the body
Free/flat seam: special stitch to create flat seams. This reduces extra fabric that can rub and irritate your skin while you workout

Bolt/Bubbly shorts, $48, has the chafe free/flat seam technology: Titika uses a special stitch to create flat seams on their garments. This seam reduces extra fabric which can rub and irritate your skin while you work out

Nathalie shorts, $60, has the Durablend technology: this fabric is a comfortable water repellant and wind breaker. It is lightweight and tear resistant, making it the perfect fabric for any outdoor activity.

Keisha Tank, $52, has the Anti-Aroma Silver Yarn technology: silver thread is woven through the fabric to inhibit the growth of destructive and odour-causing bacteria, mold, mildew and fungus.

Heather Bra, $28, has the moisture wicking technology: keeps sweat away from the body.

For more information about Titika Active Wear or more of their latest release of female athletic wear, check out their website, titika.ca.

Gear: Pat’s Backcountry Beer

Gear

By

Kaydi Pyette

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July 3, 2014

Photo: Alex Cousins — Pat's Backcountry brew, backcountry beer

Got beer? Not if your multiday paddling trip features portages of any length. Thanks to Pat’s Backcountry Beverages canoeists can drink beer in the woods without getting weighed down. Pat’s portable backcountry brew kit includes beer concentrate and an easy-to-use carbonator—add potable water and you’ll be drinking a glass of your own delicious suds just minutes later. Handcrafted pale lager and dark ale concentrates are available, as well as a variety of traditional soft drink flavors for the kids.

www.patsbcb.com | $39.95 for kit, price for concentrate varies

Get the full article in the digital edition of Canoeroots and Family Camping, Early Summer 2014, on our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.

Ghosts of the Fur Trade

By

Wally Schaber

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July 3, 2014

By 1690, Europeans no longer relied on aboriginal traders bringing their furs to Quebec. They had traveled west from Montreal, the epicenter of trade, and entered the wilderness to live and work with the natives, establishing trading posts. As a result, the fur trade boomed.

To accommodate the flow of goods, the Hudson Bay Company (HBCo) commissioned the building of Montreal canoes. Handmade in Louis Maître’s shop in Trois Rivière, the canoes were 30 to 36 feet long, six feet wide and weighed more than 700 pounds. Able to carry four tons of trade goods, they could hold passengers and even livestock. Paddled by the Voyageurs, these canoes plied the big waters from the St Lawrence Seaway to the western shore of Lake Superior, delivering and receiving goods from major trading posts.

Exploring the waterways further west required smaller boats. Looking to compete and carve out its own territory, the North West Company (NWCo) built freight canoes with half the load capacity of the Montreal canoe.

Built by local First Nations men employed by the NWCo, these birch bark canoes were called North Canoes. They were 25 feet long, light enough to be portaged by two paddlers and able to carry two tons. Unlike the Montreal canoe, North Canoes were nimble enough to paddle up and down small rivers. The NWCo paddled them across the continent to the Pacific and Arctic oceans. Those paddlers were the first to trade with uncontacted First Nations communities on the west coast and Canada’s northern territories.

Four to eight paddlers, collectively known as Winterers, manned each North Canoe. Many considered themselves a tougher and more wilderness-savvy breed of trader than the Voyageurs who didn’t often overwinter in the First Nations communities.

By 1821, the HBCo and NWCo ceased their ruthless competition by merging under the Hudson’s Bay name. For another eight decades, annual brigades of North Canoes carried furs to James Bay and brought back trade goods for posts near the height of land, such as Grand Portage and Northern Ontario’s Temiscamingue.

The big Montreal canoe continued to serve the Great Lakes until 1858. The construction of the canals on the Great Lakes, the introduction of steamboats on the Ottawa River in 1851, and finally, the completion of the railroad to Mattawa in 1881, were nails in the coffin of the freighter canoe, rendered slow and old-fashioned.

This photo depicts one of the last North Canoe brigades, seen in the Temagami area in 1902. The local fort closed shortly after and the remaining canoes fell into personal ownership. A few still survive in the historical collections of heritage sites, including former fur trading posts Fort William and Grand Portage.

Paddling historian, Wally Schaber, is currently writing a book about the history of the Dumoine River watershed. www.dumoinewatershed.blogspot.com.

Get the full article in the digital edition of Canoeroots Early Summer 2014. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.

Trust The Trucker’s Hitch To Cartop Your Canoe

Skills

By

Doug Scott

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July 3, 2014

If you start canoe trips with a sore neck from looking up at the wiggling canoe on your roof racks and worrying that it is making a bid for freedom, then you need to learn the trucker’s hitch knot.

6 Easy Steps To Lift A Canoe By Yourself

Trust the trucker’s hitch knot to cartop your canoe

First, we need to cover some knot-tying terminology. The free end of the rope is the end we are using to tie the knot. For an overhand loop you pass the free end over itself to make a loop. And a bight is a bend in the rope so it is doubled.

Begin by making sure you have a set of sturdy roof racks set as far apart on your roof as possible. You’ll also need two three-meter lengths of rope (avoid the braided, yellow polyproylene cheap stuff). Tie one end of the rope to the rack using a bowline (you remember: the rabbit goes up the hole, around the tree and back down the hole). Then, throw the free end of the rope over the canoe. Apologize if in doing so you have put out your partner’s eye.

