Retired Sault Saint Marie firefighter Bruce Lash is one of the “original ten”— a group of core paddlers who joined Great Lakes sea kayak pioneer Stan Chladek for the very first Gales of November on a blustery Halloween weekend 29 years ago. The concept then, as it remains today, is to gather for a social weekend of rough water paddling, story telling and general merry-making on the wild shores of Lake Superior, at a time of year notorious for laker-sinking storms.

In those nearly three decades, the number of participants at the invitation-only event has swelled as high as 50 and dropped to just a handful. Recently, with Chladek and many of the original 10 reaching senior citizen status, the gathering has peaked at 15 or so participants. This year, I join Lash, former Adventure Kayak editor Tim Shuff, and frequent contributor Conor Mihell to round out a party of five to seven that also includes veteran Marquette boater Sam Crowley and locals Ray Boucher and David Wells. Health issues, work commitments and the temptation of rain-swollen creeks have kept other regulars away. The forecast for tame offshore winds hasn’t helped either.

Basing out of Wells’ Michipicoten Bay-based outfitters for the weekend, we thaw requisite neoprene and Gore-tex garb in a diverse assemblage of wood stove-heated dwellings: the outfitter’s capacious staff cabin, Lash’s cozy tipi, and Mihell’s canvas prospector tent. Puddles and forgotten beer bottles develop frozen skims overnight, but the lake remains as inviting as a chilled punchbowl.

Although gale-force winds don’t grace our humble gathering, we enjoy an exciting downwind run from Michipicoten to the towering cliffs of Old Woman Bay, scarfing left-over Halloween candy around a driftwood campfire at a lunch stop near Brulé Harbour. Sunny skies and sub-zero temperatures the following day invite a coastal journey north from Montreal River. The river mouth’s often gut-clenching surf is today just a few small bumps, and we revel instead in intimate exploration of waterfalls tumbling from the cliffs and rippled golden sand beneath Caribbean-blue waters.

Sharing tales from past events is a Gales tradition. With his larger-than-life personality, Chladek usually holds the floor as the event’s chief storyteller. In his absence, however, we goad story after hilariously told story from Lash: the classic tale of Ron Monkman’s near-death swim at Agawa Rock, and a Slate Islands trip on which a tripmate insisted on making the 10-km return crossing to the mainland butt naked…

The Gales of November celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2014.

Read about the open-registration Gales Gathering in the Spring 2013 issue of Adventure Kayak

World-class boaters and hundred of spectators flooded to North Carolina this weekend for the 18^th annual Green River Race—the self-proclaimed “greatest show in all of sports.”

This year, Pat Keller took home the coveted glass trophy with his first place time of four minutes and 14 seconds. This is Keller’s third win at the Green Race—he also claimed the prize in 2006 and 2008.

Only 5 seconds behind Keller, Dane Jackson claimed second place for the second year in a row. Jackson turned heads at last year’s race by riding switch in his short boat run.

With water levels a little lower than last year, 2012’s record-breaking times are still the fastest since the race started in 1996, but Katrina Van Wijk set a new women’s record this weekend with a time of four minutes and 43 seconds. The time crushes her 2012 run by 23 seconds and continues to close the ever-narrowing gap between men’s and women’s race times.

The race is held each year on the first Saturday of November. Spectators hike a steep one-mile trail into the river to watch the timed race runs, which happen one at a time and lead paddlers through the iconic Gorilla rapid, a class V drop with a reputation for causing carnage.

Click here to see the full list of race results.

Rapid Media at the 2010 Green River Race. 

New York paddlers could see some new whitewater flowing through town—three-time Olympic paddler Scott Shipley is working on plans for urban whitewater parks in the communities of Potsdam, Canton and Colton. 

The new park will have three sites, says Fred Hass, director of Planning and Development in Potsdam. An expert-level run down the Raquette River’s Stone Valley section, a play park and an area of beginner to intermediate level whitewater.

Shipley’s company, S2O Designs, is behind major parks like The National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC and the Olympic whitewater venue in London, England. He’s drawing on his extensive experience in the worlds of whitewater and engineering to plan a park that will draw as many paddlers as possible to the region.

“What will make a trip from NY or Boston or Montreal, Ottawa or Toronto worth it?” says Shipley. “Design for festivals? Competitions? A great surf wave? These are the questions we’re trying to discover.”

Along with bringing new boaters to town, the parks will fill a gap for paddlers in the area, which has an unfortunate absence of local surf. Colton is already a popular paddling spot—the King of New York series has a race there—but the new parks will make it a whitewater region for those who aren’t ready to run Stone Valley’s class V drops. Clubs like the Carlton University Boathouse currently provide instruction but have no whitewater to run, says Shipley.

It’s too soon to get geared up—the parks are still in early phases of planning, but you can stay up to date on projects from S2O Designs on their Facebook page, Whitewater Parks.