Whether on a salad or in a kayak, the Thousand Islands offer a diverse and flavorful variety for any kayaker’s appetite.
This article first appeared in the Summer/Fall 2012 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
This whitewater kayak technique article originally appeared in Rapid magazine.
S-Turn is one of the most famous and celebrated rapids in Mexico. It is the crux rapid on the notorious Roadside section of the Rio Alseseca, dropping 20 fast and twisty feet before ending in an eight-foot-wide mini gorge.
As with any steep, tight drop the first requirement for hitting your line is staying upright. The real trick to nailing S-Turn, however, is to get river right during the first slide. Although it looks like a bad idea, starting left is the way to go. Then the water will take you back to the right at the correct time.
[1] Enter the rapid on the far left with your bow pointed slightly right. This will look intimidating since there is a menacing rock wall on the left that if feels like you are going to crash into. In reality, you will slide down four feet, hit the angled rock on the left and deflect back with right momentum.
[2] Take a hard left stroke to pull yourself as far right as possible onto the ridge of dry rocks that form the top bend of the “S”. Your bow should launch off the rock, sending your boat into the air. This move is key, as it sets you up for the next turn. If you don’t make it all the way right, your bow will drop and could piton the left wall, which will most likely result in a flip. Avoid this at all costs!
[3] Once you have launched off the rock and are aerial, lift your left knee. This prevents you from flipping when you land on the large boiling curler coming off of the left wall.
[4] Brace as required to stay upright and take a powerful right stroke to keep your bow pointed left as you enter the final kink of the S-turn. If you fail to keep your bow left here, you risk spinning out into a micro eddy on the right or spinning sideways and pinning in the narrow alleyway below.
[5] After you have snaked through the sliding S-turn, you drop into the super cool mini gorge. This alleyway is about 70 feet long with 15- to 20-foot-high walls. Make sure to stay pointed downstream because, at just eight feet wide, the gorge is the perfect size to pin sideways if you get careless. Enjoy the view as you drop out of the alley into a calm pool.
[6] When you realize that this is one of the coolest rapids EVER, you can eddy out on the left in the bottom pool and hike back up for another run.
– Nick Troutman was a member of the first team to make a full descent of the Rio Alseseca. He swam three times and considers himself lucky.
This article originally appeared in Rapid, Fall 2012. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
This profile originally appeared in Rapid magazine.
In 2010, a petite firecracker in a yellow Wave Sport Project 45 exploded onto the U.S. free- style circuit. Two years and one Freestyle World Championships later—where the 26-year-old Elizabethtown, KY, native ranked 5th among the world’s top rodeo queens—there’s scarcely a throwdown where you won’t see Haley Mills’ broad grin and lofty aerials buoying her to a podium finish. Rapid caught up with the peripatetic playboater in Raleigh, NC, en route to Virginia’s Dominion River Rock Festival.
How did you get started in kayaking?
I took a class at Nantahala Outdoor Center when I was 13. My parents encouraged me to hook up with local kayaking clubs and a couple of friends took me paddling almost every weekend. After college, I moved to Colorado. It was so easy to get to the playpark for a workout in Salida—that’s where my interest in freestyle really started.
How did you make the leap from recreational boater to professional competitor?
I was training so much, working on my tricks and placing well at local competitions, that I figured, “Hey, I’m pretty good at this—I think I’m going to give it a go.” I showed up for U.S. team trials in 2010 and placed third.
You were also the USACK National Freestyle Point Series Champion… what else made 2010 a breakout year?
My boyfriend, Mike Tavares, and I bought a 1975 RV for $1,500 so we could travel from competition to competition. I’d been paddling Wave Sport boats since I started freestyle kayaking and when I made the U.S. National Freestyle Team, Wave Sport signed me to their pro team.
Tell us about being a full-time river nomad.
We recently upgraded to a nicer RV that we live in year-round. I like the RV lifestyle because I can spend the whole year around water, training and competing. In the winter, we park the RV in Clay Wright’s driveway and train at Rock Island, Tennessee. We spend some time paddling with the Jacksons when they’re around. The South- east freestyle scene is pretty close-knit.
