Canoes: The Perfect Craft for SUP

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Photo: Jon "Shaggy" McLaughlin — Canoes: The Perfect Craft for SUP

Never stand up in a canoe. It’s one of the golden rules of canoeing, right? The explosive growth of stand up paddling (SUP) has many canoeists thinking that this myth couldn’t be further from the truth, as single- bladers from across North America are discovering that canoes are a perfect—and often overlooked—craft for SUP.

SUP is not just a surfing sport. It’s especially popular among flatwater enthusiasts from weekend warriors to fitness racers. SUP strokes involve the whole body, making it a great core workout, while also building balance by working smaller muscles in the feet and legs. “I was amazed the first time I stood up and paddled my canoe with a SUP paddle,” says Bruce Bergstrom, owner of Sawyer Paddles & Oars. “The ease, power, length of stroke and stability one gains by standing is remarkable.”

Standing lets you see both deeper into the water and further downstream. The strokes for stand up canoeing are essentially the same as for solo canoeing—Js, pries, draws and cross strokes all can be done standing, and with a far greater range of motion and power than when sitting or kneeling.

STAND UP CANOEING IS NOTHING NEW

Top open canoeist Mark Scriver takes a SUP paddle on trips and paddles half the time standing up. “On big, wide and sometimes shallow rivers where you’re looking for the best channel, it’s easier to use a SUP paddle and remain standing than to stand up, look, sit down and paddle.”

In 2009, founder of Stride SUP, Luke Hopkins, and his brother Ty competed against 48 other canoes in a three-mile race down Virginia’s New River. Luke and Ty tandem paddled standing up, negotiating class II–III rapids and winning the race…by a long shot! Even Luke was surprised: “I was shocked by the performance and power using a long paddle. Our strokes were eight feet long and had so much power behind them.”

Standing up in a canoe is actually nothing new…ever heard of canoe poling? Anglers and hunters have long been standing up to pole and paddle through southern bayous. When it comes to canoe fishing, Guillaume Chassé of Esquif Canoes thinks standing up is the only way to go, “Stand up canoeing is the best way for an angler to cast his line, and it’s easier to haul in your catch.”

As the sport of SUP on boards continues to gain popularity worldwide, stand up canoeing has nowhere to go but, well…UP! The biggest hurdle is getting people to try it. As Clay Feeter, publisher of Stand Up Journal, says, “Standing up and flexing your legs and back becomes so easy and understandable once the newcomer gives it a try. But you don’t get it until you try it. Getting people to feel it is the next step.”

Jon “Shaggy” McLaughlin paddled 148 miles of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail across the Adirondacks from Old Forge to Plattsburgh, New York. He paddled the entire route standing up in his canoe.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Editorial: Grabbing Canoeing by the Tail

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Photo: Jonathan Pratt — Editorial: Grabbing Canoeing by the Tail

What I’m about to say might come as a shock, but as the editor of Canoeroots magazine, I must be completely upfront and honest with my readers. So, here’s my confession.

I’m a recovering sea kayaker.

I had blissfully completed another summer as a sea kayak guide on Lake Superior when I met, on a cool September morning at a northern Ontario animal shelter, the little fur ball that would change the course of my paddling career.

Her doleful puppy-dog eyes caught my attention through the steel bars in spite of the chaotic howls and barks of the other prisoners. The little, one-year-old chocolate lab-husky mix with the sparkling eyes begged, “Take me home.”

Leash in hand, I became a first time dog owner with no idea what to expect. Three days later, I was made fully aware of my new circumstances when I came home to a shred- ded mess of magazines, a feathery cloud of gutted down pillows and several well-scattered clusters of yellow polyurethane foam from…my couch!

“MY LOVE OF CANOEING CAME FROM MY DOG, TESS.”

But that wasn’t all she was going to change.

Most canoeists can say their love of the single blade came from family canoe trips into the interiors of Algonquin Provincial Park or summer camp. In this issue’s Basecamp column, Canoeroots publisher Scott MacGregor learns the true joy of canoeing from his son on a trip down the Petawawa River. But for me, my love of canoeing came from my dog, Tess.

My passion at the time was definitely sea kayaking and I was determined to share it with her. So I set down a comfortable mat in the rear hatch of my 17-foot kayak. I loaded her into the boat and paddled away—I thought that she would sit still.

Instead, she precariously balanced herself on top of the kayak, ignoring my commands: “Sit down! Tessie, SIT DOWN!”

It wasn’t until she saw a flock of ducks taking flight that the kayak rolled and we both plunged into the frigid water of Superior.

It was at that moment, as her claws dug into my arms like the talons of a frightened parrot, that I learned she couldn’t swim. A month later, I sold my yellow Current Designs and bought a red Nova Craft Prospector. And a doggie PFD.

That was seven years ago. After numerous canoe trips, I don’t regret the trade one bit. The only thing I wish I had done sooner was read this issue’s feature article, “Ruffin’ It,” in which dog paddler Kevin Callan gives his top tips on canoeing with your dog. It would have saved me (and Tess) some initial frustration.

I still sea kayak…a bit, but don’t worry, I’m over it. And Tess wags her tail when I bring out her dog PFD and has learned many times over to sit perfectly still in the canoe, except when she sees ducks.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

The Evolution Of Whitewater Parks

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Once upon a time, the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan lived up to its namesake. The Grand River tumbled six vertical meters over a distance of 2 km through the city’s center on its way to Lake Michigan. Then came the construction of North America’s first hydroelectric facility in 1880, kicking off a century of urbanization. The river was straightened and channeled over a series of concrete weirs, and it was even proposed to be paved-over for a parking lot.

“The Grand looks like a drainage ditch right now,” says local kayaker Chris Muller. “It’s a leftover from the industrial days when it was a place to gain power and get rid of sewage.”

Muller and his buddies Chip Richards and Roger Starring are downing pints of Dirty Bastard Scotch-style ale at Grand Rapids’ Founders Brewery and Taphouse when I chat with them over a sketchy mobile phone conference call. For the past year the threesome’s Grand Rapids WhiteWater (GRWW) organization has been spearheading a proposal to “put the rapids back in the Grand” in the form of a downtown whitewater paddling course. The proposed take-out, coincidently or not, would be on the doorstep of their favourite downtown brewpub.

