Designated in 2003, the Gulf Islands National Park Preserve resembles a patchwork spread across nearly 50 islands and islets. Get our tips for exploring a few of them below.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
At a time of the year when bitter winds and frosty mornings are driving most paddlers south to more inviting locales, a young event lures a hardy tribe north. For a restless week in the autumn of 2012, these wind chasers convened on a seven-acre point of surf-pounded rock and dumping beaches on the north shore of Lake Superior.
“I signed up for this by mistake,” Susan confides, her secret feeling safe within our intimate huddle. Nervous laughter sends puffs of condensation into the chill air. We’re pressed beneath a malevolent sky, shoulders braced against a biting wind that cuts through our layers of fleece and wool, Gore-Tex and neoprene. Booties crunch on pea gravel coagulated with ice as we bob up and down, trying to get warm. Susan is the only one who’s said it, but I scan the pinched faces of the others, wondering if I will see it written there. Mistake.
Moments later, having finished our round of class introductions—“Hi, my name is Virginia. I’m just here to watch… really, if you guys want to practice rescues and swimmer landings, I’ll just shoot photos”—we’re using paddle blades to chip ice off our seats. Lead coach Shawna Franklin demonstrates “speed launching” and invites us to follow suit. The maneuver involves shooting your empty kayak into the water, diving after it to belly flop onto the deck, and then rodeoing your butt and legs into the cock- pit whilst gliding serenely away from the beach.
Hmm, I see what you’re doing here, getting us wet now so it won’t come as such a shock later… very clever.
Still, Franklin, a BCU 5-star coach and co-owner of Body Boat Blade International in Washington’s San Juan Islands, makes the maneuver look so graceful we can’t help but try to do the same, with varying degrees of success.
It’s our second morning at the Gales Storm Gathering on Lake Superior and the weather has been typical for October: 35-knot winds, heavy swell and bone-chilling temperatures. It’s just these types of conditions that event organizers were counting on when they invited top coaches from across the U.S. and Canada and as far away as Wales to their second-annual rough-water sea kayak festival at Michipicoten Bay on the lake’s Ontario shore.
“Most symposiums are in the summer and you’re paddling on flatwater,” explains Gales co-founder Keith Wikle, a freelance instructor and GoKayakNow.com blogger from Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 2011, Wikle partnered with Ryan Rushton of Chicago’s Geneva Kayak Center and together they conceived an event where Great Lakes paddlers could train in ocean-like conditions under the supervision of top-level coaches.
“We wanted to create a venue where you can take that next step in real conditions, with a safety net so that if you do have a swim it doesn’t end up being a fatal one,” Wikle says.
The pair borrowed the event’s name from the annual Gales of November Rendezvous, a carnage- heavy rough-water gathering organized by Great Lakes sea kayaking pioneer Stan Chladek in the early 1980s. The Halloween weekend meet-up was an informal, invitational get-together based around Agawa Bay, 50 miles south of Michipicoten. In its heyday in the early ‘90s, some 50-odd expert paddlers from around the world would join Chladek for epic tours and close calls in the surf.
Now in his seventies, Chladek still gathers the troops—today a handful of old friends and local paddlers—every October 31st, but Wikle and Rushton imagined a Gales that was accessible rather than exclusive. Yes, they would still invite some of the world’s best paddlers, but they would shift the focus to coaching and open the sign-up sheet to advancing beginners and experts alike, so long as they had a thirst for Superior’s notoriously rough fall waters.
“We make it clear that you need to be into wind and waves and even snow,” says Wikle.“You’re going to be cold and wet. It’s a smaller number of paddlers who are willing to embrace that.”
The inaugural Gales Storm Gathering drew some 45 participants and 15 instructors to Superior’s south shore in Marquette, Michigan. But while the city’s inner and outer harbors and proximity to the Menominee River offered an ample variety of conditions, Wikle and Rushton always planned to move locations from year to year.
“Moving the event makes it accessible to different groups of people and showcases the tremendous variety of paddling environments on Lake Superior,” says Wikle.
“ This is a rare opportunity in this part of the world with these coaches,” agrees Alec Bloyd-Peshkin, a guest instructor from Chicago,“and the venue is a huge highlight.”
Wawa doesn’t have a paddling town vibe. A blink-and-you-miss-it community amid the North Shore’s seemingly endless cyclorama of scraggly black spruce and stoic Shield lakes, the town’s primary attractions are a giant roadside likeness of a Canada goose and the mountainous, dollar-scoops of ice cream at Young’s General Store’s mock trading post. Several dirt road miles and 350 feet downhill at Michipicoten, however, is some of the finest kayaking on Superior.
Rushton and Wikle found a keen partner in David Wells, owner of local sea kayaking outfitter Naturally Superior Adventures and 2012 Gales host, Rock Island Lodge. Situated at the mouth of the mighty Michipicoten River, Rock Island is wreathed in the often-turbid waters of one of the lake’s largest tributaries. Here, three-mile-per-hour currents collide with autumn swells reaching 10 feet or more, born from the longest fetch on Superior—nearly 350 miles to Duluth. The site promised just the sort of ocean-like exposure and challenging conditions the organizers wanted to showcase when they invited their coastal comrades to the Inland Sea.
“We often feel like second-class citizens because we’re on freshwater,” Wikle says,“But the Michipicoten has enough current to create tidal race conditions. That’s the Lake Superior we want to show off, especially to paddlers from the coast.”
Along with Franklin and Body Boat Blade partner Leon Sommé, headline instructors at Gales 2012 included Wales’ Nick Cunliffe, Halifax’s Christopher Lockyer, BCU senior coach Scott Fairty and around-Ireland paddler Sam Crowley. “ These are the leaders in our community,” says Wells. “Of course we have something to prove.”