We’ve heard rumors that you work at Tom Sawyer’s Christmas Tree Farm in Chattanooga?
Trimming, wrapping and loading Christmas trees for six weeks is really good cross-training! I’ve also waitressed at upscale restaurants and sold smoothies in Iowa at a 10-day road biking festival. This year I have more sponsorship help and we’re also pulling a trailer for Boardworks, doing SUP demos and events.
Speaking of cross-training, you also compete in downriver, slalom, surf and SUP. What’s your favorite discipline?
I want to keep my focus on freestyle for the 2013 Worlds, but I love training for all of them. Racing six-mile SUP ocean events or doing an eight-mile downriver sprint makes me stronger in my playboat and a better competitor. The more I do, the harder it is to pick a favorite.
Are there any specific tricks you’re working on for the World Cup this September?
I’m known for my huge aerial loops and I’m working on a few more combos, making sure I get my Phonix Monkey and McNasty dialed. A split-to-split would be nice as well.
How excited are you to see the World Championships coming to the Nantahala Gorge next year?
Thrilled. I’ll definitely be living at Nantahala, working the feature a lot. I want to move up from top five.
Life after the Worlds?
Training to be an all-around athlete…slalom would be nice to add for the 2016 Olympics. Staying healthy and strong so I can paddle for a long time.
This article originally appeared in Rapid, Fall 2012. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
This article on the film series Of Souls and Water was first published in Rapid magazine.
“So, so, so, so, so, so, so SICK!” is how big wave maven, Ben Marr, describes his latest project—starring in “The Shapeshifter,” the third episode of the new short film series, Of Souls + Water. Marr’s opinion is obviously biased, but the five-episode series—released monthly this summer for free online viewing with the last five- to seven-minute short premiering August 28—is drawing plenty of acclaim elsewhere.
The series’ first episode—“The Nomad,” featuring National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, Erik Boomer—received a nod on Outside magazine’s OutsideOnline.com. When a teaser of Marr’s episode played at the North Fork Championship in June, the crowd went so wild they drowned out the musical score. And, at the time of printing, both the first and second episodes were staff picks on Vimeo, a video sharing website with some 10 million members.
It’s no wonder people are taking notice. Of Souls + Water’s creative engines are director Skip Armstrong and producer Anson Fogel of Forge Motion Pictures—the Colorado-based production company that raised the bar for kayaking films in 2010 with Wild Water, and took Grand Prize at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in 2011 with the climbing film, Cold. Armstrong and Fogel shot all the episodes on high-definition RED digital cameras and the visuals and quality sound design are nothing short of cinematic.
“We wanted to bring Hollywood-style cinematography to the outdoors,” explains Armstrong, “we planned the shots we wanted, then found the characters to support that vision.”
It isn’t just production quality that sets Of Souls + Water apart. Armstrong and Fogel envisioned an artistic, poetic series that would tell the stories of five individuals bound together by the common theme of water. Rather than focusing on a particular sport (the series features whitewater kayaking, rafting, sea kayaking and surfing), each episode poses a question about the human condition.
“We took some risks, focusing on ideas of our humanity more than the details, more feeling than explanation,” says Fogel. “The result is something a bit more unique, I hope, that stands above the noise of today’s web media.”
Mark Deming, marketing coordinator at series sponsor NRS, agrees, “We wanted to get at the underlying meaning behind paddling and go beyond eye candy.”
After seeing Forge’s films on the festival circuit, Deming met with Fogel and Armstrong to explore partnership possibilities. Underwriting films is a recent venture for NRS—the Idaho-based paddlesports manufacturer and retailer first partnered with National Geographic filmmaker Andy Maser in 2011 for a series on dam removal—but Deming says there are plenty more projects in the hopper for 2013. Monetizing the films, he adds, isn’t a consideration. “Our goal is to help the artists at Forge bring their vision to reality,” says Deming, “then share it with our audience.”
