This year, our annual tripping group was paired down to five. This allowed us to get all our gear and people into one plane, which cut down considerably on flight costs. The somewhat controversial side effect was that we now had one solo canoe, as well as two tandems. Someone would have to paddle alone.
During our trip planning meetings, there was some concern that the solo boat would be a problem, and how it might be difficult for the solo paddler to keep up with the tandem boats. I, for one, was determined to keep this myth alive. I was looking forward to spending as many days as possible in the solo boat. And I realized that if I could make the solo boat look like more work, then maybe no one else would want to paddle it.
On the first morning, I strategically chose two small packs to load into the hull of the solo canoe—the “over- flow pack” (a drybag loaded with extra bits and pieces that would not fit anywhere else) and my personal pack, both lightweight. I pushed away from shore and floated, while my companions wrangled with burdensome barrels and dry bags, seeking perfect trim. Already I was remind- ed how great it could be to be the odd one out.
“Hey Fi,” Andy called out from shore as he lugged another 80-pound food barrel into his canoe, “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure and wait for you today.” They were playing right into my hands. As the rest of the group finished loading and paddled toward me, I dug my paddle into the water, feigning intense effort.
I soon discovered other misconceptions I could foster among my fellow paddlers. It was clear from the outset that people were making a special effort to include the “socially isolated” solo boater in inter-boat conversations. But far from feeling lonely, I was the social butterfly. When I felt like joining a conversation, all I had to do was dart across the water in the lighter, under-loaded solo boat and interrupt.
“Hey what are you guys talking about?” I would say. That’s all it would take to get in on an interesting chat, and generate a little sympathy for the lonely solo boater. It was the best of both worlds. No longer stuck with one partner all day to deal with their shifting weight, ineffec- tive paddle strokes, annoying personal habits, and long awkward silences, I was able to engage only in the fun parts of being with other people, and flit away when things became boring, or tense.
At lunchtime, it was even more obvious that the solo boat was where I wanted to stay. As we approached the chosen lunch spot, I made sure I lagged a little bit behind the others. I watched one pair as they fumbled around trying to identify the wanigan to extract the condiments and utensils, and the other as they searched for the barrel with the lunch. If I had timed it right, I would just be rolling in as everything had been found and unloaded.
That afternoon brought our first portage. Again I found myself hanging back, this time to observe the age-old struggle with other people’s “froo.” The lake echoed with calls of “Is this yours?” and “Where do you want me to put this?” as my friends waved water bottles, bits of discarded clothing and other loose items at each other. As I drifted into shore, I quickly tucked my loose items away, unloaded my two wee packs, shouldered one and was off. As I lifted the solo canoe onto my shoulders I had another revelation—it was a feather compared to the tandem beasts we had brought along. Could this get any better?
While things remained amicable for the first couple of days of the trip, I knew from experience that as the days wore on, the tensions and petty irritations inherent to paddling in a tandem boat would become more pro- nounced. Therefore I made it a point to extend my tenure in the solo canoe for as long as I could. I kept up to the group just enough to make it look like more work, deflecting all offers to trade with a heroic grin and an “Oh no, I’m fine” (ask your mother for a demo next time you’re home) while making a good show of straining into my strokes.
Despite my efforts it became more and more difficult to fend off the requests of others to “give it a try.” Paddling partners were increasingly irritable with each other, especially the one couple in the group.
While there are some things best done with a companion or two, perhaps paddling is not one of them. What better way to bring all your lurking relationship issues bubbling to the surface than to jump into an overloaded canoe and set off down an isolated wilderness river for two or three weeks? Arguing about boat angle, trim, and the location of underwater rocks can be a strain on any relationship.
By day four I had lost my grip on the solo boat, and eventually everyone had caught on to my little secret. In the end, the solo boat ceased to be seen as a problem. The problem was that we only had one.
Solo paddler Fiona Hough has occasionally been spotted doing various things in the company of others. She is a freelance writer, teacher, corporate trainer and outdoor instructor in Ottawa.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
Canoeists can solo arrow-straight into a headwind, eddy out of class IV rapids, execute quick and efficient portages, and pull cheese soufflés from reflector ovens. But ask us to catch a fish and we’re most often skunked.
Our wilderness wanderings take us where brook trout, walleye, char and grayling fin hungrily beneath the Kevlar. But clad in Gore-Tex and wielding bent shafts, canoeists see paddling as primary. Some flirt with fishing but their efforts are frivolous at best. It’s too often a case of fishing in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with inappropriate equipment.
Adding fishing to the canoe tripping agenda is not difficult. On remote rivers or lakes, the right moves will provide instant gratification. A first step is determining the type of fish to expect. Studying route descriptions and talking to outfitters or natural resources personnel help us to fine-tune our gear and ensure that the season is open and we’re properly licensed.
Proven tackle will depend on the species holding in our destination waters. Throughout Canada the most common choices oscillate between warm-water species like bass, pike, perch and walleye, and those who prefer colder water, like trout and char.
Live bait is effective for both sets of species. Worms are the lowest-maintenance, needing only to be kept cool in a small container of moss. Worms can be fished on their own, with a single hook weighted with split shot, or used to sweeten artificial lures.
A canoeist’s tackle box should include variety and still slide easily into an outside pocket of a pack. Include a few diving minnow-shaped crank baits. Adjust the size to the fish you expect to catch—three to six inches in length will do for most situations.
Include eigth-ounce to half-ounce jig heads and a fist full of soft plastic twister tails. Scented tails in white, black, and chartreuse are effective with or without live bait.
Throw in a selection of mid-sized spinners and a couple silver and gold spoons. If pike are prevalent, a few steel leaders will prevent the loss of lures to these toothy predators.
Remote systems often provide more fish than we could possibly eat. Bending the barbs down on our hooks allows for gentle handling and quick release of most of what we catch.
Organize the gear in a small plastic box, saving enough room for essentials like needle-nose pliers for unhooking fish, a fillet knife and Zip-loc bags for the fillets.
A medium-action five- or six-footer is a good all-purpose rod for canoe tripping. Teamed with a mid-sized spinning reel holding about 100 metres of eight- to twelve-pound monofilament line, the unit should be able to handle most game fish encountered on inland lakes and rivers. Two-piece rods can be broken down and easily stowed. A few short lengths of small-diameter shock cord attach rods securely to thwarts and seats during portages or when running whitewater.
Even in the most prolific waters, fish are not everywhere and we must learn to recognize where to concentrate our efforts. In rivers, the base of falls and rapids point to the most obvious haunts. Oxygen-rich waters churn in deep holes and most species will hold somewhere within the pool. Bends in the river can also mean deep-water eddies and increased current. The same is true where narrowing shorelines funnel the flow through deep channels.
