As parents we walk the tightrope, balancing potential risks and benefits all the time. If I let my daughter stick a screwdriver in the electrical socket, the benefit of improving fine motor control would be zapped by the risk of being electrocuted. Whereas falling off a bicycle on a soft lawn is worth the risk of a stained knee for the benefits of learning to balance and enjoying childhood freedom. As parents we make these kinds of decisions all the time. Learning to cut paper versus losing a finger. Having fun fishing versus getting hooked in the scalp. Exercise and adventure from hiking versus getting lost or poison ivy.

In the world of outdoor recreation and education this is called risk management. My friend Matt Cruchet runs Direct Bearing Risk Management Consulting, a very successful business helping organizations manage risk in their adventure programs. Unfortunately, our society is quick to point fingers at the risks involved with outdoor activities, making educators and some parents scared to take kids outside—especially with the ever-looming threat of legal action. Matt works with schools, camps and organizations like the Girl Guides of Canada to help quantify the benefits, identify the hazards and minimize the risks involved in their outdoor programs. 

As camping parents we know that summertime is perfect for being outside and being active with our kids. This Canada Day long weekend I took my two-year-old son Dougie on our first father-son whitewater canoe trip. The reaction of other canoeists fell into two camps: one group, “I wish I’d started paddling that young”; and the other group, “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing with a baby in the rapids?” One couple actually paddled over and asked me this…it turns out they are teachers.

My friend Matt uses a diagram to help his clients think about risk. One axis is the likelihood of something bad happening, and the other axis is the severity of the consequences. Mosquito bites, for example, are very likely but result in only minor bumps or itching; the chance of getting struck by lightning is quite low but the consequences are severe. The worst kinds of risk are the ones that are very likely to happen and have severe consequences. And in the first quadrant is where Dougie and I paddle the Madawaska River—the chances of us flipping are quite low, as are the consequences with warm, low water, helmets and PFDs. 

In March, a Commons health committee report concluded that 26 per cent of Canadians between the ages of two and 17 are overweight or obese. Overfeeding and lack of exercise increase the risks of preventable life-threatening diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. Watching Dougie playing in the sand, scrambling over rocks, swimming in the shallow eddies and climbing into his sleeping bag at 7:30, I’m sure I’ve found the cure. For my family, the benefits of being outside and canoeing, hiking (see this issue’s hiking feature) and camping far outweigh the risks—so long, of course, that those risks are well managed.

By noon on our second day Dougie and I had caught up to the teachers. They were scouting Raquette Rapids, a 100-metre-long class II that flows over some shallow ledges and between two rock islands. I’ve run this rapid a hundred times. Dougie and I drifted into the current chatting about sitting still and pointing out rocks to avoid. I could feel glares of disapproval burning through the foam of my lifejacket as we floated past the teachers and down the last little chute into the lakewater pool. A perfect run.

A few minutes later, whistle blasts chirped to get our attention. Guess who was in the water? Their canoe was upside down and their gear was strewn around the rapid like a yard sale hit by a tornado. I’d normally have jumped up from our lunch spot on the rocks and helped them, but I couldn’t leave poor little Dougie on these dangerous rocks by himself. What kind of irresponsible parent would that make me? So I sat there spreading cream cheese on my “baby’s” bagel, wondering if they now think they should have started paddling when they were two. 

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.

• Beavers are the second largest rodent. 
• The beaver was the main currency of the fur trade. Pelts were trapped in the hinterland by natives, exchanged for goods at trading posts and shipped to Europe to be treated with mercury to make felt for hats. 
• Beaver tails are sweet hunks of deep-fried dough that are popular on Ottawa’s Rideau Canal. They set back sugar-craving ice skaters $3.50.
• Newborn beavers are able to swim within hours of being born.
• Beavers were practically wiped out in Europe by demand for castor oil, a bitter excretion that was used to treat pains and is still used to scent perfumes.
• The buckteeth of a beaver never stop growing.
• Jerry Mathers gnashed some impressive buckteeth himself as star of Leave it to Beaver, a sit-com that debuted in 1957.
• Beavers dam waterways with a mass of mud, rocks and sticks to create a pond that provides access to vegetation and protection from predators. The largest known beaver dam stretched nearly 1,500 metres across a river in Saskatchewan.
• Female beavers tend to grow larger than males. 
• The mating practices of beaver—of interest to a large number of humans—involve mid-winter romantic dalliances under the ice.
• Beavers can hold their breath for 15 minutes.
• The legendary DeHavilland Beaver bush plane has taken more canoeists to more remote put-ins than any other airplane. 