Michipicoten is a long drive from anywhere. I roll down the narrow causeway onto Rock Island at dusk after a full day behind the wheel. Beyond my passenger window the surf dumps explosively on the steep gravel of Government Beach. Out the driver’s side, even the sheltered bay just inside the river mouth is tossed with whitecaps. I drive past a line of tents clinging tenuously to the beach, park behind a windbreak of twisted cedar, throw my sleeping bag in the back of my van and fall into dreams of being blown out to sea on a Therm-a-Rest.
I’m grateful for a slow start the following morning. Gale-force winds have stymied the morning workshops and the final evaluations for the score of participants who signed up for a pre-symposium coaching week. After four days of drilling, they gather in the lodge around the warmth of a roaring fire, content to merely watch a frenzy of white horses galloping across Michipicoten Bay as the wind tosses horizontal sheets of rain against the windowpanes.
Conversation circles from the weather, the schedule and the best gear to anxieties about their impending assessment. Inevitably, there’s some light-hearted jesting. “Are you ready for the night navigation exercise tonight?” Steve asks Tammy as 11-foot breakers thunder up the river mouth. Without missing a beat, Tammy retorts, “ What kind of flowers do you want at your funeral?”
A petite woman in her late sixties, Tammy took up paddling after retirement and is now a sea kayaking junkie. She drives all over the East to train with many of the sport’s best coaches. After eight days of Gales, she’s heading down to Georgia’s Tybee Island for a week of Greenland-style instruction, and then pushing into South Carolina for several days of private coaching with Scotland’s Gordon Brown. Tammy’s paddling knowledge now extends well beyond strokes and rescues; she can also tell you the strengths and weaknesses of a regular who’s who of top kayaking brass.
It’s the calibre of the instructor roster, she tells me, that drew her to Gales. The event brings together instructors from BCU, ACA and Paddle Canada doctrines, allowing participants to sample the field. “It’s wonderful to be exposed to so many different instructional styles,” Tammy says. She describes BCU coaching week lead, Nick Cunliffe, as “an amazing instructor with really helpful feedback,” a senti- ment echoed by many of the other Gales students about their respective coaches.
Okay, so it’s a privilege to be under the wing of such accomplished paddlers and teachers. But as we gather on the rocks at the river mouth to watch Cunliffe and Sam Crowley, owner of Michigan-based Sea Kayak Specialists, poke their bows into a 40-knot s’wester, I wonder if part of the attraction is in witnessing the masters made mortal.
As Cunliffe and Crowley edge further and further into the crashing waves, Steve calls a play-by-play commentary: “Oh, Sam is out of his boat!” he yells when Crowley pushes too far and is caught between an avalanching set and the steep face of surf-washed beach. Moments later, he’s crowing, “Now I don’t feel so bad!” as a soggy Crowley staggers ashore sans kayak.
Wikle is expecting 40 participants for the rough-water weekend, and when they join the nearly 20 coaches in the lodge’s dining room for lunch, the scene resembles a crowded school cafeteria. Or a class of ’83 reunion— the demographic at Gales is typical for sea kayaking; clearly adrenaline-charged surfs aren’t just a young person’s game.
With the wind still gusting to well over 30 knots, the river mouth remains a no-paddle zone. Most head upriver for workshops on paddling in current, maneuvering in wind and waves, and practicing advanced rescues, while a handful of keeners convoy to nearby Sandy Beach for a surfing lesson. With its long, shallow approach, Sandy is a “spilling” beach—the waves break gradually, dispersing their energy as they roll ashore—making it a more forgiving training ground. Even so, with the intense onshore wind, students and coaches alike are soon exhausted. It takes every last ounce of effort to merely hold position in the shore wash, let alone punch out through the breakers. Spinning a 16- or 17-foot craft 180 degrees to surf back in is all but impossible.
Eventually, a couple of participants abandon their boats on the sand in favor of body surfing. Like a massive heat sink, Lake Superior maintains its summer temperature well into the fall, making the famously cold lake feel comparably balmy on bracing autumn days. In drysuits, we discover, being in the water is more comfortable than being on it. Before long, the whole class is belly flopping into the surf, our unflappable coaches leading the charge.
Like the animated scene in the dining room earlier, the impromptu body surfing session demonstrates that Gales is as much a social venue as it is a place to hone rough-water skills.
By day two the wind has abated to a manageable 10–15 knots and the coaches are able to move their classes out into the bay. While I’m watching Franklin speed launch, Wells wanders over. Gazing across the frozen beach at the colorful clusters of shivering figures and rime-crusted boats, he marvels, “Look how many people are on the water in sub-zero temperatures—it’s frickin’ awesome!”
Tracing a coastline of long, gravel beaches and billion-year-old bedrock points, Franklin leads our group through a progression of landing and launching exercises. Then it’s the students’ turn. Franklin asks Susan —the Ann Arbor, Michigan, paddler whose mistake, it turned out, was clicking ‘Register Now’ on the Gales website before she had all the facts—and two others, Tom and Sue, to direct an “emergency” group landing on an inhospitable, rocky spit exposed to the swell.
So far we’ve excelled as students, but it quickly becomes apparent that our leadership needs some work. A confident and capable paddler from Minneapolis, Sue doesn’t think there’s a safely manageable landing for a group on the point. Tom, a local in his mid-forties, disagrees but doesn’t want to be the first to land—inexplicably, he suggests Sue lead the assault. Meanwhile, Susan says little—later she’ll tell us she felt excluded by her co-leaders.
We bob around in the unsettled waters for what feels like an eternity, our designated leaders mired in indecision. Finally, Franklin tosses them a lifeline,“You could ask your group to help, and send one of your strongest students in first to land the others… you can send me if you like.”
Franklin sidles up to the rocks and steps nimbly onto a sliver of ledge, timing her exit with the surging rise and sucking fall of the waves against the smooth-polished stone. Sue lands next and suddenly our leaders are working together—if not a well-oiled machine, at least one that is no longer seized.