In lakes, hot spots are not so obvious. Look for features that stand out from the rest of the lake. Shoals, rock piles, extended points, steep drop-offs or weed edges will all hold fish.
Wind and current tend to make anchoring a canoe the most effective way to fish the hot spots of lakes and rivers. A strong mesh bag filled with rocks makes a great anchor that can be emptied for the portage trail. From an anchored position we can slowly work jigs along bottom, still fish with hook and worm, or cast spoons, spinners and crank baits over the shoals and weed edges of lakes or across a river’s current.
In rivers we can avoid the uncertainty of anchoring in strong flows by fishing from shore. In lakes we can opt for trolling when the wind and waves conspire against dropping the hook. In fact, tossing a line out and trolling while paddling is an effective search technique that unwittingly draws our lure over mid-lake features that hold fish.
Beware: Angling can insidiously become the prime focus of a wilderness outing, adding a new and time-consuming dimension to a canoe trip. Satiating the desire to angle means taking the time to fish during peak periods of morning and evening, as well as trying that irresistible spot we may pass during the day.
Of course not all paddlers will be enchanted by the fusion of paddling and angling. Those less stricken should avoid conflict by sharing a canoe with a like-minded partner. While the anglers work the wilderness waters, the paddlers can forge ahead to set up camp. When the cheese soufflé emerges from the reflector oven, it will be the perfect complement to a meal of fresh fillets.
James Smedley is the recipient of several national writing awards. He lives, writes, photographs and canoe-angles in northern Ontario.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
Jean Lecours, bumping elbows with another unnamed drop on The Skunk. | Feature photo: Scott MacGregor
Along the lonely stretch of asphalt joining the northern Ontario towns of North Bay and Thunder Bay there are 19 Tim Hortons coffee shops and 11 larger-than-life roadside mascots erected to remind travellers that there is nothing more memorable about these towns than a large double-double and a honey cruller donut to go.
New Liskeard with its Holstein cow (built by local canoe builder Scott Canoe) is the first town. Chimo the polar bear in Cochrane, home of the Polar Bear Express train to James Bay, and a space ship in the hamlet of Moonbeam are a couple of the other quirky landmarks on this route.
The often-unnoticed landmarks are the little green signs on the 42 bridges you cross telling you there is moving water far below. On these little green signs in white capital letters are the names of some of Canada’s most pristine, challenging and seldom-paddled whitewater rivers. Names like the Nagagami, Shekak and Skunk Creek that had meant nothing to me, until now.
On the night road to Hearst. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Tim Hortons fuels the morning leg of the journey. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
With our whitewater canoes in their holders on the roof and our third coffees securely anchored in the console we point the Rapid Avalanche back out onto Highway 11. A quick check with our OnStar nav system confirms we’re headed north, only 129 miles to go to the town of Hearst and our confirmed reservations at the Companion Hotel. We’ve arranged to meet up with the crew of local kayakers who’ve promised some great runs.
In 1998, Paul Beauchesne, now the proprietor of the paddling and outdoor shop Paddle Buddies in Kapuskasing, was shopping around on the Internet for used boats and fortuitously surfed his way to then Toronto-based canoe and kayak instructor Mark Long. They agreed that Mark would deliver his used boat to northern Ontario, and to make his trip worthwhile Paul would round up enough outdoorsmen to fill a kayak course—the region’s first.
Paul not only filled his end of the bargain. Word of mouth and the coverage in the local media filled three more courses. Like a peddler selling magic beans, Mark and his trailer full of canoes and kayaks rolled north again and again, planting whitewater seeds that are sure to grow to the sky.
Jean Lecours, bumping elbows with another unnamed drop on The Skunk. | Feature photo: Scott MacGregor
Cultural exchange: Billy-Bob explains the finer points of moose hunting. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Inside Paddle Buddies with Paul “The Ice Man” Beauchesne in downtown Kapuskasing. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Heading out from Hearst
After a good night’s sleep we drive west out of Hearst to a little green sign fastened to a bridge. There we find three locals, pouring over a topographic map spread on the hood of a pickup: Jean Lecours, Gilles Levesque and Jean-Guy Brunet, the town’s aquatics director. In Hearst, taking magazine editors and friends down local rivers falls under the aquatics director’s job description. When I joked with Jean-Guy about skipping work with the mayor’s blessing, we were sliding into the current of Skunk Creek, downstream to where the water dropped over a misty horizon line and the rush of moving water echoed in the alders. Jean-Guy just smiled and asked if I could swim. “It might be nice,” I thought as I strapped into my tiny open canoe (locals were in Pyranha H3 creekboats), “to have Jean-Guy the lifeguard along for the ride.”
Jean-Guy was a student in one of those early whitewater classes. “I fell in love with the sport and decided that this will be a nice program to start at the pool,” he told me as matter-of-factly as if he was starting a book club at the local library.
“It will be good for the region because we have lots of rivers with rapids nearby.”
Jean-Guy explains how the Town of Hearst got its boats. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Two kilometres from the downtown Tim Hortons there is a class II–III whitewater stretch of the Hearst River. We all agreed if this section were anywhere else, there’d be slalom gates and manmade play features, but here in Hearst there is nothing. Just a beautiful river flowing beside a country road on the edge of town. Nobody had thought about kayaking it.
“It will be good for the region because we have lots of rivers with rapids nearby.”
After his first paddling course, Jean-Guy set to work immediately to acquire a grant from the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation, with which he brought in instructor trainer Lee Chantrel and, once again, Mark Long, to run a whitewater rescue program. Jean-Guy turned to local businesses and fundraisers to raise the money to purchase 12 kayaks for the pool so the Town of Hearst could offer its own courses. Standing on the pool deck surrounded by the town’s fleet racked on the wall, Jean-Guy tells us proudly that each year 20 to 30 high school students, 24 kids in the summer programs and dozens of adults learn to paddle on the rivers surrounding Hearst.
Beth Kennedy and Mark Long in Chaos, on the Shekak River.
Sizing up the Skunk’s whitewater
Most of northern Ontario’s whitewater runs begin high on the Precambrian Shield and pour down off the rocks working their way north to the James Bay Lowlands and eventually the Arctic Ocean. Highway 11 runs along the Clay Belt region straight across this prime whitewater playground, slicing the runs nicely into upper and lower sections with ideal road access.
From the highway, Skunk Creek, like all the rivers, looks flat. With hardly enough time to get warmed up, the Skunk narrows and pours off the Clay Belt over the first drop—the drop we could hear from the highway. Unlike rivers closer to the cities these northern runs are paddled so little the rapids don’t have names and the trails along the river’s edge border only the deep pools, tramped by trout fishermen, not paddlers.
