Skills: Shifty Movies

Skills

By

Photo: Scott MacGregor — Skills: Shifty Movies

In bad movies, shifty characters move from side to side, eyes scanning for opportunities to gain any advantage and get ahead—just like a good canoeist! Quick and deceptively subtle shifts left and right allow canoeists to maintain their forward momentum and orientation while dodging rocks, holes and breaking waves.

Shifts are not the same as turns. In a turn, you point the bow of your canoe where you want to go and then move your canoe in that direction. During a shift, your hull slides sideways to move around obstacles, so your bow remains pointing downstream.

For quickly sneaking around rocks and skirting holes, shifts are much easier than turns for two reasons: One, they are faster and require fewer strokes. Two, they keep your canoe parallel to the current. moving with the current avoids the danger of broaching on rocks or bridging your hull over two different currents which could result in your canoe spinning out of control.

Shifts are performed by holding your paddle vertically in a stationary draw, pry or cross-draw. Feather the blade so that the leading edge points in the direction you’d like to travel. Water striking the angled blade will provide the force necessary to deflect the canoe to the side. In a solo boat, position the blade ahead of your knees. This forward paddle placement will cause the canoe to drift on an angle, instead of pivoting, as it continues its forward glide.

For the water to exert force on the static paddle blade, your canoe needs to be moving faster than the current. If you hold a shift too long, your canoe will lose momentum and the shift will lose effectiveness. Throw in some forward strokes to keep your speed up.

To help your boat move laterally across the current, throw in a little boat tilt opposite to your shift. This can be very subtle. Just tilt the boat off level, releasing the chine so water can move freely underneath.

Shifts can be used by all canoeists, whether paddling solo or tandem. Tandem paddlers can execute shifts individually for minor course corrections or together as a team for really spectacular shifts.

Next time you are out paddling with your friends, be on the lookout for any paddlers exhibiting shifty behaviour. Not only will they get out of driving shuttle and buying beer, they’ll also be slipping side to side as they stay in line with the current through rock-studded rapids.

Andrew Westwood is a frequent contributor to Rapid. He’s an open canoe instructor at the Madawaska Kanu Centre and a member of Team Esquif.

This article first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Re-Actionary of Fear

Stories

By

Ben Aylsworth

Fear. Whitewater paddling is full of it and we all feel it sooner or later. You can die paddling, people do. But there is fear you should have and fear you can live without. Fear you should feel is along the lines of; oh my god this is class V and I can’t roll, or this large sieve seems to be sucking me under. In cases like this you should actually feel; CLASS V, CAN’T ROLL, ROPE, ROPE FEAR or LARGE SIEVE, BACK PADDLE, BACK PADDLE FEAR!

However, it has been my experience that many paddlers psych themselves out before they even hit the river. Some factors influencing how one feels before putting on are: insecurity; lack of skill or experience; and trash-talking boaters.

Insecurity is something perhaps you should see a shrink about.

Lack of skill and experience requires instruction, practice and time on the river.

Trash-talking boaters like to sit around and talk about this run and that. Stories of so-n-so getting trashed so badly or how this run is so steep are quickly exaggerated. There is enough natural fear without certain loud mouths amplifying it unnecessarily. You’re picturing things like holes the size of Texas. You don’t want to paddle into a Texan hole. Hell no! After a sweaty night of dreaming about a Jalapeno hell you wake up to your buddies offering you a breakfast burrito. “No way man, this ain’t Texas!” you scream. “I’m not going to die!”

Then you’re putting on the river, the river of salsa. Your hands are shaking, your bloodless fingers are cold and stiff. The rand on your skirt seems tighter and for the first time since that glorious day you learned to roll you wonder if you can get out of your boat. Funny, you think, you are both scared and wearing a skirt.

WHAT YOU’RE AFRAID OF ISN’T PADDLING, IT’S FEAR ITSELF

Beware of the big fat liars. People who think that what they do isn’t for everyone; people who think that because they’ve run it you shouldn’t. You ask a local “So what’s this run like?” His reply “Oh my god, it’s this full-on colon purging run that never ends. What boat are you paddling?… Oh that’s no good….”

You have to ask yourself can this jackass even paddle? I mean look at him in his cover-alls playing his banjo. Locals tell you tall tales because they want to believe they are special. Their rivers are tougher than yours. But hey Billy Bob, things are tough all over.

Fear is a great motivator but it is a slippery slope. Many a river isn’t paddled due to pre-river anxiety and that’s a shame. I am not saying don’t be afraid, I’m saying don’t listen to terrifying tall tales, trash-talking fools and lying locals. Save your energy for the actual run. Play safe. If you get scared, you can almost always walk. If you still manage to get trashed, who hasn’t been trashed? So you get worked, so you swim, so you smash your face. Is that what you’re really worried about? Some stitches?

No, what you’re really afraid of isn’t paddling, its fear itself. Like when I paddled into Iron Ring at 14…

This article first appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Smart Turns: Water Reading for Eddy Exits

Skills

By

Andrew Westwood

Discuss eddy turns with paddlers and you may hear suggestions like: To exit an eddy pool, angle your canoe ten degrees to the eddy line. Others may tell you: Point upstream for fast current, and open your angle for slow water. These conventional methods of choosing boat angle may work for some eddies, but mysteriously let you down for others. So, is there a way to determine the exact angle to exit an eddy? One guaranteed to work whether you paddle a canoe or kayak in class I or V whitewater? You bet there is, and you won’t need a degree in geometry or one of those protractor thing-a-ma-gigs to figure it out. The secret for eddy turns is to read the water and find wave troughs that meet the eddyline. Then, set your boat angle crossways to the trough and surf it out into the downstream current. Water reading is all about finding helpful river features to make a manoeuvre easy every time.

