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Rock the Boat: Orange and Black Like Me

Illustration: Lorenzo Del Bianco
Rock the Boat: Orange and Black Like Me

There’s a picture of me eating lunch. In the photo, four of us are sitting on a beach log in the heart of the lower Columbia River’s winter duck-hunting territory. We’re all wearing identical drysuits—orange and black—and drinking out of Thermoses festooned with stickers from every outdoor company you could imagine. We all have fancy, black-like-my-soul carbon fibre paddles and top-of-the-line British-style kayaks. My buddy Steve is telling a joke, probably a kayaker joke no duck hunter would understand.

My friends and I could be a gang. All that’s missing are tattoos and a secret handshake.

When I started sea kayaking, I thought I’d escaped the world of uniform-wearing outdoor geeks who all drive Subaru Outbacks and wear duds from the North Face—a gang I’d joined gradually over years of backpacking, skiing and mountaineering with guys who must have been born in Gore-Tex.

I found myself venturing away from the mountains and down to the Columbia River, which has a couple of centuries of the blue collar life of commercial fishing, logging and bar-piloting under its belt. The folks who live along the lower Columbia had been out in the elements for generations in lowbrow gear. They loved being on the water as much as I did, and they still do.

Like a breath of fresh air wafting down my home river, the gang colours faded away when I left the mountains. Camo and rubber boots replaced miracle fabrics. Boats built in garages were as common as modern ones. Guys paddled in yellow rubber raingear, Xtratufs and even jeans. I met a guy who built his canoe out of canvas and wood and held it together with large binder clips from an office supply store—and it floated. Whatever our boats were made of, we were rubbing elbows comfortably, enjoying our favourite part of the planet.

Then something went amiss. The gangsters expanded their territory, and I’m one of them, again.

It was bound to happen.

I’ve evolved from a summer
flatwater paddler to one who
seeks out wind, rough water and
surf year-round. Form follows
function: we have high-end stuff
because we are doing high-end
paddling. The orange drysuit is a
great piece of gear, and sure beats
being wet and hypothermic. My pal Andrew has a new Subaru because it doesn’t break down on the way to the put-in like his old Volvo. We’re still nice folks, we just have better stuff.

I have no intention of giving up gear that works, but I‘ve also seen a divide form. To a guy in rubber overalls with a boat made of office supplies, we look like a bunch of super-intense kayaking snobs who will look down our noses at their kit.

Others may see us as urbanite tourists invading their back 40 in space-age suits—the advance guard of the Gore- Tex army that will turn their neighbourhood waters into the next recreational getaway with latte shops they don’t want and can’t afford.

YOU CAN LOOK LIKE A GANG, JUST DON’T ACT LIKE ONE

If we look like a gang, it’s our job to be sure we don’t act like one. If we let the fancy gear go to our heads, we’ll miss the key reasons we kayak: to experience new places, new people, and for the camaraderie of being on the water together.

I make it a point to chat with everyone I meet on the water. It drives my buddies nuts, because I’m the last to load my boat when they’re ready to go, but I remind them that’s how I ran into them too, way back. And I have a new appreciation for a place called the Sea Hag.

The Sea Hag is a watering hole in Ilwaco, Washington, a fishing and bar-pilot town at the mouth of the Columbia. One time after a hard day of paddling, we stumbled in and groped our way through clouds of second-hand smoke to a table in the back, while fishermen hovered at the bar with raised eyebrows. When I went to refill my beer, I decided enough was enough. We ended up chatting at the bar, swap- ping stories about our mighty river. I was amazed by the conditions they’d ventured out in that would have me snug in my bed in Portland. They were equally astounded at where we went in 21-inch-wide boats in December.

Ultimately, drysuits or camo, we’re all just aquaholics enjoying the watery part of the world. And in a society where style often trumps substance, it’s the people we meet on the water who often turn out to be the most genuine. Let’s keep it that way.

See you at the Sea Hag, whatever you’re wearing.

Neil Schulman is an Oregon-based paddler and part-time fashion consultant specializing in waterproof–breathable fabrics. For dining at the Sea Hag, he recommends a yellow rain slicker.

This article on the colours kayakers tend to wear was published in the Spring 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak magazine.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.

 

 

Skills: Surf in Style

Photo: Paul Villecourt

Aside from being one of the coolest feelings in the world, good surfing skills let you make controlled landings when conditions aren’t perfectly flat. They also help you to catch rides on wind waves to pick up dramatic speed downwind.

Because sea kayaks are fast, you can start your ride on pretty gentle swells, before they become steep and start breaking.

To catch a wave, line up perpendicular to its face and, as it approaches, paddle aggressively forward in the direction the wave is moving.

Time your acceleration so that you reach maximum speed just when the wave reaches you and starts to pick up your stern. This will actually mean waiting until the wave is quite close before paddling forward. It should take only three to five strokes to get up to speed.

As you feel your stern being picked up, lean forward and continue with a few more powerful strokes until you’re sure that you’ve caught the wave.

