Hard Labor: First Descent Of Siberia’s Chebdar River

Struggling to keep a grip on my 90-pound kayak, I tried to anchor it to a tree. No luck; the weight of the fully loaded boat started to drag me down the rotten incline until my legs jammed underneath a log and a stick probed me in an unmentionable place.

All humor had long since tumbled into the gorge below, along with untold amounts of loose scree. We were seven hours into a portage around a 50-meter section of Siberia’s Chebdar River. I gripped the grab loop as if it were my own sanity. If I let go the boat would have plummeted thousands of feet back to where this ridiculous journey began, stranding me in the middle of the Altai Mountains with only a paddle.

overhead photo of red and blue kayaks running a rocky river

30 Essential River Running Skills

Hard labor on Siberia’s Chebdar River

It was the fifth day of our six-day, self-supported first descent of the Chebdar. To get to the put-in we had hiked two days over ground so rough the pack horses we had hired were turned around by their owners. The morning broke with the typical schedule of coffee, energy bars and talk about what lay ahead—except today we didn’t know what lay ahead. The river had been attempted by raft twice before. Both parties had met unnavigable gorges, abandoned their missions and gear, and walked out.

After two quick kilometers, a canyon pinched the river into a horrendous maze of terminal holes and exposed rocks that funnelled the angry water through woody sieves. The final section pushed itself through a two-meter gap between cliffs that fell straight into the river. Our only option was to climb.

Mountain climbing with kayaks

It was early—11 a.m.—and I assumed we’d find a route above the gorge with a few hours of portaging. That optimism slipped away with every step. The climb began on as steep a slope as trees can grow on, each step sunk knee-deep into decomposing vegetation. Three labored hours later the trees thinned and I turned my head to see the canyon wall close on the other side of the gorge. I tied my boat off to a tree and it hung nearly suspended in the air. We were now on a climbing expedition with kayaks—people and boats were to be on belay or tied off to anchors at all times.

We pooled every piece of climbing gear we had and followed the most obvious way forward, a three-pitch traverse that ended in a highly exposed dead end. Russell Kelly free-climbed straight up on a scouting mission using the hanging vegetation to aid his ascent. A long hour later he came swinging back down like a clothed Tarzan: “It’s a long, long way up. But I made it to the top and found a ravine that goes down. No guarantees but it might get us down to the river.”

Three hours into the portage and we were less than half way to the top. Every water bottle was swinging empty at the end of its clip. The possibility that we’d descend back down to the river only to find more impassable sections nagged at me like the neoprene rubbing on my blisters. We had little information about what was downstream. Russian paddlers told us it looked runnable, but that was only from map and aerial scouting.

After three pitches, the steepness mellowed and we began shouldering our boats toward a saddle as dusk fell. I reached it last and came across a desperate scene. Five dirt-encrusted figures were bent over and panting dryly through mouths that hadn’t tasted water in hours.

A sleepless night on scree

Though skeptical about blindly descending, we couldn’t stay put so we began lowering the boats through a steep tree-choked ravine. Four rope lengths later we came out at the top of a scree field. For the first time in hours I could hear the river below.

Camp was destined to be at the base of the scree field, above the lip of a cliff that faded into darkness. Pruzan and I followed the beam of our headlamps toward the sound of some running water coming out of the cliff below. I anchored myself to a tree and slowly lowered Pruzan across a descending traverse to a rivulet where he filled up all the water bottle and a big drybag. Nothing will ever taste as good.

Chebdar River, day 5. Downriver of the day-long portage from hell. Nothing worth having comes without some sort of fight. | Photo: Seth Warren

Relief overcame fatigue when Wilson’s whistle put an end to the few hours I spent in my tent wondering which of us would be crushed or swept off the cliff by the talus that was still adjusting to having been disturbed for the first time by six clumsy humans.

Triumph And Tragedy In Russia’s Altai Mountains

Back to the business at hand

After a meager breakfast, we got back at it, traversing along the rim of a cliff until we found a five-hour route down to the river through another scree field as a thunderclap announced a downpour of rain. We arrived back to the river at 11 a.m. after 24 hours spent getting around 50 meters of river.

All we could see downstream was a class VI rapid that led into a thin gorge. There didn’t seem to be any way to scout it, but it didn’t matter. Portaging again was out of the question.

Seth Warren was joined on the Altai expedition by Russell Kelly, Aaron Pruzan, Matt Wilson, Ryan Casey, Evan Ross, Adam Majors and Nick Turner.

This article originally appeared in Rapid’s Spring 2006 issue. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.