Giving away the goods—especially when those goods are the fruit of costly production techniques and state of the art equipment—isn’t a new concept in the outdoor industry, but it is relatively new to paddlesports. When Reel Water Productions filmmaker Bryan Smith partnered with technical apparel manufacturer, Arc’teryx, in 2010–2011 to produce The Season, it was among the first times that paddling lifestyle had been featured in publicly available, professionally produced branded films.
As the paddlesports industry develops a more sophisticated online pres- ence, says Deming, “Branded content as the way companies do business on the web is going to become more prominent.”
Armstrong says that without sponsorship from NRS and New Belgium Brewing, the Of Souls + Water team wouldn’t have the luxury of shooting films when river or ocean conditions are optimal, and then getting them in front of audiences just a month later. Free online distribution, he says, “is so cool—as filmmakers, we finally have a platform where we can release this stuff. It’s something everyone who makes films is going to have to explore.”
See the episodes now, at www.nrsfilms.com
This article originally appeared in Rapid, Fall 2012. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
Off the Tongue is a column that appears reguarily in Rapid magazine.
In 2009, Gawker.com called out the editor of Men’s Health, David Zinczenko, for copying and pasting old cover lines onto new magazine covers. Turns out Zinczenko has been recycling cover lines since 2004. To be fair, editors are always looking for what readers want and trying to deliver it to them. Men, if we are to believe Zinczenko, here’s what we really want: “Six Pack Abs” has been used on five Men’s Health covers, “Lose Your Gut” on five, and “Get Back in Shape” has run on 10 covers in five years. You get the idea.
Publishers track newsstand sales and editors run cover lines to entice readers into picking up a copy. A few magazine cover power words are: free, easy, shocking, secret, new, ultimate and sex. Virtually any magazine at the checkout counter of a grocery story uses these. Cosmo works all of them into a single cover story: “Shocking New Free and Easy Secrets to Ultimate Sex.”
Good cover lines are an essential part of selling magazines and, dare I say, are a lot like good pickup lines. You only have a few seconds to ignite a certain emotion and intrigue a person into buying the publication or letting you buy her a drink.
Magazine experts say editors should not be too clever on the cover. Satisfy a need and give readers the short answer fast. But sometimes it’s fun to break the rules. One of my favorite cover lines was a small print, bottom of the page story that ran on Outside magazine—”My Girlfriend Rappels Me: Inside the Crazy World of Adventure Dating.” Being happily married, I didn’t give them my five bucks, but the editors did get my respect for being clever.
A few years back on the cover of Rapid’s sister publication Adventure Kayak—I should note, a magazine with an older, more mature readership— we had a little too much fun when we ran these two cover lines: “Kayak Porn—Behind the Scenes with Bryan Smith” and “Derek Hutchinson: Why we Suck.” It was our editor’s mother who first noticed and expressed her disappointment at seeing the words porn and suck on the same cover. A dozen subscribers cancelled their subscriptions.
Over the years, I’ve learned that not-so-interesting stories don’t produce great cover lines. If we can’t make it sound intriguing in five words, it’s probably not all that interesting inside at 1,500.
The opposite is also true. A well-crafted, seductive headline usually makes for an interesting story.
This spring we were following tweets from @wwheadlines who has taken this idea one step further. Not burdened with having to publish or even write the accompanying stories, @wwheadlines tweets great headlines that would certainly intrigue readers and sell magazines. Here are some of my favorite whitewater headlines we can’t run, at least not yet:
Professional Kayaker Sets New World Record for Uses of the Word “Epic”
Upon Closer Inspection Steve Fisher Appears to be a Robot
Young Guns Celebrate 15th Anniversary of “The Future of the Sport”
Groundbreaking Kayaking Film to Feature Paddling Set to Rap Music
Following Breakup, Attractive Female Paddler Single for 3.4 Seconds
Eskimo Kayaks Announces Plans to Update 1989 Outfitting with 1994 Outfitting
River Karma Being Revamped to Include Competitive Scoring System
Poll Shows 63 Percent of Americans Still Oppose SUP Marriage
Aging EJ Forgets which Boat he is Supposed to be Hyping
In a Shocking Turn of Events, Sponsored Kayaker Recommends Sponsor’s Product
Grumman to Release All Aluminum Playboat.