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.

Three Ottawa-area canoeists have one more reason to fish with live bait after a May canoe trip on which they could have used a few extra worms.

Chris Dowdell, Ian Stimson and Roly Saul started their weekend jaunt on the Madawaska River by loading a borrowed canoe onto their car. The canoe was stored upside down at shoulder height so the men simply shifted it onto their roof racks and tied it on.

After a bumpy drive, the paddlers arrived at their put-in. As they flipped the borrowed boat off the car, a bird’s nest dropped out from under the seat, and out tumbled two tiny robin chicks. “I’ve always said we should be bringing chicks on our trips, but this isn’t what I meant,” said Dowdell.

The trio decided they couldn’t bear to leave the displaced robins at the mercy of the local wildlife. So, they took them along for the paddle. “We felt we could at least try feeding them and see what happened,” said Dowdell.

At their campsite, they kept their guests comfortable with a gourmet menu of steak bits and tablespoons of water—filtered, no less. Each evening, they placed the nest in a tree, sheltered by a makeshift tent of paper towel and twigs. To ward off carnivorous climbers, they booby-trapped the tree’s base with utensils. 

The robins warmed easily to their new surroundings. They lazed in their nest, gazing out at the water and squawking loudly when one of their guardians approached with food. “They adjusted well to their new moms, and seemed to enjoy the view,” said Dowdell.

But no good adventure tale is complete without a happy ending. At trip’s end, the men returned the canoe to its owner. Waiting for the chicks, worm in mouth, was the mother robin, who put the lie to the myth that mother birds reject chicks that have been handled by humans. 

Two weeks later, the chicks left their nest again, this time flying instead of floating.

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.

It was our third consecutive lunch of pitas and cheese and we were ready for a distraction. We had pulled up at a narrows about two-thirds of the way down Nunavut’s Coppermine River. The bank on the far side was splattered with head-high willow shrubs and Barb was adamant that there was a caribou grazing among them.

“There,” she said, “just to the left of the little clearing.”

The rest of us munched away, squinting across the river and assuring her we also saw it before realizing what we thought were antlers were just another pair of willow branches. 

This went on for 15 minutes, until the pitas were put away for another day, before Mike declared, “It must be a caribou. I can smell it.” 

Mike has admirable olfactory abilities, but this was too much. I was about to suggest he was smelling himself when I caught a whiff of what I imagined caribou breath must smell like. 

Ally turned around and laughed. Not 20 metres behind us four caribou were mowing down tufts of lichen. We could see every whisker, and hear every gum smack (I had assumed the noise was Mike eating dessert). It’s a good thing we had a large store of pitas, because if we had been relying on keen senses to deliver us food from the land we would have gone hungry. 

I couldn’t help but feel out of my element up there. The conventions that time and space follow down south, even on a remote river in the boreal, have no purchase in the Arctic. With the land frozen so much of the year, cycles such as growth and decay grind to a crawl while seasonal imperatives like spring runoffs and animal migrations take on a determined frenzy. It is hard to know what to expect, even hard to know how to adjust your eyes to a landscape that is so barren and hard to read it turns what you thought would be a half-hour hike into a half-day trek.

That was 10 years ago, and I haven’t been back to the Arctic, a fact that hit me in the gut last week when a couple I know asked me out for a beer and counsel about their plan to paddle the Coppermine.  