Baskaus River, day 1. “The Baskaus has been run since the 1970s. We assumed it would be a good warm-up for the more remote Chebdar River. I wish we had a warm-up for the warm-up.” | Feature photo: Seth Warren

Upper Limits: Paddling Niagara Falls

Stories

Photo: George Bailey/Niagara Falls Public Library — Upper Limits: Paddling Niagara Falls

I was seven the first time I saw Niagara Falls. My strongest memories of that family vacation are of the wax museum, Ripley’s Believe It or Not and grilled cheese sandwiches. The falls didn’t impress me much, and it certainly didn’t occur to me to run them.

The same can’t be said for others. Since 1901 Niagara Falls has attracted nutbars of all sorts going over the lip for their final swan song or for a shot at fame and fortune. Besides the 20 suicide victims police purportedly retrieve from the pool below every year, 15 “daredevils” have run the falls. Ten have survived.

Most of those 15 attempts sound like contenders for the Gong Show. They’ve relied on all manner of inner tubes, wooden barrels and metal kegs. One guy even rode off the lip on a jetski, hoping his rocket-propelled parachute would bring him down safely. Unfortunately he did a poor job of attaching the parachute to his body.

Most recently, in 2003, Kirk Jones, an unemployed man from Detroit, survived a swim over the falls wearing nothing but the shirt on his back (and some pants). He went on to join the Toby Tyler Circus. To paddlers, though, one story stands out.

Jesse Sharp, an unemployed 28-year-old from Ocoee, Tennessee, had ten years of whitewater experience behind him when he ran Niagara Falls in his red Dancer C1 on June 5, 1990, making headlines across the continent and reinforcing the public’s belief that paddlers are all crazy. He didn’t wear a helmet so his face wouldn’t be obscured in photographs. Friends believed he did it as a stunt in order to launch a career as a stunt man.

But Sharp may not have been a total quack. He had a decent creeking resume and he scouted the falls for three years. On the day of his attempt he made dinner arrangements downriver in Queenston. We can only assume he made his line, but he never made it to dinner. Authorities recovered his boat, which suffered only a mi- nor dent, but Sharp’s body was never found. It seems 170 feet of freefall was too much.

When Jesse Sharp went over Niagara Falls the world record for successful waterfall descents belonged to Shaun Baker for his freefall of 49.5 feet. Six years later Baker upped his own record to 75 feet. With Ed Lucero and Dave Grove both breaking the 100-foot barrier in the last three years, 170-foot Niagara is looking more and more like the type of river paddlers challenge themselves on and less like a sideshow for a wax museum.

People run waterfalls (and paddle whitewater, for that matter) for all sorts of reasons, but very few do it because it will make them famous. Those pushing the envelope of paddling are doing it with a noticeable lack of bravado after long bushwhacks through hordes of bugs. Ed Lucero fretted for a week with fear gnawing his sleep before he committed to running the 105-foot Alexandra Falls in the Northwest Territiories. Dave Grove thought his 101-foot run of Oregon’s Metlako Falls might be a record, but he didn’t get back to measure it until a month later.

These paddlers were not reckless seekers of fame. In some ways both were humbled by their accomplishments, but they also upped the ante when it comes to what is possible in a kayak. These accomplishments open the door for bigger challenges and expand the pool of what is considered possible.

Twenty years after my first family trip to Niagara, the falls impressed me more, and I spent a long time tracing lines over the lip to the pulverized froth below. It still doesn’t occur to me to run the falls—it’s both illegal and likely a quick death—but paddlers are now dropping falls nearly two-thirds the height of Niagara. It says a lot about the pace of progress in our sport that paddlers have even caused me wonder if they’ll ever reclaim this natural wonder from its dark history as a tourist-ridden venue for stunts and suicide missions.

Jeff Jackson admits he spent more time on a winery tour than at the falls or the wax museum during his last trip to Niagara.

This article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

Editorial: Tough Love

Stories

Photo: Tim Calver — Editorial: Tough Love

Dave Calver has paddled more rivers in more countries than I can name without the help of an atlas. Tough, stubborn, sensitive—but never too sensitive to tell you what he was thinking if you stared too long at a shot glass or a boulder-ridden class V run. Dave would always pipe up, “Come on man, take your balls out of you purse.”

When I caught up with him last spring in a wheelchair-accessible brewpub in downtown Vancouver, Dave told me that those are words I’ll never hear him say again.

I met Dave in the early 1990s

At Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, he was the only guy on campus with his own boat. During the summers he taught hundreds of people to paddle—you couldn’t help but take your balls out of your purse, sucked in by his passion for paddling.

When the rest of us peeled behind the white picket fence called real life, Dave kept his drybags packed and moved around the world floating from river job to river job. Then, after 10 years of the most footloose, free-spirited, adventure-filled life I know, Dave had an accident and became a paraplegic.