– Scott MacGregor is the founder and publisher of Rapid.
This article originally appeared in Rapid, Fall 2012. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
Butt End by Kevin Callan is a column that regularly appears in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
I love presenting to a crowd of paddlers. I always have. I’ve been standing in front of canoeists for over 25 years, ranging from quaint evenings at small-town libraries to Madison, Wisconsin’s Canoecopia, a show I once described to a U.S. border guard as a Star Trek convention for canoeists.
I used to prepare some sort of script to keep me organized, but gave that up a number of years ago. I’m just too hyper to stick to a script. Besides, a set dialogue doesn’t necessarily work, especially during Q&A period. You just never know what’s going to come up.
Quirky questions are de rigueur: Where do I purchase bear-proof fencing for my canoe trip? How do I convince my canoe partner to carry more gear? Are you the same Kevin Callan that’s a murderer? Is your wife single? And, just recently while presenting inThunder Bay for the Friends of Quetico, How did your schoolteachers deal with your attention deficit disorder?
I’ve been abused by landowners who hated me for promoting a canoe route neighboring their cottage or camp. I’ve been belittled by part-time historians who beg to differ on a point of historic fact. And there was the time I was embarrassed in a packed university auditorium by an outdoor professor and her lawyer friend who threatened to have me sued for writing about her wilderness exploits (even though they were good and honorable exploits).
On another occasion, a government official disrupted a presentation I was giving on dealing with bears and took over the lecture with her counter points because she thought I was telling too many jokes. True story. That was the only time I lost my temper during a show and actually kicked her off the stage.
The embarrassments aren’t limited to cross-examination, either. I’ve mispronounced place names, both forgivable— Chiniguchi and Tatachikapika—and unforgivable—vagina instead of Regina is one of the more humiliating examples. Once, my tongue slipped when I tried to say Reese’s Pieces and the words came out Reese’s penis.
I’ve had my fly down for a 90-minute presentation, and sat on a chocolate bar just prior to the show while wearing beige pants. I’ve even done the classic, pre-show water-splash-on-my-groin-while-washing-up-in-the-bathroom and got caught trying (in vain) to dry my pants with the wall-mounted air-dryer.
Being mistaken for another writer who was wrongly convicted of murder or being accused of suffering from ADD is well worth it though. Why? Over the years, I’ve actually witnessed a few paddlers out on canoe trips that I originally met during a presentation. More than once, they’ve claimed that it was my inspirational talk that convinced them to head out on their adventure in the first place.
The most memorable of these moments occurred after a presentation I gave in Restoule Provincial Park in which I told everyone about a magazine cover story I had just written titled How To Make Love in a Canoe. After the show I wandered back to my campsite beside the water’s edge and spotted a canoe floating in the moonlight. Two heads suddenly popped up and the couple inside yelled out, “Thanks, Kevin.”
– Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Kevin Callan believes there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Fall 2012. Download our freeiPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
This Campcraft article originally appeared in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
The surface of the sun is about 10,000°F. Why not put some of that energy to use and make yourself a snack? A solar oven works by redirecting and concentrating the sun’s rays, trapping their heat inside the collector box. You’ll be amazed at how simple and fun it is to cook treats using only the power of sunlight!
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
1 large pizza box
Aluminum foil
Box cutter, scissors
Heavy-duty plastic wrap
Black construction paper
Tape
Aluminum pie plate
INSTRUCTIONS:
Cut a flap out of the lid of your pizza box as shown in the picture. Cut along three sides, leaving about an inch and a half between the flap and the edges of the lid. Use the box’s hinge as the flap’s folding edge.
Line the entire interior of your pizza box— top, bottom and sides, including the flap— with aluminum foil. Tape it into place with the shiny side showing.
Cut two pieces of heavy-duty plastic wrap slightly larger than the flap to cover the opening—this will seal in the heat created by the sun’s rays. Tape them into place in a double layer.
Line the bottom of the box with black construction paper, taping it down on top of the aluminum foil. The black paper will absorb the warmth.
Tape over any holes where heat may escape your oven while making sure it is still able to open and close. Decorate the exterior.