Water Reading

Reading water is the ability to see the different currents and waves that make a rapid. Use this skill to place your boat onto the most helpful currents and waves to assist a manoeuvre. For the eddy exit, look for a wave trough that meets the eddyline and angles downstream away from the eddy pool. Larger and stronger waves are usually at the top of the eddy where the eddyline is narrow and easier to cross. Smaller, more forgiving waves may be downstream of the top of the eddy but to get on them you will be forced into crossing a wider boil line.

Surfing the Trough

Think of waves as waterslides to move your boat. All waves have a high point and a low point. By sliding or surfing your boat downhill from higher to lower water you can move with less effort. Surfs can also move you side to side much like a ferry. Surfing is the key to exiting an eddy. By literally falling off the eddyline and into a wave trough, you can surf away from an eddy pool. The surf lasts for just a moment, but it has the ability to launch the canoe out into the downstream current saving you the effort of accelerating your boat.

Choose the Right Angle

Choosing the best angle to exit an eddy depends on the trough you have chosen to surf out to the downstream current. Imagine a line drawn down the middle of the wave trough beginning at the eddy line and stretching out into the current. Study the water carefully; seeing the trough line will determine the boat angle needed to leave the eddyline. To peel out into the current, paddle your boat into the trough at a perpendicular or ninety degree angle to the trough line. No matter how strong the current, always set your angle crossways to the trough. Now hang on as your boat surfs off the eddyline and into the downstream current.

Reading Trouble?

Having trouble with eddy turns is rarely the fault of strokes, and more likely a difficulty with reading water. Ask yourself: is the boat….

Angled too much? If so, this will cause the boat to turn too suddenly preventing it from surfing out to the downstream current. Flips are common when the canoe is angled so much it is sideways to the wave trough. Try again pointing your boat across the trough line.
Angled too little? If the angle is too small, the canoe will surf back to the eddyline. On your next attempt, look again for the trough line and increase your angle to ninety degrees to the wave trough.
Paddling into the wave crest? Basically, this hump of water will push the canoe backward into the eddy. Better to aim for the wave trough and drop out of the eddy and into the depression of the trough and surf out to the main current.

Reading water allows you to tap into the power of the river and use it to move your canoe. Surfing wave troughs can make peel outs easier and faster while making your turns look smooth and effortless. Choosing an exit angle of ninety degrees to the trough line is an easy and fun way to surf out of an eddy pool. Give it a try, it works every time.

Andrew Westwood is a frequent contributor to Rapid Mag, OC slalom competitor and an instructor at the Madawaska Kanu Centre.

This article first appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Rapid Magazine.

If Noah Had Been a Playboater…

By

Paul Mason

Forty days and forty nights without having to shuttle would have been swweeet. Instead, Noah pretty much set the design standard for displacement hull boats. Good or Bad? It all depends on your perspective.

I’ve spent the last few years convinced and trying to convince everyone else that short, planing hull whitewater canoes are best. Period. Well, maybe I’m getting soft but there may actually indeed be merit to those honking big, twelve foot solo boats.

The objective of a planing hull is to surf on top of the water rather than in it. The faster the wave the less displacement there will be and therefore the looser the boat will feel. Small planing hull canoes such as the Dagger Aftershock or Pyrahna Spanish Fly have very flat bottoms.There is no rocker in this flat section. Instead, near the ends of the boat, the hull breaks away abruptly, slanting up to meet the deck at the end of the canoe. This allows the boat to slide to a sideways position on a wave rather than carve across it. The bottom of the hull is actually concave at the sides making a very sharp chine. This is referred to as a release edge. It makes the hull feel loose when sideways on a wave.

The goal of a displacement hull canoe like the Dagger Phantom, Ocoee and every other open canoe out there is completely different. Some canoes such as the Esquif Detonator have flat bottoms but also have rocker, so are still displacement hulls. A displacement hull tracks well, meaning it is resistant to turning.These boats cut through the water making them fast but they must carve their turns to some degree.This ten- dency to travel in a straight line will be affected by rocker, length and chine. Rocker increases a boat’s turning ability as does a shorter length and harder chines.

Since the big flood, canoes have been fairly multipurpose. Sure, some are better at one facet of canoeing than another, but at least each canoe design had the possibility to perform all the manoeuvres that were known as canoeing. As canoe designs changed it was reasonable to expect that they were generally improving, becoming more manouvreable and lighter. Eventually, planing hull technology was incorporated into an open canoe. This would have happened a lot sooner if Noah had built a flat bottom scow instead of a displacement boat. Suddenly, a whole host of new techniques and manoeuvres were achievable in a canoe. Unless you had to move a whole lot of animals, why would anyone want to paddle something that resembled the ark?

Well there are a couple of reasons. Big boats track well, have good hull speed and are really good at punching holes. If you watch one plowing through a hole you can see the stern of the boat sinking into the green water of the downstream current as the bow pierces the hole. This downstream current pushes the canoe through the foampile. Compare that to a short boat that has to climb up the face of the hole. If the stern is still in the green water, the boat will be at such an angle that the current is actu- ally pushing the stern down. Backender!

Big canoes make rapids and waves seem smaller. I’m guessing the Ark was really big. Their large size, buoyancy and speed allows them to plow through many obstacles that a shorter, more manouvreable boat would have to dance around. Some of the highest boofs I’ve heard of an open canoe attempting were done in big 14 foot solo boats. Kind of the same rational that makes a big car safer in a crash.

WE NEED MORE THAN ONE WHITEWATER PLAYBOAT

So now there are two distinct kinds of whitewater canoes vying for a paddlers attention, roofspace and bankbook— planing hull and displacement hull canoes. Typically what happens is a canoeist wears out or outgrows their old displacement boat. They start thinking about a new boat. Which one is best? They try a few and using experience as criteria determine that the new plastic planing hulls are ugly, slow and wet. No argument from me on those points. It is true that short, flat planing hulls are slow on flatwater. But if I wanted to enjoy the flatwater, I’d paddle a flatwater boat! Now I must admit that if there is flatwater involved and you’re the only one in a freestyle playboat, then a faster displacement boat might be okay.