While Richards and Muller have been dreaming of a whitewater park in downtown Grand Rapids for five years, the plan became more of a reality when the city of 197,000 launched a “green” urban development strategy in 2008. GRWW lobbied that a whitewater park was an ideal fit. Re-engineering the Grand River would enable fish migration and remove a handful of dangerous low-head dams.

Citing the economic figures of downtown whitewater parks in other U.S. cities, the organization argued that a kayak course on the Grand would draw locals and tourists and inject millions of dollars into the city’s core. For example, the weekend-long Reno River Festival, held each May in downtown Reno, Nevada on the Truckee River—a former concrete and rebar sluiceway itself—brings in 40,000 people and upwards of $4 million in revenue.

Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell and the city’s Downtown Development Agency took note: a whitewater park became a priority in the city’s Green Plan, and the downtown agency promised $25,000 for a feasibility study and initial plan.

Across the United States and Canada, boaters like Muller, Richards and Starring, engineers and city councils are rallying around whitewater parks as the future of paddling and a cornerstone of intelligent urban design. In late May, the three factions will convene for the third Whitewater Courses and Parks conference in Salida, Colorado to discuss “issues important to river parks’ environmental and economic sustainability.”

According to conference organizer Risa Shimoda, a marketing expert, boater and chair of the International Whitewater Hall of Fame, whitewater paddling is approaching a “tipping point” in becoming part of the urban recreation vernacular. “If every city had one along with their basketball courts,” she says, “the sport would change dramatically.”

The whitewater park boom

Paddlers are opportunistic when it comes to making the best of altered waterways. Boaters queue up for the pre-determined water releases of dammed rivers around the world. Human-made features like Lock 19 in Peterborough, Ontario and Scudders Falls on Pennsylvania’s Delaware River are playboating favourites. Similarly, the whitewater playground of the Ottawa River was shaped in part by decades of log-driving and hydroelectric development. Minden’s Gull River is a well-used training ground for slalom paddlers in southern Ontario.

“If it weren’t for maintaining water levels on the Trent-Severn Canal, the Gull would be a hiking trail in the summer,” says local boater Jeff Strano, the manager of Algonquin Outfitters’ Boatwerks. “I think a lot of people are under the illusion that these rivers are the result of Mother Nature and nothing else. That’s a fallacy.”

[ Paddling Trip Guide: View all whitewater instruction clinics and courses ]

Organizers of the 1972 Olympics took whitewater to a new level when they dynamited, hauled boulders and pumped water to create a kayak course in Augsburg, Germany for the Summer Games. Six years before, the Arkansas River in Salida, Colorado was reconfigured specifically for whitewater paddling. After Augsburg and Salida became the world’s first artificial and in-stream whitewater parks, the concept of engineering and excavating recirculating “rivers” or converting dull, dammed and sometimes polluted natural waterways into paddling hotspots didn’t catch on in earnest until 1990. That’s when Gary Lacy, a kayaker and civil engineer, created Boulder Creek Park in Boulder, Colorado, thus beginning the whitewater park boom and the state’s reign as the world’s capital of engineered whitewater.

Lacy’s Boulder-based Recreation Engineering and Planning company has built the lion’s share of North America’s 50-odd whitewater parks. “He’s the godfather of these things,” says Scott Shipley, the engineer who worked with Lacy in 2006 to create Charlotte, North Carolina’s $36-million U.S. National Whitewater Center, an artificial, pay-to-paddle facility that features a massive conveyor belt to shuttle boaters from the bottom to the top of the course. Denver’s McLaughlin Whitewater Design Group is another key player in the industry, having designed North America’s only other artificial park, McHenry, Maryland’s Adventure Sports Center International, in 2007.

But Shipley is the field’s rising star and one of its loudest proponents. Best known for competing at the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games and winning three K1 slalom World Cup championships, Shipley has become a leader in whitewater park design. Currently, he’s putting the finishing touches on London, England’s whitewater venue for the 2012 Olympics. The Broxbourne Whitewater Park is entirely human-made, pumping water from an 11,500-square-meter reservoir and channeling it down consecutive 160- and 300-meter courses at rates of up to 15 cubic metres per second. Like a climbing wall, Shipley’s course is entirely modular: Flow can be altered by changing the course’s gradient, and patented obstructions known as Rapidblocs can be reconfigured to create different features.

“My first designs were well within the box of conventional thinking,” says Shipley. “But in London, they said, ‘go out and create whatever you can imagine.’ The next generation of whitewater parks will reinvent the whitewater experience and evolve the sport.” Shipley curbs his enthusiasm when asked what the future of whitewater parks will be. “The future is a secret right now,” he says. But he promises that the new London facility is “a flash of what to expect.”

The freedom to paddle year-round

The future may someday be dominated by boaters like Jason Craig, the 16-year-old 2009 world junior freestyle champion, who learned to loop, helix and pan-am in the whitewater park on Reno’s Truckee River. Shimoda says parks play two roles in developing future freestyle stars: Making paddling easily available to masses of people, and making it safe. Society’s general fear of water is reduced when whitewater is made more accessible and controlled, similar to what indoor gyms and halfpipes have done for climbing and snowboarding, she says. “The key is when the kid asks the mom or dad to go kayaking, the parents have to be okay with it.”

It makes sense that the precise, ordered world of whitewater slalom has also gravitated to engineered whitewater. The Canadian team trains extensively at Rutherford Creek, Canada’s most complete whitewater park facility in Pemberton, B.C., and the U.S. national team is based at the artificial course in Charlotte. As much as U.S. coach Cathy Hearn, a longtime slalom competitor, misses “migrating like gypsies from river to river depending upon the season,” and the ad-lib, reactionary skills developed by paddling wild rivers, she says artificial parks offer broader exposure to the public and potential sponsors, consistent training and better coaching—not to mention on-site showers and nearby accommodations. “Gone are the days of sleeping in your wetsuit so it won’t freeze overnight,” she says.