You’re ready to cook! Put your food on the aluminum pie plate, aim the flap so that it reflects the sunlight into the box and prop it in place with a stick.
You’ll get the best results on a hot, sunny day between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. This solar oven will reach temperatures up to 200°F. Keep an eye on it as you cook and use oven mitts. Expect cooking times to be about double that of a conventional oven. You can preheat the oven in the sun to speed things up.
SOLAR OVEN RECIPES
Stellar Mini Pizzas
Spread tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella, chopped veggies and sliced pepperoni sticks onto an open-faced English muffin. Cook until the cheese melts and the muffin is toasted.
Solar S’mores
Place some chocolate and a marshmallow on a graham cracker and allow them to melt. Place a second graham cracker on top and enjoy.
Quesadillas del Sol
Spread shredded cheese, chopped onions, peppers, mushrooms and salsa onto one half of an open tortilla flat. Fold it over and cook until the cheese melts and the tortilla is crispy.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Fall 2012. Download our freeiPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
Base Camp is a regular column in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
Every summer my parents rented a small cottage on a small lake. We swam in the lake, hiked a little and fished a lot. We fished mostly for smallmouth bass. Smallmouth bass, if you don’t know, love frogs. And so, frogs were bait.
At the time, you could buy frogs. But since we had more time than money, we spent hours stalking around the squishy edges of frog ponds. Catching frogs was even more fun than fishing.
We started every trip to our secret frog pond in rubber boots and came home in goo-caked bare feet. Some kids used nets to catch them, but if you were quick, it was better to use your hands. Slowly, slowly, slowly we‘d crouch into position. Fingers together, hand open, we’d hover above our little green prey waiting for just the right moment. SPLASH! Like lightning you snapped down on it so that your palm was on top of the frog and your fingers clamped around it, plucking it from the weeds before it could duck out of sight. If you were good, you’d get one for every five attempts.
After a few trips around the pond, the ones that got away on the earlier laps were even harder to catch because they were now a little… jumpy.
Frogs, scientists say, have reason to be jumpy. Frog populations have been declining worldwide with nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species now threatened with extinction. Since 1980, when I was at the top of my frog catching game, 200 species of frogs have completely disappeared. Save the Frogs, a non-profit organization dedicated to, well, saving frogs, says that an onslaught of environmental problems, including pollution, infectious diseases, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change and over-harvesting for the food industry are to blame.
People say if you have a healthy frog population, you have a healthy environment.
Frogs spend some time on land and some time in the water and because they have sensitive skin that can easily absorb toxic chemicals, frogs are especially susceptible to environmental disturbances. Biologists around the world believe that the health of frogs is indicative of the health of the biosphere as a whole.
I’d like to put forth another theory. I believe that if we teach children the joys of catching frogs, some of those kids will grow up to rid the environment of hurtful toxins. In fact, I don’t think we need to teach them; I think we just need to point them toward a frog pond and turn them loose.
You see, we weren’t just gathering bait, we were learning about the environment. We were engaging with nature, playing in it, sink- ing in it barefoot up to our knees. Sure, putting frogs on hooks was a bit mean, but let’s not overreact and pull our kids from the swamps where they can study, understand and connect with nature. Kids, after all, weren’t identified by Save the Frogs as a contributing factor to declining numbers.
The regulations on fishing with frogs vary from region to region. Where I live, it is now illegal to use all but one species—the northern leopard frog—as bait. Instead, anglers use millions of petroleum-based, frog-like artificial baits that I’m not so sure are better for the environment, or the frogs. We’ll leave that one in the hands of the great biologists of tomorrow. But we’ll have to wait; right now they’re in swamps with their hands full of little green frogs.
– Scott MacGregor is the founder and publisher of Canoeroots & Family Camping.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Fall 2012. Download our freeiPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
This gear review originally appeared in Canoeroots and Family Camping magazine.
These paddles will help you go fast, go long and, go quietly in style.
SANBORN CANOE CO.
Little Sag
www.sanborncanoe.com • $140
Sanborn paddles stand out on the water and on the rack. Optional hand-painted shafts in several different heritage designs blend art with craftsmanship, making these truly unique paddles.