Most freestyle canoes are wet to paddle, meaning water splashes in more easily than in those massive 13 foot super-tankers. When freeboating, taking onwater is fairly irrelevant since each ride in a hole or on a big wave leads to emptying the boat anyway. Who cares whether you’re emptying a little water or a lot. The only difference is that the small boats are light and easy to empty quickly. If your goal is to stay dry as you descend the rapid, go and buy a short displacement canoe with a bulbous nose that will ride over every wave. It will be great for all those front surfs and eddy turns.

So why are canoeists satisfied with displacement hulls? Kayakers moved on to new and exciting possibilities years ago. First time kayakers who just got their new boat and haven’t even taken the price tag off yet, are working towards doing moves with killer names like blunt, donkey flip, tricky whu and pan am.Your average experienced canoeist is still trying to nail a back surf. Maybe canoeists don’t want to do flat spins on a wave because their displacement hull boats aren’t designed to do that. Or are the canoes not designed to do spins because canoeists don’t know they can?

The answer just might be to admit that we need more than one whitewater playboat. A displacement boat for those occasions when you don’t want to play the river, you just want to run it. And a planing hull canoe to open up new learning opportunities and add fresh excitement to your favourite local rapids.

Paul is a Team-Dagger paddler, freelance cartoonist and wishes to sincerely apologize to his father, the late Bill Mason, for not mentioning the prospector canoe in a previous article.

This article first appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Trips: Sturgeon Falls in Winnipeg, MB

Trips

By

Nick Bidwell

For some time rumors have been spreading of a mysterious and fantastic playspot in the province of Manitoba.

As unlikely as that may sound in a province better known for its wheat farms than its whitewater, the rumors happen to be true. Sturgeon Falls on the Winnipeg River is a playspot to rival the best in the country offering safe plays for paddlers of all skill and confidence levels. It’s located only ninety minutes east of Winnipeg, and about an hour north of the Trans-Canada highway, just a slight detour on a cross-country tour.

The characteristics and features of Sturgeon Falls parallel those of Lachine Rapids in Montreal. Both are wide rivers with many good playspots and the odd powerboat pass- ing by. The waves at Sturgeon Falls are formed by a rocky shoal situated at a narrow point in the river up-stream from Nutimik Lake. Although Sturgeon Falls has only ten feet of gradient, it has fifteen waves and holes for paddlers to select their own kind of ride. There is an eddy on the river right side providing access to most of the waves making for a difficult decision every time you paddle back to the top. There are six to ten foot glassy waves, big trashy holes and friendly front surfs. Sturgeon has it all.

The size of the waves depends on the water level but even at low flows there are still some nice spots to play. If you are looking for higher flow rates, your best bet is sometime in the middle of June when the snow feeding the Winnipeg River from the north has melted and is on its way south. The water tends to be pretty cold until the end of June and even early July, so dry tops and skullcaps are recommended.

Keep an eye on the water levels online at www.lwcb.ca/waterflowdata.html. Click on the link for Winnipeg River in Manitoba under Water Levels & Flows Primary Sites. This will bring up three graphs providing information on the outflow at the Slave Falls Dam, the lake level at Nutimik Lake and the outflow at the Seven Sisters Dam. The blue line represents the actual water level and ends at the most recent reading. The green and red lines represent where the river is predicted to be with red representing the extreme edge of those predictions. While Sturgeon Falls is worth going no matter the water level, high water starts when Nutimik Lake is at 275.2 metres (903 feet) and flowing at 1200 cubic metres per second (40000 cubic feet per second).

To get to Sturgeon Falls, travel on the Trans-Canada Highway to West Hawk Lake and turn north on Highway 44. Turn north again at Highway 307 toward Seven Sisters Falls. Travel on Highway 307 until you get to Nutimik Lake Campground and follow the signs for the boat launch and campsite. From the boat launch, Sturgeon Falls is a one kilometre paddle to the right.

There are many other users of the area as it is part of Whiteshell Provincial Park, so keep an eye out for fishing boats and day users. During the summer season, a small day use fee is payable at the front gate of the park. Camping is abundant in the campground but food is lim- ited in the area, it is best to come ready to cook for yourself for the duration of your stay. A full breakdown of camping prices is available on the park’s website. There are showers and washroom facilities in the campground though some are locked during the off season.

Whether you are a pro paddler looking for a secret Jedi training ground with big trashy holes and grinding steep waves or a beginner looking for a nice friendly surf break you will find Sturgeon Falls has a little something for everyone. Next time you’re driving across the country stop and surf Manitoba!

This article first appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Boat Review: WaveSport’s Transformer

By

Paddling Magazine Staff

While other boat companies are racing to develop slicy, hole boats and big air, wave boats, Wave Sport has released only one new model for 2003: The Transformer. In its raw state the Transformer comes in four sizes and is a mean-looking aerial spud boat. But just like the original Transformers, there is more than meets the eye. The Transformer mutates in length with the three interchangeable tip options—the stock bumper, and five-inch and eight-inch wings. A little high school math and you realize you have 15 possible performance combinations, which Wave Sport says allow you to adapt to different environments. If it works, the Transformer is without a doubt the biggest step toward offering one boat to do it all.

The Means to the ends

Our 6’4″ T3 caught attention on the river because it was so big. At 60 gallons, the T3 is the same size as a Super EZ. The T2 holds 55 gallons and even the smallest version, the T1, has more volume than the EZ. The pudgy stern looks huge compared to the scooped out bow. We asked designer Eric Jackson why the stern has so much more volume than the bow and he was quick to point out our mistake.