For recreational paddlers, like Grand Rapids’ Muller, Richards and Starring, whitewater parks mean the freedom to paddle—often year-round—without making a road trip. It goes without saying that cities with these opportunities have a markedly higher number of paddlers. Colorado has long been a boating stronghold; world-class freestyle boaters Jay Kincaid and Canadian Ruth Gordon migrated to Reno; and in Charlotte, Shipley says the U.S. National Whitewater Center introduced nearly 1,000 people to kayaking in its first six months alone.

[ Also read: Top Whitewater Parks ]

In Colorado, whitewater parks are becoming central to sustainable urban design. Jed Selby was only 24 years old when the lifestyle of professional kayaking started to burn him out. The former World Cup freestyle competitor has since become the developer of an environmentally conscious neighbourhood on the Arkansas River in Buena Vista, Colorado (pop. 2,200), a sleepy town in the Rocky Mountain foothills southwest of Denver. Selby and his sister, Katie Urban, found a goldmine when they happened upon 10 hectares of riverside land adjacent to downtown Buena Vista in 2003. The siblings convinced their father to help finance the $1.2-million price tag, and South Main was born.

A whitewater park became part of their urban development theory—along with 500 units of residential and commercial property. With house prices ranging from $200,000 to $1.5 million, however, Selby admits that his neighbourhood will never be overrun by dirtbags. As South Main, like all other whitewater parks, broadens the demographics of paddling, it hints that perhaps the activity is maturing. “Hanging out at the Slave [River], getting attacked by mosquitoes, is only fun for so long,” says Selby. “I didn’t want to be living in my car on the side of the highway my whole life.”

Backhoe digging in river — Construction Boom: Buena Vista Whitewater Park is just one of a half dozen parks in the U.S. benefitting from improvements or expansions this year. | Photo: Jed Selby

The shock of trying the real thing

The proliferation of human-made whitewater begs a couple of questions: Does creating a virtual reality of what’s long been defined by an organic, risky and high-skill experience change the essence of whitewater paddling? And are today’s up and coming park boaters missing out on skills and savvy honed only on wild, free-flowing rivers?

The generation of paddlers who learn their skills exclusively in parks with designer waves and carefully conceived eddies will be in for a shock when they launch into a natural river and try the real thing. Whitewater parks are controlled environments with safety procedures and sometimes even lifeguards. They do not have undercuts, sieves, strainers, deadly hydraulics or no-eddy gorges. They never force boaters to weigh the risks of running a drop blind. A park boater will never have to hike out of an unrunnable canyon, or know the joy of sighting water through the trees at the end of a difficult portage.

But as an engine of growth, whitewater parks cannot be questioned. They simplify boating for beginners and veteran paddlers alike. “There’s something to be said about setting a shuttle and running a river,” says Kincaid. “But there’s also something nice about paddling on your lunch hour.”

Beyond the role of parks in the growth of the sport, Strano believes bringing whitewater to population centres like southern Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe is necessary for the salvation of wild rivers. Park boaters are potential river stewards waiting in the wings. “After a whitewater park,” says Strano, “real rivers are only a short step away.”

In-stream whitewater parks on once-feral rivers like Michigan’s Grand inject new life into these long-restrained waterways. The benefits are two-fold—for townsfolk and boaters living near these rivers, and for the health of the aquatic ecosystem. Artificial parks can be built anywhere with adequate funding and revenue base—no river required—and represent the true paddle anywhere vision of proponents like Shipley and Shimoda. As facilities like the U.S. National Whitewater Center prove to be economically viable, others are springing up around the world.

Like it or not, in a world of ever-shrinking attention spans and ever-increasing consumption of packaged adventure, whitewater parks will play a critical role in the future of our sport—economically, if not spiritually. “We’re no longer in a world where people go out and seek these things way out in the woods,” summarizes Shipley, “[whitewater parks] put these things right in the centre of the existence of Generation Y.”

This article originally appeared in Rapid‘s Early Summer 2010 issue. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or browse the archives here.

Conor Mihell is a writer based in Sault Ste. Marie, ON.

Urban Oasis: Whitewater Parks can transform neglected areas and generate lively new paddling communities. | Photo: Mathew Corke

Steve O’Meara: The Man Who is Kokatat

Stories

Photo of Blue Puma's 1984 catalogue cover: courtesy Kokatat — Steve O’Meara: The Man Who is Kokatat

Every cloud has a silver lining. Even if that cloud is a powerful, global sports brand suing your struggling start-up for trademark infringement. In the case of Steve O’Meara, the shimmer within the storm was Kokatat.

When the natural resources student from San Francisco’s Bay area arrived in the small coastal community of Arcata, California, to attend Humboldt State University in the late 1960s, he knew he’d found a special place. The keen outdoors- man could spend his free time kayaking northern California’s wild coast and rivers, trekking among the redwoods or climbing in the nearby Klamath Mountains and Coast Ranges.

When he graduated in 1971, O’Meara found the only thing lacking in Arcata was prospective employment. Determined to stay, the enterprising 23-year-old scraped together the capital to start a small outdoor equipment retail store catering to backpackers and cyclists. It wasn’t long before he discovered that the products he wanted to sell simply weren’t available. Recognizing a need, O’Meara plunged ahead with blind optimism.

“I didn’t have much business background and I definitely didn’t have any production background,” he recalls, “how to make the stuff was learned on the fly.”

With his then-business partner Chuck Kennedy, O’Meara purchased a couple sewing machines, started scrounging raw materials from local suppliers and branded his new company Blue Puma. Operating out of the back of their retail store, O’Meara and Kennedy manufactured high-end, made-to-order down sleeping bags, parkas and bivy sacs.

In 1976, the men were among the very first in the outdoor industry to recognize the potential applications of a new waterproof/breathable fabric called Gore-Tex. A bivy sac crafted from the material brought Blue Puma national recognition.

In 1980, O’Meara’s friends Don Banducci and Rob Lesser asked him to create paddling clothing for their upcoming expedition on the Alsek River in the Yukon/Alaska.