By evening, snowflakes are filling the air. We carpool into Wawa for dinner, heaters blasting as we bounce up the potholed track away from the lake. Dashing across the parking lot beneath the wall-eyed gaze of the Wawa Motor Inn’s 15-foot rooftop goose, we escape the flurries in the restaurant’s warm, woodsy sanctuary.
Over a basket of the Motor’s famous wings (chicken, not goose), Jeff, one of the coaching week students, fills me in on his assessment.“I worked really, really hard to learn I can stay [at the certification level] where I’m at,” he confesses. Jeff and his wife Michelle drove from Minneapolis to be at Gales, but he isn’t angry or even disappointed with this outcome.“Sam and Ryan didn’t just say ‘nope, you’re not good enough,’” Jeff says of his coaches. “ They gave me honest, useful, realistic feedback so I came away with a list of areas for improvement—somewhere to go from here.”
Sunday morning, sudden squalls alternate with sunshine and whitecaps are building beneath the schizophrenic sky. Superior has kept the coaches on their toes all weekend. Every day begins with an instructors’ planning meeting—a dozen of the international sea kayaking community’s brightest luminaries gathered around a battered wooden table and blazing woodstove in the lodge’s steamy kitchen. As you might expect, there’s plenty of discussion: stay and play at the river mouth? Carpool to a nearby beach? Or try to paddle to the beach?
Eavesdropping on the coaches’ discussion, I can see that this group— even with their tremendous cumulative skills and experience—is grappling with the same challenges as yesterday’s student leaders. The same challenges faced by all kayakers: complex environments and decisions, fatigue and uncertainty.
Wikle tells me later that, even more than the curveballs thrown by the weather, the skill level of the participants has surprised his guest coaches. “I’m told it’s quite high compared to other parts of the country,” he says,“it seems Great Lakes kayakers take developing skills and seamanship more seriously than many of their counterparts on the West Coast.”
Later that afternoon, the current flooding out of the river mouth pushes against the incoming swell, forming steep glassy rollers. The conditions are fleeting, with the wind returning before long, but it’s time enough for many of us to sample rough-water paddling at its rollicking best. Eager to catch long, cruisy surfs for ourselves, we crowd close together in the line-up—the area just outside where the waves begin to break.
Rushton takes off on a wave and I catch a steepening face just behind him. Accelerating into the trough ahead as the wave breaks, my kayak broaches and suddenly I’m side surfing—an out-of-control, Hail Mary move known as a bongo slide in surf parlance. Rushton’s ride has already ended and I’m sweeping towards him, pushed by the freight-training wave at an alarming speed. He looks up and we lock eyes— each seeing that I’m about to steamroll over him. Then, at the last possible moment, my bow veers back down-wave and I carve away, missing his boat by a few scant feet. When I see Rushton later in the line-up, he’s smiling,“There’s nothing like when your eyes meet on a wave.”
Riding waves with our mentors is both liberating and uniting.“An ‘aha!’ moment,” as Mark, a soft-spoken retiree and first-time surfer from Washburn, Wisconsin, puts it later.
After dinner, the lodge’s dining room is cleared for slideshow presentations. Local instructor and author Conor Mihell reads a chapter from his book The Greatest Lake, a history lesson on Chladek’s original Gales, accompanied by archival photos from those early years. Mihell pauses frequently for appreciative “oohs” and “ahs” from the audience as slides of cartwheeling kayaks appear on the screen behind him. We’re now members of the same elite tribe.
Gathering for Wikle and Rushton’s event wrap-up Monday afternoon, we are tired and stiff-limbed. But there’s something else engraved in the weary visages—a fresh, quiet confidence that wasn’t there before.
Most of us have tripped on the Michipicoten’s fickle currents, or wiped sand from our ears and eyes when the fleeting union of wave and kayak eluded us. But we have also learned the unforgettable, inimitable sensation of harnessing that power and riding a peeling left all the way to the beach, of rolling effortlessly on a pillowy foam pile. Of being soggy and tired and heading back out for one more ride.
Before we part ways, Tammy tells me a story. She met a young woman this weekend, a recent inductee into the paddling community. The woman told Tammy that, contrary to the opinions of non-paddling friends back home, she didn’t believe she was addicted to kayaking. She pulled on a wool hat as she spoke, finished dressing for a rough-water rescues workshop. The lodge’s thermometer read 23 degrees Fahrenheit.“If you’re going out today,” Tammy told her,“then you’re addicted to kayaking.”
This article first appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
A life list can be daunting. Its very name suggests a time frame that’s difficult to imagine, and certainly hard to plan for. Calling your register of dreams a “bucket list” only adds a looming air of finality and regret. Not helpful at all.
Which is why we’ve taken the idea and ideals of a life list and applied them to a single year. Because we believe you don’t have to settle for the trip of a lifetime—you can enjoy an outstanding adventure each month, and make every year your best year ever.
“It’s a real high to build a boat, put it in the water and paddle away,” says Dan Jones, a veteran builder who lent us a Pygmy Murrelet. Kits are available to suit every design preference; all you need is time and a warm workshop. Start your project after the holidays—planning to begin earlier can lead to procrastination or, even worse, cut into time on the water. Start too late and your hot new ride won’t be ready for spring—count on two or three months if you’re only working on it evenings and weekends. Once you slip into your gleaming labor of love, how- ever, you may be hooked: Jones is already planning his 12th home-build. Accelerate your project with a weeklong workshop. Try Maine’s Wooden Boat School, Port Townsend’s Pygmy Kayaks or Peterborough, Ontario’s Bear Mountain Boats.
www.thewoodenboatschool.com | www.pygmyboats.com | www.bearmountainboats.com
Escape the winter blues and head south for sun, surf and salsa. With bountiful marine life, endless beaches and an established sea kayaking scene, the
Sea of Cortez in Baja is a favorite destination for many migrating paddlers. For kayaking that will blow your mind, travel south to Patagonia’s fiords and paddle past the snow-capped volcanoes, towering waterfalls and inviting hot springs. Ever try paddling at altitude? Located at a literally breathtaking 12,500 feet between Bolivia and Peru, Lake Titicaca is the world’s highest navigable lake and a truly unique kayaking destination.
www.bajakayakadventures.com | www.exchile.com | www.titicacakayakadventure.com
Once mistaken for mermaids by lovelorn (or desperate?) sailors, the admittedly curvaceous manatees make fascinating paddling companions. During
winter cold snaps, hundreds of these gentle sea creatures gather in the warmer waters around natural springs in Florida’s Crystal and Homosassa rivers. Paddling through the crystalline shallows is a low-impact way to enjoy these herds of inquisitive animals—manatees are under threat from powerboat traffic and other human activities—and hook your kids or friends on the joys of kayaking.
