Nocturnal animals, which are only active from dusk until dawn, usually have spe- cially adapted senses. For example, owls have extra keen vision for hunting in the dark and a rabbit’s extra large ears help it avoid becoming a midnight snack.
The night is not truly black. A complete lack of light is interpreted by the brain as eigengrau, a German word meaning intrinsic gray. Contrast is important to the human eye, which is why this color appears lighter than a black-colored object under normal lighting conditions.
The night got a lot brighter after Homo erectus, the earliest human species known to have controlled fire, first lit up the dark between 125,000 and 400,000 years ago.
Today the phrase fly-by-night refers to a shady operation or fraudulent business but it was originally an ac- cusation of witchcraft, referencing flying on a broomstick at night.
To achieve optimal night vision, eat lots of dark leafy greens, sweet potatoes and carrots, which are all high in vitamin A—a deficiency can lead to night blindness. Expect to spend 20 to 30 minutes in the dark to allow your eyes to fully adjust.
In the northern hemisphere, the longest night of the year is around December 21 and the shortest night of the year around June 21. The difference in duration is due to a 23.5-degree wobble in the Earth’s axis as it rotates around the sun.
Nights on the planet Venus are the lon- gest of any planet’s in the solar system; there it takes 224 Earth days to com- plete one day-night cycle. Night falls ev- ery 9 hours and 56 minutes on Jupiter.
“Wimoweh, wimoweh,” is the beginning of the pop hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” made famous by The Lion King movie. Wimoweh is the phonetic spelling of a Zulu word that means lion.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
“Mr. MacGregor?” A short, stern-looking woman wearing a lab coat and holding a clipboard motioned me into a small room. She closed the door behind her.
Half an hour earlier I’d carried my six-year-old daughter, Kate, into the emergency department of the hospital. After a few words with the doctor on duty Kate had been wheeled off to the X-ray room.
Kate, the stern-looking woman told me, had a spiral fracture of her tibia, the large bone between her knee and her ankle. This type of injury is common in cases of child abuse, she said. It happens, she continued, when children are forcefully dragged in directions they don’t want to go. The stern look and clipboard were beginning to make sense.
It gets worse.
I’d told the receptionist that Kate had fallen down. In the X-ray room the radiologist asked Kate where she was when it happened. Kate said, “Whitewater canoeing.” Our stories where not matching up.
Later I learned that when Kate was asked about her mommy she replied, “She left early this morning with my brother.” It was a Thursday and both kids should have been in school.
For the past two years, my son, Doug, and I have been racing in the junior-senior division at the Gull River Open Canoe Slalom Race. My wife, Tanya, and Doug did leave early that morning to set up our campsite. Kate and I had stopped at a river on the way for a few hours of training. This was to be her first race.
We’d grabbed every eddy in the 300-meter, class II lower set of rapids and even back surfed the wave at the bottom. We’d carried up to the upper chute and shadowed a solo boat test course in our 14-foot tandem. An instructor high-fived Kate and told her she’d just passed her level two. She smiled and asked me if the snacks were in the truck.
I was dumping the water out of the canoe when Kate ran back to the beach in a sundress, juice box in one hand and a granola bar in the other. One moment Kate was hopping on top of a rock shouting that she had a sliver in her foot, the next she was laying on the beach screaming her little heart out. Her sandy foot must have slipped into a crack in the rock and her body fell the other way creating the spiral fracture.
It took phone calls to my wife and the public school before I was downgraded from abusive parent to irresponsible parent. In this woman’s eyes it was pretty much the same thing. Children anywhere near whitewater rivers were a big mistake, she said. I was just asking for trouble.
All the while Kate’s leg was being casted I argued the report not read that it was a whitewater canoeing injury. She hadn’t even gotten wet, I pleaded. “If she’d been in school this wouldn’t have happened would it, Mr. MacGregor?”
As I carried Kate out of the hospital she asked, “You didn’t like that lady, did you?” I said I didn’t. I told her that the nurse thought I was a bad father. She hugged me and asked if I would like to sign her cast.