Over this five-mile section, the Skunk falls 120 feet. You could think of it as having a six-foot waterfall every couple of end zones for 80 football fields. But the sidelines are not flat and open, but rather treed to the edges and choked with logs.
The Skunk is a combination of clean waterfall drops and cascading waterslides with only a few inches of water between our boats and the rocks below. At times the creek is pinched so tightly between canyon walls we scrape our paddles and knuckles off the rocks as we launch off the lips.
Back streets of Hearst. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
The coolest shuttle roads ever! | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Taking the high road. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
As far as anyone knows, the Skunk, like many of the local rivers, was first kayaked by Remi LeClair, a legend on any paddling gauge. Remi, as the story goes, bought his first kayak in ’97, a used River Runner R5, and was the lone kayaker for a while. No one else had any equipment or seemed interested. Finally his best friend, Guylain Baril, found a boat and the two taught themselves to roll on the rivers surrounding Kapuskasing and then decided to go exploring the bigger rivers on the west side of Hearst.
They’d fished some sections and seen the gradient and etches of the Shekak River on the topographic maps and decided that it would be good whitewater. “Looking back on it now, we should not have survived that first descent [of the Shekak]. Just imagine the early spring-flooded Shekak with no wetsuits, no drytops, no neoprene gloves, no helmets and worst of all no idea what was downstream. I will admit we went too far too fast…. A little bit of scouting and no plans to portage anything, we never asked ourselves, ‘Are we doing this one?’ It was always, ‘Which line do we take?’”
Together they pioneered many of these rivers, rivers on par with the best of the plastic-filled rivers of eastern Ontario and Quebec. And two years later during those first whitewater instructional courses, Remi heard the group was looking for a potential teaching river. He humbly offered to guide the group down the Shekak.
Alan Greve, Big Rock Rapids, Shekak River. | Photos: Scott MacGregor
Onto the Upper Shekak
The green sign for the Upper Shekak is just above another sign for a roadside picnic area half an hour west of Hearst, just before Highway 631 heads south to Hornepayne. The put-in is a perfect place to park a family camper for sandwiches, oblivious to the class III–IV whitewater hiding downstream. Mark Long describes the day run on the Upper Shekak as “amazing”:
“It’s pristine, technical, lots of rapids and a variety of lines ranging from easy to very challenging…. Something for every type of boater.”
Mark felt so strongly about the area, he and his family packed their bags in Toronto and headed north. “We’ve fallen in love with the region and we’ve made this place our home. We love the rivers and the people. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.” In 1999 they started Momentum Outdoors, a small outdoor company teaching paddling, running rescue and safety training and offering rafting on the Shekak as an alternative to egg salad at the put-in.
The Skunk falls 120 feet in five miles. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Gilles Levesque snuck out of work today to join us on the Skunk. He’s the controller at one of Hearst’s two mills and an integral part of the local kayaking scene. Gilles escaped small-town Northern Ontario to attend Ottawa University for a business degree and a law degree, becoming a CGA and a member of the Bar of Upper Canada. After a couple years of big business law life, he’s travelled the world, married in the Southern Alps, and moved to Hearst and now has three kids, two whitewater kayaks and a small Cessna floatplane.
“It’s pristine, technical, lots of rapids and a variety of lines ranging from easy to very challenging…. Something for every type of boater.”
Gilles is the local eye in the sky, turning best guesses at the size of unknown rapids into visuals from the air. Even more important, from the air he can scout the best access points in an otherwise virtually uncharted maze of logging roads. Apparently, he’s just confirmed another run only minutes from our run on the Skunk—a run they’ve noticed on the topo but haven’t got around to trying.
Clean waterfall drops and rocky slides. | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Take out, tail gate: Gilles Levesque, Jean Lecours, Jean-Guy Brunet, Scott MacGregor, Al Greve | Photo: Scott MacGregor
Skunk Creek guards its secrets well
Two kilometres before the Skunk meanders into the mighty Nagagami River, we take out beneath an abandoned railway bridge and scramble 115 feet of scree slope out of the canyon. We run shuttles on abandoned logging and mining roads and over trackless train bridges still spanning the gorges below until we are back out to the highway.
Tired, sunburnt, knuckles bloodied, we replay the day rapid by rapid. We all agree that this little creek and the nearby rivers are Hearst’s best-kept secrets. And we figure it’s likely to stay that way. Even with Cochrane’s polar bear and New Liskeard’s Holstein cow paving the way, it seems unlikely that this northern mill town will erect a larger-than-life 50-foot skunk as their mascot.
This article was first published in the Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
Jean Lecours, bumping elbows with another unnamed drop on The Skunk. | Feature photo: Scott MacGregor
For those who enjoy grabbing centre strage when throwing down, the ledges of the Winooski River are the place to be. Enter stage left or right for low water-water summertime play less than two hours’ drive soouth of Montreal.
On its way to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, the Winooski flows between the cities of Burlington and Winooski over several bedrock ledges creating a range of features from wave holes to pourovers and falls.
The historic riverside textile mills have been renovated with office space, shopping, dining, a music venue, and observation decks. Diners at the Champlain Mill restaurant watching the action from outdoor seating or floor-to-ceiling windows reward diligent boaters with cheers for big moves and good downtime. If you head in after a session, someone just might offer you a congratulatory drink.
Numerous boaters say the ledges represent the best potential whitewater park in the state. With the city of Winooski undertaking a revitalization project to make the river a more central feature downtown—complete with river-side greens, paths, and more viewing— the time is ripe.
When the water is high, Vermont’s boaters go off in search of the Green Mountain State’s secret stashes. Summertime, when the levels on creek runs drop, local rippers and weekend warriors line up for the Winooski’s waves, holes and falls, or sit on the ledges and talk shop about big spring runs. Damon Bungard, a fixture at the Mill, calls the pourover “extremely con- sistent.”
“I think the record is over 40 ends.”
For the après paddle, head into Burlington to walk the pedestrian strip with college students and locals. Or if you aren’t ready to check out the nightlife when the sun goes down, the lights from the twin cities of Winooski and Burlington provide an eerie glow to the sparkling falls.
The Goods
Where:
Low-water summertime play
Take Interstate 89 to the Winooski exit. Head toward Winooski on Route 2/7 and find the large Champlain Mill building. Park in the back and put in on river right, or cross the bridge and turn into the Chase Mill parking lot for slightly easier access on river left. Paddlers should be respectful of the Chase Mill businesses and park as far upstream as possible, away from the main building in the overflow lot.
How:
The Mill section of the river is sandwiched between two dams. The upstream dam is not visible from the put-in, but scout the downstream dam and beware of it when the water pushes up over 15,000 cfs. At this level there is a small margin for error above the dam, and an accidental run of the drop would be very unpleasant. The main flow zigzags over the ledges, from river left to river right.