With over 25,000 kilometers of coastline from tropical Queensland to the storm-tossed Great Southern Ocean, Australia is a magnet for surfers, sailors and kayakers alike. Paddle the white sand beaches of the Whitsunday Islands at the heart of the Great Barrier Reef—one of the Seven Wonders of the natural world—to get up close and personal with sea turtles, manta rays and whales. Take advantage of Tasmania’s location in the notoriously windy Roaring 40s and try your hand at the classic Tassie Rig for some wild kayak sailing, Aussie-style. Across the Tasman Sea, Kiwis love to sail almost as much as their neighbors. Fill your sheet on the sun-kissed waters of New Zealand’s Abel Tasman coast.
www.saltydog.com.au | www.roaring40skayaking.com.au | www.abeltasmankayaks.co.nz
Looking to venture into exposed waters, improve your roll or practice rescues? Hone rusty skills and learn new ones with a few days of spring training—for specific course offerings in your area, check out the websites of the American Canoe Association, Paddle Canada and BCU North America. If the kayaking bug really has you bit, sign up for an instructor or guide course—teaching and leading will test your ability to effectively commu- nicate key points and can help fine-tune your own skills.
www.paddlingcanada.com | www.americancanoe.org
For the ultimate mental and physical challenge, sign up for the Yukon River Quest—the world’s longest annual canoe and kayak marathon. Competitors race in solo, tandem and voyageur divisions, and must complete the more than 700 kilometers from Whitehorse to Dawson City in 72 hours or less. Competitors range from capable novices to internationally ranked professional athletes; however, many have discovered that wilderness experience and mental stamina count for as much as extreme fitness. Prepare yourself for amazing camaraderie, utter exhaustion and bizarre hallucinations as you race around the clock and under the midnight sun through some of Canada’s most beautiful landscapes. Toast the ghosts of the Gold Rush and celebrate your successful finish with a wild night in Dawson City.
Every spring, bergs calved from the 15,000-year-old glaciers of western Greenland drift south on the Labrador current into Newfoundland’s famous Iceberg Alley. Kayaking the wild coast of the Rock in early summer will let you catch the tail end of the iceberg season and—if you are lucky—some precious sunny days. In the long summer sunlight, each iceberg—from intimate Toblerones to superstore-sized monoliths—glows with a thousand subtle shades of turquoise and sky blue. For icy encounters on the West Coast, head to Alaska’s easily accessible Mendenhall Lake in Tongass National Forest or venture into Prince William Sound to encounter icebergs birthed by the tide-water glaciers of the immense Chugach range.
www.nfkayak.com | www.sea-quest-kayak.com
Voyage past the Arctic Circle to start your journey in Pond Inlet on Baffin Island or the Scoresbysund fiord system in Greenland. Paddling these harsh waters during the brief ice-free season will give you a deep appreciation for the resourcefulness and courage of the people who dared hunt whales from their small skin crafts. On your trip, you’ll share this wild land with narwhals, musk oxen, arctic fox and polar bear—to say nothing of the plentiful and delicious Arctic char.
Sunny days, warm water, no crowds—with a bit of luck, early fall can be the perfect season to find your ultimate island paradise. Plan an after-Labor Day getaway to Georgian Bay, the Southeast’s Barrier Islands, the St. Lawrence’s 1000 Islands, Vancouver Island’s Broken Group or your nearest popular archipelago. Whether you go for a quick weekend trip or a longer adventure, the odds of claiming a private island paradise are in your favor. Enjoy the last days of summer by sunbathing, skinny dipping, cooking an unhurried feast over your driftwood fire and sleeping under the stars. Best of all, no mosquitoes!
As the fall storms blow in and the swells grow larger, a strange epidemic sweeps the kayaking community: Honest, hard-working folks mysteriously start calling in sick—a pattern that correlates directly to local wave size and wind strength. And who can blame us? October is jam-packed with opportunities to stretch surf skills. For surf-specific workshops and an all-around good time, sign up for a rough water festival. Try Oregon’s Lumpy Waters Symposium, Connecticut’s Autumn Gales, Georgian Bay Storm Gathering, Gales Storm Gathering on Lake Superior, or even the UK Storm Gathering in Wales.
www.galesstormgathering.com | www.lumpywaters.com | www.kayakwaveology.com | www.ukstormgathering.blogspot.com
For many paddlers in northern climes, November means a sad farewell to your kayak until spring. But with the right gear and a cozy fireplace (or sauna, or hot tub…) awaiting you, the off-season can be a memorable time to go paddling. Nothing compares to gliding across a wintry lake to the crystalline sound of wafer ice shattering beneath your hull. Rediscover familiar landscapes transformed by a fresh layer of snow or heavy frost. Appreciate the intricate beauty of water rivulets freezing on your paddle. Pack your pogies, fill your Thermos and make this the year you stretch your season.