“The bow has more volume than the stern,” he said. “This boat is balanced so that with the seat neutral there is 52.5% of the volume in front of the center of gravity and 47.5% of the volume behind your center of gravity. The stern looks big because you have to account for huge amounts of volume in the knee area.”

The Transformer T3 is extremely wide at 26.75 inches. According to Jackson, the width provides lots of support on the water when bouncing. “When you start the bounce it doesn’t sink in as far, starting you off higher up. You’ll also notice that the planing surface is huge and the rocker is set back to offer an ideal pivot point for the ollie—the bow comes up high so when you push it down your entire boat leaves the water easily.”

Tiggers will like it

If the Transformer did nothing else it’s worth buying just for the bounce. Carve to the top of a wave, point downhill and this boat is air- borne. No fancy heel push/knee pull action required. It just bounces. The trick isn’t to get the boat off the water, it’s keeping it down. Your first few surfs on a fast wave will have you giggling and just trying to hang on. It is a very new and very addictive feeling.

Getting air in the T3 doesn’t require a huge feature. This is where we think the large volume stern is helpful. Here’s our theory: Like pulling a cork under water and letting it pop to the surface, when you carve to the top of a wave the buoyant volume in the stern gets trapped in the foam pile and then squirts you forward into the trough. This little push pro- vides the momentum you need to get the Transformer aerial on small breaking waves.

Good-bye wave carving, hello spins

The Transformer is extremely loose on a wave and is as happy grinding as it is front or back surfing. The edges are far enough out of the water that snagging in the current is not an issue. Front surfing the stock Transformer is twitchy. Besides the fact it is hopping all over the place, the huge planing surface wants to spin if you’re not aggressively carving. Add the tips to the stern and it settles down, stops bouncing, tracks better and falls into a more useable category of boat for most people—at least at first.

The Transformer is very slow edge to edge, simply due to the extreme width. You have to concentrate on getting the boat way up on its side and carving off the front edges to perform vertical blunts and backs stabs. Add the tips and like longer boats, the Transformer will let you carve off the stern or blast down and settle in the trough.

It’s in the hole

The Transformer is very smooth and stable spinning or cartwheeling. We thought it would be difficult to stay ahead of the rotation, yet it seemed to cartwheel slowly and predictably. It’s like cartwheeling an inner tube with some ends to let you know there is a front and a back. The tube keeps you rotating smoothly and the bow and stern get you started.

Without the tips on the Transformer, it was difficult to perform rotational moves such as the tricky-whu or pirouette. When you begin to rotate on a vertical plane around the boat, it tends to fall back into the hole. We asked Eric Jackson about this and he agreed. “Tricky whus are super difficult without the long tip on the stern,” he said. “The long tip provides the length reaching the green water and provides the extra balance you need to do the pirouette.”

Bolt on the eight-inch tips and you have a completely different boat. It’s 100 times easier to bow stall and they make stern squirts possible. The vertical stability of the tips turns tum- bling into traditional controlled cartwheeling.

The Transformer loops with ease. Once the nose is down, the boat is headed up. The high volume central area makes the T3 super retentive, and the short length makes it easy to throw over your head. On a good foam pile, aerial loops are easier than three point cart- wheels.

The ends

Don’t jump in the Transformer for five minutes in flatwater and think you’re going to like it. You’ll feel right at home in the posh F.A.T. 3.0 outfitting but you’ll feel lost in the volume. Get this boat to a play spot however and the Transformer is wonderfully retentive, cart- wheels smoothly, hops like water on a hot skillet, and loops like a drunken circus clown.

Does it change from bouncy to slicy? Not exactly. There is too much volume to make it truly slicy. But the tips do work and make a huge difference to the performance. The tips tame the Transformer down and add vertical stability. They make a full-on bounce boat perform more like a boat most people are used to paddling. Switching the ends allows you to tune the Transformer to your skill level and the move of the day. If the fun of transforming your boat isn’t reason enough to buy one, you might be happy to know that Wave Sport offers the Transformer for $200 less than last year’s models.

Specs

Transformer 1

Length: 70 inches
Width: 25.25 inches
Depth: 12.25 inches
Weight: 30 lbs
Volume: 49 gallons
MSRP CAD/USD: $1495 / $999

Transformer 2

Length: 72 inches
Width: 26 inches
Depth: 12.75 inches
Weight: 32.5 lbs
Volume: 55 gallons
MSRP CAD/USD: $1495 / $999

Transformer 3

Length: 76 inches
Width: 26.75 inches
Depth: 13.25 inches
Weight: 35 lbs
Volume: 60 gallons
MSRP CAD/USD: $1495 / $999

Transformer 4

Length: 80 inches
Width: 27.5 inches
Depth: 13.75 inches
Weight: 37.5 lbs
Volume: 67 gallons
MSRP CAD/USD: $1495 / $999

This article first appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of Rapid magazine. For more great boat reviews, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Editorial: Wave Hello to the People

Stories

By

Scott MacGregor

Photo: flickr.com/rusty_clark — Editorial: Wave Hello to the People

It might not be a rule necessarily; perhaps you’d consider it a guideline or maybe a mantra. No matter what you want to call it, these are words to paddle by: Wave to everyone you see. A friendly wave hello is the best way to enrich your trip, build friendships and sometimes get some help along the way.

At the government docks in Silver Islet, a tiny community of 140 dwellings on the north shore of Lake Superior, I pumped my stove to life after a morning of steadily building seas. Between pumps I waved a foggy good morning to a middle-aged couple out for their morning walk.

“That’s not a stove,” Frank yelled over. “Put that thing away and come and have tea with Susan and me.”