Scott MacGregor is the founder and publisher of Canoeroots. At the next Gull River Open Canoe Slalom Race, Kate and Scott placed second. Kate can’t remember which leg was broken.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
Identfying river features and knowing how to manage them is the key to paddling safe lines and having fun. If your next tripping route has sections of swift flowing water or rapids, these are some of the most common features and obstacles you need to be aware of before taking the plunge.
TONGUE
When considering where to enter a rapid look for the tongue—clear and fast moving dark water that forms a V-shape pointing downstream. Usually it marks the channel of deepest water and can indicate a safe place to enter. Tongues sometimes end in wave trains, three or more similarly sized and evenly spaced waves, often dark in color with crashing white tops.
ROCKS
Moving water wouldn’t be much fun without rocks to create river features, but sometimes they get in the way. If you hit a rock, control the collision by keeping your paddle in the water for stability and redirect your bow back into current. If you find yourself broad side to a rock, lean and tilt your canoe towards it and slide around. Don’t lean upstream, this will swamp your boat and could cause it to wrap. Beware of lone waves in the river as they can indicate a rock is hiding below the surface.
HYDRAULICS
Also known as holes, these river features recirculate water downstream of ledges. Hydraulics can be fun play spots, but larger ones can be nasty sticking points for boats or, worse, paddlers. If you miss your intend- ed route and have to paddle through one, point your boat downstream and keep pad- dling. The key to avoiding a capsize or get- ting stuck is to pierce the hydraulic with the bow of your boat and maintain momentum.
EDDIES
Downstream of exposed rocks and river bends, calm pools called eddies form where the water recirculates back behind the obstacle. They can give canoeists a chance to pull out of the current to rest or scout the next section of river. To enter or exit you’ll need to cross the eddyline—where the main flow meets the calm pool—with momentum.
STRAINERS
Created by trees that have fallen into current, the hazard is caused by water rushing amongst branches and through unyielding limbs. The force of water can trap paddlers and their gear and make rescue and recovery very difficult and extremely dangerous.
The first step to avoiding them is ensuring you have a clear view downstream before running a rapid. If you spot a strainer, choose a line that matches a deep-water current that directs well away. Take no chances, if there’s not a line that gives you a wide berth, get out and portage.
Paddling whitewater is a specialized skill and there are plenty of other hazards to be aware of if you’re taking on big rapids, including undercuts, recirculating eddies and sieves. There’s no substitute for on-water instruction by a trained paddler to ensure your river journey is a fun and safe one.
Andrew Westwood is an open canoe instructor at the Madawaska Kanu Centre, member of Team Esquif and author of The Essential Guide to Canoeing. Find him at www.westwoodoutdoors.ca.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
“One has only matured in the sport of paddling when you can discover as much adventure in exploring a local swamp or marsh by canoe as running rapids or traveling to far-off lands.” —Ralph Frese (1926–2012), prominent canoe maker, conservationist and canoe culture icon.
To the average paddler, swamps conjure up visions of oppressive heat, treacherous mud, tangled vegetation, fetid water and creatures that creep, crawl, sting and bite. It’s a menacing, mysterious place with the power to suck an unwary traveler into its bowels.
At least that’s what horror movies like Curse of the Swamp Creature, Terror in the Swamp and Swamp Zombies, just to name a few, would have you believe. Maybe it’s Hollywood’s creepy and inaccurate stereotyping that causes many canoeists to shy away. But I believe swamps are fascinating treasure troves.
North America’s swamps vary in size from oasis-like bogs surrounded by steel and concrete to vast tracts of wilderness wetlands, the largest of which in the U.S. is Okefenokee Swamp’s 700 square miles. Tiny or immense, these oft-misunderstood liquid lands offer some of the most enchanting backdrops paddlers can hope for.