Alternately caressed and pounded by the powerful Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian Islands are blessed with diverse and awe-inspiring coastlines. The turquoise waters of Kailua Bay on Oahu are sheltered by outlying reefs and easily navigable even when other parts of the island are exposed to heavy swells. After launching in Kailua, paddle to Lanikai Beach, ranked one of the top beaches in the world, and play in the surf at the twin Mokulua Islands. Winter is big wave season in Hawaii—save remote and rugged paddling expeditions like the fabled Na Pali Coast of Kauai or the North Shore of Molokai for next year’s summer vacation.
www.kayakkauai.com | www.kailuasailboards.com
Charlotte Jacklein has spent the last decade researching this article by guiding and traveling in Hawaii, Newfoundland, Australia and Central America. She’s built her own boat, paddled through ice floes and competed twice in the Yukon River Quest.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
Never grieve the end of paddling season again. Charleston’s sandy surf beaches, barrier islands and maze of protected inshore waters are welcoming year round. Palm trees, people watching and antebellum architecture make the historic waterfront a pleasant urban escape, and every April the East Coast Canoe & Kayak Festival attracts hundreds of paddlers, vendors and gawkers.
Dream Jobs: South Carolina Aquarium caretaker, NOAA weather egghead
Bill Bryson solidified his birthplace as America’s most boring city, and Chuck Thompson’s descriptions of Juneau painted his hometown in an even less favorable light. But the Alaskan capital’s undeniable appeal for paddlers is proof that you can’t trust travel writers. Surrounded by the sheltered waters of the Inside Passage, world-class wilderness parks, tidewater glaciers and unmatched wildlife viewing are all within easy reach.
Dream Jobs: Sightseeing pilot, glacier dog sledding guide
Sure, it’s touristy, but the throngs of adven- ture-seekers and alternative-lifestylers give To- fino its funky surf-town vibe. Hit the breaks at Chesterman and Long beaches, hike the rainforest trails of neighboring Pacific Rim National Park, discover fanciful driftwood domiciles and explore Clayoquot Sound’s labyrinth of remote arms and verdant islands.
Dream Jobs: Water taxi driver, surf instructor
Surrounded by Gros Morne National Park, Norris Point’s colorful clapboard homes tumble downhill into the harbor and minke whales frequent the arms and tickles of Bonne Bay. Inland, more paddling abounds in the park’s spectacular, fiord-like lakes— known as ponds—and caribou share the Long Range Mountains with hikers, skiers and backpackers.
Dream Jobs: Kayak guide, park interpreter
Redwood trees thrive on the cool fogs and frequent drizzle of the northern California coast. So does a tight-knit community of organic farmers, artisans, students, paddlers, brewers and hippies just 25 miles south of Redwood National Park’s towering trees and unspoiled beaches. Intimate and erudite, Arcata offers kayakers everything from mellow jaunts on the Humboldt Lagoons to wild surf at Moonstone Beach to open coast touring around Trinidad Head.
Dream Job: Kokatat R&D team
If you live to paddle, Killarney has everything you need. There’s just one general store, few year-round employers and no roads out of town aside from the lonely blacktop of Highway 637, but every resident is just steps from Georgian Bay. Ex- plore the flooded white quartzite mountains of Killarney Provincial Park, the pink gran- ite whalebacks of the French River delta and dozens of idyllic archipelagos in between.
Dream Jobs: Seasonal park ranger, Killarney Outfitters boat schlepper
With a progressive, outdoor-oriented vibe, “Marquette is the white collar on the well-work workshirt that is Michigan’s Upper Peninsula,” says local photographer, Aaron Peterson.“It’s a center of culture and services in a region known for logging, mining and lightly populated hinterlands along the south shore of Lake Superior.” With a largely undeveloped shoreline, paddlers will find rock gardens, surf spots, sandstone caves and sandy beaches all within city limits. The 200-foot cliffs of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore are just 40 minutes to the east.
Dream Jobs: On campus at Northern Michigan U, four bike shops employ sprocket jockeys
This article first appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
Cinching my hood against the stinging rain, I chide myself for forgetting to check the forecast. There’s an irony to my soggy self-ridicule, of course. The last time I monitored the Weather Network for updates and confirmed sunny skies before a trip, it had also bucketed down.
Maxims about the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of weather forecasting are probably as old as the profession itself. But have you ever stopped to wonder exactly how meteorologists predict the weather?
The Babylonians started using cloud patterns and astrology to predict weather as far back as 640 BC. Forecasting grew more scientific over the centuries, but it wasn’t until the invention of the electric telegraph in 1835 that forecasts became more accurate. For the first time, weather analysts could collect data almost instantly from a much wider area.
Today, when it comes to making an accurate weather prediction, data is king. The more up-to-date data you can collect, and the faster you can process it, the more likely your forecast will prove true.
Getting that data from all over North America involves a high-tech network of weather stations, satellites, ocean buoys, radar stations, lightning detectors and weather balloons. Sophisticated sensors sample and record a wide range of information including air temperature, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, cloud cover and height, visibility, wave height and water temperature.
To crunch all this raw data, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses a pair of twin IBM supercomputers called Stratus and Cirrus. Developed in 2009, this $180 million machine can store up to 160 terabytes of data and is capable of making nearly 70 trillion calculations per second, four times faster than the NOAA’s previous system. Stratus assembles and analyzes weather data from the thousands of weather stations, balloons, satellites and marine buoys and compares it against 20 weather models.
“Meteorologists used to look at a single model and base an entire forecast off that,” says Ben Kyger, director of central operations for the NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Maryland.
“Today, with the help of Stratus, those same meteorologists can look at all 20 models, set them in motion, and see how long they all predict the same weather. As long as all the models stay the same, the forecast is highly accurate,” Kyger says. “But that accuracy drops significantly when the weather models start to diverge.”
In theory, this phenomenal number crunching should allow meteorologists to be as accurate with 10-day forecasts as they used to be with the seven-day outlook. Day six is the new day three. So why do they still seem to get long-term forecasts wrong?
Despite the satellites and supercomputers, weather prediction is still just well informed guesswork.
“Weather is extremely complex and sometimes seems to have a mind of its own,” says Toronto meteorologist Ron Bianchi.“There are so many environmental variables that can change at any given time that sometimes it feels like we really only know what the weather is going to be the day after it happened.”