After finally settling down and landing his dream job as the river-based instructor at the prestigious Thompson Rivers University adventure Guide program (formerly Caribou College) in Kamloops, Dave landed on his head. Not wanting to be outdone by his riding buddy, Dave launched himself off a mountain bike jump, a jump he’d been avoiding for days. He said he knew as soon as he was airborne he was in trouble and he knew immediately when he crashed that he had broken his back.

Sitting with him drinking beer I didn’t notice his chair anymore, he was just my buddy Dave rolling with life’s punches. He says in many ways he sees more opportunities opening up for him now than he did as an able-bodied person.

He traded his five-speed Tacoma pick-up for a lower riding, automatic Subaru wagon. He sold his snowboard and bought a sit-ski. He traded his mountain bike for a racing wheelchair. He left his college job in the mountains for a master’s degree in occupational therapy in the snow-free streets of Vancouver. And so long as Liquidlogic is turning out kayaks, Dave is set up for boats.

I asked him if he thought his sponsorship was some sort of publicity stunt.

“Shane Benedict is a good friend who I worked rivers with in Nepal and Ecuador. When he heard I was getting back into boating he wanted me in his boats. i guess sliding my atrophied ass down riverbanks on a modified Crazy Carpet represents a love of paddling and dedication that the guys at Liquidlogic understand and respect.”

Whether through luck or karma, Dave was left with the right muscles to continue paddling. He has use of his adductors to bring his knees together and hip flexors that allow him to roll. Dave was discharged from rehab in January of 2003. He was back in a boat by early may and linking cartwheels that summer.

What he lost are his butt muscles, hamstrings and everything below the knees. “I spent many hours in friends’ basements with piles of foam and cans of glue,” Dave told me. “They kept turning me upside down until I had my legs stuffed in tight enough that I wasn’t falling out.”

After beating me in a few drunken laps around the crowded bar in his wheelchair, Dave asked me to draw him a picture of my C1 outfitting set up. “I think I’ll give it a try,” he said with a wry smile. “C1 is perfect for guys like me. After a day of kneeling in your boats, you guys can’t feel your legs either.”

This article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Rapid Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Rapid’s print and digital editions here.

In Parting: Just Pick up the Phone

Stories

Photo: Karen Holm — In Parting: Just Pick up the Phone

In the dead of wInter a couple years ago, at the end of a slow day in the office, I went out on a limb and dialled the number for Eric Soares of California’s tsunami rangers.

Kayaking was a magic word. all I had to do was introduce myself and my half-baked dream—“just something in the back of my mind,” I downplayed it—to unleash a flood of information and friendly advice from the opposite side of the continent, from a man I’d never met.

eric had just had heart surgery, wasn’t paddling much, and it was like he was passing on all his enthusiasm for exploring the coast to someone who could still go out and do it.

“the hardest section will be the great wide open stretches of beach around the Columbia riv- er where waves pound in at five to six feet most of the time, 12 or 15 or more sometimes. the best part will be the rocky sections, mid-Oregon and northern California. redwood national Park. the Lost Coast. Mendocino. Sonoma. Marin. San Mateo, Big Sur…”

A half-hour conversation was all it took to exponentially increase my knowledge about paddling from Vancouver to Mexico and make my dream start to feel real.

rob walker and Karen holm call this part of the planning process “project-based learning.” In rigorously researching their Chilean Passage expedition, they learned so much about the Patagonian coast that it felt familiar before they left home.

“We went and paddled one of the most remote and tempestuous places on earth for six months, and as crazy as it sounds, it was like we had done it before because we were so well prepared.”

Planning is at least half the journey.

Once you get a trip idea in your head, get on the phone and talk to the people who can help you make it happen. this is how expeditions begin, and the dark days of February are the best time to start.

A few years ago, a phone call to my buddy Dave with the words “let’s go this summer” launched a charmed existence of reading charts, packing food, the happy knowledge that we’d be checking out of civilization come June for 80 days on the B.C. coast.

My phone call to Eric planted the seed of a bigger trip that I may someday do. he knew two men who’d done the trip I proposed—a friend named Andy Taylor, and Ed Gillet. He gave me Andy’s phone number in Mendocino and told me to look up Ed in the San diego phone book. I added two more names to my list of contacts and the snowball started rolling.

Finally, just straightforward and friendly, as if anyone who’s going to paddle his coast is someone he will let into his house, Eric extended an invitation to a complete stranger.

“If you find yourself in half Moon Bay, give me a call. we’ll come pick you up, give you a place to stay, whatever you need.”

Expedition dreams open conversations and open doors. I still haven’t taken the first paddle stroke to Mexico, but in my mind I’m halfway there.

This article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Highs And Lows Of Kayaking Around Haida Gwaii

My hand curled comfortably around the paddle shaft, a month’s worth of calluses finding their place for another evening’s work. The blade bit into rippled water and my muscles fell into rhythm. As we moved out from the safety of the cove, we knew we were in for it. Dark sentries of swell marched steadily across the exposed mouth, growing like anthills under time-lapse photography.