Swamps are a dream for wildlife lovers and botanists alike—lining the serpentine channels and tea-colored ponds are curtains of towering cypress, magnolia and water tupelo trees, their ranks broken only by patchy marshes and grassy prairies. If you’re lucky, you may spot a bald eagle snatching a fish out of the water and river otters at play. There’s a cacophony of unfamiliar insects, repetitive croaking of frogs and clamorous hooting of birds.
I’ve been smitten by swamps since buying my first canoe nearly 40 years ago. Whether on an overnight trip or weeklong journey into the labyrinth of brackish creeks and backwaters, I always feel like an explorer embarking into the unknown. Lakes and rivers don’t offer the same feeling of primordial exploration, the chance to paddle slowly and come face-to-face with wild growth around each bend and in every nook.
Henry David Thoreau, one of America’s most beloved and influential writers of the 19th century, was the patron saint of swamps. In an essay called Walking, he wrote, “hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious and quaking swamps…that was the jewel which dazzled me.”
Venture with Thoreau into the wildest and richest gardens and expect to be dazzled.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.
If you’ve been living under a rock rather than scraping over them, you may not know that Royalex canoes are in short supply.
Manufacturer PolyOne announced last summer that it was calling it quits on the long-time favored hull material of whitewater and recreational canoes. Production of Royalex sheets ceased in March. The announcement sent the paddling community into a Royalex-boat-buying frenzy. Outfitters are bulking up their fleets while enthusiasts are buying backups of favorite models. Everyone is wondering about the future of the sport.
Jacques Chassé, owner of Esquif Canoes, thinks he has the magic bullet.
Beginning this fall, Esquif will begin replacing Royalex in its canoe line with a brand-new, in-house-made material they are calling T-Formex.
According to Chassé, paddlers can expect the same indestructability and performance of Royalex for approximately the same price. And he claims T-Formex will be 10 percent lighter and 20 times more abrasion resistant than Royalex.
“Seventy-five to 80 percent of our boats are now made from Royalex. We had no choice but to innovate,” says Chassé. “It’s not a secret I had been asking the manufacturer to improve their material but they weren’t interested. They’d been making Royalex for the last 35 years and there’s a lot of new plastic and new technology.”
Chassé is building a 6,000-square-foot T-Formex factory within Esquif’s existing 15,000-square-foot warehouse in southern Quebec.
“Because so many of our canoes were made from Royalex, we needed to find a material that could be used in the same molding stations in which the Royalex boats are shaped,” says Chassé. Switching to T-Formex will not require any re-tooling of this boat building operation. The same workshop will be able to produce the usual 20 to 25 canoes per day.
Like Royalex, T-Formex is manufactured into sheets using foam core, ABS plastic and another outer material Chassé won’t disclose. These are layered together to create a reinforced, multi-laminate sandwich that can withstand years of abuse.
At the time of publication, Chassé had just recently approached other canoe manufacturers. Before going public he wanted to let them know he had a new material coming and is hoping that T-Formex will replace Royalex in their canoe lines as well. No commitments had been made at the time of printing this issue of Canoeroots. In the meantime, Chassé is completing his factory-within-a-factory and setting up his operation to manufacture the T-Formex sheets needed to supply Esquif’s fleet.
“T-Formex is the only alternative to Royalex I know about,” says Chassé, adding that his first T-Formex prototype canoe hit the water mid-April. “I have very modest forecasts, but I’m pretty sure once the manufacturers and public see the properties of the material, everyone will step up and want to work with it. It’s the much improved material we’ve been waiting for.”
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.
A couple hours at the International Boat Show affirmed that everything old is new again.
The indoor, arena-sized pond hosted everything from paddlesports instruction to motorboat trials to crazy wakeboarding and water stunts throughout the weeklong show. I took the organizers up on a chance to try standup paddleboarding for the first time.
I admit it, from one canoeist to another, I was skeptical of the sport.
SUPs have been the wunderkind of the paddlesports world and a much-needed financial boom for manufacturers over the past five years. According to the Outdoor Industry Association, it was also the fastest growing sport in the United States last year.