They were nervous, and had reason to be. They had paddled a handful of rivers, but their whitewater history wasn’t one that begged for a biography. The weather in late August could well be punishing. With only one canoe in their party they would have no one to collect pieces for them after a dump. 

As we batted around these caveats I couldn’t help but wonder if I was erring on the side of caution so I would feel better about my inability to muster a return trip above the 66th parallel.

As we often recount in these pages—call it our editorial mission—canoe trips on the whole are getting shorter and shorter. Fewer people are making the sort of time commitment needed to do extraordinary canoe trips. Everyone has reasons. I know I have mine. I just don’t know if they are good enough.

My friends emailed me last week to tell me they had weighed the risks and had decided to paddle the Coppermine. They may become stormbound for a few days. They may dump and lose equipment—or worse. One fate that won’t befall them, however, is they’ll never have to sit on a patio sipping a beer and mumbling sorry excuses for how they didn’t go north in 2007 because they were too busy. 

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Canoeroots Magazine.

We began our trip as Debside invariably does: at the bus stop.

I followed as he dragged the black bag containing his folding kayak and paddling gear on its wheeled frame past the children’s playground to a fence overlooking Puget Sound. There we paused while he pulled out a coloured map.

“Here’s this put-in.” His finger identified our location. “At the bottom of this hill, there should be a footbridge.” Moving his finger to indicate another spot on the map where the road curved close to the water. “I thought this place might be good too but when I checked it out, there’s no way to get across the rail tracks. You have to think of that sort of thing when you choose put-ins. Bus routes….” He held up his timetable, and a map. “You don’t want to cross private land either—it would give kayakers a bad name—but there are often little public access places to the beach if you look for them.”

We followed the fence to a corner where wooded land dropped steeply to a creek, and then as we backtracked we ran into a dog walker who pointed us in a different direction, back to the road to cross the creek. There in the bushes we found the top of several steep flights of steps.

The thud of descending wheels gave way to their steady rumble as we crossed the caged walkway high above the rail tracks and rolling stock. As we spiraled down more steep steps toward the beach I reflected how awkward a carry this would be with a rigid kayak, even with two people, yet how comfortably Dubside dealt with it.

WHAT IS DUBSIDE?

Dubside’s lifestyle package began in Philadelphia. Into the reggae scene, which incidentally inspired his famed dreadlocks, he worked as a sound engineer for bands. Living inexpensively in a single room in a house with a shared bathroom, no outside yard space, no car, no vices, he found he needed to work no more than two or three days a week to cover his expenses. Valuing time over money, for most of each week he was free. In 1998 he discovered kayaking.

Canoeing as a kid introduced him to access to wildlife spots and special moments even in the middle of the city. It offered a different, magical perspective. But to take up kayaking now Dubside faced a radical change to his lifestyle. If he were to buy a kayak, a car to carry it with all its running expenses, and find a place to store his kayak, that could require a full-time job which would leave him little time to paddle. Then he ran into Ralph Diaz at the New York Kayak Company, a lifetime advocate of folding kayaks. Dubside was inspired to mail-order one, sight unseen.

Reaching the beach, Dubside looked around for a place to assemble his kayak.
“I try to find grass so I don’t get sand and stones inside the skin.” From his black package he unfolded a 16-foot-long black rubberized kayak skin and a pile of aluminum tubes and plastic frames. “When I got my first kayak it took me more than an hour to assemble it. Now it takes fifteen minutes.” My own first attempt to assemble a Feathercraft, out in the Queen Charlotte Islands, had been a puzzling experience. Setting out then on a multi-day camping trip rather than Dubside’s more usual day or night trip, I never did trim my time to less than an hour.

As Dubside inserted sections of frame and his kayak began to take shape, he continued, “Then there’s the safety aspect. I can paddle during the week when most people are at work, so I mostly went solo. My first kayak was so wide and stable most people said it wouldn’t capsize, but then I got a nar- rower one and I wanted to learn how to roll, for safety, especially as I often paddled in winter. Sometimes there was ice on the water. At the pool sessions the other paddlers were Greenland-style enthusiasts, so they taught me to use their paddles, and I got into the whole Greenland stuff, with its emphasis on a wide range of different rolls. The ropes tricks? That came as part of the same pack- age. Helps to keep you flexible and fit too!”

