River Alchemy: A Giant Among Rivers

Stories

Photo: Richard Frank — River Alchemy: A Giant Among Rivers

For such a giant in river conservation’s history, from the water he looks frail and diminutive—just a very old man sitting on a stool, in his thin and fraying best suit.

If someone were to write a book about me, I would want a title as good as the one written about David Brower: Encounters with the Archdruid. As a founding member of the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the Earth Island Institute, Brower was three times nominated for the nobel Peace Prize. He famously defeated the damming of the grand canyon in 1966, and in doing so launched the environmental movement.

David Brower has more to do with how we think about the environment today than any other factor

Written in 1971 by the incredibly prolific John McPhee, Encounters with the Archdruid is now in its 27th printing. It confirmed Brower as the articulate, driven and absolutely fearless spokesperson for the environment. At a time when the idea of “the environment” was only just beginning to have a place in public consciousness, McPhee somehow convinced Brower to spend a week rafting the Grand Canyon with Floyd Dominy, the man in charge of damming the west’s rivers. McPhee’s genius as a journalist captures the interaction between these polar opposites and ideological figureheads and captures Brower at his best.

One of the rivers where I guide is still flowing because of David Brower. In 1954, he made it his personal crusade to keep Utah’s Echo Park in Dinosaur national Monument from being dammed. It is a magical place on the Green River of serpentine sandstone canyons. It is a place that enchants clients and lifetime guides alike.

Before we reach the proposed dam location four days into a trip, I always make a point of stopping on a beach just upstream. In the sand I draw a big map of the west and make mountains and canyons and use blue cam straps for rivers, red ones for state lines. By the time I’ve finished, clients have gathered to see what’s going on. I use the map to tell the story of the damming of the west, and how the place where we are standing would be under water if it wasn’t for the impassioned defence of David Brower. People are always hooked by the presentation, and I hope it changes the way they view our endangered rivers.

There is one trip in particular I’ll never forget

The dam talk went as usual, with the usual client reaction of disbelief and anger and promises to do something themselves. Also, as usual, the next day and last on the river, the showers and thoughts of home replace yesterday’s resolutions. Except this time, as we neared the take-out, there was a commotion on the riverbank. there were drop screens, photographers and lighting assistants working around an old man hunched on a stool with his back turned to us.

My raft was the last to scrub to shore. Excited clients whispered the same urgent question back to me: “Is that David Brower? Is that the guy who saved our rivers?”

I couldn’t tell.

As we pulled to the boat ramp the old man was off his stool and gingerly over the rocks to meet us. he was pale and thin; his crystal blue eyes clouded with age. I’m not sure why, but I remember his cheap Velcro running shoes and threadbare suit.

Thank you for everything you’ve done

Before he had a chance to speak, my clients surrounded him. “Thank you Mister Brower. Thank you for everything you’ve done.” They lined up to shake his hand, and one by one all thanked him.

Brower’s eyes welled with tears. He just stood there, surrounded, flooded by an outpouring of appreciation. I stood at a distance tying up my raft. I was speechless and deeply regret not thanking him myself. Quite frankly I couldn’t. A little more than a year later he died at the age of 88. A giant indeed. I still don’t know how the clients knew it was him.

Jeff Jackson is a professor of Outdoor Adventure at Algonquin College in Pembroke, ON

This article on David Brower was published in the Summer 2008 issue of Rapid magazine.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Urban Legend: Ottawa River Ruins Wave

Trips

Photo: Mariann Saether — Urban Legend: Ottawa River Ruins Wave

From McCoy’s to Champlain, tight-knit groups of paddlers have been passing hushed whispers around about the possibility of an untapped inner-city monster wave on the Ottawa River.

Every now and then when the water runs high, rumours of this urban legend bubble to the surface. Since early sightings more than two years ago staff from the Ottawa Kayak School have joined in the search for this elusive Bigfoot. Patiently waiting and watching, it was said to graze by some old mill ruins near the Deschenes Rapids section of the Ottawa River, on the Quebec side.

Although difficult to fathom any kind of secret on one of the busiest whitewater rivers in the world and a two-time host of the World Freestyle Championships, pro paddler Mariann Saether got caught up in the hunt.

“It was being compared to the infamous Buseater or a larger Garburator and it seemed too good to be true,” she says.