When:
Look for flow info in cubic feet per second (cfs) online at waterdata.usgs.gov/vt/nwis/current/?type=flow under “Winooski River near Essex Junction.” Flows above 400 cfs make for fun and relaxed play. Above about 1,000 cfs, the main pourover on the bottom ledge can get a bit sticky. Those looking for more dynamic features or a quick thrill ride down the stair-step ledges should come in the spring or after big rainstorms. At high water the pourover features become overly retentive, but some wave holes come in that allow for new-school moves. Look for glassy waves, breaking waves, and holes below the ledges with flows over 2,000 cfs.
Who:
The Vermont Paddlers Club sponsors sessions at the spot most weeks.
Why:
You love the attention.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine.
Climbing over each cross-tube one at a time, working her way to the back of the raft, Angelina picks up the guide stick. It looks heavy in her tiny hands. She jams a size-four running shoe under a cross-tube and quietly briefs her team a last time before pushing off above Triplet Rapid. Her darting glances at me for assurance betray her brash New York City manner. With the grip of the current at the lip of the rapid, I watch her search for her line between two pourovers. She looks to me, brown eyes streaming with tears, and asks, “Does life always hurt?”
Angelina is far from home and her struggle with depression. Shattered at a young age by the tragic death of her parents and a string of foster homes that did more harm than good, Angelina fell deeper and deeper into despair. Eventual hospitalization drove her to turn her life around. Her counsellor recommended this Outward Bound course, learning to guide a raft on a seven-day whitewater trip in Utah’s Lodore Canyon.
This is a well-travelled path, using the wilderness for growth, change and therapy. Longstanding programs such as Outward Bound, Project Dare and Boundless Adventures have moved tens of thousands of people through some stage in their life via the medium of a simple wilderness trip. With a claim to inspire self-esteem, self-reliance and concern for others, “challenge” is a central theme. While some programs seek the mountains or use a ropes course, the vast majority take to the challenge and healing power of rivers.
For 20 years, pipe-smoking psychologists in their leather chairs have poked and prodded at this adventure education therapy phenomenon. They recognize that when removed from familiar “environments,” people approach new challenges without preconceived notions of what they can or can’t do, more often than not utterly amazing themselves at what they accomplish, such as guiding a class III rapid. There is no overwhelming clinical evidence, though, that these achievements somehow make their lives different when they return home to the rat race.
What scientists failto conclusively prove (to themselves) flies in the face of what river guides and instructors experience every day: a river trip can irrevocably change a person’s outlook. A few days floating on water offers perspective—the perspective it takes to come up with alternatives in one’s life.
Oblivious to the clinical idea of “therapy,” these guides know they are just the key-holders who unlock the river. Their job is simply to let people experience it on their own terms and challenge what they need to inside themselves.
There is no one reason why rivers peel away our outer layers exposing our core. Every person will have their own experience, but I believe there is something underlying that is more fundamental than just being outside, away from life’s pressures. Rivers are the most visible means of seeing our world as a living, breathing, continuous system. Being on, in, and around flowing rivers connects us to that process, connects us to the Earth, and re-connects us to our lost soul—a soul that gets beaten down from the daily grind.
From this continuous cycle of regeneration and mindless flow of rivers one may take any number of things: assurance that life will continue despite hardship, trust and surrender to a greater power, or new confidence from managing in an inherently unmanageable environment.
Pipe-smoking psychologists poke and prod at adventure therapy.
These are the same reasons that paddlers and fishermen flock to rivers. We tell our friends we are there to challenge ourselves, surf, or catch a trout. But, the deeper reason why is our connection to flow—a connection that is so elemental we struggle to put a finger on it.
The last evening of Angelina’s Outward Bound trip is a celebration of what we have accomplished as a group and what each individual has proven to themselves. We sit at the river’s edge, in the darkness and silence, soaking up what we will be leaving in the morning.
All trip, Angelina was whittling away at a driftwood stick, something I thought she’d take home with her, keep in a sock drawer or make into a necklace. Instead, she ceremoniously places it in the river. She lets it go. Satisfied, and in the tone of one with a secret well-kept, tells us, “It doesn’t matter if the pain goes away. The river keeps flowing.” She crawls into her sleeping bag happy, secure in knowing that when she returns home, her experience will continue floating in the current, carried by the power of the water.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine.
Last summer my wife Kelly and I began the paddling trip of a lifetime. We completed the first two weeks of a voyage along the entire coast of B.C. We chose to do the most exposed section first— from Port Hardy on Vancouver Island’s north tip to Bella Bella on the Central Coast. Our charts showed places like Skull Cove and Cape Caution, and we had envisioned a lonely, desolate coastline, pounded by surf from Japan, littered with wrecks of kayaks and ships alike. Instead, we were surprised to meet all manner of folk (with the odd exception of sea kayakers), including commercial fishermen, a solo explorer piloting a Zodiac from Alaska to Seattle, and a wonderful group of Heiltsuk people from Bella Bella running a native rediscovery camp. They expressed mild surprise to see us in our double folding kayak bob- bing around in the surf, but were completely taken aback when I opened the zipper on my sprayskirt and our dog Lucia stretched and popped out for some fresh air.
Yes, you can paddle with your pet! Cats, with their nasty propensities to urinate on, spray, claw, and generally devalue property, are pretty much out of the question, in my opinion. But a dog—man and woman’s best friend! Dogs are truly social animals that can adapt themselves to pretty much any situation—ski touring is akin to dog heaven, river rafting is like pooch Nirvana, and extended sea kayak trips are like one giant rotten salmon carcass to roll in.
Kayaking with your hound can either be Milk-Bones and rawhides for both of you, or it can be like one long, drawn-out shock collar for both pet and owner. To tip the scales toward the Milk-Bone side, paddlers need to spend time choosing the right dog, invest thought and care into training, and plan trips with their pet in mind.
When it comes to choosing the ultimate paddling pooch, size does matter. Large breeds, such as rottweilers, shepherds, and huskies will likely require their own custom hatch or even their own cockpit, and will tend to make life interesting if the paddling gets bumpy. Smaller breeds, such as border collies, blue heelers, and smaller labs and retriever cross-breeds can often fit in a cockpit with a paddler, and will therefore be easier to control if paddling conditions become more challenging.
When we finally gave in to the tiny newspaper ad that proclaimed “Border Collie Cross Pups!” We examined each of the six little fur balls in the litter to check their foot size—puppies will tend to grow into their feet—to choose a smaller dog that would be comfortable in a kayak cockpit.
And so little Lucia entered our life. The training with a puppy begins at once, and I believe that training is more about building a connection between you and your pet than teaching banal skills such as “sit” and “roll over.” From day one, Lucia went where we went. By the time the local lakes and rivers opened up for paddling, she already had nearly 50 ski-touring days under her pelt (even though she spent most of these with nothing but her head poking out of my day pack). When we finally did try to teach her basic commands, it was painless, as she inherently knew when we were happy with her or otherwise.