The black and white Findlay cook stove was Frank and Susan’s only source of heat in their 19th century log home. Over tea, looking out to where a few cribbings remained, I heard the history of the richest silver mine in the world. Between 1868- and 1884, the Montreal Mining Company extracted $3,250,000 worth of silver from Silver Islet, but it wasn’t easy. At one time the cribbing was 70 feet wide and 20 feet above the water level, expanding the small rock islet to 10 times its original size. Twice, Superior’s storms destroyed the cribbing surrounding the mine and flooded the shaft. Eight hundred feet below the mighty lake’s surface, pumps ran constantly to keep the mine from flooding.The return on investment at this depth was slim and finally, in March of 1884, a fuel supply ship didn’t arrive, the fuel tanks ran dry and the mine flooded for the last time.

As Susan warmed my tea and put the pot back on the hundred-year-old stove, I thanked her for the history lesson and asked why they invited me in.

“You gave us such a friendly wave, we were afraid you’d invite us over,” Susan said, smiling. “It was too cold to stand out there waiting for you to get that little stove going.”

Waving hello is the golden rule if you do happen to need something along the way. Maybe its fresh water or a telephone to update your float plan. Or maybe you just need a small piece of shoreline along Lake Ontario to call home for the night. Paddling the Toronto waterfront is a mixture of breakwaters, marinas and ritzy waterfront homes offering few places to land a kayak and even fewer to pitch a tent.

George McGillicutty was cutting his grass when my kayak surfed to shore in his backyard. I dragged my boat up to a rusty snow-fence post holding a weathered “private beach—KEEP OFF” sign. George saw me walking up his pebbly beach and steered his Toro mower toward me.

George is a semi-retired stockbroker. He still commutes three days a week to Bay Street. He’d like to make it four, but his family thinks he should quit altogether.Too much stress on his heart they say.

“Hi, my name’s Scott,” I hollered and waved over the screaming lawn mower. “I left Thunder Bay three months ago and I’m headed home to Hamilton.” I offered a handshake.

“I’ll be God-damned, that’s a long way,” said George. “Pull your boat up a bit further. You’d better spend the night. This whole stretch of water is private. Nobody will let you camp along here.”

Nobody, that is, until I gave George a friendly wave.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak‘s print and digital editions here.

Time Warp on Thomsen

By

Dave Quinn

The guttural throb of two powerful engines rattles the cramped cabin of our chartered Twin Otter aircraft, piled high with paddling gear. Nine eager passengers crane their necks to scan the arctic waters for beluga and right whales.

We have flown from Edmonton, Alberta,to Inuvik, NWT, where the stunted northern treeline meets the historic Mackenzie River. From Inuvik we chartered the Twin Otter to take us north, two hours and 750 kilometres across the Beaufort Sea to Banks Island, the westernmost of Canada’s High Arctic islands. A two-week paddle will take us down the country’s northernmost navigable river, located in one of the nation’s newest and least-visited national parks—Aulavik.

We are an eclectic mix of arctic buffs, sea kayaking enthusiasts and birders drawn together by a shared urge to explore Canada’s mystical High Arctic regions. Our ages are as diverse as our interests, ranging from the cherubic seven-year-old Navarana Smith and her stuffed animal entourage, to the ageless Nipper Guest. Nipper’s tales of his far-reaching global adventures—everything from the horror and glory of WWII to riding his bike across Canada at the age of 70—will fill our windbound days with smiles and respect. Falling somewhere in-between on the age scale, the rest of us try our darndest to match the boundless energy of these two exuberant arctiphiles.

Our final brush with civilization is a brief stop to refuel and pick up supplies in Sachs Harbour, a community of 150 on the southern tip of Banks Island. Fully supplied, we zoom north across endlessly rolling tundra, flying low enough to see small groups of Peary caribou, flocks of snow geese, packs of wolves and herds of muskox panicking from the roar of the aircraft.

Dominating a broad, fertile valley on the northeastern tip of Banks Island is the azure meander of our destination, the Thomsen River, snaking its way through ancient glacial till toward the Arctic Ocean.

The plane leaves us and our mountain of gear on a small gravel bar near the river, in the middle of what the Parks Canada website calls “one of the most remote places in North America.” A charter

flight from Inuvik costs over $20,000, and the park gets an average of 25to 30 visitors a year.The only signs of modernity in the park are two tiny shacks of wind-free comfort in 12,000 square kilometres of untouched arctic landscape.With more than one muskox per square kilometre, the land is an arctic Serengeti, one of the world’s great remaining intact wilderness areas.

At midnight, the sun is still high in the northern sky, casting the warm light that photographers live for. We eat a 2 a.m. dinner in a persistent north wind and begin to set up our folding Klepper kayaks as two yellow-billed loons eye us suspiciously from the river. These boats give us the freedom to paddle in remote airdrop-only regions. Folded, they occupy two large suitcase-sized bags that will fly anywhere. Set up, they weigh in at 70 pounds and will hold enough gear for months of well-planned exploring. Their wood frames and canvas/hyperlon skins mimic the designs that originated in the arctic regions a thousand years ago.The kayak provides a per- fect conduit for historical exploration of these regions.There is no more effective time machine than a historically relevant means of travel and an active imagination.

On Banks Island, wind seems to constantly stimulate the senses, keeping the notorious arctic insect hordes grounded at the same time. The clouds of mosquitoes do not seem as intent on biting as on simply irritating all living things.

For two weeks, the current of the Thomsen carries us steadily northward and we are boggled by the abundance of life on Banks Island. It brazenly contradicts our mental image of “the barrens.”

A snowy owl twists its tail and wheels from its arcing glide, its sharp eyes drawn by a ripple of movement across the tundra below. The owl feeds on the abundant lemmings, ptarmigan, and small birds. Each brief arctic summer, snowy owls fly 3,000 kilometres north to breed in the Thomsen River valley, where they are joined by over 50 other species of migratory birds.A short stroll among the endless tundra ponds dotting the landscape would fulfil any North American birder’s wildest dreams.