But lo and behold this spring the river swelled to 4.6 on the nearby river gauge, providing perfect conditions to flush the beast from hiding… almost.

The wave lurks within the stonewalled ruins of the mill, an impossible scout from shore.

“It forms in the ruins and has some dangerous consequences—the river flows into some dead- end stone walls if you don’t make your ferry out— but all things aside the wave looked fantastic,” says Saether. “It is amazing because it is huge, powerful, and has a lot of air potential.”

The wave is formed as swelling overflow goes through the ruins and over a stone ledge. The flow picks up speed as it is constricted by the walls. Two reactionaries lead the way into a green wall of water, an approach Saether describes as similar to looking down a bowling alley.

Missing the small eddy on the right after the wave results in a 20-minute walk back to the top to start all over again.

Now that the controversy of the feature’s existence has been settled, the next to resolve is the name. Some are calling it Heavy D for the Deschenes Rapids, others call it the Ruins Wave.

This article on the Ruins Wave was published in the Summer 2008 issue of Rapid magazine.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Gear for Good

Stories

When hard-core hucker and Team Riot freestyler Karl Moser graduated from the University of Oregon in 2005 he wanted to get as far away as possible from the influences and demands his degree would bring. He was looking for greater inspiration than starting a career, but little did he know a short stint as a river bum would lead to so much work and reward.

“I was young and completely addicted to kaya king from watching Wicked Liquid [Steve Fisher’s 1999 playboat movie on the Zambezi River in Africa] and I would watch it over and over again until the tape finally gave out,” says Moser, now an award-winning filmmaker with Epicocity Project and a head coach with the World Class Kayak Academy. “I had this dream to go to Africa and huck my meat on the Zambezi. When I finally graduated from college—much to my mother’s lament—I flew to Africa for a two-month kayaking adventure.”

Knowing little about the Ugandan kayaking scene when he left, Moser says he was completely blown away by how good the local boat- ers are, despite poor-quality gear or sometimes no gear at all.

“It’s not uncommon to see local kayakers bombing down class III in a broken kayak, a makeshift paddle and no helmet. They just don’t have access to very good gear, but they have an amazing learning curve,” Moser says. “We literally had guys start rolling on Monday, and then trying donkey flips at Nile Special on Saturday.”

The seed got planted for a Christmas for Africa gear drive

He and paddling partner Aaron Rettig would meet up with local paddlers each day. They developed friendships and started to teach them skills like rolling. As the days passed, more locals collected to watch and learn and eventually an informal club began to take shape. Seeing the lack of and the poor quality of equipment they had, Moser began to think their skills deserved better.

So slowly from there the seed got planted for a Christmas for Africa gear drive. Moser returned home with his idea and spent a year or so hammering out how they could gather equipment and ship it overseas. After a few phone calls to potential supporters Moser realized his idea of donating gear would take off.

“The response was incredible,” he said. “NRS literally gave us a shopping cart and told us to ransack their warehouse.” Soon after Wave Sport, AT Paddles, Shred Ready Helmets and Astral Buoyancy jumped on board.

The gear was collected over the summer and shipped on a two-month sea voyage for delivery just before the end of December. In all, 14 kayaks, 21 paddles and lifejackets, 15 skirts, 18 sets of booties and 22 helmets made it into the hands of Ugandan kayakers living and working on the rivers.

“The big thing to understand is that kayaking for the Ugandans represents a way to better their lives. The average Ugandan makes $600 at par annually or about $2.50 a day for back-breaking labour,” Moser explains. “A safety kayaker on a commercial rafting trip can make between $2.50 to $5 per day, and gets fed. If they have medical training and speak good English, they can become a guide bringing home $20 per day. So kayaking isn’t just a sport to them; it’s a way to have a vastly better life.”

Christmas for Africa is also the title of Moser’s upcoming documentary showcasing last year’s effort, a film Moser hopes will raise awareness and further his charity work.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.

Boat Review: Infiniti 175 TX by Seaward

Photo Bryan Walker — Boat Review: Infiniti 175 TX by Seaward

The new Seaward Infiniti is one of very few high-performance skeg kayaks made of lightweight, thermoform plastic. With a choice of both 15- and 17-foot versions, we tested the 17. “High-performance” in this case we assume to mean a design suited for advanced skills that involve edging—because edging is what the Infiniti does best. It may well be named for the number of angles it can be comfortably tilted to.