Once surfing, you can stop paddling; gravity will keep you on the wave face. now’s the time to shift your weight back a bit to unweight your bow and use a stern pry stroke to control your direction.

A stern pry is the primary stroke for surfing because it’s the most powerful way to make small course corrections without slowing forward momentum.

To set up for the stern pry, plant your paddle firmly in the water behind your body. Submerge the whole blade for maximum power, and position the blade parallel to the kayak to minimize braking.

A strong pry requires aggressive torso rotation. Turn your whole upper body toward your ruddering blade. Your forward hand should be comfortably in front of your chest. Keeping your hands in front of your body in a power position protects your shoulders from injury. To steer, use the power of torso rotation to push away with the backside of your paddle blade.

Alternate between stern pries on either side of the boat. Plant your pry on the opposite side to the direction that your bow is beginning to deflect. If your bow starts to veer to the right, stern pry on the left, and vice versa. With time, you’ll get good at prying in anticipation of where the bow is going.

As the wave gets steeper and breaks, your bow will likely dive, or pearl, and dynamically deflect to the left or right. Don’t bother trying to fight this. Instead, quickly edge your boat toward the direction of the turn (into the wave) by shifting your weight onto the inside butt cheek and lifting the outer knee. If the wave is still green, you can carve right off of it. if it’s breaking, you’ll end up side surfing.

Side surfing involves sitting at the bot- tom of a breaking wave with your boat parallel to the break. To keep from being pushed over, shift your weight aggressively onto your butt cheek on the wave side of your kayak and brace against the foam pile with your paddle in a low or high brace position. Keep your arms tucked in close and your hands low to protect your shoulders from the force of the break. Side surfing can actually be a dependable and controlled way to land, although once you’re sideways in a breaking wave you’ll usually be locked that way until the wave’s power dissipates. That’s why it’s important to ensure that you have a safe and kayak-friendly run-out before hopping on any wave.

Five Steps to Surf

  1. Lean forward and paddle hard to catch the wave
  2. Lean back and steer with a stern pry

  3. Edge your boat aggressively into the turn
  4. Brace into the wave

  5. Carve off the back or ride out the side-surf

Alex Matthews is the author (with Ken Whiting) of the book Touring and Sea Kayaking—The Essential Skills and Safety and the instructional DVD The Ultimate Guide to Sea Kayaking, available at www.helipress.com.

This article on surfing in your sea kayak was published in the Spring 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak magazine.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.

Editorial: Dreaming Big

Photo: Adventure Kayak Staff
Editorial: Dreaming Big

I love airport security. It is one equalizer of all social classes. No matter the limit on your corporate gold card or number of zeros in your yearly salary, you’ve put all your valuables, your phone and pDa, in the tray and you’re standing there in your sock feet (or bare feet) feeding your shoes into the scanner and shuffling through the X-ray doorframe to the lady with the chirping wand. It’s the type of place where it is easy to strike up conversations with complete strangers who otherwise may have appeared too busy or important.

Keola Pang-Ching is a regional cargo sales manager for a national airline. He followed me through the security line-up in the Chicago airport and then flopped down beside me in business class. He was wearing the typical summer business uniform: khakis, company logo–embroidered golf shirt, Blackberry, leather shoes and black socks.

“It must be nice to do business in flip-flops,” he said before he introduced himself. “What do you do anyway?”

Keola says he spends most of his time in the air, looking down and dreaming of being on the water. “I want to buy a couple kayaks and get out on the water, veg out for a while and just let go,” he told me. “My son and I rented a double for a couple of hours when I took him on a business trip to Hawaii. I haven’t stopped dreaming about it since.”

DREAMING THE LIFE OF A PADDLER

When I tell people I’m the publisher of paddling magazines, it doesn’t matter if the person next to me is a wealthy grandma, multinational CEO, high-tech geek or an airline cargo manager. They all have dreams, and many of them dream the life of a paddler.

Kayaking is another economic class-breaking activity, one that captures imaginations and fuels a sense of adventure or escape in everyone. and the busier or more bored someone is with life and their job, the stronger their desire to escape and be on the water.

What’s your dream? Is it to work in flip-flops, live off the grid, travel the world or embark on a hairy expedition?

Dave Adler dreamed of starting his sea kayaking instruction and guiding business when studying mud to complete a master’s degree in benthic oceanography. Jon Bowermaster, now a well-recognized professional adventurer, was working as a freelance journalist interviewing talent like the Osmond Family when he had the time to dream up his first National Geographic expedition. Justine Curgenven was a working a hectic job at a TV network in the U.K. with no time left to paddle, while dream- ing of her own production company that would allow her the freedom to travel, kayak and film around the world.

Keola and I talked for the rest of the flight. I told him that I used live behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer, rolling down the highway shifting gears and speaking my dream of starting a paddling magazine into a Dictaphone. When the wheels of the plane touched down in Toronto we swapped business cards and shook hands wishing each other well.