The treeless landscape leaves wildlife almost naked—a wolf cruising along a ridge a kilometre away will catch the eye like a lightning bolt in a cloudy sky.The dark shapes of muskox grazing in a sedge meadow stand out like boulders on a snowfield.

Biologists trace only one living relative to the muskox—the takin of the Tibetan high plains—and these two isolants rest somewhere on the evolutionary line between goats and antelope. Seventy thousand muskox roam the valleys and swails of Banks Island. These staggering numbers are testament to the astonishing capability of the Western Arctic’s vegetation to support life and provide locals with a valuable source of revenue and food.

As we float down the river,mysterious white forms,out of place in the low sea of brown-green tundra vegetation, catch our eyes. We rudder hard and cross the steady current to land our kayaks on the far shore below the strangely white-speckled hill. We stumble like drunks over the endless tundra hummocks, trying in vain not to disturb the fragile blanket of flowers. A pair of croaking sandhill cranes soars noisily overhead, and a small flock of Lapland longspurs flits nervously from our path as we reach the first of the weather-bleached objects.

The objects turn out to be ancient bones, some bleached, others painted with the brilliant orange of xanthoria lichen. Small bits of caribou antler, ribs, vertebrae, and scapulae are spread over many hectares of this lonely, wind-blasted hillside. But the muskox skulls are what really trigger our primordial imaginations. Someone bends down to inspect a bone—the teeth of a primitive saw have scarred it. With no reminders of modernity to anchor us in the present, no sign of today’s culture anywhere to be seen, our thoughts travel 500 years back in time.We imagine the peaceful serenity shattered by the baying of the dogs that walked with the Inuit.We can almost see the dogs as they drive the muskox to the top of the rise, where the herd predictably forms a defensive ring, young near the center. Their shedding winter underfur, called qiviut, waves in the arctic wind like ragged flags flying from the animals’ humped forms.

This instinctual defence works well against the muskox’s main predator, the arctic wolf, but is suicidal when the attackers are armed with arrows and spears. Soon the animals are killed and butchered. Extra meat is buried under heavy stones to keep the foxes, weasels and wolves away until it can be used. What we see today are these grave-like meat caches along with the stone tent rings of the hunters’ families.

The gradual evolution of cultures in this region took a sudden leap in 1851 with the arrival of the first Europeans.The great age of arctic exploration was in full swing, and dozens of European ships cruised the ice-choked waters in search of the grail of that age—the fabled Northwest Passage to the rich lands of the Orient. Ships and men were marooned and starving all over the Arctic. It was only a matter of time before one of the poorly prepared European expeditions came ashore on Banks Island.

Captain Robert McClure led one of a wave of voyages sent by the British Navy to determine the fate of the now-infamous Franklin expedition. McClure sailed the HMS Investigator from Hawaii around Alaska to the northern tip of Banks Island, inching his way eastward until he encountered heavy ice in September, 1851. McClure sought a safe haven from the impending arctic winter in a small harbour near the Thomsen River delta, christening it, with pre- mature optimism, the Bay of God’s Mercy. It was the last harbour Investigator would ever enter.

The following summer came and went with no sign of the Investigator’s icy trap melting. The expedition was forced to spend a second winter in total darkness. Supplies and crew morale disap- peared along with the sun.

Finally, a rescue party from the Investigator’s sister ship, HMS Resolute, spotted two members of McClure’s crew who had been sent in search of help.The two lonely figures, blackened from head to foot with coal smoke, were wandering the ice near Banks Island. McClure and his crew abandoned the Investigator and returned to England, becoming the first Europeans to complete the Northwest Passage.

The precise fate of the 450-tonne, copper-sheathed ship is not known. All that remains of the ship are some old piles of coal and a few barrel staves.The more enduring stone and bone signatures of the Copper Inuit tell the rest of the Investigator’s tale. Archeologists know that sometime in the mid–late 19th century, the Copper Inuit abruptly changed their migration routes to use the Thomsen drainage as a main travel corridor.

The Investigator’s wreckage may have prompted the shift. One can only think of a wrecked spacecraft, full of unimaginable technologies, to get a hint of the significance of this discovery to a people whose only sources of wood were the occasional piece of driftwood and tiny bits of arctic willow. Early translations of Inuit encounters with similar ships indicate they believed them to be carved from a single block of wood! In addition, the ship’s copper, iron, and woven fabrics would have been a lottery-sized bounty. In Mercy Bay, the visible remains of over 150 campsites and 3,000 muskox skeletons are the legacy of annual trips to gather goods for everyday use and for trade.

The ponderous tale of Banks’ 4,000-year human history culminates in Sachs Harbour where the formerly transient Copper Inuit that once came off the ice in the warm arctic summers to follow the muskox and caribou are now permanently anchored. Here, the centuries-old practice of muskox hunting continues, but in a highly modernized form.

The Inuit use ATVs and Skidoos to round up the 3,000 muskox to fill their quota. The animals are herded from holding pen to holding pen, bringing them eventually to a large pen near the village. Here the animals are processed—the meat shipped out in 30 DC-3 loads to Edmonton for packing, and the qiviut shipped to Peru to be carded and spun.

This mystical fibre is purported to be 10 times warmer than wool by weight, and has the silky texture of cashmere. Stores like the Qiviuk Boutique in Banff sell qiviut sweaters to high-end tourists for as much as $5,000. Back in Sachs harbour, a dark stain of entrails on the ice in front of the village, waiting for the spring melt, is all that remains of the yearly muskox hunt.

An estimated 18,000 muskox reside in the Thomsen River valley, and we continually paddle past small herds of these Paleolithic beasts. Typically, our five boats drift toward a resting group of muskox until one exceptionally vigilant animal slowly rises to inspect us.