Unloaded, the Infiniti has a low to moderate initial stability that invites the paddler to take full advantage of its edging capability. The initial stability increases with payload.

The curve of the Infiniti’s shallow-arch hull is subdivided by several hard chines. Where some multi-chine hulls have very distinct “dial in” points that noticeably carve a turn when engaged, the Infiniti behaves more like a soft- chined boat. It edges smoothly to any degree of lean and carves only slightly, while being very easy to turn with the paddle.

Despite this easy turning on edge, the In- finiti tracks very well too. It hardly weather- cocks at all in high winds even without the skeg deployed. In fact, before I figured out the counterintuitive slider—which drops the skeg when pushed forward—I spent a lot of time wondering if the skeg was up or down.

Some kayaks are designed to turn upwind with the skeg up and downwind with the skeg down. This is a tradeoff that gives more options for control in different sea conditions but makes the boat more skeg-dependent. The In- finiti doesn’t go there. The small skeg is helpful—particularly in downwind runs—but not essential.

The Infiniti has a stylish raised deck (casket-style, with hard lines like the NDK Greenlander) that provides ample volume in the cockpit as well as the hatches. The cockpit opening, too, is large. There is space for larger paddlers with inseams up to about 34 inches. The seat pillars are spaced wide enough to give lots of hip room and smaller paddlers can pad them out. The back band, seat and thigh braces are very comfortable, though some complained the skeg control dug into their left knee.

The Infiniti will comfortably fit all but the largest and smallest bodies. Intermediate to advanced paddlers will enjoy it for its combination of edging performance, cargo capacity, good looks and numerous standard features.

Screen_Shot_2015-06-26_at_10.14.56_AM.png 1) Features galore

Seaward’s bonus features include a com- fortable neoprene back band with ratchet adjustments, paddle float straps with in- genious quick-release buckles (pull the red tab to eject) and a tow (or locking) bar behind the seat.

2) thinking inside the box

The slender skeg box takes up little space in the 90-litre rear hatch. The skeg has an anti-jam design that deploys when you pull on the cable (because the cable attaches to the skeg in front of the pivot point). Inside the Kajak-Sport hatches, total storage capacity is high—224 litres.

3) the edge of infiniti

The hull, distinctive with multiple hard chines like a folding kayak, edges smoothly to any degree of lean. The long waterline and sharp ends provide good speed and tracking when not on edge.

SPECS

length:…………… 17 ft 5 in (532 cm)
width: ……………. 22.5 in (57 cm)
depth: …………… 13 in (33 cm)
cockpit size: …… 33 x 18 in (46 x 33 cm)
total storage:….. 59.2 gal (224 l)
weight: ………….. 52 lbs (23.6 kg)
MSRP: ……………. $2,475 Cdn

This article first appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Adventure Kayak magazine. For more boat reviews, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Butt End: Canoe Virgin

Stories

Photo: Kevin Callan — Butt End: Canoe Virgin

The first time I attempted a canoe-borne romantic escapade was shortly before an article I wrote on making love in canoes hit the newsstands. The article covered all the bases—but I had yet to do actual primary research.

I was okay with this. It was my wife, Alana, who wasn’t going to stand for it. She believed journalistic integrity demanded that we make love in a canoe. Alana left me to figure out the details while she put our three-year-old daughter to bed.

Getting out on the water was going to be impossible. We live in the middle of a city and didn’t have a babysitter. At first I thought a quick (though not that quick) solution would be to just flip the canoe over on the back lawn. But I worried the set-up would lack romantic quality. Instead, I put the 16-foot boat through our back window, rested it beside our fireplace, placed two glasses of wine on the bow seat and put a CD of nature sounds in the stereo.

The mood was set. I sat in the stern, wearing only my bathrobe, and waited for Alana to return for the big surprise. Before long she did, but with our daughter in her arms. Kyla had a slight fever and needed comforting before going to bed.

There was no getting around the embarrassment, but Kyla saved me by asking if we were going camping. I spent the next hour playing camp-out with Kyla and her dolls.

So there I was, still a canoe virgin and, according to Alana, also a complete idiot for hauling a canoe into the house and thinking she’d be up for a romantic encounter in a boat resting on a shag carpet. The good news is my daughter thinks I’m the coolest dad ever for bringing in extra props for her dollhouse. She cried the next morning when I took the canoe back outside. So did I.