Keola emailed me on his Blackberry just before Christmas from the Honolulu International Airport, “Scott, we just landed in Hawaii for the holidays and we’re going kayaking.” In the postscript, he told me what dreamers in leather shoes and work boots everywhere know to be true: “It feels good to be wearing my flip-flops.”  

This article on dreaming big was published in the Spring 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak magazine.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.

Creating The Mad River Outrage X Tandem

Two people paddling whitewater canoe.
What's old is two again. | Photo: Rick Matthews

In 1999 when Jim Henry originally designed the 13-foot Mad River Outrage X its audience was the big-water enthusiast running high-volume Class III and IV stuff and hefty 190-pound-plus paddlers who valued dryness and great stability in their straight-through type of river running. Pushing around 53 pounds of Royalex all by themselves was the price for the rock-solid feel of lots of boat around them.

Last summer a new Outrage X owner came to me with a vision. She saw the X as her very own light hybrid tandem boat.

Its prior owner had moved on to something lighter and smaller and the boat had languished unused for years. She picked it up for a song. She wanted me to rip out the solo outfitting and install tandem saddles, creating what we are now calling the Outrage X2 (times two).

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: View all Mad River canoes ]

Mad River Canoe Outrage X2 Specs
Length: 13’
Width: at waterline 27”
Weight: 53 lbs

madrivercanoe.com

She showed up at the Gull River Open Canoe Slalom Race with her X2. After a few runs through the gates, there was a lineup of tandem owners eager to try this fast and nimble creation.

There were two major surprises with this experiment. The first was the fact that the 13-foot hull could carry two paddlers with a combined weight of 350 pounds, and do it without taking on noticeably more water than other tandems going through the course. Secondly, it was amazingly stable and fun to paddle and race.

Henry says he created both the Outrage X and its little sister the Outrage as “fish form” asymmetrical hulls with most of the volume up front like a tuna (more recent hull designs like the Esquif Spark have much more aggressively used this “cab forward” idea), which he says gives the hull its buoyancy. And the forward section is a shallow arch, tapering to a slight V in the stern, which, according to Henry, gives the boat its speed and manoeuvrability.

There are other boats that have morphed in ways that their designers never expected. Dagger Ocoees (now manufactured by Bell) have had their gunwales pulled in and the sheer cut down. The Dagger Genesis, the Grand Canyon solo boat of choice in the early 1990s, has also been reborn as a tandem for lighter—as in female—paddlers. Even the Dagger Prophet has been chopped down and tweaked to become the Ophet.

Taking on an open boat modification project like the X2, like any outfitting, required some thoughtful work. The thwarts had to be moved toward the ends to accommodate the two seats and a yoke installed in the centre for strength. With the two saddles free to move, we took the boat—and a wax marker—to the water to play with the seat positions. A very slight stern-heavy position when the boat was not moving gave the most efficient looking bow wave when the boat was paddled.

[ Further reading: Boat Review: Esquif Spark ]

The Outrage X is still part of Mad River’s lineup of whitewater solo canoes. But outfitted tandem it is such a sparkling performer that it makes you wonder if it should have been designed that way.

This article was first published in Rapid‘s Spring 2007 issue. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here , or browse the archives here.

What’s old is two again. | Photo: Rick Matthews

Have Instructors Lost Their Mojo?

Photo: Rick Matthews
Have Instructors Lost Their Mojo?

There was a time, not so long ago, when kayak instructors were incredibly cool. Back in the day when the five-day kayak course was the norm, kayak instructors were pioneers of the river lifestyle, living out of the back of their vans, and oozing mojo. Instructors held the secrets to the river, and if you were lucky some of their cool rubbed off on you. Clients adored them. every paddler wanted to become them. They were the top of the paddling food chain. 

Now the mojo has worn off.

Instructors are younger and less experienced, there is more turnover year to year, certification courses have fallen off the radar and kayak schools have trouble finding instructors. Instructing just isn’t cool anymore. 

There are some reasons why the five-day kayak vacation has gone the way of long boats.

The interaction between student and instructor is just not the same in the new shorter time span. Two days is just not long enough for students to realize how cool the instructor is.

Add to this changing demographics. At one time, kayak students were young, athletic free spirits, and were ga-ga over their slightly older, athletic, tanned, free-spirited instructor. Instructors basked in the limelight that allowed their mojo to blossom.

Now the typical student is in his or her mid- 40s. They don’t quite hit it off with the 19-year-old instructor bow stalling in front of them. At 40, bow stalling is not conducive to mojification.

What’s more, modern boats are just plain easier to paddle. Gone are the days of the nervous eddy turn, heroic bow rescues, and long apprenticeships under the all-knowing instructor. Even more subtly, the psychology of danger has changed in kayaking. Instructors were once key to survival, cautiously meting out challenges only when the student proved worthy.