The forecast called for a huge northwest sea of three to four metres, with waves up to twice as big on the faces.

Highs and lows in Haida Gwaii

When I’d planned the circumnavigation of Haida Gwaii five months earlier in a skid row diner in Vancouver, I envisioned a journey that would take me away from the crawling city and bring me face to face with raw nature, far from help or hindrance. I wanted to go to a place where I was a mere speck of dust, something that could be absorbed in an instant without the surrounding ecosystem missing a beat. Now the bleak thought squeezed into my brain, “Frank, you should be careful what you ask for.”

We had holed up in Mike Inlet for the afternoon, hoping the building seas would calm. The 4 p.m. forecast on the VHF didn’t bring the news we wanted. But with only six kilometres to go—a mere six kilometres!—we chose to push on to Puffin Cove anyway.

Puffin Cove is where local legends Neil and Betty Carey built a cabin and homestead that they lived in from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Keith had read Neil’s book Puffin Cove and was eager to see the place. Todd had read Bijaboji, Betty’s account of her 1930s canoe trip up the Inside Passage, and become somewhat smitten with the adventurous lady. In Mike Inlet, the black flies were brutal and the camping marginal at best—and love, well, a man in love will not be denied. We stuffed scattered, drying belongings from the pebble beach into our kayaks and were ready to go in half an hour.

When Todd, Keith and I had started our trip 30 days earlier, the packing process had taken more than twice as long. We split the expedition into two parts, first going counterclockwise around Graham Island, returning to our starting point in Queen Charlotte City to re-supply, then continuing in the same direction around Moresby and Kunghit islands. Paddling 460 kilometres around Graham had worked out all our packing kinks for this second leg of the journey.

The proving ground to reach Puffin Cove

Breaking out from the shadow of the mountains, we joined the big blue at its huffing, puffing best. Thirty five-knot gusts drove the swell and began to shove us inexorably toward Puffin Cove. The wind and waves were so strong that within a couple minutes of leaving Mike Inlet it was impossible to backtrack. We were committed. It was six kilometres of huge water or bust. Mike Inlet is one of a handful of safe coves that cut into the 3,000-foot, storm-scraped San Christoval Mountains.

Dropping straight down to water level along the west coast of Moresby Island, the mountains are stark in their nakedness. They were named in 1774 by Captain Juan Perez after St. Christopher, who was known for his protection of travellers. Now we hoped the peaks would cast some of that saintly cover over us.

In between bays on the west coast of Haida Gwaii, rolling buses of swell crash relentlessly against jagged rock, creating boomer zones and clapotis that test even the most skilled paddlers.

Rounding Hippa Island two weeks before, I was pounded over a shallow reef by a rogue, Jaws-sized wave that broke unexpectedly, jettisoning me from my boat. The experience instilled in us a respectful fear every time we ventured out along the perpetually exposed coast.

Ever seen the movie Castaway? There’s a scene where Tom Hanks’ plane has just crashed into the ocean during a storm. He’s clinging to a little yellow rubber raft, the camera pans away, and all you see is this little speck bobbing up and disappearing behind mountains of water in the middle of the sea. That’s what it felt like watching Todd and the Keith, their kayaks seeming more like little paper boats made by children.

Trying to draw focus away from the growing knot of fear in my gut, I looked ahead at the beehive-shaped island that indicated the entrance to Puffin Cove. Gripping the paddle shaft so tightly I thought it would shatter in my hands, I crushed every stroke like it was my last.

Time ground to a halt, our destination only a dream. Though we were hauling ass, it felt like we were paddling on a treadmill. Every time I looked up, the distant cove remained static.

If I let the waves take me, I’d instantly surf seven metres down the face and pound into the trough at the bottom, submerging my kayak halfway. The best thing to do was backpaddle when the wave broke from behind, let it wash over and then stroke like mad before the next one broke. We all tried to stay close—but not too close, as we could end up harpooning each other with our boats. After 40 minutes that seemed like 400, the biggest, baddest wave appeared just as we were about to turn into the lee of Puffin Cove. With Todd and Keith just behind me, a behemoth that was literally 20 metres wide and who knows how high passed underneath and then broke only 10 metres ahead of us in one simultaneous explosion that seemed to turn the entire ocean white. It was a little bon voyage kiss from the North Pacific. Moments later we were in Puffin Cove.

In the Careys’ lagoon, a pioneering life preserved

A narrow channel brought us into a placid lagoon and our jaws dropped. Encircled by perfect powder sand and protected by an amphitheatre of rock, it was like we’d entered Fantasy Island.

I half expected a flock of bronzed women in hula skirts to run down to the beach, greet us with hugs and put leis around our necks. At any moment Ricardo Montalban would appear in his white suit to welcome us while diminutive Tattoo would cry out, “THE KAYAKS! THE KAYAKS!”