The problem was, I had to write another piece about making love in a canoe for my next book. And the publisher wanted photos.

I decided to buy a blow-up doll. I went to a joke gift shop and, since I had Kyla with me and the inflatable dolls were on display in the back near some rude sex toys, I asked the sales clerk to retrieve one for me. As she went to fetch it a woman from Kyla’s daycare wandered into the store. When the woman stopped to say hello, the clerk yelled out, “Which model do you want?”

I panicked and blurted out, “The cheapest one.”

“The androgynous one it is, then,” came the reply.

I slinked out of the store with my doll double-bagged, hoping to never see the woman from Kyla’s daycare again, and wondering how I would photograph a moment of passion involving an inflatable hermaphroditic canoeist.

For better or for worse I’m still a canoe virgin, but I was lucky enough to have a neighbour who really wanted to help me out of a tight spot. If that’s not why he offered to pose for me then I don’t want to know the real reason.

Kevin Callan does not recommend inflatable dolls as a substitute for a proper PFD.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Paddling The Stikine, The Fastest Canoe River In The West

Canyon with river running through — Don't paddle or you'll miss it. | Photo: Dave Quinn

“The Stikine is huge, man. And fast,” exclaimed a canoe guide I know when I told him our plans to spend 10 days paddling 240 kilometers of the Lower Stikine River.

“The river just rips by, all those huge boilers and whirlpools. My advice: don’t paddle, or you’ll get to the end too soon.”

With this bizarre warning, we piled our gear—paddles included—into the truck and headed north.

The fastest navigable free-flowing river

The Stikine rises on the Spatsizi Plateau in northwestern B.C. before squirting violently through the unrunnable (for mere mortals, at least) 100-kilometer Grand Canyon of the Stikine.

From the bottom of the canyon at Telegraph Creek, British Columbia, to its communion with the Pacific at Wrangell, Alaska, the river drops nearly 1.3 meters per kilometer, a grade that makes it the fastest navigable free-flowing river in North America.

Even at our put-in at Telegraph Creek the size and strength of the Stikine stuns us—a 200-meter-wide channel of silt-laden water churns by at more than 20 kilometers per hour.

The Stikine’s cargo of salt

In 1879, legendary naturalist John Muir visited the Lower Stikine, calling it, “a Yosemite 100 miles long” whose “views change with bewildering rapidity.”

As we leave the drier pine forests of the interior behind and enter into the granite and glaciers of the Coast Mountains, we understand this to be a great compliment to Yosemite. Here the river becomes a boiling, coffee-with-cream-coloured waterway several hundred meters wide. We heed my friend’s advice and stow our paddles, feet dangling over the gunwales in the icy water.

Our canoes spin a lazy dance, showcasing a 360-degree panorama of peaks. The ABS bottom of the canoe hisses through the Stikine’s cargo of silt, and the cool air hints at the scent of pulverized granite in icy water. Bewildering indeed.

The wildness of this valley is etched on every sand and gravel bank we visit. Wolves, grizzly, black bear and moose have all scribbled their stories here. In Little Canyon—a notorious challenge both to modern canoeists and the sternwheelers that ferried 19th-century optimists inland to the Cassiar and Klondike gold rushes—we spot what looks like a bear swimming the confused waters of the 100-meter-deep rock cleft. Instead we realize that in this boiling, whirlpool-filled canyon, 170 kilometers from the sea, we are seeing our first seal.

Three men sitting on sand bar pouring scotch. — This sand bar is always open. | Photo: Dave Quinn

An artery of trade and travel

Like its scenery, the Stikine has a rich and storied past. An artery of trade and travel for millennia, local legend tells of a vast ice wall that once blocked the valley, under which the entire Stikine flowed through a gaping ice tunnel. To test whether their canoes could safely pass, traveling groups of the indigenous Tahltan would send an old woman through in a canoe. If she emerged unscathed, they knew the tunnel would offer safe passage downstream to trade with, or raid, the Tlingit villages on the coast.

Today a remnant of this ice wall lies in a pool of its own meltblood—a large iceberg-choked lake separated from the river by a thin, treed moraine. Resisting the forward push of the river, we portage to this hidden lake and pass a day of contrasts playing chess and reading in the warm white-sand beside grounded icebergs. Ten-thousand-year-old ice commands us to break out our supposedly well-aged scotch, and we toast the Tahltan, the gold rushers and the spirit of adventure that brought us here.