Now, rivers once viewed as a series of dangerous cataracts are seen as play spots. In the a right boat, a newbie can be bouncing in holes t that schools used to walk around. A beginner can now learn in one day what used to take three weeks. The secrets of the river are not so secret anymore. So who’s cool now? Ego-boaters. They paddle for themselves with hedonistic pleasure. They do anything—park and play, jibbing, dropping big ones—as long as it’s big and looks good on film. Websites and video biographies of pro boaters self-proclaim celebrity status. The pittance that boaters used to earn a through instruction has been replaced with the s pittance earned from highly caffeinated energy drink sponsorship. The all-knowing, omnipotent instructor has passed the torch to the brash, a brand-conscious paddling porn star. 

For kayak instruction, this means a paradigm shift. For a young paddler, the instructor role is e merely a stepping stone toward full-time ego- boating. It is no longer the top rung of the ladder, only a way station where they prostitute s themselves on the way to a big break and a video appearance (and a free paddle).

As an upside, this new blood has changed y the way kayaking is taught. shorter boats, play- s boating attitudes, and a new view on dange means the progression is faster. The secrets are all laid out, and newbies are rolling, surfing and running rapids on day one. New instructors (the aspiring ego-boaters) became good paddlers quickly, and this influences how they teach—the 45-year-old office worker learns quickly too. Instructors no longer hold paddlers back, but push them at a rapid pace. The door is open for new paddlers to quickly put some skills together, and dream of attaining full-time ego-boating mojo.

Alas, kayak instructors have been relegated to the status of grade school teachers: vital for the basics, an intrinsic part of the culture, and definitely not sexy.

Instructors, whether they know it or not, are there to open a door and share the understanding that the river is there for everyone to tap into. Fun and play are key—two things egoboaters know better than anyone—and new paddlers quickly grasp that the secrets are not as mysterious as they once believed them to be.

Done well, teaching gets people excited about learning, even if they don’t get the answer right. Paddling instruction, when done well, gets people excited about paddling.

And here lies the irony. If mojo is defined , as cool status and the living of a vaunted lifestyle, then the instructor is passé. If mojo really does have more to do with reproductive prowess—the ability to make more paddlers—then instructors still have it.

Jeff Jackson has been teaching kayaking since boats were long and eddy turns were nervous. And yes, he used to be cool. 

Screen_Shot_2016-01-13_at_12.02.49_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here. 

Editorial: New Kids on the Auction Block

Photo: Scott MacGregor
Editorial: New Kids on the Auction Block

“Here we have an Underwood typewriter. Still in the case. Looks in fine shape. She’s a real beauty. We even have some spare ribbons. Let’s start at 10 dollars. How ‘bout five dollars? Four dollars? okay ma’am, we have four dollars. Do I hear five dollars?”

I walked solemnly between the folding tables. Laid out on the tables were a man’s worldly possessions, all his livelihood and his passions. Auction sales happen where I live almost every weekend all summer long. The owners of the stuff are either too old, broke or dead to need them anymore.

Next on the block was a vintage Kodak Brownie and burned into the leather camera case was the name Don MacKay.

In his younger days, judging from the camping gear being carried out, Don was an outdoorsy man. And judging from his old typewriter and cameras he was also a two-way man—what they used to call a journalist who worked as both a writer and photographer. The locals say that in the mid-’60s, he launched an award-winning men’s magazine. He was, in many ways, a guy just like me.

I thought about buying Don’s typewriter and camera for sentimental reasons; I thought they’d be nice to set atop an antique bureau. Imagine the technological differences between this simple brown box camera and my titanium-shelled, eight-megapixel digital SLR, or any of the others used by the pro photographers whose photos appear in this year’s photo annual. I realized that in 45 years, our fancy cameras will be auctioned off, like Don’s Brownie, for less then the price of a cheeseburger.

But the images themselves, the whitewater images between the pages of Rapid, will live on. They are archives of the year’s latest tricks, hottest boats, trendy gear, top dogs and the popular spots to paddle.

Rapid’s photo annual is a time capsule, a snapshot if you will, of whitewater paddling to- day. The photos are historical references for the next generation of paddlers.

Unlike Paul Mason, the fortunate 10-year-old who I watched shooting Little Thompson Rapids on the Petawawa River in his dad’s film, Path of the Paddle, I didn’t start paddling until I was almost 20.

But the new generation is getting an early start. They’re already riding mojo with their parents on wilderness river trips, they’re learning to rip in Jackson Fun kids kayaks and grabbing their own eddies in the new Splash—the first open canoe for kids. Whitewater camps and whitewater high school credit programs are springing up all over the continent. Go tripping and it’s not uncommon to pass babies on remote portages, all swaddled in their little baby carriers.

Never before have parents been more excited about getting their kids out of the mainstream and into the rapids.

I’ve been swimming my son through class II rapids since he was six months old. This summer, at a year-and-a-half, he giggles as we carve into eddies and then points back toward the current for another go. When he and his generation are grown ups, my laptop and camera will be long obsolete and worthless. But these photos will show future generations that whitewater paddling has roots, and it has soul.

I didn’t bid on Don’s camera afterall. I bought a cheeseburger, handed in my auction number and walked out Don’s driveway to my truck.