“We developed a very basic paddling jacket with a neoprene cuff and some fleece under garments—it’s sort of laughable now,” remembers O’Meara. Nevertheless, says Lesser, the Alsek paddling jackets were superior to the wool and flimsy nylon paddling clothes of the period.

Blue Puma was gathering momentum. Then, in 1986, O’Meara received a letter from Puma shoe company alleging trademark violations. Without the money to fight the charges, he was forced to change the name.

Re-branding the company offered O’Meara the opportunity to narrow his focus. “I decided I’d rather be a bigger fish in the small pool of watersports,” he summarizes.

A friend suggested the name Kokatat. Meaning “into the water” in the language of the indigenous Klamath River people, the new name fit perfectly with O’Meara’s commitment to paddlesports and keeping production in Arcata.

REBRANDING AND REINVENTING

Even with a clear purpose and a fresh name, Kokatat almost ceased to exist. Struggling to secure financing, turn a profit and weather stiff competition from new rivals like Stohlquist, O’Meara put his company up for sale. “The offer I got was kind of insulting, so I decided I had to turn the company around,” he says.

Kokatat’s success hinged on recognizing paddlers’ needs and figuring out innovative ways of satisfying them. In 1986, Kokatat created the industry’s first paddling drysuit. Gore-Tex and ad- vanced laminates and treatments followed.

O’Meara also recognized the importance of credibility and product feedback generated through sponsoring professional paddlers. Since the Alsek expedition, Kokatat has signed no fewer than four World Champions and outfitted the U.S. Olympic team.

O’Meara credits Kokatat’s popularity with pro- fessional athletes to a tradition of function-first designs. For their part, Team Kokatat’s interna- tional ambassadors have helped transform utilitarian function—and mango onesies—into paddling haute fashion.

For both longevity and ethics, O’Meara is admired throughout paddlesports. “Steve is an example of the entrepreneurial rocks upon which the whitewater industry worldwide was built,” says Lesser. “He never [sold] out to the consolidators of this industry. I couldn’t speak more highly of his manufacturing philosophies.”

After four decades, O’Meara is still enjoying the daily challenges and rewards.

“Kokatat changes about every five years so it’s endlessly interesting for me,” he says. “People ask how I can do the same thing for 40 years and I tell them, ‘I don’t.’”

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2010 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Kickin’ It Old School: 50 Years of the Strathcona Park Lodge

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Photo: Strathcona Park Lodge — Kickin' It Old School: 50 Years of the Strathcona Park Lodge

On Vancouver Island’s Upper Campbell Lake, an emerald jewel just steps from the doors of Strathcona Park Lodge and Outdoor Education Centre, Brian Creer dipped a paddle last June to celebrate five decades of outdoor experiences at the lodge. Now 90, Creer was on hand to guide the evolution of British Columbia’s busiest white- water education centre for many of those years.

Strathcona Park Lodge (SPL) started in 1959 as a traditional wilderness lodge. “Outdoor [adventure] for us was trout fishing and maybe taking a canoe out on the lake,” says Jamie Boulding, current co-Executive Director and son of lodge founders Myrna and Jim Boulding. Hollywood stars and other well-to-do visitors flocked to SPL in the 1960s, lured by the great fishing, rustic charm and remote beauty of neighbouring Strathcona Provincial Park.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE LODGE

The focus evolved in the early 1970s, when Creer—then the most influential whitewater kayaking and canoeing instructor in the province— and a handful of top outdoor teachers joined SPL’s developing outdoor education program. Instructors arriving from Outward Bound influ- enced programs at SPL in these early years, but the Bouldings maintained a unique ethos at the lodge focused on participation, personal growth and, most of all, play.

After 1977, when SPL ran the first semester of the newly founded Canadian Outdoor Leadership Training (COLT) program, many instructors at the outdoor centre were drawn from the ranks of COLT graduates and former SPL students. Since then, the centre has averaged 350 person days per year whitewater paddling. That’s over 10,500 days of whitewater spanning three decades.

Now entering its 51st year, SPL is still one of the busiest commercial whitewater training centres in B.C. The staff remains faithful to the original “if we make it fun, they’ll do it forever” philosophy.

In fact, says Boulding, the only things that have really changed are the equipment and the ever-evolving skills taught. School groups decked out in hockey helmets and rain jackets no longer line up beside 13-foot fibreglass kayaks, ready to tackle river or sea, but the rambling log cabins of the lodge still house new generations of kayakers and Creer—when he gets a chance—still puts paddle to water on Upper Campbell Lake.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2010 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Paddling on Faith

Stories

I was paddling as hard as I could, but my bow kept falling off the wind. I looked nervously at the GPS, and then turned it off so I could concentrate on the sea. Fifteen minutes later I turned it back on, to confirm my fears that I was drifting inexorably downwind. I was alone in the vastness, where I wanted to be, except that I would have been so much happier if I were on course. A flying fish leapt out of the water and skimmed over the waves, bright and silvery in the morning sunlight. Gaua Island was still 40 miles away, and if I missed that tiny spot of terra firma, I would die. The next landfall was Australia, 1,500 miles to the west.

I turned the GPS off again and put it in my pocket, because the digital read- out couldn’t save me—it would only quantify my doom. When my boat slid off the next wave, my outrigger caught in the trough and the kayak rotated 30 degrees, as if I were dancing with one foot nailed to the floor.

Life had felt so jaunty the day before when I lashed the outrigger to my plastic Ocean Kayak sit-on-top, fashioning a few pieces of wood with a machete and tying them together with some string. The outrigger was supposed to give me stability so I could sleep, because I had romantically envisioned a placid ocean and a peaceful night alone beneath the Southern cross.

Now, bobbing on unfettered ocean swells in the northern Vanuatu chain, I looked behind me to see Maewo Island, only eight miles away but unreachable because it was upwind. Ahead of me, Gaua Island lay below the horizon, recognizable only as a waypoint on my GPS. I suddenly realized the utter madness of hodge-podging a new boat design together on a tropical beach and setting out, without sea trials, onto the open ocean.