[ Paddling Trip Guide: View all paddling trips in British Columbia ]

The First Nations presence on the Stikine is strong. Fading pictograms dot the shore, while sandy eddies bristle with well-tended salmon nets hung from long pine poles. Five salmon species return each year to the Stikine and have been a source of conflict for decades. Alaskan, Canadian and First Nations fishers have all angled for the grizzly’s share of the catch. Although the so-called Salmon Wars ended with a 1999 treaty, it is an uneasy truce and tensions are still palpable on both sides of the border, each country blaming the other for declining salmon stocks.

The Stikine salmon squabble was nearly rendered moot in the late 1970s when B.C. Hydro unveiled a plan to build five immense dams along the Grand Canyon of the Stikine and the Stikine’s main tributary, the Iskut River. The hubris required to build sufficient dams along this river is hard to conceive of, and I’m happy it didn’t prevail. After nearly a decade of opposition by conservationists and First Nations, the dam plans were scrapped, and Stikine River Provincial Park was created.

A landscape still unscarred by modern industry

After another diversionary side trip upstream through Shakes Slough to the granite-girded and iceberg-laden Shakes Lake, we relent to the last leg of our journey and enter Alaska.

Here the river meets its match and finally slows as it runs into Pacific tidewater. And with the tides comes fog. We feel our way by compass through nomadic sandbars and finally across five kilometers of Pacific swells from the mouth of the Stikine to the barnacle-caked dock at Wrangell where we trade the wilderness of the Stikine for the rough-and-ready, deep-fried town full of bumper stickers reminding us of the driver’s constitutional right to bear arms.

The estuary at the mouth of the Stikine is immense—the accumulated energy of this river has created a sprawling finale that encompasses a 27-kilometer-wide delta. The Stikine here seems pristine and permanent; unbreakable. It has persevered through glacial assault, First Nations battles, two gold rushes, the Salmon Wars, and B.C.’s plans to shackle it with hydro projects.

But even B.C.’s most remote rivers are within range of the crosshairs of industry, and the scopes of two industrial giants are set on the Stikine. Shell Canada has announced plans to develop coal-bed methane fields in an area known as the Sacred Headwaters—the rolling, wildlife-rich plateau where the Stikine, Nass and Skeena Rivers come to life.

Downstream in the headwaters of the Iskut River, the Lower Stikine’s main tributary, Teck Cominco and NovaGold have permits to create in Galore Creek the world’s largest copper- gold mine—an open-pit operation involving more than 80,000 hectares of Stikine wilderness, processing 65,000 tonnes of ore a day. Skyrocketing access and construction costs in booming B.C. have led to the recent suspension of the project, although the mineral giants have promised to “reassess the project and evaluate alternative development strategies.”

As paddlers, we sought out this pocket of the old world, a place still unscarred by modern industry. We are like the gold seekers who came before us, searching for something rare and precious.

Like daring to paddle too hard on the already fast waters of the Stikine, if we rush to industrialize our last wild areas, we may find we come to the end of them too soon. The power of the Stikine is such that to paddle it is to appreciate the importance of knowing when to stow your paddle.

If you go

Access

The drive up the Stewart-Cassiar Highway and along the 113-km gravel road to Telegraph Creek is an adventure in itself. Park your car and rent canoes at Stikine Riversong Inn at Telegraph Creek. To return, arrange a jetboat shuttle with Riversong ($2,200 CAD).

You can also fly or take the ferry from Seattle to Wrangell and arrange a jetboat shuttle to Telegraph Creek with either Riversong or a Wrangell-based operator. Due to border bureaucracy, air shuttles are no longer available.

[ Further reading: Lake Of Two Skies: A Trip Through Great Slave Lake ]

Eating Outdoors: Full Day Menu

Stories

Photo: flickr.com/oskarlin — Eating Outdoors: Full Day Menu

So you have proven them all wrong – your camping trips and adventures didn’t end when kids entered your life. Not only do you still get out, your kids enjoy it as much as you do. But getting children to eat healthy foods is always a challenge for parents, especially while camping when they’re out of their normal routines. While in the backcountry active parents are often left wondering what to feed their kids to ensure they are getting the energy they need and are laying the foundation for a lifetime of outdoor enjoyment and healthy eating.