Instead of going to the office that Saturday morning, I grabbed my camera and took my kids to the river.  

Screen_Shot_2016-01-13_at_12.02.49_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here. 

Butt End: Cats and Dogs

Photo: Bruce Montagne
Butt End: Cats and Dogs

When we pulled into the portage on the Steel River and saw an arrow pointing straight up a giant slab of granite, Alana and I immediately started procrastinating. We easily killed 20 minutes discussing the best way (winching? crawling?) to get our gear and canoe up the precipice.

Our dog Bailey, as usual, was less patient. If you’ve ever heard that springer spaniels are hyper, then you didn’t hear it from me. Frenzied is the word I would use. When it comes to portaging, she just wants the ordeal over as quickly as possible. I’ve given up trying to leash her while on the trail, which is why we only take her on remote trips where there’s little chance of meeting up with other people. And most animals rebuff her attempts to be playful.

Her routine is simple—jump out of the canoe as we approach the take-out, wait impatiently as I lash her pack on, and then sprint to the end and take a relaxing swim while we catch up.

While Alana and I dithered, Bailey was climbing the wall—literally. She scrambled up and down the slab looking more and more impatient. Finally we loaded her panniers up with all her dog food and shouldered our packs.

An hour later Alana and I had dragged everything up to the summit and began following a still-eager Bailey along the last kilometre of rough portage.

Sometime after Alana did a face plant and I crunched my crotch while trying to straddle a giant boulder we heard Bailey whimpering ahead of us. This was a new sound. I jogged ahead to see what was up and came across a cowering Bailey trembling uncontrollably while a lynx, just a few metres away, was crouching in a predatory position straight out of Mutual of Omaha and was slowly moving in for the kill. 

I had never seen a lynx before, which is my excuse for why my first reaction was to unpack my camera rather than rescue my dog. When Bailey saw me trying to snap a picture of her assailant she gave me a look that made me glad dogs can’t talk. Guilt ridden, I dropped the camera and chased off the lynx with a paddle.

We finished the portage shortly afterward, but I still don’t have a photo of a lynx, and Bailey has been afraid of the neighbour’s cat ever since. 

Kevin Callan advises you to keep watch over your pets when in wildcat country in his latest book, The Happy Camper. 

This article on cats was published in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots.This article first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here. 

Canoe Routes: Paddle Through the Past

Photo: Glenbow Archives NA-2546-15
Canoe Routes: Paddle Through the Past

Cars have come a long way since the Model-T, modern bicycles bear little resemblance to penny farthings and the wright brothers would scarcely recognize a stealth bomber as an airplane. Despite a much longer history, the simple design of a canoe has changed little over the centuries.

maybe that’s why it’s easy to feel you are part of a heritage that is still very much intact whenever you push off from shore in a canoe. here are four routes on which it’s easy to commune with canoeing’s past.

Paddle in the spirit of newfoundland’s first inhabitants on the exploits, behind one of Canada’s greatest explorers on the Peace river, in tune with the voyageurs through Quetico and in the slipstream of those who helped rejuvenate canoeing as a recreational pastime on the Churchill River. 

Peace River / British Columbia and Alberta 

When Alexander Mackenzie paddled the Peace River in 1793, he described its shores as having “the most beautiful scenery [he] had ever beheld.” These are not words to be taken lightly coming from the explorer who criss-crossed Canada by canoe several times while seeking canoe routes to the Arctic and Pacific oceans.

Mackenzie was the first European to paddle the 2,000-kilometre Peace River. His crew of six wintered in Fort Fork, near the present-day town of Peace River, before continuing upstream against the Peace’s steady current in a reinforced, 25-foot birchbark canoe. When they ran out of river they portaged 14 kilometres over the Rockies and pushed on to the Pacific tidewater near Bella Coola, British Columbia.

In 1968, the W.A.C. Bennett Dam created Williston Lake—the largest in British Columbia—and manhandled the upper portion of the river. But below Hudson’s Hope the Peace River remains much the same as when Mackenzie paddled it more than two centuries ago.

Between Hudson’s Hope and the Alberta border the Peace is a prairie river, cutting a wind- ing course through 270-metre-high banks of silt and clay, its flow augmented by hundreds of ice-cold, mineral-rich springs. Mackenzie called this section of river “a magnificent theatre of nature [that] has all the decoration which the trees and animals of the country can afford it.”

To rediscover Mackenzie’s Peace River, put in at Hudson’s Hope, British Columbia, on Highway 29, and float just over 200 kilometres downstream and across the provincial border to Dunvegan, Alberta, on Highway 2. As long as you can handle easy whitewater, this section of river is portage-free and takes five to seven days to paddle comfortably. 

Exploits River / Newfoundland 

The Exploits River was once the main transportation artery for Newfoundland’s Beothuk. Like most aboriginal bands, the Beothuk were often on the move. They paddled 14- to 20-foot birchbark canoes up and down a 120-kilometre stretch of the Exploits to travel from their winter homes around Red Indian Lake in Newfoundland’s wildlife-rich interior to the Atlantic coast of Notre Dame Bay, where they spent their summers fishing. 