I had to cut the outrigger loose. Without it, I would have to paddle the next 40 miles in one big push, without rest. But there was no choice, so I grabbed my knife and jumped into the water. my PFD floated over my head because I had forgotten to zip it shut.

I was bobbing in the water, only my chin, nose and eyes floating, and from this perspective, even my diminutive, vulnerable Ocean Kayak sit-on-top seemed so secure, so substantial, like the deck of a grand passenger liner. I was seasick for the first time in thousands of miles of sea kayaking and felt like throwing up. Seasick? Or terrified?

“Okay, Jon. Take a deep breath. You’ve made a miscalculation, or a stupid blunder, and now you’re swimming with a knife in your hands and your PFD floating above your head, off course, surrounded by the vastness of waves and sky. But, you’ve survived so many close calls at sea—in kayaks, yachts and commercial fishing boats. You know what to do. One step at a time. Get the situation under control. Step one: Zip up your PFD, dummy!”

A few weeks before, I had set out from the capital city of Port Vila with Aundrea Tavakkoly, a big wave surfer from Hawaii and California, but she hadn’t bonded to the kayak as she had her surfboard, so she left the expedition and hitched back on a yacht, and I continued on alone. My goal was to paddle to the remote northern islands of Vanuatu, the Banks and Torres groups, and then make passages of 125 and 200 miles, first to the Santa Cruz Islands and then to the Solomon Islands.

The seasickness faded as soon as I pulled my PFD tight. The next wave rolled toward me with a tiny fringe of white teeth, grinning, not baring its fangs. I rose gloriously to its crest, and scanned the great expanse of sea, rolling ceaselessly, yet unchanging.

I cut the lashings loose and felt a combination of tangible relief and abject terror as my safety net drifted off into the sea. Then I hoisted myself back into the boat, hefted my paddle and took a few strokes. The boat jumped, as it was designed to do.

I raised my simple square sail and caught the wind. The boat skimmed, planed and danced, responding to my tiller. One wave broke over me, knocked me sideways and I stalled out on the next. Then I lined up perfectly, took a few hard strokes and surfed, hull hissing, sliding obliquely off the face, like a Hawaiian king on a wooden surfboard with feathered headdress dancing in the wind.

I turned on my GPS, estimated my drift, calculated, recalculated and then mentally checked my figures again. I could make land- fall if I paddled as hard as I could—and never stopped to rest. I popped open one precious can of Chinese peanuts and planned to eat a small handful between paddle strokes every time I felt totally out of energy. The rest of the time I would push my body relentlessly to exhaustion—and beyond, if needed.

The night before, at the bon voyage party on Maewo, in the village Nakimal or meeting hall, a young man named Namu asked me, “What is the aim of your voyage?” Night had descended and a few men were playing drums, one made of a hollowed log and the other out of a wooden shipping crate. A smoky kerosene lamp swung from a pole.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe I am just going from island to island, like going from day to day.” I paused, “What is your aim, in life?”

Namu didn’t answer and a few other men picked up guitars and started to sing.

An hour later, during a lull in the music, Namu suddenly addressed me, as if no time had passed. “I still don’t know. I am thinking.” But then we all got stoned on kava and the answer never came, which is just as well, because there is no answer.

There are two kinds of exhaustion: muscle fatigue and loss of alertness. As morning drifted into afternoon and afternoon waned toward evening, I felt confident that my muscles would sustain me. The total distance, after all, was only 48 miles on a broad reach off the Trade Winds—with the wind as my enemy because it blew me too far westward, but also as my friend because it simultaneously propelled me forward.

The sun softened and reddened, then settled on the horizon and flattened out, as if it had fallen too fast and landed with a splat. I had been in the boat for 15 hours and I was losing alertness. I grasped another tiny handful of peanuts and they sloshed around in my empty stomach, tiny and without impact, just as I sloshed around on this sea.

Darkness descended quickly and I set my paddle down for the first time in many hours. The coolness was welcome, unlike nightfall in higher latitudes. By now, I was about three miles from land and slightly upwind of the island, so I no longer needed to struggle. I switched on my headlamp but the vast night absorbed the feeble electronic glow and made it feel puny in its attempt to civilize what could not be tamed. I turned off the light. I could no longer see waves approaching, and without the visible anticipation, felt uncomfortable carrying sail, so I lowered the halyard and bunched the nylon under my knees. Without the sail, the kayak responded less playfully, but with more stability, and night enveloped me with a warm, embracing hug. If I felt alone in the ocean during daylight, I felt even more alone as an invisible speck in the inky blackness of night.

After another hour, I heard the sound of breakers, and then paddled carefully toward shore until I felt the waves steepen beneath me. For so many hours I had refused to let exhaustion overrun the castle of my mind, but now my willpower seemed to collapse catastrophically. In a moment of weakness, I thought that I couldn’t paddle another foot and my only re- course was to soldier straight into the surf, take my hits, and make it to shore, somehow.

Immediately, an internal voice cried out, “That’s a really stupid idea!”

Many of the islands in the Vanuatu chain are bordered by shallow fringing reefs extending about a quarter-mile offshore. It was close to low tide, so the surf was breaking against hard coral, submerged beneath only a few feet of water. I set my paddle down again, reaching into the night with my limited senses. I could see a faint, dark outline of timbered hills that were conspicuous because they were even blacker than the blackness of night. The surf sounded as if it were hitting something hard, with a thud, a different sound than the gentle whoosh of wave against sand. I thought about the irony of paddling 47 and three-quarter miles from Maewo only to be seriously injured so close to land.

I backed into deeper water, pulled out my chart and flicked on my headlamp. The chart showed an anchorage a few miles downwind, but no headland, bay or cove to provide obvious shelter. There must be a channel through the reef, I reasoned, and a calm lagoon inside. I needed to find that channel. I paddled westward, parallel to shore, as close to the surf as I dared, listening. After a few miles, the sound of surf lessened. I inched inward and the swell felt more rounded. This must be the channel. I felt a tingle of exhilaration, took a deep breath, tightened my grip on the paddle and prepared to head boldly toward shore.