As with anything in Kidland, the only way to ensure a long-term connection with wilderness and to encourage healthy eating is to make it fun. Bad weather, cranky youngsters or parents, and leaky tents can make an outing difficult, but poor camp food that no one eats can outright ruin the entire trip.

Roll up your sleeves, unleash your creative spirit, and start your kids’ lifetime of wilderness appreciation the right way, with good food. Here are a few ideas—a day’s worth of recipes— that will help you and your kids have more fun and eat better in the campground or backcountry. Bon appetit!

BREAKFAST: SUPER GRUEL

Porridge. Oatmeal. Gruel. Slop. Sludge. All these lacklustre names have been slapped onto this classic trail breakfast. Like most of my generation, I had econo-mizer parents who fed their offspring nothing but boiled oats for breakfast, every day. As a result, I grew to despise porridge with a passion normally reserved for rival soccer teams in Latin countries. That is, until I discovered Super Gruel. This recipe serves four hungry campers.

Ingredients:

2 cups instant or regular oatmeal (1/2 to 3/4 cup dry oatmeal per person)
3 tablespoons butter
Chopped dried or fresh fruit; mango, peach, apple, banana, or even raisins will do
Magical flavours such as a pinch of cinnamon, a wee dusting of nutmeg, a splash of vanilla, and, for the adventurous, a dash of ground cardamom
Decorations or disguises such as almond eyes, chocolate chip freckles, cookie noses, licorice hair, brown sugar beards, blueberry dimples

Directions:

Boil roughly twice as much water by volume as you have oats. Add dried fruit first and let boil for several minutes to re-hydrate.
Add oats and simmer until soft. Stir in butter and magical flavours.
When cooked to your preference, remove from heat and either decorate the entire pot or individual bowls with various fruits, nuts, and cookies. Serve with milk or unwhipped whipping cream.

LUNCH: MUD BURRITOS

In the backcountry, lunching usually starts right after breakfast and continues to dinner, especially for little ones with the metabolisms and attention spans of hummingbirds. When you’ve hidden the last of the jelly bellies along the trail and the last animal cracker lays beaten in a mushy pulp on the bottom of the canoe, it is time for a real lunch of Mud Burritos.

Ingredients:

1 whole wheat burrito shell or wrap per person
1 jar Nutella or other chocolate-hazelnut spread
1 jar of nut butter such as almond or cashew butter
1 handful of fresh or dried fruit of your choice such as banana, apple or pear

Directions:

Pretend you’re a family of beavers making their winter home. Smear layers of mud (hazelnut-chocolate and nut butters) on the burrito shell and lay a line of fresh or dried fruit down the middle.
Roll it up like a big burrito and eat whole or slice into bite-sized swirls.

DINNER: PARENTAL POLENTA

This is a simple dinner that most kids and adults will enjoy. The restaurant version is very upper crust, as they say, served in individual slices with all kinds of fancy garnishes. Backcountry polenta is a deep-dish, layered pie—a true mess, which is a prerequisite for fun for most kids!

Ingredients:

3/4 cups polenta, a fine ground corn meal, per person
1 veggie bouillon cube, or use chicken or beef for carniphiles
1 small pile grated cheese of your child’s preference. I prefer Asiago but most younger kids will prefer mozzarella or cheddar
Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon butter
1 bag or small can tomato sauce of your preference; the bags of sauce found next to the fresh pasta at the grocery store work well for this

Directions:

Boil twice as much water as you have polenta. Once boiling, stir in polenta and bouillon cube.
Continue stirring to avoid burning the polenta, especially if you are cooking on a backcountry stove that doesn’t simmer.
As the polenta begins to thicken, stir in butter and remove from heat. Cover the polenta with an inch or so of grated cheese.
Heat the tomato sauce and pour over the cheese layer. Cover this with a thin sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.
Cover the pot and let sit for 3–5 minutes to melt the cheese layers. Serve by digging deep to the bottom to ensure that everyone gets polenta, sauce, and both cheese layers.

DESSERT: ORANGE CAKES

Like most of the cool things I’ve learned in life, I learned this one from a kid. This backcountry dessert is inspiring in its simplicity.