But the Beothuk were more reclusive than other aboriginal bands when it came to dealing with Europeans. Rather than trading directly, they picked up discarded metal goods at abandoned European settlements, and altered their traditional routes to avoid encounters. Misunderstandings led to violent conflicts and their population plummeted. The last known Beothuk, named Shanawdithit, was captured in 1828. She died in St. John’s in 1829.

In addition to the attributes that made it appealing to its first paddlers—ample wildlife and a direct route from the interior to the coast—the Exploits makes for good day- and multi-day tripping for paddlers comfortable paddling in or portaging around class I to III whitewater. The Exploits holds its water well throughout the summer and parts of it see less traffic today than they did in the time of the Beothuk.

The best paddling on the Exploits is upstream of the Abitibi pulp mill in Grand Falls-Windsor. Beothuk Park, located in town on the Trans-Canada Highway, makes a good take-out. For a day trip, shuttle 20 kilometres upstream to Aspen Brook. Put in further upstream at Badger for an overnight trip or at Buchans for a four-day trip. 

Churchill River / Saskatchewan

The revival of wilderness canoeing in the 1970s can be credited in part to a man who had remote waterways all to himself in the previous decades. Sigurd Olson, an environmentalist and writer from Minnesota, popularized recreational wilderness paddling with his accounts of canoeing in the Boundary Waters and Quetico area in his best-selling compilations of short stories, The Singing Wilderness and The Listening Point.

In these books, Olson eloquently described the charms and hardships of travelling by paddle and portage and living outdoors. But only one of Olson’s canoe trips was worthy of being the focus of an entire book—northern Saskatchewan’s Churchill River, which he described in The Lonely Land.

In the summer of 1955, Olson and five paddling partners—including Eric Morse, a University of Toronto historian and member of the band of canoeists dubbed the latter- day Voyageurs—paddled three cedar canvas canoes 800 kilometres down the Churchill and Sturgeon-Weir rivers from Ile-a-la-Crosse, Saskatchewan, to The Pas, Manitoba. It was unheard of at the time to take a seven- week canoe trip for pleasure.

“We traveled as the voyageurs did, paddled the same lakes, ran the same rapids, and packed over their ancient portages,” wrote Olson of their trip. “We knew the winds and storms, saw the same skylines, and felt the awe and wonderment that was theirs.”

The Churchill consists of a series of lakes connected by short channels of fast water. The main access points are Ile-a-la-Crosse, Missinipe and Sandy Bay, all of which are north of La Ronge, Saskatchewan. If you don’t have three weeks to paddle the 386- kilometre, 20-portage section between Ile-a-la-Crosse and Missinipe or two weeks to paddle the 222 kilometres between Mis- sinipe and Sandy Bay, your best bet is to fly in to a lake somewhere along the way. A great five- to seven-day trip involves chartering a floatplane from Missinipe to Sandfly Lake and paddling the Churchill’s network of lakes back to your vehicle. 

Quetico / Ontario

Ontario’s Quetico Provincial Park was once part of a voyageur route that stretched from Montreal to the furry heart of Canada.

Canoe brigades met in early July just east of Quetico at Fort William, near present day Thunder Bay, where the 36-foot birchbark canots du maitre from Montreal would exchange their metalware and muskets for the winter’s worth of pelts arriving from inland via smaller canots du nord. Once the last cask of rum ran dry, the canots du maitre would return to Montreal to send English gentlemen their sought-after beaver hats and the inland voyageurs would return to their posts.

Shortly after hauling their newly-acquired goods across the 13-kilometre-long Grand Portage, bloodshot-eyed voyageurs would enter the 4,600-square-kilometre watery network of Quetico—lakes and rivers which drain north to Hudson Bay and the Arctic. A first-timer crossing this height of land would be awarded a black feather and be baptized an homme du nord—before paddling a few more thousand kilometres to spend a cold, lonely winter at a forgotten northern post.

The best way to recreate the voyageur experience through Quetico is to take a week to paddle the 125-kilometre French Lake to Cache Lake loop. Starting at the French Lake access point on Highway 11, the route follows Baptism Creek to Baptism Lake—named after the voyageurs’ black feather ceremony. From here, you’ll pass through nine lakes before returning to French Lake via Pickerel Lake. With nearly 12 kilometres of portages—some rocky, some wet—you’ll earn your black feather. 

This article on canoe routes was published in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots.This article first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here. 

Kirk Wipper: The Passion of the Collector

Photos from the collection of Kirk Wipper
Kirk Wipper: The Passion of the Collector

Kirk Wipper is like a firefly—visibly shining, but hard to catch. When I finally caught up with him after weeks of pursuit he had just returned from the annual Fiddlers on the Tobique in New Brunswick. As Honorary Patron, he led the parade of 1,500 canoes and almost as many musicians playing fiddles, mandolins and banjos down the beautiful Tobique River in the central highlands of northern New Brunswick. Before the Tobique he had been a guest speaker at the an- nual Maine Canoe Symposium, and on the interven- ing weekend he had led 60 canoes down Ontario’s Trent River, a new event he had helped to instigate in 2003 to raise money for the World Food Bank.