Too modest to volunteer his success in competition, Dubside neglected to add that he is regarded as one of the world’s most highly skilled performers of both Greenland rolls and of Greenland rope gymnastics. All this in so very few years, he says, because his lifestyle allows him so much time on the water.

DUBSIDE ON ACCESSORIZING

Dubside now peeled off the black boiler suit he’d worn on the bus to reveal a black drysuit underneath. He struggled into his neoprene tuilik. Sealed around his face so tightly, this combination of spray deck and anorak almost completely excludes water when he rolls.

He clipped his pump to his deck and a VHF radio to each shoulder. He laughed
as he explained how he used to give talks about radios. He bought several for the purpose, so now he often carries two, one for monitoring all channels, and the other on a fixed channel to listen for specific conversations. “If I hear ferry or tugboat captains warn of a kayaker in the channel I can call back and say it’s me. That makes everyone more comfortable.” He assembles his paddle and he’s about ready to go.

Paddling beside me across gentle waves, Dubside played at what he likes best, rolling. He surfaced each time with a big smile on his face admitting that it is difficult for him to stay upright. That’s not because he doesn’t have the skill to do so. “Even when I decide to stay dry for a day, I always end up rolling a few times because I enjoy it so much!”

STEALTH IS ESSENTIAL

As we cross the channel to Whidbey Island he points this way and that, identifying places where he knows he could put in or get out. Relatively new to the Northwest, he’s becoming familiar with it. In time he might know it as thoroughly as Philadelphia, where he would decide on the best access and egress points depending on the weather, or if it was daylight or not. There were some intimidating places he felt he could land and take apart his kayak hidden by the vegetation of the bank without attracting unwelcome attention. He could not do the same when launching because people would follow him into the bushes. He’d felt vulnerable surrounded by hostile kids with his kayak only part assembled.

“Stealth paddling! That’s what I often did in Philly!” I could understand why the coast guard and police so often challenged this figure clad completely in black as he crept around the channels at dusk and lurked in the bushes.

Perhaps here in the friendly Northwest, he can be more relaxed. “All the Whidbey Island transit buses offer rides for free, and the ferry doesn’t charge passengers on the way back off the island. So, depending on the weather, I could change my plans and go over there, or over there, and catch a bus and ferry back to the mainland to get my bus home. That flexibility offers me more safety, more options if conditions are not how I expected. It doesn’t matter where I come ashore; I just pack up my kayak, look up the bus routes and timetables and figure out a way home.”

Taking advantage of that flexibility and independence is the style of operation Dubside refers to as “commando kayaking.”

Asked what he would change in his lifestyle, if he could, Dubside considers for a while before answering. “Maybe better mass transit. Perhaps if I moved closer to Seattle where the buses would run later, I’d have more options.” We drift while a ferry crosses our path on its way to dock. “We could catch that one if we pulled out the stops,” he says, eyeing up the distance left to paddle and calculating the time it would take to fold his kayak and wheel it aboard. But neither of us feels the need to rush.

MAN WITH A MESSAGE

I ask if he preaches his lifestyle. “Not exactly. But you know, although a Feathercraft is an expensive bit of kit, you don’t have to have a lot of disposable income to enjoy paddling. If you don’t have a car, don’t have anywhere to store a kayak, don’t have much income, you can still do it. And that goes for adventure too. The media love to glorify the exotic places people go to paddle, but really, adventure can be anywhere and everywhere. You don’t have to go far to find it. Water freezes, there are eagles and wildlife dramas, you see tugboats and find out where they go, you get familiar with where the low-tide rocks are so you know where not to roll. There’s magic in the mist. Knowing an area intimately through different times of day, different tides and different sea- sons, with all the possible landing places and ways to get home from wherever you go—that’s something very special a tourist visiting an exotic location for a short time will never know.”