One by one, each animal in the herd stands, looks at us, and glances at the others as if to say,“are we really seeing what I think we’re seeing, and should we be worried?” Finally, one animal decides that, yes, they should be worried, and its break from the riverside sends the entire herd stampeding wildly across the tundra.

But we did not arrive by dogteam like the hunters in the animals’ ancient memories. Nor are we clad in the furs of the Old Ones, but in colourful modern jackets and pants, with toques permanently affixed to our crowns to ward off the seeking north wind.

And it’s not the sound of barking dogs that spooks the herd, but the drone of an approaching plane. It circles the gravel bar once, twice, then puts down with a dusty roar on the makeshift airstrip. We pile into the belly of the plane, take off with a roar and speed steadily southward, forward to the 21st century.

Dave Quinn of Canmore, Alberta, teaches high school outdoor education and guides kayak trips in the Canadian Arctic, the Queen Charlotte Islands and Patagonia.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Paddling the Ecological Heart of Monterey

Stories

By

Barb and Ron Kroll

“We’re not going out in those waves, are we?” we ask apprehensively. Two-metre-high breakers roll in and crash ashore near the hotels and tourist shops of downtown Monterey. It’s easy to imagine our kayaks spinning like tops, then emerging as toothpicks in the surf. “Sure we are,” Frank Knight replies confidently. “If you look closely, you’ll see smaller waves mixed in with the big ones. We’ll launch you in a nice calm interval, so you’ll be beyond the swells before the next breaker rolls in.”

Knight, we reasoned, should know what he’s talking about. He was born in nearby Carmel and his father worked as a refrigeration mechanic in Cannery Row,the historic Monterey waterfront that inspired John Steinbeck’s 1945 novel of the same title. The sardine canneries of Steinbeck’s day now house museums, restaurants, and shops, as well as Monterey’s renowned aquarium.

Fifteen years ago, Knight caught the tourism wave and began renting bikes from his home. Now he owns a company, Adventures by the Sea, and his biggest business by far is kayaks. The small boats are perfect for viewing the seabirds, marine mammals and expansive kelp forests of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Stretching 445 kilometres north from Big Sur, past Monterey to the edge of San Francisco and 48 kilometres out to sea, this is the largest marine sanctuary in the U.S.

We sit in our kayaks as wave after wave pounds the beach in front of us. Then, Knight and one of his guides launch us like stones in a slingshot. We find ourselves smoothly gliding

through the sapphire water, 200 metres off- shore. There are no breakers here, just gently rolling waves.

“This is a rough day,” says Knight when he joins us. “Normally it’s as smooth as glass.”

From the water, the weather-beaten canneries propped up on barnacle-encrusted pylons resemble the backside of a theatre stage set. A backdrop of sandy beaches, rocky cliffs and rolling mountains embraces the bay. It’s hard to believe that we’re in an ecological haven, just two hours south of San Francisco and directly offshore from downtown Monterey, whose population of 33,000 doubles in the summer/fall tourist season.

Travelling over the kelp forest is much like paddling through thick vegetable soup.The voluminous brown seaweed grows up from the bottom, then spreads itself along the surface, supported by air-filled bladders.

“Kelp is the largest algae in the world,” says Knight. He explains that during the summer it can grow up to 25 centimetres a day, reaching heights of more than 30 metres. The kelp is protected here, but farther south, Knight adds, it’s harvested with sea combines. Algin from the kelp is used as a stabilizing and homogenizing agent in ice cream, salad dressings, chocolate milk, toothpaste, shaving cream and dozens of other common products.

Kelp forests, undulating below the surface, also provide food and shelter for the bay’s aquatic inhabitants, notably the sea otters. These endearing, be-whiskered mammals once widely inhabited the northern Pacific Rim. Then, in the early days of international seafaring, fur traders hunted otters nearly to extinction. It wasn’t until hunting was banned in 1911 that populations began to recover. Otters didn’t reappear in Monterey Bay until the 1960s, and the species is still considered threatened. There are only about 2,000 California sea otters compared to an estimated original population of 15,000.

A brown head pops up 20 metres away and surveys us with its teddy bear button eyes.

“They’re very curious animals,” remarks Knight. “I brought someone out last week and an otter clambered aboard his kayak for a closer look.”

A schoolteacher once returned from a kayak tour with an even better story. A sea otter emerged next to her kayak with a waterproof camera tucked under its arm. A couple minutes later, two scuba divers surfaced in a burst of bubbles and told her that the otter had stolen their camera. When she paddled closer to the otter, it swam toward her, threw the camera into the kayak and dashed off.

Another otter bobs up next to our kayaks and nonchalantly floats on his back munching an abalone the size of a small pizza. The crunching of his teeth on the shell sounds like he’s cracking nuts.

Unlike whales and seals, which have a layer of blubber to keep them warm in the cold ocean, sea otters rely on their fur coats. While humans have about 100,000 hairs on their heads, sea otters have up to a mil- lion hairs per square inch of surface area. The hair is so thick that the water never comes in contact with their skin.

The fur’s insulating property is lost if it’s matted by oil, making otters especially vulnerable to oil spills. The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill killed nearly 5,000 otters in Alaska. Tankers routinely ply the waters offshore of Monterey, and U.S. risk assessment experts estimate that six large oil spills will occur over the next 30 years. Environmental groups are fighting to limit oil transport and exploration near the coast.

Closer to home, paddlers do what they can to pro- tect the fragile ecology of the area. Knight frequently donates his staff, kayaks and time to pick up any trash that floats into the bay.

“We pick up soft drink cans, beer bottles and plastic bags that blow in from fishing boats,” he says.“A sea turtle will die if it eats a plastic bag. If the bag gets caught in its stomach, it will starve.”

As we watch an otter wolf down $50 worth of abalone, then dive down to his kelp forest grocery store to retrieve more food, Knight explains that the animals’ high rate of metabolism also helps to keep them warm.