The Careys were Americans who sought out a life away from the hustle and bustle of California. After years of searching, they found Puffin Cove. Their cabin is still there, fully intact after 40 years, perched up on a bluff in the corner of the lagoon.

14 Ways To Plan Your Greatest Kayaking Adventure Ever

Incurable beachcombers, they accumulated piles of fish floats, buoys, glass balls and other flotsam and jetsam that remain stashed around the foundation. We entered through a trap door via stairs underneath the 12-foot-by-12-foot, greying cedar structure. For all we could tell, Neil and Betty might as well have stepped out a few minutes earlier. Seashells were displayed neatly on the left wall, rows of books and Reader’s Digests lined a ring of shelves. A little wood stove sat in the corner across from the kitchen table, a double mattress and a kid’s bed. Faded bottles of bug repellent, sewing kits, fishing hooks and other bric-a-brac sat around waiting to be used.

Nothing post-dated 1987, the date the Careys’ lease ran out and Parks Canada took over the land to make it part of Gwaii Haanas National Park. For over two decades, the Careys fished, foraged and explored a forgotten coastline, pioneers in every sense of the word.

A logbook indicated we were only the 14th party to visit there in five years. Though we were in one of the world’s great parks, the committing nature of the outer coast deters most kayakers from exploring beyond the sheltered archipelago on the eastern shore of Moresby.

Three male expedition sea kayakers pose for the camera in Puffin Cove during their circuit of Haida Gwaii by kayak — Photo: Keith Klapstein

The Careys’ haven is one of the few nooks along the West Coast where there wasn’t once a Haida village. This is most likely because the whole lagoon dries out at low tide, making for poor water access for natives going on expeditions in 100-foot-long cedar canoes. At the height of their civilization, the Haida numbered 20,000 but dwindled to as low as 600 by the mid-20th century, victims of a smallpox epidemic introduced by European traders.

Weathered totems and remnant longhouses remain as the only evidence of their millenia-long inhabitation of a shoreline now patrolled only by black bear and whale.

Even though they weren’t physically visible to us on the outer part of the archipelago, we could feel the spirit of the original people flow strongly through every rock, tree and living being on Haida Gwaii, which means, literally, “Haida Homeland.”

A fitting place to linger before journey’s end

On day 18, we crossed paths with a “super pod” of over a hundred transient orca, their man-sized dorsal fins dropping and rising on all sides of us. Like an ancient tribal greeting party, they came out from a bay in front of the abandoned village of Tian, where archaic totems carved with clamshells and stone still stand.

We bobbed breathlessly amid the procession, staring in wild awe as the creatures disappeared ephemerally into the navy horizon.

a long distance expedition kayaker paddles the cloudy Kyuquot Crossing in front of a rainbow

The Love And Madness Of Long-Distance Expeditions

The conditions outside Puffin Cove were good for paddling the next day but we decided to linger. With most of the difficulty behind us, we wanted to savour the remaining time we had in that magical land. Lingcod and rockfish practically begged us to throw our lines out, there was endless reading to be done, and we soberly realised we were only a couple of weeks from the end of our journey.

I contemplated what a month of paddling had taught me, how emotions on the outer coast swing between extremes that lead to the purest form of euphoria. One minute you’re paddling for dear life, and the next you find yourself relaxed in a secluded nirvana, your mind bathed in endorphins.

That afternoon, Todd grinned as he served me up a fillet on the beach, fried over fire in one of Betty Carey’s old pans. Keith slowly chewed the white, flaky flesh, gazing quietly out at the breadth of the North Pacific.

This article originally appeared in Adventure Kayak’s Spring 2006 issue. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.

Expedition Planning: You Don’t Have to Quit Your Day Job

Stories

Photo: Jacqueline Windh — Expedition Planning: You Don't Have to Quit Your Day Job

How many times have you heard someone say, “I would love to go on a long kayak expedition, but I just can’t get the time off work”?

Vancouver paddler Colin Mahony didn’t let his job as a forestry consultant stop him.

Colin’s dream was to paddle around Vancouver Island—up the relatively sheltered waters of the Strait of Georgia and Johnstone Strait, then down the extremely exposed icy waters of the island’s surf-washed west coast to Victoria, and finally across the Strait of Georgia back to Vancouver.

Giving up his job was not an option. So he just broke the expedition up, paddling most weekends as well as in longer stages whenever he could get the time off.

Colin set out northward from Vancouver in early April, 2005, paddling on his days off and then finding a place to stash his boat each Sunday night to catch a ferry back to Vancouver.

Over the summer, he was able to take four separate weeks off which, with weekends, gave him up to nine days of paddling at a stretch.