As he spoke, I was reminded of my early kayaking days. As a 16-year-old I walked my canvas kayak on a homemade trolley down two miles of winding hill
to the coast near Brighton each time I wanted to paddle. Less versatile than a kayak I could carry on the bus, the rigid kayak on wheels yet offered me independence, the chance to escape to the English Channel, the door to the adventure I am still having.

I have to ask one more question. What about a life partner? I knew his answer before he replied. Not married yet, still looking for that perfect kayak wife. I don’t know who she will be, but I can imagine how she will be.

As Dubside wheeled his anonymous black bag from the ferry, I reflected on what I saw, and on what I knew. I saw
an inconspicuous small figure in black dragging a bag, walking with the crowd up the landing ramp. I knew that particular one in the crowd as a committed kayaker, who tailored his life to fit his dream, not tailored his dream to fit his life. He is now producing instructional DVDs and booklets. He is invited to demonstrate and teach rolling at sea kayaking events. He is finding the way to do what he enjoys in a way that is in harmony with his ideals. I can relate to that.

It’s true, you don’t need much money. You just need to take the time.

Nigel Foster is an international figure in sea kayaking. 

This article first appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

It’s a lazy morning at home, and I’m planning a day trip. My wife is meeting one of her friends for shopping and coffee. Perfect! I’m cleared for paddling, as long as I’m back in time for dinner.

“Honey,” I call, “I’m just heading out for a paddle. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. It might be a long day.”

I start tossing gear into my duffel, throwing in my tent, sleeping bag, mattress, pillow, a novel, cookies, sandwiches and a thermos of hot chocolate.

Her brow knits as I continue to stuff in my PFD, spray skirt, fleece and jacket.

“Aren’t you taking an awful lot for a day trip?”

“Well, you can’t be too sure,” I say. “If I did get into nasty conditions, having camping gear would give me a huge safety advantage. I could wait things out until it was safe to proceed, even over- night. It would be foolhardy to take less. Having enough food is key too.” I hold her gaze steadily as I slip a large box of Turkish delight into the duffel.

She gives me a peck on the cheek. “I’m glad that you’re so safety conscious, sweetie.”

And just like that, I’m on my way.

What no one knows is that I’m not really going paddling, per se. I’m actually off to practice a revolutionary new take on kayak touring. It’s my own innovation that I call nautical napping.

AN INTRODUCTION TO NAUTICAL NAPPING

Here’s how nautical napping works: you head out for a day paddle. Since you’ll spend many hours out of the house, folks at home will naturally assume that you’re off being gnarly and adventurous, cranking out mile after mile. What nobody suspects is that you really only paddle for about an hour, heading to a favourite secluded spot.

Once at your site, you set up your tent, get out your sleeping bag, mattress and book, and burrow into your nest. Lie there soaking up the sounds of the shoreline. Eat a few bonbons and have a sip of hot chocolate. Sprawl out, hogging every inch of the bed, wiggle your toes and luxuriate.

Now, the key component of the nautical napping relaxation system: open your book and start reading until your eyelids become too heavy to hold open. And then—drop off to sleep. Fantastic!

It’s that simple—anyone can travel across water to breathtakingly beautiful locations, and fall asleep there. And this is all possible for just pennies per outing.

BEST DONE SOLO

I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself, “hey, I live in a city. Where can I go nautical napping?” The potential sites are many. You don’t have to limit yourself to areas that permit overnight camping, since you’ll only be there for a few hours. Any quiet spot by the water is perfect. Waterfront public parks in the city are prime locations. And nautical napping isn’t fair-weather dependent either; rainy days are ideal.

You may also be asking yourself, “Am I qualified to nap nautically?”

Friend, if you have a kayak and enjoy sleeping as much as I do, then the answer is yes! It’s child’s play—you’ll sleep like a baby.

Maybe you are worried about what people will think. But nobody will ever know—if you don’t tell them. You may even gain a psychological edge by leveraging their guilt.