Satellites: First launched in 1960 by NASA, weather satellites allow forecasters to see weather systems on a national scale. Geostationary satellites orbit 36,000 kilometers above the equator at the same speed as the earth’s rotation, allowing continuous monitoring of weather systems. Polar orbit satellites produce highly detailed imagery of the earth’s surface, orbiting from pole to pole at an altitude of 860 kilometers.
Doppler radar: Radar stations send microwave pulses into local weather systems. Using radar, meteorologists can see the density of moisture in a storm and watch for rotating wind patterns that could evolve into a tornado.
Lightning detectors: Storm watchers also rely on 180 lightning detection sensors across North America to track the motion and intensity of thunderstorms. This system can detect up to 90 percent of strikes and determine their position within 500 meters.
Weather buoys: An extensive network of moored and drifting weather buoys surrounds North America, recording air temperature, wind speed and direction, wave height, swell period, water surface temperature and ocean current data.
David Johnston gets upset when the forecast is wrong, even if the day turns out to be sunny with light wind.
Despite the satellites and supercomputers, weather prediction is still just well informed guesswork. | Feature photo: Steve Rogers
This essay complements the Ultimate Road Trips feature originally published in Adventure Kayak magazine.
With a little common sense and ordinary caution, road tripping offers a freedom and perspective not found in the daily routine. From the snowy Siskyou Mountains to the stunning volume of Los Angeles traffic to blooming desert cacti, the view from the roof rack is the perfect antidote to the dust of the garage.
A road trip is a journey into another story. It’s not your everyday narrative or identity or even your everyday eyes. The freedom is not just a freedom to go, but to be; the newness isn’t only the scenery, but the internal chemistry. Awareness piques, and you can feel that energy from your paddler. From bow to stern, you just about tingle with possibility.
Explore remote coastlines where no kayak has been before. Share the sea with whales, perhaps a mother showing her calf their first migration. Meet other boats, and rest with new friends on a roadless beach while your paddlers drape themselves over sunny boulders to dry out. Cruise with old buddies along the quiet shores of a lake to a campout under the pines.
Rinse your parched hull in the Baja surf on ride after clean, green ride. Do it in the sunrise, by moonlight, against the afternoon wind. Feel the rumble of breaking waves shake the beach as you lie beneath the stars awaiting the next play. When you and your paddler are ready for another new view, load up and off you go.
When you take your paddler on a road trip, be sure she sets you up with some comfy saddles or a well padded bar, since road miles can rub you raw in sensitive places.
Do keep an eye on your paddler, as she will be out of her routine and liable to do brainless things. Don’t let her set the paddle on the ground to load you onto the truck, then get to talking with her traveling companion and drive off without it. Have her keep spare keys someplace safe. And have her tie your hatch covers on. They’re harder to replace when you’re away from home, and losing one could mean the end of your paddling.
Remind your paddler to apply the usual safety precautions: learn what she can about the area before launching, bring all safety equipment even if the paddle is intended to be short and easy, let someone who is not on the trip know the plan and let them know when you are back.
In the end, you will forgive your paddler for the scratches, the rack rash and buckle bruises, and the sun bleaching if you’re out that long. You will both bring home stories, fresh momentum and a reminder that even the everyday details are special when one has the eyes to see them.
”Green Flash” has logged 10,000+ road miles atop Ginni Callahan’s pickup truck over the years, and some 6,000 miles aboard a sailboat across the Pacific in 2012.
For road trip ideas and itineraries, read Adventure Kayak, Spring 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
A review of the Scott Canoes Wilderness recreational canoe from Canoeroots & Family Camping magazine.
A great family canoe and Scott’s top seller for day paddlers looking for a relaxing, secure feeling craft. With a flat bottom, classic symmetrical hull and keel for excellent stability and tracking, the Wilderness inspires confidence in paddlers of all ability levels. It is big enough to load up for a weekend trip and small enough to handle at the cottage.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Early Summer 2012. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
This feature article originally appeared in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
To overcome and work with the challenges that traveling by canoe presents, we’ve had to be ingenious, innovative, resourceful. Not just in creating new tools but in borrowing and plagiarizing from unlikely areas: medicine, the military, the space program, telecommunications, electronics, aviation and other better funded enterprises. Along the way, we’ve developed an appreciation for what works— from durable designs to clever chemistry. Occasionally, we’ve even stopped to thank the rainy heavens for a versatile polymer.
THE EXPERTS
Cliff Jacobson
HOME WATERS: RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN
A highly respected outdoors author, ACA Hall of Famer and long-time wilderness guide, Jacobson is the most published canoeing and camping writer of this century, with book sales approaching one million copies. His manual Expedition Canoeing, first published in 1984, is the authoritative resource for wilderness canoe expeditions.
Kevin Callan
HOME WATERS: KAWARTHA HIGHLANDS, ONTARIO
Along with authoring 13 canoeing and camping guides, including the best selling The Happy Camper, Callan has been a key speaker at all the major canoe events across North America for over 25 years. Discussions on camping gear comprise no less than 45 pages in his recent book, Wilderness Pleasures: A Practical Guide to Camping Bliss.
THE BEST GEAR
Duluth Pack
Patented in 1882 by French-Canadian leather worker Camille Poirier, the Duluth Pack, as it would come to be known, combined strength, endurance and elegance in a soft, appealing package that was easy to construct and repair. Poirier’s revolutionary addition of a sternum strap and still-novel shoulder straps to the traditional tump sack made this the great-granddaddy of all modern backpacks.
Picture a canvas pillowcase with leather shoulder straps, brass buckles and a long closing flap. Add a tumpline and you have a Duluth pack. Unlike modern packs that must be laid flat in a canoe—their mouths in contact with bilge water—Duluth packs sit upright, out of the wet. They are as comfortable to carry as any modern pack if you use the tumpline, and are also less expensive—important to the canoeist who may need several packs for a long trip. Space counts on a canoe trip; an empty Duluth pack can be folded and stored inside another pack. —CJ
Canoe Barrels
The plastic olive barrel is today’s waterproof version of a traditional wooden wanigan. In the mid-1980s, a few canoeists began picking them up at yard sales or delicatessens after realizing that the watertight containers were perfect for keeping gear dry. Now you can buy 30- and 60-liter barrels at any outdoor store.