At first, I thought SUP was a gimmick. “This will blow over,” we conventional canoeists told ourselves. The truth is far from it. “They’re out-selling canoes two-to-one,” a cheerful whippersnapper in a wetsuit told me, handing over a paddle. Fad or not, I was ready to dump my canoe—temporarily, of course—to have a go and see what the hubbub was about.
Waiver signed, PFD secured, watch and wallet tucked into my shoes on the makeshift dock, I should have accepted the counsel of the young man who suggested I begin on my knees and work up from there. (“A lot of the ladies are doing yoga on standup paddleboards these days,” he said brightly, “but it takes a minute to get your balance.”)
Not Captain Canoe, of course—being a gunwale-bobber from way back, I stepped right on and very nearly swam.
I began by J-stroking but changed to rhythmically switching the extra-long paddle from side to side to keep straight. Looking down at my bare feet, images from early days growing up with my faithful retriever, Princess, on the banks of the mighty Speed River came flooding back. Déjà vu.
In look, the SUP was more like a Carl-Wilson-autographed surfboard but in feel, it was a raft—childhood’s first vehicle of exploration, made of logs, bailer twine and old fencing wire—with improved hull shape and hydrodynamics. Here we go again, Huck Finn!
Lost in my raft revelry, I paddled easily, building up speed with every pull and push. Hoisting an imaginary Jolly Roger, I was again Bluebeard on the bounding main or Captain Hattaras on my way to the North Pole. The 21st-century design didn’t fool me—this was my paddlecraft of yore.
Of course, with little storage, no secondary stability and the requirement of standing all the time, the SUP remains an inferior craft to the canoe—but the child in me won’t hear of it.
Don’t worry, James Raffan hasn’t given up his canoe, but he is considering an Arctic SUP trip with raft support. He asks you not to be too disappointed.
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.
Team River Runner organizes social events like this fun race in D.C. for vets and their families. | Photo: courtesy of Team River Runner // Robb Sharetg
A desperate man stands in a room with a shotgun, a fishing rod and a choice. One tool represents despair, the other hope. He chooses life—the fishing rod—and goes kayaking.
A woman is run down at the side of the road in Iraq while changing the tire on her Humvee. She wakes up from a two-year coma, able to function in every way but without the ability to remember anything from day to day. Then she goes kayaking, and that becomes the first thing she remembers in three years.
“The experience was so positive that it cracked the shell on all the bad stuff,” explains Jim Dolan, who tells me these stories as examples of the many lives he’s seen kayaking save.
Dolan is the founder and director of Heroes on the Water (HOW), an organization that takes wounded U.S. veterans out kayak fishing. Dolan, an avid kayak angler who flew for the U.S. Air Force for 13 years before a career as an American Airlines captain, saw helping wounded veterans as a call to duty.
“We owe these guys our best,” he says. “They have given so many pieces of themselves. We need to help get them up and running again. Kayak fishing is a great way to do it.”
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the therapeutic connection between kayaking and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
I’m preoccupied by some disturbing news that emerged in Canada last year: the suicides of eight military veterans in as many weeks. This led to my reading the excellent book by the Iraq war journalist David Finkle, Thank You For Your Service, which gives an intimate look into the lives of a few U.S. veterans and the extreme challenges they face getting healed.
Kayak therapy: inexpensive and effective
Who is doing anything about this? Kayakers, it turns out, are playing a vital role.
Dolan describes kayaking as physiotherapy, occupational therapy and mental therapy rolled into one. It’s remarkably effective and also damn cheap.
“There are organizations that spend five grand to take a guy or gal to Montana to go fly fishing, but for five grand I can take 100 guys out and do it in their backyard,” explains Dolan. “I can take them out tomorrow. It’s immediate, it’s inexpensive, it’s now and it’s local. It’s extremely simple.”
HOW often works with veterans who have been injured in explosions, suffering brain injury and mental stress. As Dolan describes it, the brain essentially shuts down for self-protection.