Ingredients:

1 large fresh orange per person
1 package instant lemon or chocolate cake mix—check the box before leaving town to see if you need milk or eggs for the cake mix
1 roll tin foil, enough to wrap the oranges
1 campfire with lots of hot coals

Directions:

Carefully slice the very top off the oranges making a hole just big enough to allow you to scoop out the orange juice and pulp with a spoon, which makes a healthy appetizer for this dessert. You should have empty orange skins with orange skin lids like miniature uncarved jack-o’-lanterns.
Mix the cake mix as per directions on the package.
Fill the orange skin pots with the batter. Put the orange skin tops on and wrap them in tin foil with the shiny side in.
Carefully place them in hot coals. Allow them to bake for 10 to 15 minutes.
Allow to cool then carefully unwrap the oranges. Open and enjoy your freshly baked orange cakes.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Family Camping: Creek Walking

Photo: Scott MacGregor — Family Camping: Creek Walking

Long before I should have been out of a booster seat, I’d go on rides with my dad in his transport truck. Perched high above traffic in the air-ride seat of his freightliner, I’d watch him double clutch and shift through the gears of the 10-speed fuller transmission. I even had a belt buckle that read, “My Daddy’s a CBer” to hold up my Toughskins.

What does driving an 18-wheeler have to do with family camping? I’m sure taking me on rides was my dad’s way of giving my mother a break, but my parents were inadvertently planting seeds. The seeds I’m talking about are the early experiences that grow with us as we become teenagers and adults.

At age 18 I wrote my truck-driving licence and put myself through school by rolling up and down North America’s highways. It’s been 10 years since I’ve been a driver, yet I maintain the licence, mostly for nostalgic reasons. I love the smell of diesel fuel, the PISSSST sound of air brakes coming on, and the blue-collar charm of truck stop waitresses everywhere who always ask, “What can I getya Honey?”

Much has been written about Richard Louv’s sociological book, Last Child in the Woods. Louv writes about why our children are losing touch with nature and what it will mean for nature as today’s children become tomorrow’s recreationalists and environmental policy makers. He asks, if kids don’t care about wilderness now, why will they care later as politicians, developers or parents? Louv asks critical questions and explains societal influences but offers few practical tips for parents and educators who wish to reverse this trend.

CREATING TOMORROW’S ADVENTURERS AND STEWARTS

This winter I received an advance copy of A Natural Sense of Wonder by Rick Van Noy. Where Louv looks at the problem, Van noy offers solutions in an easy to read how-to guide. The book is a series of essays about how he engages his kids in nature. My favourite of his essays is “Creek Walking.”

My kids were playing in creeks long before they could walk. As a paddler I had my kids in canoes and kayaks and floating in rapids soon after they were born. When you’re two-feet tall even a small river is an ocean—too big to understand and too dangerous to explore on your own. But a creek is perfect.

Our creek adventures began as a game. I’d gather rocks in a bucket for them and they’d bomb stick boats anxiously floating below.

As soon as they could walk this progressed to full-stream-ahead exploration. Gathering rocks turned into finding critters underneath them. Pockets are now for frogs and buckets for minnows. rubber boots last as long as their first soakers and then they’re stripping their clothes and turning a shallow pool into a gravel-bottomed bathtub. Do I care if my one- and three-year-old are buck naked in Little Eneas Creek? Not one bit.

A Natural Sense of Wonder is a practical guide for parents who want to get their kids playing outside and off concrete. Creek walking is just one of Van Noy’s suggestions. He also writes about the almost forgotten joys of walking to school, skating on ponds, building tree houses and getting dirty.

To me it’s a gardening book; a book about planting seeds and growing healthy and happy wildflowers. I hope my wildflowers grow up to be lifelong family campers, adventurers and stewards who will appreciate the natural environment the way I do a plate of greasy bacon and eggs.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Skills: Lining Rapids

Skills

Photo: Richard English — Skills: Lining Rapids

Think of lining rapids as the great compromise. Lining lets you avoid a rapid that is too shallow or tight and technical to paddle, without having to shoulder your load and hit the trail. When lining properly, you use ropes and the force of the current to steer your canoe safely down sets.

Set Up

The ideal rigging requires two 20-metre throwbags and a bridle consisting of a three-metre length of rope with a loop tied at the halfway point. Using a bowline, tie one end of a throwrope to the loop in bridle, slide the bridle under the hull and tie each end off inside the gunwales at a thwart or seat. The loop should be near the keel line and at least a metre from the stern of the canoe.