Just like using a traditional wanigan, however, it’s a love-hate relationship. The barrel has all the advantages of the conventional wooden box—the lid even seconds as a cut- ting board—but in no way is it comfortable to carry. At least it doesn’t rely exclusively on a tumpline; the barrel also comes with shoulder straps or can be slipped inside an old canvas pack. I strongly recommend paying the extra cost for a high-quality barrel harness, like Ostrom Packs’ Voyager model, and getting a barrel with handles for hauling in and out of the canoe. —KC
Nalgene Bottles
I discovered Nalgene bottles in the mid 1960s while teaching high school science in Indiana. Most of the chemicals we purchased came in them. When the bottles were empty, I scrubbed them out and zealously saved them for canoeing. They were the most air- and watertight bottles available at the time, and their thick plastic walls made them virtually indestructible. What really made them special was the thread design of the cap, which absolutely, positively, never leaked.
When Nalgene discovered that campers hoarded used bottles—in the ‘70s, the Rochester, New York-based company’s president noticed his son’s Boy Scout troop using them for everything from water bottles to dry match storage—they began producing them for the outdoors market. Colors, varied shapes and improved materials followed. Today, there are lots of competitive containers that work well for canoe tripping, but in my opinion, Nalgene are still the best. —CJ
Kelly Kettle
After a bit of tinkering in his shed one winter, Patrick Kelly, a late 19th-century farmer in the County Mayo, Ireland, created a quicker way to boil up water for tea while out fishing along the shore of Lough Conn. By the 1970s, there were so many visiting anglers from the U.K. and Germany wanting to use a Kelly Kettle that Patrick’s grandson, Padraic, began manufacturing them to sell. Today, the Kelly family has taken the Kelly Kettle from a small cottage industry to commercial sales around the globe.
My introduction to the Kelly Kettle came during a family canoe trip in northern Scot- land. I knew nothing about it, but by the end of the trip, admiration replaced my skepticism. I’ve scarcely tripped without it since.
Basically a stick stove, the kettle’s ingenious double wall chimney design is what sets it apart. Simply light sticks and other combustible material in the base plate and watch the flames draw upward through the fire chamber like a chimney draft. A water jacket around the chimney rapidly boils the water even in the worst wet and windy conditions. —KC
Sil-nylon Tents and Tarps
Silicone-coated fabrics are much lighter and stronger than those treated with polyurethane. Rainwater beads rather than pools, and the surface dries almost instantly. A sil-nylon tent will consume less pack space than an identical one treated with polyurethane.
Silicone-treated nylon was developed in the early 1990s as a high performance parachute fabric. The strength and impermeability sought by the jumpers makes it a dream material for tents and tarps, but because it doesn’t meet North American fire-retardant standards, it’s used sparingly on U.S. and Canadian tents. Sil-nylon may be used for exterior tent flies but not for inner canopies where people reside.
An approved fire-retardant, polyurethane-coated nylon tent won’t burn but it will melt, dripping hot liquid nylon onto your skin and resulting in burns that may be worse than those from an open flame. All the best European tents are built from sil-nylon, making the fire-retardant laws seem like a ploy to keep ultralight foreign tents out of North America! —CJ
Therm-a-Rest
Comfort has always been at the forefront of camp inventions, and few comforts rank as highly as a good night’s sleep. So it seems odd that it took so long to progress from sleeping on tree boughs to resting atop insulated air mattresses.
The story goes that in the early 1970s, John Burroughs and Lim Lea, two recently unemployed Boeing engineers and enthusiastic hikers from Seattle, focused their skills on creating a better sleeping pad. Existing air mattresses lacked insulation and cumbersome closed-cell foamies didn’t offer much padding from the hard ground. Their invention, the Therma-a-Rest, revolutionized how we sleep on trip.
Inspired by a simple kneeling pad available for use in the garden, Burroughs and Lea experimented with building prototypes from open-cell foam with a perforated polyurethane cover. They used a secondhand sandwich grill to fuse two layers together, creating a self-inflating pad. —KC
Gore-Tex
Conventional rain gear is waterproof but not breathable—sweat may make you wetter than rain! GORE-TEX fabric is both breathable and waterproof and therefore much more comfortable to wear. First appearing in a 1976 rainwear collection, the fabric is just one of more than 2,000 patented uses—from electronics to medical implants—for the polymer invented in 1969 and coined GORE-TEX. Most of today’s best garments, hats and boots feature GORE-TEX in their construction.
Early GORE-TEX garments leaked when they became soiled, but this problem has long been solved. Today, the major shortcoming is inadequate ventilation—the tiny micro-pores just can’t eliminate perspiration as quickly as uncoated nylon. For this rea- son, many paddlers rely on a porous nylon shell for wind and a GORE-TEX parka for rain. Jackets that have fully waterproof zippers are best. —CJ
Polyurethane
Heavy-duty plastic garbage bags don’t cut it when it comes to keeping the contents of my pack dry. Once I started packing along a few personal electronic devices, I couldn’t live with the anxiety level. So I switched to color-coded and variously sized SealLine dry bags and never worried again.
Dry bags aren’t a new innovation. Wax-impregnated canvas is an old trick developed by sailors in the mid-19th century. But the material became rigid in cold temperatures and melted like the shoes of the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz when the mercury climbed.
PVC (polyvinyl chloride) first appeared in the 1920s and was labeled the miracle material—used for household piping and imbedded in fabric to create a tough, flexible waterproof cloth. The downside: PVC manufacturing produces toxic byproducts and off-gassing from the material contributes to ozone damage.