“They come back wound tight as a drum. They have hypervigilance, TBI (traumatic brain injury), post-traumatic stress. Until they can unwind, getting back to their family or their job or their education is very, very tough. We get them out in the water, get them to relax and teach them they don’t need to be wound as tight as they are over there.”
[ Paddling Trip Guide: View all kayaking instructional and skills clinics ]
That feeling after a good day on the water, that all is right with the world—every kayaker can understand its healing power. Now there’s empirical evidence to back it up. A 2013 study of HOW’s program in Pensacola, Florida, found that participants experienced a huge reduction in PTSD symptoms: a 78 percent reduction in overall stress; 77 percent in hypervigilance; 63 percent in avoidance behavior.
TEAM RIVER RUNNER ORGANIZES SOCIAL EVENTS LIKE THIS FUN RACE IN D.C. FOR VETS AND THEIR FAMILIES. | PHOTO: COURTESY TEAM RIVER RUNNER/ROBB SCHARETG
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Symmetrical, repetitive activities like cross-country skiing and inline skating are widely recognized as particularly effective therapy for PTSD. Kayaking’s steady left-right-left-right tempo works in the same way, enabling both halves of the brain to work together to process traumatic memories.
An equally important factor in the success of these programs is the social network and support system they create.
Beginning in Texas in 2007, HOW has grown to 43 locations in 24 states, with affiliates in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. Another U.S. veterans’ therapeutic kayaking program, team River Runner, which offers whitewater and flatwater kayaking without the fishing, started at Walter Reed army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., in 2004 and now has over 40 chapters across the U.S. with more than 2,000 participants a year.
But with an estimated 24 million cases of PTSD in the United States alone, the need is much greater.
Kayaking as preventative medicine
There are also many PTSD sufferers outside the military.
In 2011, recreation therapist and musician Zac Crouse kayaked and bicycled home from eastern Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia, as self-treatment for PTSD he developed after seeing his best friend die whitewater kayaking. He documented the 82-day journey in the film and accompanying album, Paddle to the Ocean (Best Sea Kayaking Film, 2014 Reel Paddling Film Festival). As a result of the trip, he found the frequency and intensity of his symptoms went way down—echoing the Pensacola findings.
“In the simplest terms, doing physical activity every day is an essential part of being human. We’ve gotten away from that and it’s killing us,” says Crouse.
It just makes sense that reintroducing physical activity will promote healing. Traveling under our own power opens us up to the world in ways that our mechanized and virtual lives do not, encouraging a healing attentiveness akin to meditation.
“There is no instant remedy for mental health,” Crouse acknowledges, “but living a healthier, active lifestyle is part of that process.”
As a firefighter I’ve coped with my own minor symptoms of acute post-traumatic stress after bad calls. And I have colleagues with full-blown PTSD who’ve had to take extended leaves of absence or retire early. I’m starting to think of my kayaking less as a hobby and more as a vital dose of preventative medicine.
Maybe my next step will be to take Dolan’s lead and find a way to share that with others. As he says, “this is a hobby, but it’s also a cause. There is an absolute need.”
Waterlines columnist Tim Shuff is a former editor at Adventure Kayak and embraces both the playful and serious sides of paddling.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
Breaking the Mold: Traditional Design Meets New Tech
While their roots can be traced back thousands of years to ancient Arctic cultures, sea kayaks as we know them today are just a few decades old. Folding kayaks had been around since the early 1900s, but it wasn’t until the advent of a modern composite material—fiberglass—that commercial production really got going.
Some of the earliest fiberglass kayaks appeared in Seattle in the 1960s. Many of these home-built models were precursors of the now-classic West Coast designs: high-volume cruisers with capacious cockpits. But in the summer of 1968—as an impressionable 15-year-old kayaking for the first time—I paddled a very different style of boat.
It was a homemade fiberglass version of a slender West greenland kayak, born of a union of an ancient form and emerging materials. as a composite sea kayak, it was among the first of its kind.