We wondered how Lucia would do in a kayak, so as soon as conditions allowed we put our sea kayaks into the St. Mary’s River near our home in Kimberley, B.C., and floated 15 kilometres downstream with our dog soundly asleep on an Ensolite pad between my legs.
Next came the training for the worst-case scenario—a dump in rough water. We wanted to give Lucia every possible advantage, so we borrowed a CFD (canine flota- tion device) and spent many sweltering summer afternoons swimming various sets of rapids with her, allowing her to get used to mixed-up water, and training her to stay with us while we swam.
The southern Inside Passage was our first extended sea kayak expedition with Lucia. We paddled a Klepper tandem kayak because its 14-inch depth gave Lucia more room to get comfortable on longer paddling stretches.
An important piece of gear is a sprayskirt with a waterproof zipper. This allows the dog to get “above- deck” to get some fresh air on calm seas— would you want to be locked under your sprayskirt after beach burrito night?—and allows you to close up the cockpit if waves begin to wash over your deck.
We learned there are many things to consider when bringing a pet into a wilderness area. It is critical to have a dog that is well-trained and easy to control. The wild West Coast is home to a vivid abundance of wildlife. Every beach is at least a temporary home to sandpipers, turnstones and other shorebirds that a poor- ly trained dog would just love to chase—an ultimate sin from a no-impact standpoint. Every beach also bore the tracks of cougar, grizzly, black bear or wolf, and some- times all of the above! Any wandering away from camp a dog might do could be its last, so if a dog can’t stay put, it should be leashed.
Dogs have all the basic needs that we do—food, water and shelter. Although the dog will find all man- ner of rotten flotsam to ingest, it needs to have its regu- lar diet kept up. On a cold, wet trip, dogs will need more food than normal, just like us. We usually bring a regular ration of Lucia’s regular dog food—which for a long trip can be a daunting amount of extra food to pack—and supplement it with the some of the fresh fish we catch and eat ourselves.
A thirsty dog’s first encounter with salt water can have explosive results, but it is a lesson that the dog will likely have to learn on its own. Just pray that the purging from both ends does not occur in the middle of a long crossing. It is your responsibility to ensure your dog has access to fresh water, either from creeks near camp, or your own supply. A collapsible nylon water dish takes up almost no space, and can double as a food dish.
It is a romantic notion to sleep with your dog in a tent, but a salty sea-dog that has rolled in the unidentified carcass washed up on the beach will likely not be welcome with the humans, no matter what manner of West Coast deluge is happening outside. Therefore it’s a good idea to bring a tent with a generous vestibule for the stinky hound.
We chose our ultimate paddling pooch carefully, and spent months working with her to ensure that she could be a part of the low-impact travelling we enjoy.
Since then, we have met other guides who actually take their pets to work! One friend has taken his dog, Honey, with him while he guides multi-day kayak trips in Nootka Sound on Northern Vancouver Island, and another friend’s dog, Chewy, gets to river-raft the Elk, St. Mary’s, and Bull Rivers all summer with him. We have even had a blind guest bring his seeing-eye-dog on a two-week guided trip to Ellesmere Island!
We learned that with a little preparation, and a lot of training, you can share your adventures with your dog, and hopefully never again have to see a pair of sad eyes watch you from a kennel window as you head out on another grand adventure without them.
Itinerant guide, biologist and frequent Adventure Kayak contributor Dave Quinn lives in Kimberley, B.C. with Kelly Comishin and Lucia the salty dog. Dave and Kelly operate Treehouse Outdoor Education, specializing in adventure and wilderness therapy.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
No place to hide. "If the surf gets big enough it washes across that big black expanse. In the background it's meandering glacial rivers and the largest glacier in Europe, the Vatnajokull."
In May of 2003, three expert kayakers from Washington State embarked on a circumnavigation of Iceland. Leon Sommé and Shawna Franklin—BCU coaches and co-owners of the kayak school Body Boat Blade International—joined Chris Duff, also a BCU coach, sometime carpenter and one of the world’s foremost expedition paddlers well-known for his solo circumnavigation of New Zealand’s South Island in 2000.
Iceland was first circumnavigated by Nigel Foster 25 years ago. Few paddlers have repeated the feat, partly because of the challenging weather—you have to put in long days on the water to get all the way around the 1,700 nautical miles (3,000 kilometres) in the short sub-Arctic summer. With the open North Atlantic on all sides and unpredictable weather, much of Iceland is challenging paddling.
The South Coast is undoubtedly the crux, presenting an unbroken expanse of windswept black sand beach and dumping surf. In storms, there is no place to hide from the wind, the rising seas can consume the beaches, and the nearest dry land is far away over impassable areas of glacial ponds and quicksand.
Beginning in the eastern town of Seydisfjordur and traveling clockwise, Leon, Shawna and Chris hit the South Coast at the beginning of their trip, where they paddled all day every day without pulling ashore until it was time to camp—to minimize the number of times they’d risk getting pummelled in the surf.
One night on the South Coast, a storm hit and the three had to seek shelter in one of the numerous well-stocked emergency shelters that dot the Iceland coast. From there they were evacuated to an inland town to wait out the storm, rest and re-supply.
“The Rescue” became the team’s harrowing adventure story that everybody hears first. But beyond the bleak South Coast, Leon, Chris and Shawna were charmed by what they describe as a “utopia in the North Atlantic”—a tidy land of hospitable people, free-running herds of domestic Icelandic horses, summer wildflowers and unlimited free camping. It’s a place where every little town has geothermal heated swimming pools and hot-tubs where friendly attendants serve you coffee while you soak away the aches of a three-month paddle.
The team successfully made it back around to Seydisfjordur in 81 days. Shawna became the first woman to paddle around Iceland.
Adventure Kayak magazine interviewed Leon Sommé to learn more about this remarkable trip.
An interview with Leon Sommé
Q. Wow, a 3,000 km, 81-day circumnavigation of Iceland is a pretty ambitious trip! What inspired you to take this on?
Well, it was essentially an email from Chris Duff. One day we just got an email that said, “Shawna and Leon, would you be interested in circumnavigating Iceland with me next year?”
“Oh look, oatmeal!” | No bathroom breaks.
Q. Ireland, Great Britain, New Zealand—Chris Duff is known for doing all these grand expeditions alone. Why did he decide to invite you and Shawna along on this one?
That’s a really interesting question. He had an incident on the New Zealand coast where he had to have a helicopter rescue and his boat got broken. And I think he just kind of saw his mortality on that trip and needed to get his mindset back to where he was comfortable being on the water again.