What if I were hallucinating in the darkness, acting on hope, rather than reason? I marked this point on my GPS and then backed out into deeper water, turned parallel to the beach, and continued paddling westward, downwind. In a few moments, the surf sounded louder again and the waves were more asymmetrical. Then I turned upwind and followed my senses back to what I believed to be the channel opening. I tuned on the GPS and learned that I was only few hundred feet from the place I had marked previously. I felt reassured because my senses led me to the same place twice in a row.

This is the ultimate joy and focus of an adventurer’s life. Make a decision based on a sensual contact with the environment—a decision based more on intuition than on linear logic—and then trust your life to it.

I turned toward land, took a few strokes and paddled into the channel entrance. Surf was breaking to my right and left and I could hear the waves rise, curl, expel air with a woomph and smack hard onto the coral.

I stopped, surrounded by chaos and danger reverberating in the night. The danger was abstract, like a metaphor or a myth, because the waves were merely beating against coral, as they always have, and I was cradled by a gloriously gentle South Pacific swell. The rich aroma of tropical forest had already replaced the smell of the sea. With my emotions drained, I paddled shoreward until I entered the lagoon. Then I turned east until I was in mirror calm, sheltered water. I paddled shoreward again until my bow crunched gently against the sand.

Jon Turk didn’t complete the long passages to the north, for fear of being blown off course, but he plans to return to the South pacific. His new book is The Raven’s Gift: A Scientist, a Shaman, and their Remarkable Journey through the Siberian Wilderness, from St. Martin’s press. He can be reached at jonturk.net.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Midnight Madness: Yukon River Quest

Stories

Photo: Alison Wood — Midnight Madness: Yukon River Quest

I am surrounded by beauty. The still aqua water lies like a sheet of smooth glass, stretching farther than the eye can see. Sharp, craggy rocks jut out from a dense line of trees along the shore. As we travel slowly by motorboat up and down Lake Laberge, we are encased in raw, natural history—brought to life by our guide, Mark Stenzig, who recites The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service.

“…But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.”

If there is a more fitting introduction to the Yukon, I can’t think of one. It’s day two of al- most a weeklong adventure covering The 11th Annual Yukon River Quest (YRQ): Race to the Midnight Sun—an epic 740-kilometre canoe and kayak race beginning in Whitehorse and ending in Dawson City.

I’ve travelled 5,500 kilometres from Toronto to be here with a handful of other media. But racers have come from across the globe to take part in what is the longest race of its kind. Some seasoned veterans arrive well in advance to rest and set up, aided by friends and family. Others cut it fine, like the teams I am following, who pull in with just over a day to spare, kayaks strapped tightly to a rented SUV and no entourage in sight.

I met Peter Whaley, Jamie Playfair and Matt Gunning a few days earlier at one of the rest points in their long journey from Halifax to Whitehorse. Just three regular guys looking to finish the race within the four allotted days. Twenty hours into their drive, they are giddy with fatigue but pumped at the thought of racing with 72 other teams made up of 171 paddlers—each of whom will be navigating the same historic wilderness route of the Klondike gold seekers, in search of their own gold.

So what makes a person enter such a gruelling competition—one that is as brutal on the psyche as it is on the body? Whaley, who has spent most of his life guiding and travelling canadian waters, is quick to answer.

“As one approaches the pinnacle of life and starts to visualize the backside, it’s time to ask whether you will succumb to the proverbial slippery slope or dig your heels in,” quips the 48-year-old owner and operator of coastal Spirit Expeditions from River John, Nova Scotia. “Racing the Yukon River quest is my way of strapping on the crampons, grabbing the ice pick and digging in with reckless abandon!”

Gunning, a 33-year-old owner of a used car dealership in Pictou county, started kayaking 14 years ago to build strong core muscles to support a back injury that resulted in a fused spine. He took one of Whaley’s kayaking courses, which led to more over the years. completing the triangle is Playfair, who also found his sea legs thanks to Whaley. For seven years, the 40-year-old art director has been navigating Nova Scotian waters. Both men guide for Whaley on occasion.

The three friends made the pact to enter the race after a pleasure paddle on the cari- bou River in Pictou county in November, 2007. “After we got off the water, we went for a beer and the ideas started flowing. And scar- ily enough, no one was backing down,” laughs Gunning. “Right there we committed to entering the 2009 race.”

Paying the registration fee is one thing. Training for a competition of this magnitude is another. The paddlers spent four months on dry-land cardio, strength and core workouts. Gunning also worked out with a kayaking simulator he concocted from an old bench, a kayak seat and bungee cords.

Once the ice broke, they moved into sprint interval training for strength, and distance conditioning for stamina. Since mental fatigue is common during long, solo paddles, the trio group-trained to make sure they all would be safe on the water.

Gunning isn’t the only one needing to baby an injury. Playfair has niggling pain in his right rotator cuff, and years of repetitive use has left Whaley with tearing in both of his. cranking up his training aggravated the injuries even more and he questioned whether he could handle the 700,000 paddle strokes from start to finish. After learning that the race spits out even the most fit, Whaley made the decision to move from a K1 into a K2 with Gunning.

Fast forward to Sunday, June 21, 2009. The Nova Scotian contingent is ready to put their physical, emotional and mental preparation to the test. Some early arrivals take advantage of the paddling clinic and training runs. Tuesday kicks off with boat measuring and gear inspec- tion, which requires a first aid kit, map, PFD, extra paddles, adequate food and water, and more.

“The inspectors went through all of our supplies from stem to stern,” describes Playfair.

A mandatory pre-race briefing rounds off the afternoon. Some paddlers, such as Brad Pennington from Houston, Texas, continue preparing well into the evening. Pennington won last year’s race in the solo kayak category, after finishing fourth in 2007. Most others like Whaley, Gunning and Playfair opt to eat and sleep.

Wednesday, June 24: race day breaks beautifully crisp and clear. The mammoth Voyageur boats are launched and moved to their starting positions in the Yukon River, while solo and tandem boats are arranged by number on the Rotary Park lawn: Whaley and Gunning are number 24 and Playfair is 25. Final inspection is underway and pre-race jitters are building.

