I discovered sea kayaking when I was five months pregnant and not quite 29 years old. I
was watching a sunset at Flamingo Campground in the Florida Everglades. The sun was framed by silhouetted palm trees and diving pelicans splashing into the bay with wings folded back. Then I saw a sleek kayak glide peacefully into the scene. This first impression stayed in my mind, growing like a well-watered seed until, many years later, kayaking came to define my life.

I waited one and a half years after the birth of my daughter before taking my first kayak journey, a guided trip on Georgian Bay – I couldn’t leave a newborn and the demands of motherhood preceded all other notions. It took only a few strokes to realize that kayaking would become a significant part of my life. I felt I belonged on the water.

From then on, I made short kayak trips with guided groups to exotic places for a week once or twice a year. I paddled the barrier reef off the shore of Belize. I camped and kayaked along the Exumas, a chain of islands in
 the Bahamas. And I paddled among icebergs in east Greenland.

These short breaks renewed my spirit and whet my appetite. I studied maps and dreamed of far-away paddling destinations, but I had parental obligations and these dreams simmered in my active imagination.

Eventually, I bought a used kayak from a tour company and I paddled
at The Pinery, a provincial park on Lake Huron. The Pinery had been my special place since early childhood, but now I enjoyed the dunes and beach from a new perspective. I was attuned to the subtle differences in the quality of light, in the clouds in the sky, in the changing of the seasons.

On the water I felt alive. My senses awakened to the rush of wind or the sting of icy water. I revelled in the songs of loons and the flight of bald eagles. My spirituality strengthened as I felt my small place in this complex but beautiful world, connected to all that exists.

AQUA THERAPY

Kayaking was my aqua therapy, a means to wash away the stresses of daily life, to get away from the continuous demands that society places upon us, or that we allow society to place upon us.

I built my confidence by paddling in varied conditions in all seasons
and in many places. I read about kayaking. I took courses and paddled with strong paddlers to strengthen my skills.

As much as I enjoyed paddling with others, I found it easiest to paddle
on my own. It meant I could paddle wherever and whenever I wanted. I relied only on myself and felt a deeper sense of being on the water. My focus was on my surroundings, not on my partners. My days as an elementary school teacher working with 150 kids a day are busy enough that I fervently seek these moments of solitude.

In 2003, in the Westfjords of Iceland, I met a remarkable woman.

Shawna Franklin was paddling around Iceland with two male partners. Her energy, vitality and genuine love for the world shone brightly. She looked at me and spoke of living true to myself.

This was an epiphany. Up until then, I had always done things to please others. I had followed the “system”, getting a university degree and a good job, getting married and raising a family, taking on a hefty mortgage. Yet it was my brief forays into nature by kayak that truly made me feel joyful and alive.

I was also inspired by a poem, The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, which says “dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing” and “risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.” This reiterated what I already knew but had been afraid to do for so long: to live true to my soul, which sang of being free on the water, to follow my dreams and find peace and fulfillment.

And so I found the courage to plan bigger challenges. In 2004, I paddled around Manitoulin Island, the world’s largest freshwater island. Geographical extremes appeal to me as do islands that have their own unique identities, and Manitoulin lies at the northern tip of Lake Huron. I paddled the 350 kilometres in 12 days.

A WHOLE SUMMER TO PADDLE

In 2005, I took a leave of absence from teaching during the months of May and June, giving me the whole summer to paddle. I chose to circumnavigate Prince Edward Island.

Again, it was a geographical extreme as it was the only province that I could completely circumnavigate. I was the first woman to complete the entire 600-kilometre circumnavigation, paddling it in 15 days. I then felt I could accomplish anything I put my mind to.

The following summer, I again took the months of May and June
off work, this time to paddle around Newfoundland, a demanding journey of almost 3,000 kilometres. Again I would be the first woman to do so.