It’s a busy schedule for an octogenarian to maintain, but Kirk doesn’t seem to tire. Kirk modestly takes advantage of every canoeing opportunity that his status as the world’s greatest canoe col- lector brings him. Though his name is inextricably linked to a museum collection, there’s nothing hushed or sedate about Kirk’s love of canoeing. In the past 10 years he has found enough time away from festivals and events to canoe—or raft—some of North America’s great rivers, including the Thelon, Tatshenshini, Alsek, Nahanni, and, wildest of all, the Naranjo in Costa Rica.

KIRK’S EARLY YEARS

Canoes have been the centrepiece of much of Kirk’s life, but it was not always that way. Growing up on a pioneer farm in the Inter-lake district of central Manitoba, the son and grandson of German immigrants, there was nary a canoe in sight. Living close to nature on a farm carved out of the northern bush, he learned early about hard work, frugal- ity and optimism. Having left Germany to escape the militarism growing out of the rising nationalist fervour, his parents also instilled in him a deep and abiding love of Canada. 

It was not until his arrival in Toronto in 1946, after war-time service in the Canadian Navy, that Kirk really made contact with the canoe. When involvement with the YMCA took him north to be an instructor at Pinecrest summer camp, Kirk discovered the canoe’s true value as a vehicle to connect with the natural world. There he quickly realized that the canoe was a device for leadership training, with its emphasis on self-reliance and resourcefulness.

Early in his career of teaching in the School of Physical Education and Health at the University of Toronto in 1957, Kirk bought Camp Kandalore, a boys’ camp on Haliburton’s Lake Kabakwa. A couple of years later, the head of Kirk’s university department presented him with a basswood dugout canoe from the 1890s which had been found on his farm near Lakefield. The canoe was given pride of place in the dining hall at Kandalore, and the collection began.

KANAWA INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF CANOES

The dugout was soon joined by other unique canoes, including two vintage Peterborough freight canoes which were treasured as much for their historic value as for their usefulness in providing ferry service to Chapel Island, as platforms for stage performances, as diving rafts, or just as large baggage conveyors. Three canoes belonging to the Arctic explorer George Douglas, a birchbark canoe from Maniwaki, Quebec, and several others formed the nucleus of Kandalore’s growing collection, which Kirk had named the Kanawa International Museum of Canoes, Kayaks and Rowing Craft.

Without intentionally starting out as a collector, Kirk had developed a passion for canoes and his collection began to snowball. His many friends in his university, camping and Royal Life-Saving So- ciety circles soon grew into a worldwide network of contacts which included canoe builders and museum curators who kept him informed of any interesting watercraft as they became available.

Opportunities to acquire special canoes often came with a hefty price tag. In Kirk’s words: “It of- ten involved big sacrifices—I was often in debt, but I knew what was being done was right and it had to be done. I felt I had a responsibility to do the best possible job of collecting so I could tell the whole story of the relationship of canoes and kayaks to the environment and to the history of Canada. Once I had started down this path there was no turning back.” 

A LONG NEGOTIATION

His most anxious moments came during the acquisition of 44 canoes from the Heye Foundation’s Museum of the American Indian in New York. He had learned that the museum could no longer afford to look after this valuable collection, and Kirk began negotiations to buy them for Kanawa.

For eight years Kirk negotiated, in competition with several world museums, including the Smithsonian. Kirk remembers: “The time came when the Heye Foundation’s board was meeting to make a decision. There were 63 members on the board, the discussion went on and on, and in the end they agreed by one vote to let them go to Kanawa. I got the message about midnight and immediately phoned my son, David, standing by in New York with two big moving vans, to begin loading. In the meantime, two American congressmen, not wanting the collection to leave the U.S., tried to stop the trucks from crossing the border. I had anticipated this, and already had an import number in place with customs. When David phoned me to say that they were being held up at the border, I phoned the head of customs and the trucks were immediately waved through!” 

Kirk’s problems were not over. He still had to find $150,000 to complete the deal. 

Fortunately, Kirk’s many friends helped out with loans, all of which had to be repaid.

In years of major purchases for the collection, Camp Kandalore sometimes operated at a loss and it became clear it could no longer sustain the museum. To safeguard the camp, the museum was incorporated as a separate entity, with a board of directors to help with the much-needed fundraising. 

Kirk was always on the lookout for canoes which he felt should be in the collection. Never having been able to find a Haida dugout, he commissioned the building of one. Kirk remembers going to the Queen Charlotte Islands in 1971 to take possession of it: “Within living memory, no dugout had been built by the Haida, and Victor Adams undertook the work with some trepidation. The Haida helped us to give the canoe a ceremonial launching. As we prepared to push off the beach, I was struck by the wistful interest many children showed in the canoe. We offered the children a ride, discovering that none had ever before been in a Haida dugout. Despite our best efforts, we found the new canoe sluggish in the water, and responded to Victor Adam’s beckoning to return to the beach. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘Our canoe moves much better the other way around.’ How courageous they are, I thought to myself, to let their children venture out with Eastern amateurs!” 

