“You’re supposed to keep emergency stuff on you, right?” Po asks as we finish packing the kayaks. Pressing a hatch cover into place, I smile, pleased that she has remembered our discussion on ditch kits and survival principles. “Yeah, always…” I glance up and trail off as I watch her carefully stashing a wad of toilet paper in her PFD pocket.

I was once a beginner, too. New to paddling and out of my depth, I had plenty of clumsy, awkward and embarrassing moments. Some I look back on and chuckle. Others I just shake my head—what was I thinking?

Most experts agree: I wasn’t. There’s a tremendous amount of information to absorb even in an entry-level kayaking class. Pedagogical theory recognizes that most new paddlers are struggling to simply remember and imitate. Critical thinking and problem solving come much, much later, when the miles and hours have accumulated into that ultimate mentor: experience.

Silly mistakes are bound to occur when we’re learning. Most will be harmless—like the November camping trip where I packed juicy, softball-sized navel oranges for breakfast and awoke in the morning to find my hatch filled with frozen citrus kettlebells. At least we had ballast for the rest of the trip, should we have needed it. 

This article originally appeared in Adventure Kayak, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read here for free.

It used to be when someone wanted to film an expedition or design a kayak, their avenue to success involved only sacrifice and determination. They might’ve saved money, quit their job and reached out to friends, family, sponsors or even the bank for financial support. Then they’d go out and humbly attempt to fulfill their dream. Except in the most audacious cases, the public was never privy to their project until after the fact.

People still do this today, but like most everything else in our ultra-connected, social networked world, the Internet is rapidly changing things. Take San Francisco-based paddler Anton Willis, who was inspired by origami as a way to make a folding kayak for storage in his apartment. He started with paper models and progressed to corrugated plastic signboard. After making more than 20 full-size prototypes he came up with a 12-foot light-tourer that folds up to the size of a sofa cushion.

Sensing his design had broader appeal, Willis made a pitch to the world on Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website, last November. Within weeks he raised over $440,000 in seed money from 730 backers, and his ORU Kayak was featured in Fast Company magazine and on CNN.

Willis is a poster child for the massive potential of Kickstarter, which launched to support independent “creative work” in 2009 and has generated over half a billion dollars in pledges to date. Aspiring entrepreneurs, inventors and creative-minded adventurers set a fundraising goal and deadline, pitch their idea in words and video, promote it on social media and hope for donations. The project is funded only if the entire goal is met. Backers act on faith and get nothing in return for their donation except for feel-good karma and perhaps a piece of memorabilia—or in the case of ORU Kayaks, discounted prices and first-run shipping for those willing to ante up the full cost of a new boat.

This article first appeared in Adventure Kayak, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read here for free.

Recently, international development workers have identified a new and surprisingly effective tool: the kayak.

As a sea kayak guide who spends much of my time working in the Arctic or overseas, I am well acquainted with the remarkable way in which our crafts glide smoothly through linguistic, social, physical and economic barriers. But in early 2012, my jaw hit the deck when I saw a volunteer posting for kayak instructors to work on a development project in Tanzania.

I applied for and got the posting, and in May headed to East Africa to share my kayaking skills with instructors at the National College of Tourism (NCT) in the bustling coastal city and commercial capital of Dar es Salaam.

For this final stage of a three-year, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)-funded partnership with the College of the Rockies in British Columbia, NCT had requested help developing marine tourism modules for their Tourism Diploma program, including kayak training for their instructors.

The request fit in neatly with the partnership’s aim to help Tanzania diversify their tourism products. Home to half of the world’s remaining wild lions and the two largest protected areas in Africa, Tanzania is well known amongst ecotourists for inland attractions like Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, Gombe Chimp Park and Mount Kilimanjaro. But other than the history-rich Spice Island of Zanzibar, there is little in the way of developed tourism along the endless white sand beaches and crystal clear waters of the country’s Swahili Coast. Dynamite fishing threatens Tanzania’s world-class reefs and marine life, and tourism is seen as a way for locals to put a different value on marine resources.

This article first appeared in Adventure Kayak, Early Summer 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read here for free.

In Rapid Media’s 2014 Paddling Buyer’s Guide, there’s no shortage of choice. Short boats, long boats, folding and inflatable boats, standup boards for idling, surfing, racing and rapid shooting—and all made from a cornucopia of space-age materials and presented in every shape and color imaginable.

What’s nothing short of amazing is that with the wide-ranging preferences and predilections of the current paddlesports marketplace, you can still buy a canvas-covered wooden canoe essentially unchanged in more than a century of service. Yes, you too can have a premium-grade, 16-foot Old Town OTCA for $7,599.99. Fiberglass skin is $200 extra, plus tax and shipping.

Back in 1925, an OTCA sold for about $50. The exact price depended on a variety of options, including length, color, finish, sponsons, outside stems, floor racks, canoe seats, middle thwart, long decks, half ribs and sailing accouterments.

Adjusting the 88-year-old price tag in today’s dollars using the consumer price index, that boat would be $663.50. A tremendous deal and a far cry from what is now demanded for a fancy throwback double-ender. In today’s market, it’s the labor costs that push the price through the roof. Nevertheless, the OTCA and others of its ilk have survived.

And while I find it harder to imagine a buyer in the year 2100 flipping through some e-catalogue, telepathically delivered of course, and picking out a standup paddleboard that’s essentially unchanged since 2014, I can envision the venerable wood and canvas canoe still quietly plying the waters.

Regardless of manufacturer, length, material, weight, style, history or price, the essence of self-propelled recreation persists and is as relevant today as it was when the whole concept of leisure came along as a happy consequence of the industrial revolution. Canoes, kayaks, boards—hell, even improvised craft like Huck Finn’s raft—still offer their paddlers and polers a chance to get on the water, to connect to a river or shoreline and to participate in an activity that is as old as North America itself.

In 1925, the average life expectancy for men was 57.6 years and for women 60.6 years. Today, we can expect to live 20 years longer and many of us choose to spend it immersed in the happiness found in the rhythm and camaraderie of silent craft.

Looking back at some of the old canoe manufacturers’ catalogues, the range of products on offer is much narrower and the options seem a bit antiquated, however some of the slogans are as apt now as they were back then. In 1919, for example, the Old Town Canoe Company catalogue reflected on the post-WWI era, showing an image of a soldier advancing with bayonet mounted against a montage of paddle, pack, canoe and blanket. The slogan, referring to the Allies victory in WWI, says, “Outdoor life did it,” meaning that the strength of mind, body and spirit of a young person heading into conflict was shaped by the paddling experience.

In 1920 and 1921, the bristle of that sentiment was softened to “Old Town Canoes for outdoor vigor.” And, in 1922, my favorite, beneath a happy couple on the water in a handsome canvas-covered canoe, the slogan reads, “Waterways for pleasure days.”

More than ninety years later and the sentiment is equally as true. Happy shopping.

This article first appeared in Rapid Media’s 2014 Paddling Buyer’s Guide. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it on your desktop here.