I started my journey with much trepidation on a cold, wet, dreary and windy day early in May. What had I gotten myself into? I felt relieved to be paddling part of the south shore with another accomplished female sea kayaker, Freya Hoffmeister from Germany. She helped give me the strength and courage to complete the remainder of the journey alone.

I often dug to the depths of my core to face wind, waves, fog, lightning,
and long open water crossings of enormous bays. At times I felt utterly alone on such a vast and unforgiving ocean and often arrived humbled on shore, relieved to set foot on solid ground. Many days I spent eight, nine to paddle in exotic destinations and or even 10 hours in my kayak before share my experiences as a presenter at finding a landing place.

I arrived safe at Isle Aux Morts at the exact dock where I’d started 104 days earlier. I averaged 40 kilometres a day on the 68 days I paddled. Succeeding on these expeditions has meant sponsorships, the chance to paddle in exotic destinations and share my experiences as a presenter at symposiums around the world. I have even taken this whole year off teaching to continue kayaking full time.

KAYAKING AS A SELFISH INDULGENCE

These rewards have come at a price. My spirit is renewed, my zest for life continues to grow, but indulging my needs is in many ways selfish.

I have had to leave my family, who are non-paddlers, for extended periods. It has created enormous friction in my personal life when loved ones cannot fully understand my need to reach for these extended journeys at the cost of being home and making money. Because kayaking distant shores requires financial security and extended time off, I am still dependent on a job that is draining my life energy. Having sponsors also brings obligations. Some of the spontaneity of quietly travelling is taken away with the continual need to blog about my experiences and give up my privacy.

But I will continue to seek kayaking adventures. It is what fulfills me and 
makes me happy. And I enjoy sharing my experiences with others. My perspective of looking from the outside towards the inside is so different from the experiences of most. Maybe I can inspire someone to grow by stepping outside of their comfort zone. It is important to keep growing as a person throughout life’s journey. The motto on
my blog states, “Make the journey of life a beautiful adventure.” Think of a dream and then visualize how you can make it happen. I am a petite, middle-aged woman. It is through sheer passion and strength of mind that I make my dreams into reality.

For years and years I devoured accounts of personal triumphs in adventure and dreamed that I too could follow my dreams. Finally, in mid-life, I reached for my dreams, realizing that time lost is irreplaceable. I feel that if you can dream it, you can do it. Achieving new personal limits has taught me that the only limits set upon ourselves are made by ourselves, in our minds.

Wendy Killoran lives and works in London, Ontario. She presents at sea kayaking symposiums worldwide and blogs at kayakwendy.com. 

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

When I was assigned to write about “finding your dream paddling partner,” I balked and wondered what I was going to say that wouldn’t sound too sickly sweet or, even worse, like a lie. People see the photos of us laughing together on the water and think that my wife Rochelle and I must have some perfect paddling relationship where every trip is effortless and every destination is some sort of ideal Shangri-la of domestic bliss and organized camping efficiency. But the truth is, sometimes we fight like cats and dogs.

We suffer from the same challenges that afflict other paddling couples. I paddle too fast. She paddles too slowly. I want to go too far, getting hung up on mileage done and reaching a prescribed destination. She wants to take her time and actually see things along the way.

I feel that meals in the backcountry should be simple affairs, generating the least amount of dirty dishes possible. My culinary motto is “feed the hole,” and I often favour boil-in-a-bag substitutes for real food. She plans elaborate menus with exotic ingredients that require careful transport and generate piles of dirty pots and pans.

I want a streamlined, spare but effective packing system. She wonders how to get more big puffy pillows into the boats.

So how do you find the dream paddling partner? My first thought was, You don’t, because they don’t exist. It’s a fantasy. It’s really hard to find the right person. And when you do, there’s the challenge of coordinating busy schedules. That’s why I often paddle alone. It’s so much easier just to grab the boat and go. Paddling solo is simple and free. You have only yourself to please, and only yourself to blame if things go wrong.

But there’s more to finding the right partner than finding someone who’s easy to paddle with. Consider some deeper questions.