The late John Heath, an authority on traditional kayaks, was living in the seattle area not far from my family’s home. Heath had experimented with making fiberglass versions of alaskan and greenland kayaks by building sacrificial frames, requiring only the keelson, chines, gunwales, stems and deck ridges to define the shape. He covered the forms with layers of glass fabric and saturated them with polyester resin. When the laminate had cured, he pulled the wooden pieces out through the cockpit opening, destroying the building form in the process.
The kayak I paddled was made by one of Heath’s friends using a different approach. He first built a complete replica. Then, protecting the canvas skin with a plastic wrap, he laid up a fiberglass hull and deck in separate operations. Removed from the skin boat, the cured composite pieces were overlapped and duct tape employed to keep the seam waterproof. The construction was crude but the shape was true to the traditional design and spared the kayak used to create it.
The small cockpit opening made for a tight squeeze. I sat directly on the hull with my legs pinned flat by the foredeck. Bits of fiberglass from the resin-starved laminate made my bare calves itch. It was, to put it mildly, uncomfortable.
Unaffected by winds and undeterred by rough water, the kayak’s sharp, low bow drove through waves as if they weren’t there. the paddling was exhilarating. By the time I’d come ashore my legs were fully asleep. I’d push myself out of the cockpit and crawl onto the beach until feeling returned.
MERGING OLD FORMS AND NEW TECH
Bits of traditional kayak designs showed up in commercial boats as the paddling industry grew. One of the first to draw heavily on a greenland kayak was Valley’s Anas Acuta, produced in 1972.
Today, many composite kayak forms are derived almost entirely from the Greenland tradition. In 2008, Tahe Kayaks of Estonia debuted their Greenland model at Germany’s Kanumesse show. I introduced myself to tahe owners Marek and Janek Pohla and asked if I could try it on for size.
The brothers eyed my six-foot-plus, 210-pound frame: “you won’t fit.”
I sat on the aft deck, pointed my toes, wriggled my kneecaps under the coaming and dropped into the seat. squeezing into the gleaming, carbon and glass fiber Greenland brought back memories of my introduction to kayaking and of the pioneering efforts of Heath and others. It was a snug fit, but this elegant and logical apogee of merging old forms and new technology felt just right.
Reflections columnist Christopher Cunningham is the former editor of Sea Kayaker magazine. He still favors Greenland-style kayaks.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
On my first visit to Grand Marais, I sat down for breakfast at the Blue Water Café under a 15-foot mural of Lake Superior. I thought, one day I want to paddle that entire shore.
Years later, I moved here and got a job guiding kayaking. I was green and the big lake, as locals call it, taught me plenty of lessons. Namely, it’s cold!
Superior rarely rises above 55°F. Paradoxically, because it is so big, it holds its temperature and seldom freezes near Grand Marais. I have a six-year record of paddling at least once, every month, on the lake.
Despite its brutal temperature, the endless horizon where clouds meet unsalted sea draws me in. I lose track of time listening to the sound of surf pounding the 1.1-billion-year-old basalt shoreline.
A peaceful feeling comes with paddling under the 200-foot cliffs of Palisade Head, gazing through the limpid water at boulders that fell eons ago. the big lake feels timeless and you can easily forget your workaday life when paddling here.
TRIP SUGGESTIONS FOR GRAND MARAIS
If you have a half-day paddle west to the Fall river and swim under a 25-foot waterfall.
If you have a day begin an intermediate trip in tettegouche State Park and paddle northeast around Shovel Point, a rhyolite lava flow that juts out into the lake. Continue through the Cave of Waves natural arch then return to Palisade head.
If you have a weekend head across the border to Ontario’s “Sauna Islands.” Park in Little Trout Bay and paddle to Victoria Island for your first night. On the second, enjoy a sauna on Thompson Island.
If you have a week paddle from Gooseberry to Grand Marais on Minnesota’s Lake Superior Water trail, which features campsites about every 15 miles. along the way, visit Split Rock Lighthouse, Tettegouche and the Manitou River waterfall.