[Also], we live a very simple life like he does. We have a cabin that’s 12’ by 12’—144 square feet with a little loft. It’s heated by wood. Our lighting is candles. No running water, no electricity. And Chris lives in a 13’ by 13’ straw-bale house. Chris is a minimalist with what he carries in his boat and Shawna and I are considered minimalists by most people as well.
Q. What happened during that storm on the South Coast that led to you having to be rescued?
The winds just kept increasing until they got to hurricane force and it was blowing that black sand which was just pelting our tents and burying our boats. And we literally had to come out of our tents every half an hour and push the wet sand off the tent and then shovel it away.
About one in the morning we decided the tents had to come down before they got destroyed, and we were going to attempt to get to the rescue hut on foot which meant crossing a glacial river. We dragged one of the boats over to the river and Chris [paddled] and Shawna and I hung onto the end toggles. We got to the other side and then continued walking to the hut which was probably only two kilometres from where our tent was.
It took us from one in the morning until six in the morning to actually make that all happen. We couldn’t see anything. You could hardly breathe. When we finally went back and recovered things, all the gel coat shine on the boats had been sandblasted off. Shawna’s helmet was sandblasted from a blue [colour] to black.
Q. So you got to the rescue hut and out of the storm. Why did you decide to call for help?
The storm was getting stronger, the rescue hut was actually shaking, being battered by the wind. So we called [by VHF radio] to notify people that we were there and that we may need help. A helicopter from Reykjavik happened to be out and picked up our broadcast, and they called the local rescue team in Kirkjubaeklaustur, the closest town. Later that day they made their way out to us because we didn’t have very much water left, and we didn’t have very much food with us [at the shelter] by the time we got there.
The rescue hut at Skaftaros. | The day after. | The North Atlantic.
Q. That was a very bad day, because earlier you actually flipped and came out of your kayak while paddling in the rough seas. What happened?
That morning that we set out the barometer had actually dropped quite a bit, but the winds for the most part were at our backs, so we were just trying to take advantage of those. And Chris’ pace was much quicker than ours, so we were separated from each other on the water and not in communication.
When things started getting nasty we were still in hopes of reconnecting with Chris that day, so we stayed out maybe longer than we should have, but it was still conditions we could paddle. It just happened to be one of those times where as much as you rely on and trust your roll to be there forever, it just didn’t work out. So all of our other training came into hand and it was very lucky we had it.
Iceland Expeditions by Numbers
1,700 | Iceland’s circumference in nautical miles (3,000 km)
400 | approximate number of Iceland Expeditions 2003 T-shirts sold to cover trip expenses.
81 | days on trip.
59 | days paddling.
25 | length of a typical paddling day, in nautical miles (45 km)
120 | longest stretch between coastal towns, in nautical miles (from Hofn to Vik on the South Coast).
6-8 | number of days’ food supply typically carried.
20 | number of days spent paddling the South Coast, with no stops between campsites.
8 | usual number of hours spent on the water each day.
11 | number of equipment sponsors.
5 | total number of months away from home.
400 | number of Snickers bars consumed.
14 | number of pounds lost be each expedition member.
270,000 | population of Iceland.
60 | percentage of Icelanders who live in greater Reykjavik.
1996 | the last year a polar bear drifted to Iceland from Greenland on floating ice.
15,000 | number of miles Chris Duff has traveled by sea kayak since 1983.
2 | approximate distance in miles to the Arctic Circle from Iceland’s northernmost point.
Q. Being so far north and so exposed, Iceland is a pretty extreme trip. Is there anywhere in North America where you’d find comparable paddling conditions?
[Circumnavigating] Vancouver [Island] definitely wasn’t as demanding. There are many more outs. It would be hard to say. Maybe a good section of the West Coast of North America that included California, Oregon and Pacific Northwest coasts in a season like the spring, fall or winter to have the weather exposure.
Q. You really trusted your lives to your kayaks. What kind of kayaks did you bring and why did you choose them?
All three of us had Nigel Dennis Explorers. It’s a great expedition boat. It’s fast enough and yet manoeuvrable enough to turn around and get out of a situation you might not want to be in. We also didn’t have skegs or rudders so we wanted a boat that handles nice without those mechanical features.
Q. You said you encountered high winds and a lot of following seas, but you didn’t even have skegs on your boats? Why not?
Mechanical things tend to break down and they don’t work very well on trips like that. A skeg when you’re going out through surf tends to be the last thing to leave the beach. It gets jammed with rocks. On my Vancouver [Island] trip I did a good portion of that solo and I literally had to get out of my boat once I was off the coast and free up the rocks because it was a very skeg-dependent boat, and that’s a very unnerving feeling sitting out in the Pacific cleaning rocks out of a skeg box so you can use it.
So after that trip I decided to go with boats that don’t need them. The Explorer is pretty good at that. There were days when I would have loved to be able to drop a skeg but, well, we were fine without it. There are strokes you can use—and holding your boat on edge—that help counter those conditions.
Q. Black is a pretty unusual colour for a kayak! People usually think about getting brightly coloured boats for safety. Why did you choose black boats?
Mainly just because all-black boats are a really cool-looking boat. Shawna and I both decided by the end of the trip that black boats in that environment were too depressing and it would have been nice to have brighter-coloured boats.
This is a report that I’ve heard from the U.K.: The coast guard looked at different boat colours and tried to determine which ones were most visible. And I believe that robin’s egg blue—which is the color of the U.N. peacekeeping helmets—was one of the the most visible, yellow was the second most visible and black-on-black was the third most visible.
Q. You were several months away from home on a self-supported kayak expedition in a foreign country. What was the most difficult part of this expedition to plan?
Arranging to have the gear from the sponsors and writing them letters. The rest of it’s all fun! I think all three of us have decided that if we do another big trip, we probably won’t seek so much sponsorship. Expeditions should really be planned on the back of a napkin, sitting in a bar.
Q. Paddling eight or more hours per day, almost every day, what did you eat to stoke the furnace?
Essentially our breakfast every morning was oatmeal with cut-up apples, raisins, sugar and butter. And every evening it was some sort of pasta. [For lunch,] peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, boiled eggs and big chunks of cheese. We threw butter in the pasta as well. Butter went into everything, for the calories. All of us lost I think 14 pounds pretty much by the time we got to Reykjavik. We ate 400 Snickers bars so we were just constantly cramming food in our face.
Green grass grows all around. | This is the utopia part. | The man who talks to horses.
Q. You had a pretty grueling schedule to get around Iceland during the summer weather window. Didn’t you get tired of paddling all day every day?
At the end of that trip it was sad to think that we weren’t going to be able to just keep doing that. It’s not only just being on the water and paddling. On a trip like this you just set out in the morning knowing you’re going to see something you’ve never seen before. And Iceland is incredible so I think on every single day of that trip at some point I’d just stop and look around me and out loud go, “Wow, this is incredible!”