Who is always good company, day in and day out?
 With whom do I have the best rapport? 
Who’s the most fun?
 Who looks out for me, truly having my best interests at heart? 
Who puts up with my bad moods, and jollies me along even when I’m being childish or grumpy?
 And most importantly: who do I miss most when I see something amazing on the water? Who do I most want to share it with?
 For me, the answer is easy: my wife—my beautiful, talented, wonderful wife Rochelle.
 She wasn’t even in my office just then, peering over my shoulder as I typed that last sentence. No, in fact she’s away for a few days right now, and there’s nothing like the absence of something precious to remind us of its true value.

And as for our different approaches to kayak touring—not only are the meals she makes wonderful, she always cooks enough for both of us. Even if I com- plain about the madness of attempting a crème brûlée on an MSR stove (brûlée indeed).

And she always shares her pillows with me.
And we laugh together. Sooner or later, we always end up laughing.
We cuddle on cold nights and she’ll always trade me a back massage for a foot rub.
She’s a great friend, and I love her.
So if you want things quick and easy, go paddling alone, but if your concept of

dream paddling partner encompasses kayaking as a metaphor for life—the ocean as the wide world and our boat as our little place within it—then the answer is clear. Paddle with the one you love. It’s not always easy, but ultimately it is far more rewarding, and in the great journey there’s no better choice than a cherished companion to help plot a course to your next destination. 

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

Writer and adventurer Jon Bowermaster is following a long line of household names. We’re not talking about Mr. Clean and Aunt Jemima. More like Robert E. Peary, Jane Goodall and Jacques Cousteau. It’s an impressive legacy of National Geographic–sponsored adventurers. Bowermaster is nearing the final leg of the oceans 8 expedition, which seeks to explore the social and environmental state of each of the world’s largest water bodies from the seat of a kayak.

Bowermaster has seen it all: the rugged Aleutian Islands, the wild coastlines of west Africa’s Gabon and the island paradise of French Polynesia. All, that is, except for the last remaining chunk of his global voyage: Antarctica. If he’s not on the ocean or talking with local people who live from it, he’s travelling the world, re-telling the story of his expeditions to riveted audiences.

Bowermaster’s eureka moment came at 15 when he discovered, while others were sucking back their first cigarettes, that he had a talent—and a penchant—for writing. Since then, he’s gone on to a 20-year freelance career. He’s written for almost every major glossy monthly from Outside to Men’s Journal and edited the pages of Rolling Stone.

Not all the gigs have been replete with coconuts and sarongs. He’s written on such arcane topics as “The History of the Jacuzzi” and profiled ‘80s pop singer George Michael and a long-past-their-prime Osmond Family. “A lot of it was like filling in blanks,” he says—not exactly the adventurous writing career he was aiming for.

But now Bowermaster has found his niche, pursuing his epic life-work with help from the national geographic expeditions Council.

“My first grant was actually quite a surprise,” he recalls. “I was convinced I would not get it [and] that the first trip to the Aleutians would never have happened. I got notice quite late in the process and then realized, ‘oh shit, now I have to actually pull this off’.”

Pull it off he did, and now he wouldn’t trade his job, as they say, for all the oceans in the world.

IN OTHER WORDS:

Aim for meaning over mileage
“I use kayaks as floating ambassadors. My trips have an adventure quotient, but they’re not only about adventure. Circumnavigation is not really interesting to me.”

Learn to barter with sleeping bags
“I have corporate sponsors that put up some of the money. And I don’t have to buy gear for the rest of my life. But you can’t trade sleeping bags for a mortgage. I would like to have a direct paycheque, a retirement fund and health care…but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Every time I think about another job, that thought lasts about 60 seconds. Plus I realized long ago that I can’t do anything else.”

Suffer the writing
“We’re out here having a great time. The hard part is the physical sitting down and writing the story. It’s very painful. Anyone that tells you they like writing is lying.”