A NEW HOME FOR THE CANOES

The canoes were beautifully displayed at Kandalore in a handsome log building especially built for the purpose. As the collection grew to 600 boats the building could no longer contain them all and some of the largest had to be stored outside under shelters. In addition to the worries about financing, the danger of fire and theft was ever present, humidity and temperature controls were out of the question, and insurance was impossible. Kirk’s resources were stretched to the limit. The time had come to seek a solution.

When it became known that Kirk was seeking a new location for his collection in the 1980s, a group at Trent University began exploring the possibility of establishing a museum in Peterborough, the home of the famous Peterborough Canoe Company. After negotiations with the newly formed Canadian Canoe Museum were complete, the transfer of canoes took place over several summers in the mid-1990s, whenever trucks and volunteers to drive them were available. Kirk’s collection had found a new home in a safe and controlled environment.

The collection was first put on display to the public in May, 1996. In the words of John Jennings, historian and founding member of the museum’s board of directors, “The collection that Kirk Wipper has amassed over four decades is the foremost collection of canoes and kayaks in the world. It is a national treasure that speaks to Canada’s identity and represents much of her early history.”

To give Kirk the last word: “I always knew that one day the public would take the collection to its heart, pick up the torch and run with it.”

Kirk has been honoured with the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario for creating this national treasure, but as he says, “It’s not what one has done, but what one might still do that is important—Never rest on your paddle.”

Gwyneth Hoyle is the co-author of Canoeing North into the Unknown and is currently working on a biography of northern surveyor Guy Blanchet. 

This article on Kirk Wipper was published in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots.This article first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here. 

Sandbanks Provincial Park: Exploring Nothing

Photo: Martin Lortz
Sandbanks Provincial Park: Exploring Nothing

When making the turn off the Trans-Canada Highway towards Burgeo, the picturesque village on the southwest tip of Newfoundland and the gateway to Sandbanks Provincial Park, the sign reads, “Fill your gas tank.” Heed the warning; the next pump is at the end of the road, and between you and it lays 150 kilometres of nothing; but nothing has never looked so good.

A SENSE OF ADVENTURE

You can’t help being overtaken by a sense of adventure as you make the turn down that long lonely road toward Sandbanks Provincial Park. The tunnel of trees lining the road gives way to green tundra-covered hills that roll off into the distance in a cascade of stacked ridges fading to grey; boulder-strewn river beds dip beneath the road and smooth dark-water ponds beg for the graceful arc of a fly-tipped line.

It’s a long drive to a park with only 25 camping sites that does not accept reservations. However being more than two hours off the beaten path, there are typically sites available, except during the annual Sand and Sea Festival always held the last weekend of July. This celebration of local music and culture brings revellers from far and near to partake in outdoor dances, a local food fair, games for young and not so young and of course the constant beat of East Coast music.

There has been plenty of dancing on the beaches of Sandbanks over the centuries. Archeological evidence on Sandbanks Island indicates that the Dorset Eskimo were the first inhabitants in the area. Next to visit was Sir Humphrey in 1583 and by 1628 the Portuguese were fishing the waters off the “Virgio Island.” The Anglican population arrived from England in the late 1700s and settled on the ground which is now Sandbanks Provincial Park. Later the settlement was moved to the site now known as Burgeo, to take advantage of the sheltered waters for their fishing boats.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The first impression upon arriving at Sandbanks Provincial Park is, WOW! Seven kilometres of white sand beach left behind by glacier deposits stretches as far as you can see. A wall of sand dunes frames the beach and the whole fragile structure is bound together by a thick carpet of dune grass and beach pea swaying in the breeze. Lapping at the sand is an expanse of water so blue it begs you to a swim. It is a landscape from a land much, much farther south, perhaps North Carolina, except that your ankles go numb before your knees get wet. After all this is the Atlantic Ocean and you are swimming at the latitude of James Bay with a local climate resembling southern Siberia. You have to be a brave soul to dunk your head here, a deed reserved for the bravest among us, meaning those 14 years of age and younger. The rest of us can settle for a dip at the roped-off swimming area on the much shallower, warmer, freshwater swimming pond.

Whatever your vacationing pleasure, Sandbanks and surrounding area has much more nothing than the road sign would suggest. An afternoon drive is really nothing to a place where surf pounds, music plays and kids dance on the beach; where morning mist rolls in over rocky islands and the water sparkles blue. Where quiet walks through the streets of Burgeo end in a tasty plateful of fresh fish and chips; a place that is guaranteed to fill your photo album with warm memo- ries and spectacular images.

But remember, fill your tank. The next pump is at the end of the road and after 150 kilometres of, well you know…

This article on Newfoundland was published in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots.This article first appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here. 

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