“They stoke the furnace all the time by eating up to a quarter of their body weight each day to maintain their temperature,” Knight says. That’s equivalent to an average-weight human eating 120 hamburgers.

This means that each otter is devouring up to five kilos of crabs, clams, mussels, snails and abalone every day—much to the chagrin of local fishermen.The otters are actually doing the fishermen a service, however. By feasting on sea urchins, which destroy kelp forests if left unchecked, otters keep the kelp ecosystem in balance.

“Did you notice that the abalone shell was broken on one side?” asks Knight.“That’s because the otter used a tool to dislodge it from a rock.” Otters carry their tools under their arm-flaps and pull them out when needed to crack open clam shells, or even to bash open a sunken aluminum can to remove an octopus that’s taken refuge inside.

While most otters use rocks as tools, Knight remembers one who used the thick base of an old Coke bottle. Sometimes, an otter will use a rock or concrete slab on its belly as an anvil to hammer open a shellfish. It eats the meal using its midriff as a table, turning its torso over in the water to clear away the crumbs.

Mother otters also use their stomachs as portable playpens for their furry pups. Sculling along on their backs, they deposit their youngsters on the kelp bed canopy before diving for food. Securely wrapped in the kelp blanket nursery, the helpless pups won’t be washed ashore by the surf.

We, too, anchor ourselves by grasping the kelp strands to keep our kayaks from drifting ashore while we observe the animals. Another otter surfaces with a crab, disassembling and eating one leg at a time before twirling the body like a jelly donut to gnaw at the edges.

A couple of seagulls descend on his belly to snatch away some tasty tidbits. We see other birds as well—web-footed auks, pterodactyl-like pelicans, and black cormorants that stand on the rocks with their wings spread out to dry. The cormorants dive as deep as 18 metres, but they lack oil in their plumage so their feathers absorb water. Sometimes the birds are too heavy to fly until they dry off.

There’s so much life in the bay, we forget that we’re still within sight of Monterey’s built-up coastline. Seals and sea lions also compete for our attention. There’s a year-round colony of about 85 sea lions on the rocks by the shore. Because it’s windy, they’re out in the water instead of sunning on the rocks. Knight explains how we can tell the difference between a harbour seal and a California sea lion.

“The seals have a very hydrodynamic profile, since they don’t have an external ear, while the sea lions have ears as well as bulbous foreheads. ”The sea lions are also much larger, weighing up to 400 kilos compared to the seals, which weigh less than 140.

A harbour seal playfully pokes his head up next to our kayaks. By the time we focus our cameras, he’s disappeared. We wait in vain for him to resurface, only to discover him watching us from the opposite side of the boat. Other seals escort us back to Cannery Row, where Knight guides us in so that we’re riding the smooth water behind a breaker.

We slip ashore amidst the bustle of tourists on the Monterey waterfront.We’ve seen so much on our two-hour paddle, we think maybe the other tourists are missing the boat, so to speak. For us, the heart of Monterey is in the Bay.

Barb and Ron Kroll have recorded and photographed wildlife from water level in destinations ranging from the Amazon and the Arctic to Africa and Asia.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Editorial: Boater Cross Rules

Stories

By

Scott MacGregor

Photo: courtesy flickr.com/StefanSchmitz

Boater cross is exciting.

It is .And I’m not the only who thinks so.

I had a chance to catch the final leg of the Liquid Skills Showdown this past September.

I rolled in for semi-finals of the Kayak International Boater Cross event. I could tell from a distance that this wasn’t just another paddling event—I could hear cheering. I’ve never heard cheering at a paddling event before. Maybe somebody swam, I thought.

Boater cross, if you haven’t seen it, is like motorcross or snow boarder cross. Four paddlers mass start and paddle like hell racing to the finish line. It’s greyhound racing without the rabbit. It’s primitive but the crowd loves it. Not only does the crowd like it; the paddlers are into it.They were high fiving at the finish line, replaying the last 30 seconds with their opponents, like children on the playground.

“Oh man, I thought I had you until I got sucked into that boil.”

“Bummer, dude.”

BOATER CROSS HAS EVERYTHING WE NEED

Boater cross has what it takes to put paddling into the extreme mainstream. Think about it, what does a sport (I use that word loosely) need to have to make it to TSN? What do dog trials and logger games have that paddling hasn’t? Head to head competition and an immediately chosen winner. Boater cross is the drama we’ve been missing.

You can have an event almost anywhere there is whitewater. No more fussing about water levels and the rules are simple enough. Let’s see if I can remember them. GO—and the first one across the finish line wins. Hand Ron MacLean the program, a few jargon words and another $400,000 and away he’ll go with the play-by-play commentary. I suspect it won’t be long before there are teams and team strategies. Boater cross will have its own breed of hockey goons whose sole purpose is taking-out the leading scorer. Fox will release a line of team jerseys. And EJ will be on the cereal box with Tony the Tiger.

Ex-Olympic slalom racers will finally be able to make it big. After they retire from amateur sports instead of joining the Icecapades they can have a professional career in boater cross. Kids will collect paddler cards of their favourite “players”. They’ll put them in their bicycle spokes and twenty years from now look back and wish they still had their David Ford rookie card. There will be rivalries between slalom and freestyle paddlers. Drug testing will be protested. It won’t be long before canoeists get in on the action with tandem boater cross. Now that’s exciting.

Freestyle paddlers will finally get the free ride they’ve been looking for. Why? Because we can sell boater cross to TV-industry big wigs. A light bulb will pop on in some producer’s head; he will think he has found this great new sport—paddling. Guys shelling peanuts sitting at bars will eat it up. Boater cross has everything they need. Beautiful locations, carnage and spectacular instant replays.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2002 issue of Rapid Magazine.