Q. On a long trip you have a lot of time to meditate. What’s the life lesson of a trip like this?
Being exposed to how beautiful the natural world is and giving you a greater appreciation for that, and hopefully making your life so that you live a life that helps support the beauty of the natural world and survival. You realize you don’t need very much “stuff” to survive. You need a pot to cook in, a source of fuel and—actually you don’t even need that!
Q. What would you say to someone considering doing an expedition themselves?
Don’t wait until you have enough money. Don’t wait until your kids grow up, until you graduate high school, whatever. If an opportunity like this steps into your lap, take it. Things like this you can’t pass up in your life. It’s too important. It has too great of an impact on who you are to let it go by.
They speak Icelandic. It’s really a very hard language to speak. But luckily close to everybody in Iceland over a certain age speaks really good English.
4. How cold was it?
A lot of people think Iceland is really “icy” and very cold. But for us on the [North American] West Coast it’s a lot like our spring and fall. It was 40s to 60s oftentimes and sometimes really nice days in the 70s.
3. How did you get five months off work to go paddling?
People are always asking us how we get the time off. And for both Shawna and I it’s just how we arrange our lives and live our lives, not to have so many bills and things that we have to pay for.
2. Did you have land support?
No. We were completely self-supported.
1. How did you go to the bathroom on the water?
I have to release the spray deck and unzip my relief zipper and then I have a pee bottle in the boat. If it’s not too rough I can usually do that on my own, but when Shawna has to go we have to raft up. She has a big relief zipper in the back which is much more difficult and she actually has to be on her feet squatting over the edge. When it’s rough it’s very unpleasant.
This article originally appeared in Adventure Kayak‘s Early Summer 2004 issue. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or browse the archives here.
One morning high in the Himalayas of Nepal, I climbed for an hour in the predawn darkness and cold to catch the sunrise over the Annapurna Range. I started taking shots just as the brilliant light pierced the prayer flags in the thin mountain air. By about the fifth frame I realized that these images were all about light. The same light that illuminated the prayers on the flags so intensely and gave shape and scale to the peaks in the background also seeped softly into the nooks and cracks of the valley floor.
My mind flashed back to other favourite times and places; places that at first appeared to be very different than this one: sitting on a beach on St. Ignace Island watching a full moon rise over Lake Superior; paddling past the fall colours on Lake Temagami, Ontario; witnessing the blood-red skies long after sunset on Georgian Bay. These places were sacred in their own way. And it was the quality of light that was the common factor that unified them in my memory with the mountaintop in Nepal, which is where I finally understood that light is what I have been photographing all along.
Photography is the art of “making pictures of light.” Great photographers understand that. Indeed, anyone can improve their images simply by being more aware of how light shapes compositions.
To develop a photographer’s awareness of light, you don’t even need a camera. Ansel Adams, the renowned landscape photographer, would sometimes spend a whole day observing how the lighting changed on a scene before he took any photos.
You can start observing light while you walk the dog in the early morning or gaze out your office window daydreaming about your next kayak trip. Evaluate the quality of light, and pay particular attention to these three basics: direction, intensity and colour.
Light has direction. Try to imagine light in a more tactile way, like flowing water that strikes your subject and flows around it. When shooting a boater in sidelight, think less about the boat and more about how the light is striking the boat and giving it shape and depth. Strong backlighting creates dramatic dark forms with almost no detail in the shadows and also creates magical halos of rim light on delicate objects like surf spray. Strong frontal lighting that comes over your shoulder and strikes the subject enhances detail and bold, bright colours.
If the paddlers in the scene are in shadow, you will learn to automatically shoot from a different angle to get some light on their faces. Instead of shooting that waterfall at noon, you might choose to come back in the late afternoon when the spray is backlit against a dark and dramatic background.
Also consider the intensity of the lighting. On an overcast day, light is diffused and less intense, giving earth tones a soft, muted quality and making the brighter colours, such as a boat, really pop in an image. Early morning sunlight, on the other hand, is focused and very intense. At its low angle, it rakes over the water’s surface and highlights every wave and ripple. This focused intensity is really useful for picking up detail on boats and water droplets coming off paddle blades.
Water intensifies light—an important fact for paddlers to consider. When light is coming at a low angle, the water acts like a huge mirror that reflects and intensifies the power of the light. This additional reflected light will cause your paddler and boat to be brighter than the similarly lit background. You might want to underexpose slightly to counteract the effect of that intensified lighting.
Finally, the colour of the light will affect the mood of the image and your reaction to it. Light can be either warm or cool. Early morning and late afternoon light is warm. It adds life and vitality to pad- dlers’ faces because of its warm tones. Shadow light is made up pre- dominantly of light reflected from the blue sky. It is cool. Faces in shadow tend to look pale and sickly because of the blue, cool cast to the light. However, you can use that cool, blue light to your advantage.
With a little practice this new awareness of the direction, intensity and colour of light will become an automatic reflex that kicks in when you look through your viewfinder. You will find yourself making conscious choices about how to take advantage of what you know about light. No matter what type of light you like best—the mysterious, silvery white light of mist over the water, the bright overhead light of mid-afternoon under clear blue skies, or the low light of dawn or dusk that blasts every detail with red-hot colour—soon you will begin to understand and look for the type of light that really inspires you; the light that makes you want to grab a camera and get out in your boat.
By paying as much attention to the quality of light that strikes your subjects as you do to their composition, you will start to see dramatic improvements in your images. Possibly, you won’t need a trek into the Himalayas to see that photography is the art of making pictures of light.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
The other day, I went down to my local kayak club and couldn’t help but notice that every last boat on the water was a British-style kayak. All of them, that is, except mine.
What’s a “Brit style” boat? Think of kayaks with three little rubber hatches, three bulkheads and skegs instead of rudders. Brit boats are generally small, low-volume craft that weigh 60 to 100 pounds, have pointy upswept ends and tiny little fibreglass seats with backbands, designed to torture anyone over five-foot-four.
These are the kayaks that tend to sport Union Jacks, Welsh dragons and “Kiss me, I low-brace for Scotland” decals. They are designed by the British stars like Nigel Dennis and Derek “I crossed the North Sea using only a cricket bat for a paddle” Hutchinson.
My North American boat by contrast was the only kayak at the club with a rudder and enough volume to actually carry a Honda generator and a steamer trunk of gear—provisions needed to explore the coast in style and comfort. My hatches are those nice big leaky kind, the ones with the awkward neoprene gaskets that you can actually fit a generator through. The seat in my kayak is like a mini La-Z-Boy, not some pitiful little fibreglass thimble that might just fit Herve Villachez or one of the smaller Miss Teen Canada contestants. Mine was the only North American “West Coast” style kayak.