By 11:30 a.m. paddlers have shifted their boats to their assigned spots on the riverbank and are at the starting line, bibs on and excite- ment at an all-time high. The half-hour wait until race time is probably the toughest to handle. Like gated greyhounds, these paddlers need to be let loose.

Twelve noon. The horn blares and racers sprint the 100 metres to the launch area, where they jostle for space in the mad rush of boats on the river. “The feeling as the energy built at the start line was one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced,” says Gunning.

Although their plan is to not get caught up chasing the leaders, Gunning and Whaley soon get into their groove and pass racers. Only a few K2s dot the water in front of them. Playfair finds his own inner rhythm, settling into a comfortable pace. But halfway through immense Lake Laberge, Gunning and Whaley feel the fatigue. Whaley’s shoulders start seizing. He stops paddling at times, letting Gunning pick up the slack. Their pace slows and boats blow by them.

The first night is the worst. Gunning is the first to hallucinate, convinced the shores are lined with crowds of people cheering them on, winner Carter Johnson. From their standing in carmacks, team organizers expect Whaley and Gunning to arrive in Dawson City early afternoon. But the team starts picking off boats one by one. Early Saturday morning, they quietly pass the finish line, exhausted but exalted—55 hours and 16 minutes after they paddled out of Whitehorse.

In total, 56 of the 73 teams complete the 2009 race, with a Voyageur team from Texas taking the top title. But Whaley and Gunning didn’t just finish, they triumphed, coming third in the K2 category—just two minutes shy of the K2 winning team.

One year later, all three agree the mental challenge was the most difficult to overcome. While physical conditioning is necessary, emo- tional strength is key. It propelled Whaley and Gunning to keep going, finish the race—a considerable achievement on its own—and underlay the competitive shift they felt late in the race. They now crave an even greater title.

Playfair, while understandably proud of his quest, also longs for a second chance. “I left something on the river which will play with my mind until I get the opportunity to try this again,” he sums up. “The landscape was breathtaking, the people were warm and hospitable and the race only added to a spectacular adventure we will all speak of for years to come.”

Alison Wood is a freelance writer, a mother of three, and the editor of Today’s Parent Toronto.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Contentment via Kayak

Stories

Photo: Ginni Callahan — Contentment via Kayak

Night air cascades down the Giganta Mountains and out to sea. It’s a cold and starry launch at 4:48am onto the blue- sparkling water. The bow cuts a neon line and paddle blades punctuate the bioluminescence. A shooting star slashes the heart of Scorpius and is forgiven. cancer the crab hides quiet over my shoulder in a crevice of the sky, in the company of mars.

Walk with hips. Push forward, extend the catch. Pop the exit.

Away from the mountain wind, I’m sweating now, working the technique, mesmerized by the sparkles of my passage and the occasional reflection of Antares on a broken piece of sea. In the star shadow of Danzante Island, waves on shallow rocks make flames of leaping blue. Fish stir nebulous galaxies in the deep.

First leg: four nautical miles, 56 minutes.

Scorpius’ tail is lost in the pre-dawn glow where the moon should be showing its last thin crescent. Another shooting star writes its story on the night page with disappearing ink and is forgotten.

Morning paddles around Danzante Island are my training runs. Start in darkness, transition into day, timing the loop so the sun is never in my eyes. Eleven nautical miles, almost three hours of paddling in paradise before breakfast. It’s exercise. It’s meditation. It’s freedom. It’s a celebration of nature and health. A song of thankfulness belted out from every muscle of my body, to the rhythm of the sea.

An orange cream horizon is broken by distant islands, monserrate and catalina. Over monserrate a light appears, a fire, growing taller. I turn to watch a fragile, curving tower emerge from the black island silhouette. I cheer for its perfection. The crescent moon climbs, chased by dawn, and I paddle on.

Second leg: four nautical miles, 53 minutes. Slight current assist.

A fin breaks the water close to the rocks. Dolphin. A pod of them. Several little puffs of breath, backlit in front of a shadowed cliff. A baby surfaces beside its mother, an arc of grace and playfulness. I stop paddling to drift and they come around on both sides, moving slowly in the same direction. One grey adult floats on the surface for a few moments, curious. They swim along with me, then outpace me, then circle away. What fluid power. What simplicity to move like whispers through the water carrying everything they need without a single drybag.

Somehow I never struggle to justify my existence when I am on the water. Later in the day I will sit behind a computer in the office growing a sallow-eyed patina of grumpiness despite intentions to the contrary. But right now, this is soul food. This is contentment.

Contentment is a lifestyle, a choice. It feels like joy, ripened slowly on the vine. Contentment is a state of mind cultivated gently out of rocky soil. contentment is acceptance that what is, is just right.

I turn for home, around the north point of Danzante. The mountains before me glow with sunrise. Posture up, hands high. Work the core. Time melts away and the feeling inside is right.

Ginni Callahan is a sea kayak guide on the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, in winter and on the Columbia River and Oregon coast in the summer. She owns Columbia River Sea Kayaking and Sea Kayak Baja Mexico.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Rock the Boat: Got GAS?

Stories

Illustration: Lorenzo Del Bianco — Rock the Boat: Got GAS?

I love kayaking. Which is great. But I also love kayaking gear, which is a love with far more sinister consequences. In fact, at a recent social gathering (people referred to it as “an intervention” for some reason) my friends even claimed that I love kayaks too much, and that the desire to acquire more and more boats can be a slippery slope.

Classical addiction in individuals is characterized by “compulsive desire, loss of the ability to control the dose, and persistence despite ad- verse consequences to themselves and others.” A classical addiction to gear manifests itself as what I now refer to as GAS, or Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

You know you have GAS when:

You own enough kayaks and gear to run a commercial kayak touring company, despite the fact that you do not own a commercial kayak touring company.
You keep purchasing more and more kayaks, but never sell one.
Your backyard’s perimeter is effectively fenced by kayak racks.
You stock more boats and gear than your local paddlesports retailer.
Other paddlers come to your house to “see the fleet” as if visiting a major museum collection.
You find yourself in desperate negotiations with your bank manager, seriously trying to sell him on the idea of accepting a kayak in lieu of the more traditional cash mortgage payment.
Your wife routinely shouts things like “it’s me or those damned boats!” before departing on protracted visits to her mother.

