Consisting of two pots, a frying pan, lid and pot grips, this 30-ounce cook set will allow the chef in your group to work some magic. Made of hard-anodized aluminum, clean up is easy thanks to a titanium, non-stick surface. All components nest and come in a net stuff sack.
$64 | www.primuscamping.com
Look for a feature length film later this year from six-man expedition team Paddle for the North, who spent two months crossing from Canada to Alaska along six rivers, taking gorgeous photos and video along the way.
Read CanoerootsMag.com’s interview with them here to learn more about their trip or visit their website here.
After more than five months on the water, expedition team Canoeing The Continent reached its goal of Istanbul on day 146 of their journey, after traversing almost 5,000 kilometers.
The two British paddlers, James Warner Smith and Nathan Wilkins, began their ambitious voyage in Nantes, on the Atlantic coast of France, with the goal of reaching Istanbul by connecting waterways and without portaging.
Up until the last three weeks of their voyage, accomplishing this mission seemed promising—“On our entire crossing of Europe, our longest portage between waterways was 25 meters, from one side of a campsite to the other!” reported Warner Smith in early November.
However, upon reaching the Black Sea the twosome was at the mercy of November gales, contending with terrible weather, massive waves and rocky headlands.
Concerned for their safety, they abandoned their canoe and took to the remaining 370 kilometers on foot, paddles in hand. “We were very sad to leave the canoe behind,” says Warner Smith. “We had dreamed of canoeing through the Bosphorus into Istanbul, however, we felt there was a certain inevitability to our decision, given the forecast and the conditions.”
With neither paddler possessing hiking boots and with only extra large dry-bags for backpacks, walking didn’t always seem like the easier option. Nevertheless, 10 days later the pair limped through Istanbul’s city walls.
“The first thing we did in Istanbul was have a kebab—in fact, we had four,” says Warner Smith. “After a 57-kilometer day of walking, we were still hungry after.”
The 146-day journey took Warner Smith and Wilkins through a variety of landscapes, including untouched rivers, historic canals, busy shipping rivers and one tumultuous Black Sea. The two spent more than 2,000 kilometers on the Danube River alone, following its course through Austria, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania.
“Each section of the route presented new challenges, as well as numerous language barriers since we both speak decent French but nothing of the other nine countries,” says Warner Smith.
The two students, who met through running, were awarded a grant for the trip through the University of Warwick. Both agree that their athletic backgrounds allowed them to weather the physical demands of the trip relatively unscathed.
“I originally got the idea for the trip after I canoed the Yukon River in 2010. I spent two weeks there in the wilderness and had the most fantastic canoeing experience. After that I was keen to do another big canoe trip but wanted something large-scale and original,” says Warner Smith. He hatched the plan and Wilkins, who’d never put a paddle in the water before, was game.
Black home now in England, Wilkins will soon be back in school finishing a law degree, while Warner Smith turns the expedition’s blog into a resource for other paddlers looking to make their way across Europe by water.
“It’s only looking back, we’ve realized how incredible some of things we did were,” adds Warner Smith. “At the time it was just a part of everyday life and seemed quite commonplace.”
Follow their journey at www.canoeingthecontinent.com.
This article first appeared in the January 2014 issue of Paddling Magazine.
A peak at the OR Graphic Dry Sacks from Adventure Kayak magazine.
Graphic Dry Sacks
According to OR’s marketing wizards, the funky designs on these colorful nylon dry bags “help with organization.” Sure, and dark chocolate peppermint patties help with digestion. They’re cool, ‘nuff said. Available in 5-, 10- and 15-L.
$16–20| www.outdoorresearch.com
Take a peak at more hot new gear in the Summer/Fall 2013 issue of Adventure Kayak—click here to read for free.
The 57th running of the Des Plaines River Canoe and Kayak Marathon takes place on May 18, 2014 in northern Illinois Lake and Cook Counties.
Founded in 1957 by Ralph Frese, it is the second longest running competitive race in the United States. The 19-mile long race usually reaches its capacity of 1000 boats.
Having participated in this event myself, both as a paddler and volunteer, I can honestly state that it is a paddle for everyone: from the biceps strutting, Camelback-energy-drink-sucking, serious competitor, to one couple I once saw stopping along the way to cook their hotdogs on a small portable grill along the bank – the key is that everyone who finishes before the official close of the event around 5 pm gets their desired and well deserved embroidered patch and has a great time along the way.