With this bridle set-up you can control the canoe from below the waterline. Though lining a canoe with the stern line attached to a grab loop near the deck is possible (not to mention common) a strong pull on the grab loop from an angle can flip the canoe (many readers are nodding knowingly right now). The bow rope can be attached to the grab loop of the canoe since it will only be used to control the canoe angle.

If you don’t trust yourself to re-pack throwbags after each use then use a fixed painter on the bow. It should be of large diameter (so it is easy to grip) and both buoyant and free of knots (to reduce the chances of it getting jammed between rocks).

Safety

Whenever rope and currents mix you need to be prepared. Both paddlers should have a knife handy in case the rope gets tangled. Leave any excess rope in the bag or in loose coils in your hand. You should be wearing a PFD and if you trip with a helmet there is no sense having it in the canoe and not on your head while you scramble over wet rocks.

Starting Line

Push the canoe out into the current and let it float downstream until the stern rope becomes taut. Try not to let all the rope out. By pulling on the downstream rope while the upstream rope is taut, you will set an angle just as you would in a back ferry and the boat will ferry away from shore. To move the boat toward shore release the downstream rope and pull in on the upstream rope. The canoe’s angle will change and the current will push the canoe toward you.

By keeping pressure on the downstream end you can have the canoe ferrying as much as 45 degrees out into the current below you.

Adjust the angle until the canoe is lined up, then slowly walk downstream while keeping the ropes taut to control the angle and the canoe’s position.

Too many people risk broken ankles and capsized canoes by relying on luck and quick feet when lining. With this under-the-hull bridle set-up, lining can be less about speed and recovery and more about control and finesse.

Mark Scriver is a Black Feather guide and the author of Canoe Camping, An Essential Guide.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

Rhyme and Reason: Predicting the Weather

Stories

Photo: James Smedley — Rhyme and Reason: Predicting the Weather

As dozens of folksy sayings attest, you can make your own weather forecast from easy atmospheric and environmental observations. Because you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Wind from the east, weather a beast; wind from the west, weather is best
Changes in wind direction hint at coming weather. A counter-clockwise shift in wind direction (“backing” in mariner parlance) predicts approaching low pressure with its attendant low clouds, strong winds and miserable weather. A clockwise shift in wind direction (known as “veering”) is a sure sign of approaching high pressure, with fewer clouds, lighter winds and pleasant weather. Wind typically backs from west to east and veers from east to west.

Mackerel sky and mares’ tails make tall ships carry low sails
Mottled, fish-scale altocumulus clouds indicate increasing moisture in the high atmosphere and rain within 24 hours.

Sound travelling wide, a stormy day betides
Humid air is better at transmitting sound waves.

If the moon has a halo ‘round, we’ll soon tread on deluged ground
A halo around the moon or sun is caused by light refracting through the high-altitude cirrus clouds that precede a warm front. A halo is often the first sign a low-pressure system is approaching and that rain is 18 to 36 hours away.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight
In the evening, red clouds above and to the east mean the sun is shining through clear skies in the west—the direction of approaching weather. Conversely, red sky at sunrise from a clearing in the east means good weather won’t be sticking around for long.

When smoke descends, good weather ends
Your campfire provides a reasonable forecast for the next 24 hours. As a low-pressure system approaches, smoke absorbs humidity in the air and sinks, enveloping your campsite in an ominous pall. In stable, pleasant weather, campfire smoke rises in a vertical plume.

When leaves show their undersides, be very sure rain betides
Leaves grow in a pattern influenced by prevailing winds. When storm winds blow from different directions they disturb the leaves and expose the pale undersides. The anxious fluttering of poplar leaves is fair warning to set up the tarp. Similarly, plants will close their flowers to protect pollen as adverse weather approaches.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.

David Brower has more to do with how we think about the environment today than any other factor

There is one trip in particular I’ll never forget

Thank you for everything you’ve done

The seed got planted for a Christmas for Africa gear drive

The fastest navigable free-flowing river

The Stikine’s cargo of salt

An artery of trade and travel

A landscape still unscarred by modern industry

If you go

Access

Recommended reads

BREAKFAST: SUPER GRUEL

LUNCH: MUD BURRITOS

DINNER: PARENTAL POLENTA

DESSERT: ORANGE CAKES

CREATING TOMORROW’S ADVENTURERS AND STEWARTS

Set Up

Safety

Starting Line