Be good
“Advice I would give to somebody who wants to get into this type of work: be persistent. Don’t give up. I knocked on the door of national geographic for a long time before I got in. It’s also important just to be a good person.” 

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

It was 1979 when a young couple pulled ashore on then-remote Read Island. These latecomers to the back-to-the-land movement arrived in B.C.’s Discovery Islands like a couple of latter day pilgrims. They’d sold a photography business for a down payment on a 50-acre parcel of waterfront land to hatch their dream of building a wilderness adventure lodge. They came in a leaky aluminum skiff packed with their worldly possessions: tent, chainsaw, lopping shears, a table, rocking chair, spinning wheel and a transistor radio.

The learning curve on coastal homesteading is steep. The first step was to clear building sites for a family home and lodge, gardens and outbuildings. Next was to mill their own lumber from salvaged cedar logs and erect a post- and-beam house. The plan to produce their own hydro power from a nearby stream short-circuited at first when their newly installed turbine was stolen. To support themselves while their dream took shape, the Kellers worked odd jobs like treeplanting and construction.

Although it was originally the alpine environment of the coast Range that Ralph and Lannie envisaged taking their guests to, the fledgling interest in sea kayaking caught their imagination and in 1987, eight years after arriving on Read Island, they welcomed their first guests to Coast Mountain Lodge.

With two children Emily and Albert now completing the Keller family, they continued with the tasks—Ralph working as self-described “systems manager and kayak guide” and Lannie as “mom, gardener, cook and logistics.”

Inquiries began to trickle into their post office box in Surge Narrows and over the past two decades visitors have come from around the world to share the Kellers’ life in the wilderness.

In 2001, the business expanded to include a second lodge, Discovery Islands Lodge on Quadra Island, operated as a kayaker’s B&B and hostel. Both operations squarely put the “eco” in ecotourism with local food, composting toilets and homegrown power from solar, wind and small hydro. It sounds like a dream come true.

IN OTHER WORDS:

Sink the nest egg
“We wanted to have some adventure in our lives. We had taken the plunge and put all we had into buying a piece of land in paradise. We needed a way to make a living where we lived. Kayaking was one of those late-night brainstorms that seemed like it might work.”

Don’t specialize
“We had to provide everything for ourselves, from water to electricity to communication. Every system you take for granted in town we had to figure how to build and then keep it functioning—even our first four fibreglass kayaks, from a borrowed mould.”

Commitment is its own reward
“Make sure you like what you do and be prepared to do a lot of it for free before you get paid for it…. If you refuse to fail, sooner or later you are bound to succeed.”

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

So your dream is to run a paddlesports company? How about six? Nando Zucchi
 is the general manager of Johnson Outdoors Paddlesports, which means that he runs six major brands: Necky, Old Town, Ocean Kayak, Extrasport, Carlisle Paddles and the newest addition, Lendal Paddles of Scotland.

The Johnson company association runs deep for Zucchi. Not only did he graduate from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of management (yes, that Johnson), he also worked for Johnson Wax after graduating. Then he left the fold and headed to Kodak, running their 35mm film business for North America, but eventually he was drawn back to Johnson four years ago.

So, is Nando a suit-wearing corporate master, or is he living the life and following the dream? Sounds to us like more of the latter, especially when it comes to paddling toys. He has his pick of Necky boats, and his personal quiver includes a Chatham 16 and a carbon Spyder surf-specific kayak. “If I’m going to do a fun race or something I’ll just go grab our in-house Looksha II race boat. I also get out in prototypes that are still in development—they usually look terrible but paddle great.”

“The whole ‘corporate thing’ is kind of funny,” he says. “People think that we’re this huge company with limitless budgets, but it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like total grassroots hands-on stuff, and I wear a lot of different hats on a daily basis—one minute I’ll be working with the folks in R&D and the next I’ll be working with the guys on the production line. I bring my dog Connor to work every day and neither of us wears a suit.”