Thinking about participating? Sign up at www.canoemarathon.com. Boat numbers, and therefore start times, are assigned by the registrar in the order that registrations are completed, with an effort made to accommodate special requests to assign multiple boats to the same heat if you want to paddle with your friends. Once registered, you will get all necessary instruction on what you need to do to participate in the event. But be sure to sign the waiver, and if you have a tandem partner, make certain he/she signs it as well.
On event day, when you get to the start line, drop your boat and gear, and then take your car to the finish line where, thanks to the efforts of the event organizers and a grant from the Cook County Forest Preserve, you can hop on the free shuttle bus to bring you back to the start line. But plan your timing accordingly.
Starts take place in heats of 8 – every two minutes apart. While awaiting the start of your heat, you grab the “Ready Line” hanging from a rope across the river and wait for the start call “5,4,3,2,1 GO!” Watch out for the wake created by the canoes and kayaks paddled by the serious pros, although these most often insist on having the first start times (they like to get up early).
Along the way on the river, even with hundreds of boats, there are times you may not encounter another paddler and are able to enjoy the beautiful scenery. The Des Plaines River is a natural resource in the greater Chicago metropolitan area and in the spring, wildflowers and blooming shrubs can be seen along the banks; signs of beavers on circled tree trucks are plentiful, and if you are lucky, a heron may guide you down the river as well; maybe you can even spot an occasional deer.
The early part of the course is narrow and winding with little, if any evidence of woody and trashy debris which is usually cleared previously in preparation for the event. One of the mandatory portages, the Ryerson Dam, was removed a few years ago, but, depending on water levels; expect to still encounter one or more additional portages.
Along the way, you will also see signs on the bridges that are marked with “miles to go”. You will also meet volunteers from the Paddlers’ Patrol stationed near a few of the more challenging sections ready to render assistance if needed (infrequently). Often there is a line of boats waiting to portage the Dam #1 in Wheeling. You will also paddle past the cement flood-control walls installed recently near the Executive Airport, past the Forest Preserve’s Trailside Museum and finally you will reach the long-awaited “sprint” to the Finish Line.
This is where you will be rewarded for your effort: food, drink, music, pick up your t-shirt (preordered), get your embroidered patch, maybe even a medal or trophy (if you have large biceps) and socialize with friends, family and feel really good about yourself for having participated in the 57th Annual Des Plaines Canoe and Kayak Marathon. If you are reluctant to paddle the entire 18.5 mile course, there is a shorter alternative available as well. Details on www.canoemarathon.com. ——Sigrid Pilgrim
Floating in the water, holding onto their tandem sea kayak for dear life, Robert Beltram and Judith Gotlieb knew they were in trouble. More than halfway through a four-week trip on Lake Superior, they had capsized in high waves. Within minutes, the kayak was swamped and the pair was starting to feel the lethargic effects of the cold water despite their wet suits.
Beltram activated their personal locator distress beacon and two and a half hours later a Canadian Coast Guard C-130 search plane spotted them. Another 30 minutes, and they were both plucked from the water by a Coast Guard helicopter and transported to a local hospital for hypothermia treatment.
Up until the early 20th century, large rescue operations were highly unorganized and often ineffective. It wasn’t until the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 that the international community was galvanized to put a greater importance on safety at sea. The first draft of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, or SOLAS, was signed in 1914.
The development and acceptance of the SOLAS treaty was a fundamental turning point in maritime safety. Governments began to research safety infrastructure, leading to the development of early ship to shore radio communication networks and more accurate and standardized mapping technology.
One of the greatest advancements in search and rescue technology was the development of the Cospas-Sarsat (Search And Rescue Satellite) system. Jointly conceived and funded by Canada, France, the United States and the former Soviet Union in 1979, the Cospas-Sarsat system consists of five geosynchronous satellites called GEOSARs and six low-earth polar orbit satellites called LEOSARs. Together, the satellites work to pinpoint your location and transmit the necessary information to authorities.
Once a distress signal from a personal locator beacon, satellite messenger or EPIRB is activated, the signal is relayed from these satellites to one of 66 ground stations. The ground station processes the message and generates the distress alert, which is automatically passed along to one of 31 Mission Control Centers scattered around the world. The Canadian Mission Control Centre is in Trenton, Ontario, while U.S. emergencies are sent to the United States Mission Control Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. Mission Control confirms the location and reports the emergency to the local Search and Rescue point of contact.