GRAND MARAIS STATISTICS
Population: 1,351
County Lands: 92% public
Wildlife: Bear, wolf, moose, deer, coyote, bald eagle, pine martin, fisher, lake trout, steelhead, salmon
Campsites: cobblestone, sand
Exposure: 150 miles of fetch. Longshore NE and SW winds product the biggest conditions.
Diversion: Build a skin-on-frame kayak at the North House Folk School.
Best Eats: Dockside – fresh caught fish and chips. Sven and Ole’s Pizza – the Uffda Zah is a favorite. Sydney’s – land on the beach for a Stealth: frozen custard, blueberries, and Oreos.
Bryan Hansel’s life and livelihood are inextricably entwined with Lake Superior. A professional photographer and founder of North Shore Expeditions, Hansel has paddled all of the American shoreline of the lake, but chooses to call Grand Marais home.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
Five W's: Kayak Builder and Artist Kiliii Fish | Photo: Oliver Ludlow
Skin-on-frame kayak builder, photographer, filmmaker, expedition kayaker, climber, musician, wilderness survival instructor and primitive skills guide—if we had to put a label on Kiliii Fish, it might be outdoor adventure Renaissance man. For Kiliii, 28, teaching, shooting and paddling are all extensions of the same creative urge, a drive nurtured by the wild frontier of the Pacific coast and stoked by a fascination with traditional techniques. We caught up with the Seattle-based artist to learn how he balances modern know-how with 5,000 years of primal expertise.
WHO kindled your interest in primitive skills?
My Nanai grandma used to tell me stories about her childhood in siberia. Her people were hunter-gatherers, living close to the land. one story really stuck with me—she and her dad caught a fish that was bigger than their boat. she would have been paddling a 13-foot canoe and the fish they caught was a kaluga sturgeon, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. Being from the border of a country where it’s still not cool to be indigenous, my parents weren’t really into the traditional stuff. But for my brother and I, who grew up here, it was great for our imagination.
WHEN did you realize the power of what you teach?
I’ve taught skin-on-frame workshops to native Iñupiat and Yupik kids in Alaska whose traditional technology these incredibly lightweight, high performance boats originally come from. they don’t understand how amazing it is, and how important the kayak was to their ancestors. For many native people, there’s a lot of hating who they are. There’s a huge lack of pride. It was eye opening and heartbreaking to see them look at a kayak that came from their ancestry—that they built with their own hands—and hear them say ‘wow, this is the coolest thing ever.’
WHERE do you find creative inspiration?
That quietness you get from being in the flow— not just in the zone of whatever sport you’re doing, but also being in the flow of nature—that inspires me. Sometimes the flow in sea kayaking is having an amazing ride on a wave. But other times it’s that quiet moment when you’re bobbing in the swell and there’s no distinction between you, your boat, the puffin in front of you, the wave and the sky—that place and that feeling become embedded in my photographs.
Five W’s: Kayak Builder and Artist Kiliii Fish | Photo: Oliver Ludlow
WHY do you do this stuff?
That quietness you get from being in the flow— not just in the zone of whatever sport you’re doing, but also being in the flow of nature—that inspires me. Sometimes the flow in sea kayaking is having an amazing ride on a wave. But other times it’s that quiet moment when you’re bobbing in the swell and there’s no distinction between you, your boat, the puffin in front of you, the wave and the sky—that place and that feeling become embedded in my photographs.
WHAT is the downside to teaching survival?
When you’re doing primitive survival stuff, you spend a lot of time starving. There’s a lot of hungriness and suffering. After a few years of toughing it out, I moved to the Pacific Northwest. If you’re near an ocean, then there’s food to be had. Survival school itself wasn’t really sustainable financially—it’s hard, because anyone who wants to learn survival is generally broke. You teach it because you love it.
Learn more about Kiliii’s traveling skin-on-frame workshops at seawolfkayak.com. See his photos and films at kiliii.com.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.
Get the full article in the digital edition of Canoeroots Early Summer 2014. 
This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2014 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. 