The week that he planned to round the fearsome waters of Cape Scott, known for their nasty tidal rip and the wild weather that spins off Vancouver Island’s northern tip, the forecast called for 50-knot winds and ocean swells up to eight metres. Luckily, Colin was able to reschedule his time off and go the following week instead.

One of the greatest challenges he found was, after days of solitude, pushing himself to be outgoing when paddling into some unfamiliar remote community. One Sunday afternoon near the end of the journey, he found himself on the outside of Vancouver Island, still on the water. He had to be back in the office on Monday morning. Port Renfrew lay ahead, and the one bus left there at 4 p.m.

“I landed on the beach, found a phone booth, and started calling around. I needed somewhere I could leave my boat. Someone said, ‘Call Rick.’” Rick was happy to help (it turned out that Colin had landed right in front of his house anyway) and offered him a beer.

“So I missed the bus,” continued Colin, “and got out on the road. It was getting dark, but I ended up getting a ride all the way to Victoria that night, right to my friend’s door.” He caught the first ferry in the morning, and made it to work on time.

“The logistics of this trip forced me to rely upon the kindness of others,” he said. “It created these wonderful situations where I would meet people.”

Now, having completed his journey, he says that the people that he met and the friendships that resulted are what really defined this trip for him.

Colin paddled back into Vancouver Harbour on Labour Day weekend, five months after he set out. In a total of 42 days on the water, he covered 1,200 kilometres.

This article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

How To Plan Your Expedition

Stories

Eight hundred and fifty thousand years ago, three quarters of a million years before our species, Homo sapiens, evolved, Homo erectus built boats and went to sea. Many of us inherited this yearning to sail, paddle, float or zoom across the earth’s abundant waterways.

Two thirds of planet Earth is covered by glistening lakes, gurgling brooks and azure seas. Unless you live in Saudia Arabia’s Empty Quarter, chances are good that there is some waterway near you, perfect for a weekend getaway or a major expedition.

How to plan your expedition

The first task in planning a journey is to select the right adventure and danger level for your personality. The idea is to maximize fun—for your individual brain and your DNA—not to try to accommodate some marketing agent, boyfriend or girlfriend.

If you’re not sure what fits, err on the conservative side at first, and then ratchet things up bit by bit until you maximize your fun.

Fun of course is personal; is it a cozy peaceful afternoon, an exhilarating level of fear, or abject terror? Only you can decide.

Planning requires an ability to sit at home and accurately predict how a body of water will behave when you are bobbing around in an absurdly small boat like a kayak or a canoe.

Waves, currents and wind make water dangerous, but it’s easy to determine the frequency, probability and intensity of all three. Data on tidal currents is available from any fishing or boating supply near your proposed location. Pilot Charts are the penultimate source for wave and wind data. These are available from the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In an intricate series of maps, you can obtain information on wind speed and direction for just about any ocean location in the world, for any month.

A few pieces of advice: For starters, choose a region where the gale frequency is zero and the wind will be blowing primarily from your back. Wave height is dependent on the wind speed and duration and on the distance that the wind has travelled, called the fetch. If you’re on the open ocean, where the wind can blow 6,000 kilometres before it reaches you, you’re likely to get huge waves and violent surf. Paddle in an enclosed bay and even a strong wind will produce only small wavelets. This factor is intuitive: enclosed bodies of water are safer than exposed ones.

When currents collide with waves, the waves develop a steep face and become much more dangerous than rounded waves of the same height.

A kayak is the most versatile watercraft in the world, capable of navigating shallow mangrove swamps and the open waters off Cape Horn. Humans are the most diverse species on the planet, with an almost incomprehensibly wide range of personalities and desires. Match the two and you’ve got a wondrous gambit of journeys and adventures. The only important adage is to go out—and have fun—whatever that means for you.

Jon Turk’s first expedition was paddling the coast of B.C. and Alaska in a Grumman canoe in 1974. He has kayaked from Ellesmere Island to Greenland, made two trips to Cape Horn, and in 2000–01 paddled 3,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Alaska, the subject of his book In the Wake of the Jomon.

This article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

So You Want to Go on an Expedition

Stories

Photo: Mike Beedell/ocanadaex.com — So You Want to Go on an Expedition

The expedition is egalitarian as never before. Once the domain of enduring national heroes and earth shaking discoveries, the expedition has devolved to the personal sphere. Rather than bulwarking a nation’s reputation and capacity on the global stage, the modern expedition galvanizes the reputation and capacity of the individual. Instead of revelations that rock a people, we have discoveries that rock a person.

Anyone with the drive, the strength and the smarts can put an expedition together if they want it badly enough.

For those with a strong sense of adventure, who would like to use their little boat to paddle to those places much less travelled, it is important to know, to consciously understand, what-it-is-you-do, and why. Of all the variations of the sport, the expedition requires the clearest intentionality for a successful journey. Conversely, it has the least margin of tolerance of a failed one.