Step 1 of a canoe tie-down with the trucker's hitch knot — Step 1. | Photos: Ian Merringer

Step 2 of a canoe tie-down with the trucker's hitch knotf the trucker's hitch knot — Step 2.

Step 3 of a canoe tie-down with the trucker's hitch knot — Step 3.

Step 4 of a canoe tie-down with the trucker's hitch knot — Step 4.

4 steps to secure your canoe

Make a small overhand loop about a foot above the gunwale
Take the bight of a few inches in the free end and push it up through this loop.
Pass the free end under your roof rack and back up through your bight
Pull down on the free end. The bight will act as a pulley as the tightening rope slides through it. In this way you gain a mechanical advantage to tighten the rope. Pass the rope under the roof rack and tie a half hitch around all three lengths of rope.

Finish the knot with a second half hitch, or however many you need to feel good about passing a truck into a headwind.

The trucker’s hitch is so effective and reliable that you’ll soon find yourself using it for things like erecting your campfire tarp and a dozen other uses where you need a taut rope.

a jeep with a wooden canoe tied to the roof

How To Tie Down Your Canoe With And Without Racks

Doug Scott teaches at New Brunswick Community College in Saint John.

cover of Canoeroots Magazine, Fall 2007 issue This article was first published in the Fall 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.

Hitch it! | Feature photo: USCG PTC Developer/Wikimedia Commons

Video: Canoe Strokes and Control

Videos

By

Kaydi Pyette

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July 3, 2014

Photo: Rolf Kraiker — Video: Canoe Strokes and Control

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyJHA_jrzaI

This introductory video by Rolf Kraiker provides insight into some of the basic principles of paddling a canoe in what’s referred to as the traditional “Canadian” style.

This video is an overview of three different steering strokes, a breakdown of some elements to improve paddling mechanics and a short demonstration of paddling control exercises.

In the Hatch: Coleman Portable InstaStart Stove Oven

Gear

By

Paddling Magazine Staff

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July 3, 2014

Camp pizza is always a good thing. A really good thing. Photos: Courtesy Coleman — Camp pizza is always a good thing. A really good thing.

You’ve been paddling all day in gusting winds and heavy rains, you could barely tell the difference between being under the water and above. Your gear is soggy, your fingers numb, the one thing your craving is a hot meal when you get back to your campsite. Either you can settle for a hot dog (probably soggy as well) or you can settle in by the fire with a 12″ (30cm) pizza! You can even polish it off with a cake afterwards.

Coleman’s Portable InstaStart Stove Oven, $249.99, is small enough to be portable and convenient, but large enough to cook the foods you enjoy back home. Having two full-size appliances in one, a stove and an oven, means you’re not limited to something you can cook out of a single pot. Have eggs and bacon in the morning for breakfast and bake a cheesy casserole for dinner. The two stove burners produce a total of 12,000 BTUs. The oven reaches 3,000 BTUs, temperate up to 500 degrees F, meaning this is no Easy Bake oven. It’s a real tool for camp cooking.

Another key feature of the InstaStart Stove Oven, is the Instastart push-button lighting system. Now you don’t have to play with fire and gas, trying to light your stove. Just push a button and you have means to cook dinner. The WindBlock system shields burners for maximum heat and to ensure you can keep dinner cooking even in the wind. The WindBlock gaurds can adjust to different pot sizes as well.

Currently available at Canadian Tire. For more information about Coleman, or their Portable InstaStart Stove Oven. check out their website, colemancanada.ca.

Photo: Icy Horizons

By

Paddling Magazine Staff

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June 27, 2014

"The conditions dictated we concentrated on paddling rather than trying to take pictures!" Photo: Peter Lavigne — "The conditions dictated we concentrated on paddling rather than trying to take pictures!"

“These quick pictures are from a trip we recently finished up along the northeast coast of Newfoundland,” said Adventure Kayak reader Peter Lavigne. “The first couple days were spent out running the ice pack and the icebergs were like trail markers along the way. Unfortunately, the best pics were never taken, as the conditions dictated we concentrated on paddling rather than trying to take pictures!”

Want more reader photos? Check out this shot, “Paddler’s Morning.”

Boats: One Harry Chestnut

Stories

By

Doug Scott

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June 27, 2014

Photo: Chestnut Canoe Company — Chestnut Canoe Company

Historians have yet to unearth a corporate code of ethics used by Harry Chestnut to build the Chestnut Canoe Company. It’s possible they haven’t looked hard enough—more likely that none existed.

Chestnut grew up in the late 1880s in one of New Brunswick’s leading families. Harry and his brother William spent their summers exploring the shores of the St. John River in their birchbark canoes built by a locale Malecite. As a young man salmon fishing he got his first glimpse of a wood and canvas canoe from Maine. Chestnut judged it superior to anything he had paddled and saw before him a great business opportunity, quickly starting the Chestnut Canoe Compnay as an offshoot to the family’s hardware business.

Continue reading this article in the digital edition of Canoeroots and Family Camping, Early Summer 2007, on our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.