Consider my own behaviour as a case study. I was recently browsing used kayaks online, as I often do. I find idly skimming through the ads both interesting and oddly soothing. Used-Victoria.com, craigslist, MEC’s Online Gear Swap—they’re all good for a quick fix. I wasn’t jonesing for another boat (after all, I have a garage full of them), but it’s always interesting to know what’s available. And besides, it’s a totally harmless diversion. I waste a little time, but I’m not buying anything, right?

Then I noticed a classic Nordkapp for sale. I’d always been curious about the original Nordkapps. Some say that once you’ve tried one you’re hooked for life.

It was like showing a marijuana cookie to a Grateful Dead fan.

I revisited the ad the following day purely as an act of academic curiosity, and amazingly, a full 24 hours later, the ad was still there. And the price had actually been reduced!

Reduced? This was like what crack did for cocaine prices. my pupils dilated, my pulse raced and I broke out in a cold sweat.

I thought that perhaps I just might call the seller, if I had time. Even though I wasn’t going to buy anything.

As luck would have it, I did happen to have a lull in my day in which to call the seller repeatedly, and after a great many attempts I finally managed to talk to him and arrange a time to see the boat. Purely out of curiosity, understand. I did not wish to waste the gentleman’s time. After all, I wasn’t in the market for another boat.

I cut work and headed over.

Now, it’s obvious that travelling across town, with cash in hand, in a vehicle equipped with racks, to see a used kayak that is for sale, but with no intention of purchasing it, is an awful lot like going to a whorehouse and expecting only to get kissed.

I of course bought the boat. But as we huddled in this man’s dingy garage and I laboriously counted out a stack of crumpled bills and change that I had filched from our holiday savings jar, I had a moment of clarity.

Acknowledging the fact that you have a problem is the first step.

To paraphrase what they say at AA meetings: “Hello, my name is Alex, and I love kayaks”.

Alex Matthews lives on Vancouver Island where he actually doesn’t own that many boats—so he says. Tests have confirmed that he suffers from a bad case of GAS.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Surf Expands its Turf

Stories

Photo: Malte Danielsson/Point 65 Kayaks — Surf Expands its Turf

The traditional image of sea kayaking is idyllic floats on mirror-calm water. Filmmaker Justine Curgenven famously began This Is The Sea, tongue in cheek, with “Ah, sea kayaking. Old men with beards, enjoying nature.” But that’s all changing.

A rough-water trend has been growing con- tinent-wide. Take the Lumpy Water Sympo- sium, a new event organized last October by Oregon’s Alder creek Kayak and canoe. Held amidst a nasty recession, with equally nasty conditions—strong winds and big choppy surf—the event sold out, with a waiting list. And it was dominated by new folks.

Nor is the trend limited to the West Coast. The Maine Island Kayak company has an intermediate-level Rough Water Symposium planned for June 2010 in Rhode Island. Ontario has the three-year-old Georgian Bay Storm Gathering as well as Naturally Superior Adventures’ Surfing Superior confluence. British Columbia’s Coast Mountains Expeditions is planning their first-ever “whitewater sea kayak” festival in Surge Narrows in June of 2011.

This isn’t the first time that sea kayaking has ventured down the rough-water path. The legendary Gales of November gathering, organized by Stan Chladek on Lake Superior’s North Shore, just celebrated its 24th anniversary. Fifteen years ago we had the Tsunami Rangers, a frenetic group of california pad- dlers wearing motocross body armour and addressing each other by naval rank. But the old-school focus on extreme sea kayaking and the resulting carnage never caught on.

So why the renewed interest in the rough stuff? Some attribute it to the popularity of video productions by the likes of Justine Curgenven and Bryan Smith, or the growth of the British canoe Union’s instructional system, influenced by its homeland of strong tidal cur- rents and exposed waters. Other factors include the growing variety of nimble, highly rockered boats increasingly available in plastic that ap- peal to budget-conscious rock-bashers. As with any trend, it’s tough to sift cause from effect.

Busy schedules may also be a factor.“People seem to have less time to take extended trips, so they compensate by packing a lot of paddling excitement into a smaller challenging, thrilling and satisfying daily package,” says David Wells of Naturally Superior Adventures.

Also, where the Tsunami Rangers and the Gales of November were invitation-only gatherings of elite professional paddlers, this new crop of events isn’t just for the top level. “The biggest reason we had success was the inclusive nature,” says Paul Kuthe, an instructor at Lumpy Waters whose talents appear in Bryan Smith’s Pacific Horizons and The Season. “We provided something for all skill levels and made sure people knew that they would be successful whatever their goals.”

Not everyone agrees that the rough-water trend is the future of sea kayaking. Dave Slover, owner of Alder Creek Kayak and canoe, notes that “of the thousands of boats we have sold over the years very few people move on to paddle in rough conditions.” But kayaking in general is growing. According to the Outdoor Industry Foundation, the number of kayakers nearly doubled from 2006 to 2008. So even if the percentage seeking aerated water remains the same, it’s on a sharp upward trend that may be approaching critical mass.

And with much of the North American coast guarded by surf, rough-water experience opens a huge door. The next question is: What does it take to nurture and sustain a strong rough-water sea kayaking community?

The obvious elements are access to condi- tions and good instruction. But there’s more. “Successful rough-water communities develop when opportunities for growth and skill build- ing are combined with beer and socializing,” says Kuthe. “Kayaking is similar to Harley motorcycle gangs in that the people that par- ticipate don’t just think of themselves as people that kayak. They are kayakers.”

So venturing into rough conditions may forge sea kayaking from recreation to passion and then to identity. Keep it up and maybe someday we’ll need leather jackets as well as drysuits.

“It always annoys me when people think of sea kayaking as boring,” Kuthe says before leaving for yet another rough-water symposium under the Golden Gate Bridge, where he’ll no doubt show people otherwise.

This article first appeared in the Early Summer 2010 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

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