A kayak expedition may be a trip to a distant locale, an awesome distant bay or cape or beach, it could be the attempt of a very long crossing, or, more commonly, paddling a predetermined length of coastline, perhaps with a vehicle shuttle to put your rig at trip end. But no matter how you slice it, a kayak expedition is as much about a style of adventuring, of paddling and camping, of nuts and bolts, day to day life, as it is about the objective itself. In a word, two words actually, it is about paradigm and imperatives.

Paradigm, in my dictionary, is “an example that serves as a pattern or model for something.” A kayak expedition is a wonderful model for living in sustained adventure in the wild. And what that implies is a refreshingly straightforward set of imperatives. Def, imperative: “absolutely necessary or unavoidable.”

In other words, it is the chop wood/carry water credo of Zen sensibilities, but with an edge. We trade the soft, ill-defined, banal imperatives of routine civilized life for those of travelling in a coastal wilderness. Routine activities revolve Northwest Passage, near Bylot Island around the nourishment and conservation of our well being as we travel. Instead of concern with meetings, relationships, finances, we are concerned with keeping our brown rice dry and safe from marauding animals, our boat right side up and free from holes, our tent from leaking, our hands free of blisters. Instead of reacting to events we try and stay ahead of the curve. Before we launch we make sure everything we might need in our cockpit on the water is at hand, and ashore when the sun is out we string our wet clothes out to dry. Anticipation, preparedness, circumspection are the watch words. A vacation it is not.

On a recent expedition my partner and I reached a protected cove on an offshore island at dusk in stormy weather. Our first imperative was reaching the sanctuary of the cove, done. Next imperative was to establish shelter and secure our equipment. Then, to get warm and dry and vittle up. Finally, to sleep and restore the precious energy and enthusiasm to do it over again.

Purpose, objective, intention, the quickening of our bodies and minds in the face of danger, the readjustment of attitude during times of impatience or prolonged tedium, the accountability of personalities in the stew pot of enforced teamwork, the mental pique of managing logistics and itinerary in remote, roadless waterways.

The nearly tangible relief, satisfaction, contentment or joy of daily events like shelter in a gale, nourishment in extreme hunger and fatigue, safe passage ashore through surf, a dry sleeping bag.

The imperatives we engage on a kayak expedition keep us on our toes, obviating a direct causal relationship with consequence. More than that though, the expedition offers a rare opportunity to experience the sacred paradigm of living by our wits and few resources in a primordial natural environment. And that, when we come home at expedition end, is tonic for the soul.

This article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

What Separates An Expedition From A Simple Paddling Trip?

a group of beached sea kayaks on an Alaskan paddling expedition — Feature photo: Michael Jadrich Ortiz/Unsplash

The word “expedition” comes with a lot of baggage. And I don’t mean the two tons of lightest-gear-known-to-man that invariably accompanies each team member in the form of loaded duffles, camera equipment and paddling gear.

What I’m talking about is that increasingly cloudy distinction between going for a nice paddle somewhere and mounting an “expedition.” What exactly are the key ingredients that launch paddling from one place to another into the realm of expeditioning?

a sea kayak sits on the Scottish coast during an expedition

Expedition Hub: 4 Kayak Journeys Of Epic Proportions

What separates an expedition from a simple paddling trip?

In the old days, going on an expedition meant doing things the hard way in order to complete a trip that was so ambitious, so outrageous in scope that the paddling world simply had to sit up and take notice. But that approach is really tiring—and scary too! Just ask Paul Caffyn what it was like to paddle around Australia in 360 days through shark- and snake-infested waters. Or quiz Ed Gillet on how much fun it was to paddle alone from California to Hawaii for 63 days, running out of food and losing 25 pounds along the way. These guys are so tough that their trips are just plain nutty! That’s not for the likes of you and me.

illlustration of a person on a paddling expedition with a film crew and script — Feature illustration: Lorenzo Del Bianco

Marketing makes it real

Nowadays, the only real difference between a paddling trip and a true expedition is marketing, which comes in the form of sponsorship and media coverage.

If you’re not sponsored, it’s not an expedition. I don’t care how far you paddle or how much you suffer. You must have stickers on your kayak and get all of your gear for free. Without sponsorship, you’re just going for a paddle like everybody else, and what’s special about that?

Once you’re properly wallpapered with corporate logos, you need media coverage—reportage.^* If your expedition doesn’t generate any hype, it’s all over. You might as well do nothing at all.

It’s just like the proverbial tree in the forest. You know, if a tree falls in a forest and there’s nobody there to see it, did it really happen? And if you round Cape Horn and…. You get the idea. Your sponsors won’t be happy. You might even have to pay for all that free gear, just like every other schmo who dips a paddle in the sea. Lame!