In Canada, search and rescue falls primarily under the responsibility of the Canadian Coast Guard. Responsibility for marine emergencies stateside falls to the U.S. Coast Guard, while if the emergency occurs on inland waters or wilderness areas, the Department of the Interior or the National Park Service takes charge.
Keep in mind that after you activate your PLB it can take up to 45 minutes before your signal is picked up by satellites and passed along to your local rescue team. Depending on location, sea state and weather, it could be several hours or even the next day before help arrives.
Beltram and Gotleib were lucky. As a great symbol of international cooperation, it isn’t unheard of for the United States and Canada to share rescue resources. It was a HH-65 Dolphin rescue helicopter from Traverse City, Michigan, that was sent to pluck them from the icy waters. At the end of the day, it’s about getting the help there quickly—and sorting out who’s going to foot the bill later.
David Johnston is the founder of www.PaddlingHQ.com. He also teaches kayaking, organizes the Georgian Bay Storm Gathering and, incredibly, holds down an actual real job as a public servant.
This article first appeared in Adventure Kayak, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.
A haystack in the middle of the river; that’s my first challenge of the day. It’s a metre-high mound of churning water that will knock our boat right over if we hit it in the wrong place.
“We” are eight paddlers from the south, transplanted to the Wernecke Mountains of the eastern Yukon. Our highway is the Bonnet Plume River, 320 kilometres of class I to VI rapids, dangerous sweepers and frigid water temperatures. And always the current. This is a river in a mad rush to reach the Arctic.
To come on this river, I’ve had a crash course in whitewater paddling. And I’ve lucked into Mark as a canoe partner. He’s calm, instructive and quick with his praise, which I shamelessly eat up. I’ve forgotten I’m a strong, independent woman who runs her own business and no longer needs any- one’s approval—and who certainly doesn’t like being told what to do. I’m depending on Mark’s instructions, eager to do as he tells me, relieved he never loses his temper. A part of me is standing back, shaking my head in disbelief. I seem to have gone careening back to childhood.
Tightening the sprayskirt around my waist, I’m as excited and nervous as a little kid.
“Don’t forget to smile,” our guide calls out as Mark and I eddy into the current. I plaster a grin on my face.
At first it’s genuine enough. Mark steers us into the black tongue to take us past the rocks and boulders on our left. I’m digging my pad- dle in hard under his calm instruction.
We plow through our first standing wave. A great weight of cold water is heaved onto my lap. Another swell of water is in front of me, and I’m grinning my way through it. But, suddenly, the canoe is veering left and straight ahead is a roiling wall of water towering over me. Where did this come from?
I don’t want to be here.
The bow rears up and the world goes cockeyed. The next instant I’m gasping in the frigid water beside the canoe. I grab hold of the gunwale, and the canoe carries me relentlessly downstream.
There’s only one problem: I don’t know how to get to shore. I’m going to be carried down the river forever.
Panic. Keening sobs rising inside me. I can’t breathe. No, this isn’t going to help. Calm down. Sur- prise when my body obeys. Though maybe it’s respond- ing to the sight of our guide’s bright yellow jacket as he runs along the shore.
Our guide throws a rope and I stop the canoe’s determined down- stream progress and am pulled to safety.
I want comforting arms around me; I want a soothing voice telling me it wasn’t my fault, there was nothing I could do.
“What happened?” I gasp.
“You did a classic air brace,” comes the wry reply, and I’m sent away to run up and down the shore to get warm.
It’s 10:30 by the time we finally make camp. The day has been a 12- hour adrenaline rush. After our guide has gone off to bed, I discover the lunch bucket I was using to do the dishes has completely melted on one side—I left it too close to the fire.
I’m stricken with little-girl fear. Our guide will be furious. We seem to be losing or ruining his equipment, piece by piece.
The others wander off to their tents, and I’m alone in the night. Not ready for sleep. The long hours of sunlight have wreaked havoc with my internal clock. I sit on a rock on the gravel beach and look across the river to the black spruce tree silhouetted against the faint blue glow of the sky and, silently, I sob.
I weep because I’m sure I’m going to be in trouble over the bucket. I weep because I’m alone and so out of my element. But I also weep for the spruce trees. Tonight they look like people trudging resolutely up the mountainside. Pilgrims seeking wisdom.