Transparent polyurethane and durable PU-coated nylon bags are the latest in- novation in waterproof packing. PU bags are lighter, more environmentally friendly, roll tightly closed in all temperatures and, best of all, are worry-free dry. —KC
Primus Gas Stoves
The Primus stove was invented in 1892 by Swedish machinist Frans Lindqvist. Inspired by the handheld blowtorches used in the engine factory where he worked, Lindqvist’s stove was basically an upturned torch with a brass plate that evenly distributed the flame. His invention quickly earned a reputation for reliability and durability. It was used by Roald Amundsen, Admiral Byrd, George Mallory, Tenzing Norgay and virtu- ally every other 19th and early 20th century explorer.
Primus stoves have been in continuous production for more than a century and in my opinion they are still the best. They feature all-metal stainless steel, brass and alu- minum construction—there are no plastic parts to burn or break. Field maintenance is simple. For example, the aluminum pump consists of just two parts—the shaft and easily replaced pressure cup. These days, I rely mostly on a hot-burning Primus Omnifuel stove. But for solo trips, I often use my ancient (circa 1952) M71 Primus, which still runs flawlessly. —CJ
Trangia Stove
Canadian and American campers are fixated on petroleum-based stoves. The majority of us use either pressurized white gas or butane/propane stoves. I’m no exception, I love my MSR Dragonfly. But look on YouTube or beyond our borders and you’ll discover that everywhere else in the world, alcohol stoves rule.
Convinced that a spirit stove would be superior to existing solid fuel stoves, Swedish designer John E. Jonsson developed the first Trangia prototype in 1951. Today, the aluminum and brass stoves are top sellers across Europe.
A Trangia stove has many advantages. First, it’s extremely compact and lightweight. It fits in the palm of your hand and comes with its own nesting cook set. Alcohol stoves are also very simple; there’s nothing much to them so nothing much can go wrong. Best of all, the silent flame makes for an unbelievably quiet camp kitchen.
Get used to the Trangia’s quirks—longer boiling time than a pressurized fuel stove, difficult to see flame and harder to find fuel—and you just may find yourself converted. —KC
Candle Lantern
Hang a candle lantern in your tent on a cold, dreary night and watch the flickering shadows dance across the walls. The tiny flame warms your tent by about 10 degrees— enough to kill the chill. If you have keen eyes, it also provides light enough to read a book.
The Stonebridge folding candle lantern, patented in 1900 and used by American servicemen during the First World War, was the first folding lantern that could be easily packed and safely used inside a tent. Originally built from brass with mica windows, it folded flat to just half an inch thick for storage. But it had some faults: the mica windows were fragile and the base leaked wax.
The tubular candle lantern, which appeared in the 1950s, was more rugged and compact; it had sliding glass windows and didn’t leak. Like most modern paddlers, I rely largely on an LED headlamp for illumination. But for warmth and ambience, my candle lantern rules the night. —CJ
Headlamp
Compact, portable headlamps have literally changed the way we see the world. Thomas Edison developed the first headlamp for miners; the 1914 model came with a reflector, incandescent lamp and belt-mounted, wet-cell storage battery. The battery lasted only 12 hours—or one shift down in the mine—and put out two to five lumens of light.
Headlamps for recreational use developed through the sport of spelunking. Cave ex- plorer Fernand Petzl began experimenting with a fine-tuned mountaineering headlamp in 1973. Thanks to the development by Japanese researchers of bright white LEDs (light-emitting diodes) in the early ‘90s, modern headlamps are lighter, use far less battery power and push out an insane amount of light—90 lumens is typical—for their size.
Petzl remains in the lead for improving headlamp design. Recently, the company introduced a rechargeable, programmable battery pack for their Tikka 2 series. By plug- ging your headlamp into your computer via USB, you can program the battery to save juice or max it out and never stagger in the dark again. —KC
TECHNICAL TIMELINE
1789
The first multi-sheet topographic map series of an entire country, the Carte géométrique
36 de la France, is completed
1865
One of the earliest known prototype sleeping bags is used by English mountaineer Edward Whymper for the first ascent of the Matterhorn
1890s
Vacuum flask invented by Scottish chemist, James Dewar, is the earliest predecessor to the modern insulated mug
1898
Strike-anywhere match
1905
Sierra Cup
1914
Coleman 300 candlepower gas lantern is a staple in rural American homes and on WWI frontlines
1930s
Orienteering fad sweeps Sweden, Silva handheld compass debuts
1935
Nylon
1942
Coleman produces the first multi-fuel pocket stove at the request of the U.S. Army. Along with the Jeep, it is one of the two most important pieces of noncombat equipment in the war effort
1945
Teflon non-stick coating
1947
Butane pocket lighter
1950
Double-burner Coleman stove becomes a staple among car-camping Americans
1959
Bill Moss licenses the Pop Tent—one of the very first dome tents made with bent poles—to Thermos. The two-man version weighs over 11 pounds.
1970s
Cordura, a canvas-like nylon, is all the rage thanks to Jansport’s trendy college daypacks
1975
The North Face introduces the world’s first geodesic dome backpacking tent
1979
Polar Fleece
1983
Leatherman launches first multi-tool, the PST (Pocket Survival Tool)
1989
The Original Bug Shirt Company begins prototype testing
1993
The Global Positioning System (GPS)—sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense— becomes operational
1994
New Zealand-based Icebreaker produces the first commercially available me- rino wool thermal underwear
1998
Iridium launches the world’s first handheld satellite phone
2008
SPOT satellite messenger
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Fall 2012. Download our freeiPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
Car manufacturers would have you believe that without their latest adventure machine, you simply won’t get to the scenic locales showcased in advertisements. Every real paddler knows that some rigs are better than others, but the best are the ones that get you to the water. Here, Callum rides to the Nile, in Uganda.
We enlist the help of long time Raft Guide and regular contributor to Rapid, Jeff Jackson, to put together the ultimate whitewater raft for multi-day canyon river trips.