IN OTHER WORDS:

Impress the boss
“I was recruited for this job by group vice president of watercraft Mark Leopold. They had pretty specific criteria. They wanted someone who paddled, did not currently work at Johnson, and had extensive knowledge of packaged goods marketing. I had been the marketing guy at Johnson for Pledge, Windex and Raid, so they knew me and my abilities, and one day my name came up.”

Work hard, play hard
“You’ve also got to get out and use the gear. At the end of last summer we put together a trip to the Broken Group on the west coast of Vancouver Island to do some product testing and generate some photos and video. The paddlesports management team and a couple of guys from R&D went, and about two weeks before the trip, Helen Johnson herself (chairman and CEO of Johnson Outdoors Inc.) heard about it and asked if she could come. How cool is that? And, the first day of the trip was my first day back ‘in the office’ after my vacation.”

Stop and chop
“I’m the guy who actually stopped the Necky production line. That was tough. In those very early days after moving production from B.C. to its current location in Ferndale, Washington, we had major issues, and we needed to relearn how to make good boats. We unwrapped and inspected close to 700 finished kayaks. About 230 were chopped because they weren’t good enough. It was terrible, and we took a huge hit on it, but it was the right thing to do.” 

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

These are some big dreams: Escape rat race. Become pro kayaker. Start successful business. Build oceanfront home. Make the world a better place.

Check off one or two of these in your lifetime and you’re doing pretty well.

Check all of them before you turn 34 and you’re probably Dave Adler.

Dave is a business visionary disguised in the uniform of a ski-lift mechanic—scruffy beard, Carhartts and fleece. He is founder of East Coast Outfitters (E.C.O.), a community-based ecotourism business in the village of Lower Prospect, Nova Scotia—a tiny, rocky, one-road town with no traffic lights or stop signs or store. Like a lot of East Coast ports, there aren’t many jobs since the fishery collapsed.

Dave dreamed up E.C.O. to be the cornerstone of an economic revival. It’s not the “park, shit, paddle, and leave” model of tourism that gives nothing back—townies run the office, drive the boat, and cook dockside seafood dinners for eager kayakers that come and go by the vanload from Halifax.

It all started in 1997, when this brainy, former whitewater slalom racer with a sponsor- ship from Dagger Kayaks arrived in Lower Prospect looking for an offbeat place to live while he studied for a master’s degree in “benthic oceanography.” He rolled in like a paddling pied piper towing a trailer-load of boats and pretty soon kids were knocking on his door for lessons. Dave made a deal—if they could get three or more friends together, he’d take them out for free. “Kayaking with Dave” became a weekly tradition and today some of those kids work for him as guides.

A few years later, when it came time to decide, should he spend his life in school
or start a business and help save a town, Dave chose the less-travelled road and hasn’t looked back.

IN OTHER WORDS:

Plant roots
“I didn’t move here to start a company. I moved here to go to school. I knew I didn’t want to live in the city. I wanted to live somewhere I could drink coffee and look at the ocean. I basically drew a ring around Halifax that was within a reasonable commuting distance and started driving. I got to the end of the road and it said Lower Prospect and I thought, ‘that’s about right’.”

When opportunity knocks, answer

“There was a plane crash over that way—Swissair—in early September 1998. The kids were paddling a lot and they were loving it and the paddling industry was definitely about to hit a real burst. I was toiling away studying Arctic mud in this lab downtown. It was one of those moments that makes you think about what’s important. Then I got a knock on the door and it was one of the mothers of the kids and she said, ‘Why don’t you start a company? The kids are good at it. We can work in the office or whatever.’ So that’s what we did.”

Build it and they will come
“As soon as things started happening—liter- ally as soon as the first tree fell down to clear the lot—people showed up. Tommy from up the road showed up with a hammer to help! People just showed up to do whatever needed to be done. The strength of an ecotourism operation is it requires lots of different jobs to be done, which is why the fishery was so strong… which is why it can support a village.” 

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