I thought I’d found wisdom, a modicum anyway. I thought I’d left behind my childhood need for approval and attention, and my fear of being rebuked. And yet here I am, sitting on a rock in the Yukon, and I’m a little girl sobbing her heart out. No more secure, no wiser than that little girl I thought I’d grown out of long ago. And the spruce trees on the other side of the river seem tonight to be all the other sad souls of the earth.
It’s our last day on the Bonnet Plume, and we’ve left behind the big canyons and big water. The river here is braided into many channels, separated by gravel bars of amazing symmetry and strewn with spruce and birch tree sweepers that are a deadly trap for an unwary canoe.
There’s no slackening in the speed of the river; if anything it’s fast- er. There is a sense of urgency, of momentum being gained, of being rushed, inevitably, to some conclusion.
I look at the trees lining the shore, many of them leaning at pre- carious angles, some of them, through no will of their own, about to plunge into the river, others already lying dead in the current, and I realize why on this trip I seem to be reliving my childhood: I’m one of those spruce trees. They seem to be trying to escape the river, but can’t—like me trying to escape that little girl I thought I’d outgrown. I thought I could free myself of her. Only to find myself seemingly right back where I started.
But I’m not where I started. In fact, I’m nowhere I’ve ever been be- fore—doing things, like navigating rapids and hiking mountains, that were never, even in my imagination, a part of my childhood. I can no more help my childlike reactions in this unfamiliar new world than spruce trees can avoid tumbling into the river.
And so, as we navigate the last kilometres of the messy, rushing Bonnet Plume, I am filled with a compassion for myself I’ve never felt before. And a quiet joy in being me.
Brenda Missen lives, writes and stores her canoe on the banks of Ontario’s Madawaska River. Her memoir recounting a decade of solo canoe trips is called If Jesus Were an Algonquin Park Bear. This is an excerpt from an earlier work.
This article first appeared in the 2009 Late Summer issue of Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine. Read the issue in our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it online here.
Filmmaker and world-class kayaker Steve Fisher represents the whitewater world at a TED conference in Athens, Greece, discussing the question, “how do you prepare for something that’s never been done before?”
“TEDxAthens is a world-class conference about Innovation, Creativity and Ideas based in Athens, Greece. TEDxAthens is one of the first TEDx events worldwide and the first ever TEDx event in Greece – started in May 2009. Its main goal is to develop and leverage the TED experience at a regional level, uniting innovators, thinkers, inspirational speakers, shakers, makers and breakers. TEDxAthens is curated by Dimitris Kalavros-Gousiou and organized by a team of 40 volunteers.”
From TEDxTalks.
To learn more about Fisher and see excerpts from his presentation, click here.
Canadian expedition sea kayakers and brothers, Russell and Graham Henry, are setting out on the longest open water crossing of their 4,000-mile Brazil to Florida expedition: 90 miles across the Caribbean.
“The most obvious danger of the trip is the big open water crossings in the Caribbean,” Russell told Adventure Kayak in a pre-trip interview.
The brothers began their journey in July 2013 in Belem, Brazil, and over the past six months have paddled 1,500 miles along the inhospitable coast of South America, and island-hopped across the Caribbean from Trinidad to the Dominican Republic. After a holiday lay-over in the Dominican, they departed the morning of January 16 on the 90-mile crossing to the Turks and Caicos Islands.
“After 10 days of waiting for the right winds, we are pulling the trigger and setting out on the longest crossing of the expedition,” the brothers wrote on their blog at Henrykayak.com, estimating the crossing will take about 30 hours.
The notoriously unpredictable waters of the Caribbean have served up their share of challenges to the brothers, who have already notched several significant crossings—including two 40-milers between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic— and overcome high winds, big water and bad currents.
“We have both been paddling all our lives,” says Graham, “We want this trip to beat us down and give us something seemingly insurmountable to overcome.”
Read more about the Henry Brothers and the motivation behind their Brazil to Florida Expedition in Paddling Magazine, here.
See photos and video from the trip, and follow the brothers’ progress with hourly updates here.
So a black bear walks into a Subway restaurant and orders a cold cut combo… True story from Kitamat, B.C., where Rebecca Branton locked herself in the staff bathroom (great strategy) and the bear left the store without a bite to eat.
If you’re camping and a black bear gets too close for comfort, follow these steps:
Discover 21 more survival tips in Canoeroots and Family Camping’s Late Summer 2010 issue. To read it, download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
This photo was taken by Flickr user granada_turnier and licensed through Creative Commons.