Your spouse may feel sheepish if he or she has lazed around all day like some reprehensible sloth while you spent an active day outside. Get into the habit of being casually reticent and vague about the specifics of your journeys. People will start to assume you are just modest about your exploits and give up pressing you for details.

One thing to bear in mind is that nautical napping is best done solo for ultimate relaxation. You don’t want even a hint of anybody else’s agenda or schedule.

Once you get the hang of it, you can customize your nap- ping experience by bringing along extra comfort items, such as a teddy bear, your lucky pajama top, or an MP3 player with all the music that you aren’t allowed to play at home (Iron Butterfly, The Partridge Family, Wagner’s Ring Cycle).

When you awake from your nautical nap, pack up and head home refreshed. You can be confident that any telltale signs of drool will be mistaken for sea salt and that the pillow marks on your face will fade long before you walk through the door.

Alex Matthews is a passionate kayaker and has fallen asleep all over the world. If you happen to meet Alex in the field, please don’t wake him up. 

This article first appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

There is a parcel of lake, visible from my front yard, that my paddle has never touched. This week I went there, and the experience gelled for me all the reasons why we’re focusing this issue on kayaking locally and reclaiming urban waters.

These days, kayak trips are getting shorter and shorter. Everybody who’s heard of speed dating or bought pre-washed salad mix knows that we have less free time than our grandparents’ generation. A big part of the reason is that we’ve spread ourselves thin; we spend too many hours on the move.

In her history of walking, Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit explains: “Just as the increased speed of factory production did not decrease working hours, so the increased speed of transportation binds people to more diffuse locales rather than liberating them from travel time (many Californians, for example, now spend three or four hours driving to and from work each day).”

LESS TIME ON THE ROAD, MORE TIME ON THE WATER

For us kayakers, speeding long distances to get to postcard places not only discounts and dissolves the space in between them, it also kills time that we could be spending on the water. Our precious, endangered leisure time becomes road kill.

The good news is, we can slide up that slope. Take it from Dubside, the monomial paddler profiled by Nigel Foster in the Summer issue’s “Going Commando”. What may sound like a recipe for a landlocked life—owning no wheels besides the rollers on the kayak cart he totes on public transit—means less time working for The Man, and more time afloat on the backwaters of his hometown. Dubside is an alchemist, teaching us how to trans- form water into time.

Exploring locally is nothing new. Back when kayaks were still just for hunting, henry David Thoreau was curmudgeoning away about the same stuff in his bean patch in Massachusetts. “I have travelled a good deal in concord,” the thinker famously said, warming up to a Walden chapter of blabbity blah about inner journeys. Taken with a drop of saltwater, the man has a point. You don’t have to navel gaze; just turn your attention infield a bit.

DIP INTO FAMILIAR WATERS

Here at the editor’s desk, with digital dreams emailing in from everyplace, it’s too easy to fall for the long-distance outlook. Last year we got a chiding missive from one of our loyal subscribers, Eric Hockaday, who wrote, “I wish you wouldn’t send me articles or flyers advertising far away exotic places to kayak. It upsets me because I can’t begin to afford trips and vacations like that. I wish you would send me information about kayak trips here at home, here in Canada, especially British Columbia.” Eric will be happy to see this issue’s article about Kootenay Lake (“hippies, huckleberries and Beer”)—true backyard paddling for B.C. types, and stoke for the rest of you to find a local trip of your own.

If you think you’ve seen and done it all, try dipping into familiar waters by night, in the off-season, or some other creative way to gain a new perspective. After growing up restless in the middle of Toronto, I thought I knew the place and every way out of it. I’d left town a thousand times in every direction you can take a highway, but there was one angle I hadn’t tried: due south. I slipped off the beach one sunset, took a bearing for New York state or bust, and paddled straight out into the pure vertigo of Lake Ontario and sky. That shining smog-anchor they call the Golden horseshoe spread out behind me in the dark like the Milky Way, and when I turned around to paddle back, there was a side of my home I’d never seen.

This article first appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.