The gentle seven-degree bend in the Little Sag was pleasantly surprising. The increase in power over a straight shaft is noticeable yet control strokes like the J aren’t affected. This paddle belongs in the collection of touring canoeists who appreciate a paddle with character.
GREY OWL
Eagle Feather
www.greyowlpaddles.com • $195
The walnut and ash veneer on the broad blade faces of Grey Owl’s newest paddle really does resemble an eagle feather. Blended with a unique combination of butternut, birdseye maple, basswood and white cedar, the paddle is both sturdy and relatively light. A partial urethane tip protects the blade from delamination and splitting of the grain. Its oval shape is tailored for deep-water recreational or tripping paddlers.
BENDING BRANCHES
Black Pearl
www.bendingbranches.com • $230
Because of its strength-to-weight ratio, carbon remains the standard for high-performance paddles. The new Black Pearl is an unconventional head-turner for Bending Branches, known for their wooden blades. Marathoners will love this paddle as the 11-degree bend gives lots of oomph to each stroke and the grip is more comfortable for long tours than many sprint racing paddles. Most noticeable is what’s absent—it weighs only 14 ounces. You’ll barely notice you’re holding it.
BADGER PADDLES
Cherry Tripper
www.badgerpaddles.com • $130
The Cherry Tripper performs just as well for soloists as it does for tandem trippers. A long narrow blade provides excellent leverage needed for deep strokes used in solo and freestyle paddling. The shape also results in an efficient, low-impact stroke ideal for all-day, distance canoeing. Smaller-framed paddlers will appreciate the Tripper’s scaled-down shaft diameter and grip, while larger paddlers will likely prefer the more substantial proportions of the Badger Paw.
This article originally appeared in Canoeroots & Family Camping, Fall 2012. Download our freeiPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.
Maybe your canoe has seen one too many portages and the yoke has finally given out. Or maybe your shoulders have seen one too many bruises and it’s time to try a different yoke design. Either way, installing a new yoke on your canoe is simple business.
First, of course, you’ll need to pick out a canoe yoke. There is ongoing debate whether contoured and carved-out or padded yokes are most comfortable—choose the style that works for you. Ash is strongest, poplar is lightest, and walnut or cherry offers a unique look.
Once you have your choice in hand, it’s time to learn how to install a canoe yoke.
If the old hardware is corroded, bent or stripped, replace it with stainless steel or brass #10-24 machine bolts, cup washers, flat washers and lock nuts.
New yokes come longer than you will need. Simply lay the old yoke over the new one with the centre points aligned. If you don’t have the old yoke, you’ll need to measure the distance between the gunwales at the canoe’s midpoint.
Keep in mind that the yoke’s length can spread or narrow the canoe’s beam. Pulling the gunwales together makes the hull rounder and increases tumblehome while spreading the gunwales increases flair and flattens the boat’s bottom.
Don’t just screw the new yoke into the old holes—now is your opportunity to ensure your canoe is perfectly balanced on the yoke. To do so, take a tape measure and find the middle of the canoe from end to end and mark it on both gunwales using a wax pencil.
Next, place the yoke across the canoe at your markings, under both gunwales and then rotate it so its narrow edge is facing upwards. With one person on either side of the canoe, lift up on the yoke. The canoe may tip to one direction. Adjust the yoke until the canoe is balanced and mark its position.
By installing the yoke’s opening facing the bow, you can just flip the canoe onto your shoulders and go when you land at a portage.
Alternatively, if you have a stern thwart within arm’s reach of the yoke, you can install the yoke facing the stern, allowing you to hold onto the thwart while portaging.
With the yoke across the canoe at your markings, hold it flat under the gunwales, and then pull the gunwales together so there’s no space between the yoke and the hull. Next, drill holes through both the gunwale and the yoke. Drill in the middle of the gunwale for optimum strength and ease of hardware installation.
Install the bolts with the cup washer on top of the gunwale and the flat washer underneath and you’re ready to portage.
Johno Foster installed countless yokes as a canoe builder in a past life. He is now a northern river wilderness canoe guide and paddling instructor.