Now don’t get me wrong—British boats are totally cool. They are typically lots of fun to paddle, and there are many excellent designs to choose from. But what in hell happened to the West Coast boat?
I remember a time when West Coast manufacturers were setting the pace for kayak design and especially build quality in North America and maybe even the world. There was great momentum in the U.S. market and a prevailing feeling that many new innovations in hatch, seat and rudder design were just around the corner. America was reinventing the sea kayak, and it was going to be great.
But then, Canucks and Yanks became interested in Brit boats. The average paddler’s skill set had improved enormously. It was time to move up to higher-performance kayaks, and the North American manufacturers didn’t keep up with some of their customers. Designers in the U.K. were truly trying to make the best sea kayaks that they could, while builders in Canada and the U.S. focused on making the boat that everyone could paddle. They wanted the sport to be so inclusive that they forgot about designs that would stretch a paddler’s skills and their comfort zone. Innovation stalled, and flash and gizmos replaced function.
Now, North American companies are responding by rushing to make “British style” sea kayaks of their own. As the British-style kayak becomes the ride of choice for many “serious” sea kayakers, I can’t help but feel that we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Somewhere along the way, the traditional North American features like rudders came to be seen as “bad.” What jackass was responsible for that whopper of a lie? It is patently absurd to say that one system—skeg or rudder—is “better” than the other. They both have inherent strengths and limitations. Skegs are beautifully simple in operation and far less exposed to damage should a collision occur, and foot pedals in a skegged boat are rock-solid under pressure, but rudders are truly superior in some conditions.
No kidding, paddlers in my neighborhood actually believe that rudders are the work of Beelzebub himself. They know it’s true ‘cause they “heard it from some British kayak guru.” On several occasions, while paddling with kayak-anglophiles I’ve tried to explain the advantages of a rudder in following seas. But generally they fall so far behind that they miss the final, most salient point of the argument, which is that rudders really work a treat in following seas!
Hatches. Why must they be rubber? An interesting and little-known fact about those rubber hatches from the venerable British company Valley Canoe Products is that they were never really designed to be waterproof. No, the key design mandate was that they be airtight to contain the smell of British cooking. Consider boiled fish and mushy peas, pigs in a blanket, haggis, kippers, or cabbage boiled beyond the point of no return. Sitting in a cheap and cheerful London tearoom, it’s enough to make one gag. At sea, it would mean disaster. It was a happy accident that VCP’s smell-proof design proved to be watertight as well.
Hatches should be bone dry and easy to access. End of story.
So why on earth has the otherwise sensible paddling community swallowed every last bite of BS from anyone with an accent posing as a sea kayak guru?
Really, the root of all this is very simple: colonialism. When push comes to shove, and we Canadians and Americans hear a commanding voice ringing out in a beautiful rich and plummy British accent, every syllable lovingly enunciated in the King’s English, we immediately recognize our better. We rush to heel like the bad doggies that we know ourselves to be. We still long for our master’s approval and rethink our ill-gotten independence. This is why one always sees some poor Yank fawning all over one of the British gurus at kayak festivals. The British lord will deign to scratch the colonial cur’s ear as he rolls onto his back exposing his genitals in the full canine submission pose.
Let’s keep Brit boats British and take what we learn from them and others, and put it through our own unique filters in order to make something that is truly ours. Hatches should be dry—but they don’t have to be rubber. Americans put a man on the moon, surely someone has got a flush, low-profile hatch design rattling around in their brain. And how about a really slick and easy-to-use rudder deployment system? What about under-stern rudders and foils? Or maybe a kayak with changeable rocker? British layups are traditionally heavy and low-tech. I want a super-stiff carbon boat that weighs 35 pounds. And where’s the performance-touring sit-on-top, with waterproof hatches that will carry a good load, and still offer a decent turn of speed and good thigh contact with the boat for edging and rolling?
Let’s get back to performance boats with fresh new approaches to the old problems. That’s when something really exciting will happen—when there is a melding of approaches and ideas that spawn something a little bit different and fresh. As Canadians and Americans, let’s all strive for the day when we get invited to the U.K. as revered guests, hold court at their kayak festivals and tell them that they’re doing it all wrong!
Alex Matthews enjoys both Canadian and British citizenship. He resides on Vancouver Island and paddles both ruddered and skegged boats. He extends his thanks to the British kayak guru (who wishes to remain anonymous) who confirmed the nauseating nature of mushy peas.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
The new 190-kilometre Hiawatha Water Trail will make Lake Superior’s south coast more paddler-friendly and add another piece to what may become the world’s longest paddling trail.
The Hiawatha Water Trail serves one of Superior’s paddling hotspots, the area centred around Marquette, Michigan. It includes the sandstone cliffs, sea caves, waterfalls, and sand dunes of Grand Island National Recreation Area and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
A waterproof map, available this summer, will show access points, campsites, hazards and sensitive areas. And unique to the Hiawatha are kayak lockers at several urban areas along the coast.
“Essentially, these are small sheds with lockable, kayak-sized compartments,” explained Sam Crowley, one of over a dozen trail volunteers. “Paddlers will be able to stow their gear and go into town to resupply, eat a meal, or spend the night.”
The Hiawatha Water Trail, proposed in 1995, is the brainchild of Marquette outfitter Bill Thompson. The idea took off from the outset, and soon a group of like-minded kayakers had gained the support of local government, businesses and private landowners, and began developing brochures and signage. The number of volunteers grew. The group sought state and federal grants to fund the development of campsites, and has taken an active role in the management of Grand Island National Recreation Area and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The Hiawatha organization acts to promote the interests of paddlers in both protected areas.
Crowley feels that by exposing a greater number of people to the coast and increasing public awareness of sensitive shoreline features, the trail will inspire more people to stand up for the coast’s preservation.
For thousands of years prior to urbanization and private land development, there was an informal, paddler-organized water trail of native Ojibwa campsites around the entire shoreline of Lake Superior. Today, people like Sam Crowley are recreating the old trail piece-by-piece, and introducing a new generation of paddlers to the area in the process.
So far, three water trails dot the American side of Superior: Michigan’s Hiawatha and Keweenaw trails, and Minnesota’s Lake Superior Water Trail. The Canadian equivalent is the Great Lakes Heritage Coast, essentially a government-operated water trail following the north shores of Lake Superior and Huron. Add a couple more to the south shore, and increase paddler involvement in the Heritage Coast initiative, and a modern incarnation of the traditional trail will be complete, extending over 4,000 kilometres around Lake Superior.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here. 
This article was first published in the Summer 2004 issue of Rapid Magazine. 
This article first appeared in the Summer 2004 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions 