[ Plan your next paddling expedition—or trip!—with the Paddling Trip Guide ]

Imagine, however, that the tree falling in the forest is sponsored. It’s all covered in the Coca-Cola swirl and Microsoft stickers, and there’s a tie-in to Extreme Tree Falling Week on TSN hosted by Paris Hilton and Prudential Insurance. A scrum of reporters and photographers are on the ground while the NBC news chopper circles overhead. FOX has nailed a killer crane shot for the live feed and Geraldo Rivera is working his TV magic. The tree sways, the crowd goes quiet, the Olsen Twins hold their breath…. Now that’s the right way for a tree to fall in the forest if it wants to get noticed.

This trip brought to you by…

Best Expedition Kayaks For 2024

These days when all the big trips have been done and the good destinations used up, marketing is the next frontier. Anybody can launch a kayak and try to paddle to Hawaii—again (although if you want to survive, you should definitely try to get Ed to come along). But it will take a real adventurous soul to push the boundaries of expedition marketing, to go beyond the limits of sponsorship from mere manufacturers of paddling equipment, those small, struggling Mom and Pop enterprises with limited budgets and no international media leverage. The really big dreamers will tap into the unexplored reaches of the Dow Jones companies and mega-media conglomerates like Pfizer, Philip Morris and Disney.

Imagine the Viagra-Marlborough-Jack Daniels Sea Kayak Expedition, bringing the message of “life-enhancing drugs, a smooth smoke and mellow Tennessee bourbon” to small communities up and down our great, unspoiled coasts. Think of the possibilities. And think of the free product. Now that’s an expedition I’d want to be part of!

^*For any canoeist reading this, “reportage” does not mean to carry your boat to the same location twice.

Alex Matthews’ first story appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Adventure Kayak. His Rock the Boat column has prompted plenty of letters to our editors over the years.

Cover of the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide This article was first published in the Spring 2006 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine and was republished in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.

Feature photo: Michael Jadrich Ortiz/Unsplash

Editorial: A Step Beyond Purpose

Stories

Photo: Scott MacGregor — Editorial: A Step Beyond Purpose

An expedition as defined by my dictionary is “a journey or voyage undertaken by a group of people with a particular purpose.” Especially, it goes on to clarify, “that of exploration or war.” Perhaps that’s why, 10 years ago, when I was preparing to paddle home to Hamilton, Ontario, after my last day of university in Thunder Bay, I thought I needed to have a cause and gather sponsorship.

After five years of driving the north shores of Lake Superior, Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, I wanted to paddle the waters I’d only dipped my toe into before getting back be- hind the wheel. I spent the winter dehydrating vegetables, tracing the Great Lakes coastlines with a piece of string and writing sponsorship proposals.

With the effort spent gathering sponsorship I could have bought a lawn mower and raised enough money cutting grass to do the trip for its own sake, but somehow having a cause higher than avoiding the nagging voice of real life seemed to legitimize my efforts. I thought I needed to justify three and a half months on the water, an entire summer, something no one in their right mind would do without a reason.

The fact is, kayak expeditions as traditionally defined by their external purposes are coming to an end.

Unless we find water on Mars, we are running out of places to explore. And although kayaking, like canoe- ing, downhill skiing and mountain biking, remains a part of the training of the Canadian Forces (in case the federal government needs to storm the beaches of Nunavut using the War Measures Act?) true kayak jour- neys for the purpose of war are few.

We’re left trying to contrive new purposes for our expeditions—pub- lic awareness campaigns, fundrais- ing, television contracts, being the first or the fastest. It may be that the only difference between modern expeditions and plain old trips is that expeditions have corporate sponsors and satellite phone interviews with the press.

So it was with my trip, which became the Stay Afloat Expedition. We met Colleen Omeara at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, who suggested we turn our trip into a safe boating mission, which she would use in a summer-long Coast Guard safe boating campaign complete with TV, radio and newspaper media stops along the way.

I often wondered if talking to school kids about boating safety was enough of a purpose. It certainly wasn’t as grand as exploration

or war, and there are more worthy causes—Simon Osborne circumnavigated Britain and then Ireland raising money because his brother died of leukemia. I thought about a possible fundraiser for the Heart and Stroke Foundation—“Three mil- lion strokes for heart disease.”

But maybe I didn’t need a purpose at all.

We can take a lesson from Forrest Gump who, in the movie of the same name, became a national celebrity when he ran around the country continuously for three years. When reporters asked why he was running he said, “For no particular reason. I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I’d gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.”

I think I’ll call my next big paddling trip the It-Seems-Like-Fun Expedition, and the purpose will be the joy of embarking on a long journey without an extrinsic purpose. Watch for it. I’ll be giving interviews with the press via sat phone.

This article first appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.