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Skills: How to Shoot Wildlife (With Your Camera)

Photo: Rick Matthews
Skills: How to Shoot Wildlife (With Your Camera)

Wildlife photographers are often envisioned dressed in camouflage suits, spending countless hours stalking big game and carrying monster 12-pound lenses. Not so for kayakers who photograph wildlife. As a paddler your secret weapon is not a 600 mm lens, it’s your boat. Your kayak allows you to move silently and approach animals from the water, the side where they least expect a threat. You can get much closer to animals than you can from land, and often a standard 80–200 mm zoom lens is more than adequate.

Given that many mammals, amphibians and water- fowl spend a great deal of time in or around rivers and lakes, paddlers have unique opportunities to get great wildlife shots. So get up before the sun, get out in that secret weapon, and be prepared to grab some great wildlife shots sans the camouflage suit. 

Capture movement
You’ll often want to use a high shutter speed to reduce blurring when shooting from a moving platform. Try not to get locked into static wildlife portraits, however. Experiment with shutter speeds and panning effects to illustrate motion. Kayaking the coastline of Alaska close to Cordova, we came upon a huge flock of gulls feeding on a school of small fish. Initially I shot at a fast shutter speed. Gradually I slowed it down to 1/15 to 1/30 of a second. This captured the movement and chaos of the feeding frenzy. 

Getting close to wildlife
To get close to wildlife, I use quiet paddle strokes and a dark-coloured paddle—a white paddle blade will alert an animal much more quickly. Paddle upwind if possible to avoid the animal catching your scent. And paddle close to the shoreline and be ready to shoot when coming around bends or into open areas in reed beds. While exploring the wetlands and creeks of Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, we heard a loud splash and came around a bend to see a young moose going for a swim. We followed at a safe distance for several minutes and I was able to fire off two or three frames before he loped off into the bush. The huge cloud of insects may explain why he stayed in the water for so long. 

Use fill flash for bright backgrounds
Along the California coast near San Simeon, we came upon a herd of elephant seals sunning and trying to attract the attention of the females. When paddling, I try to keep the light coming from behind, over my shoulder, but this isn’t always possible.  I use the fill flash to offset the bright surf behind and bring out some detail. Using the flash to enhance what might be your only good shot has to be weighed against the chance of scaring off the animal. 

The early bird gets the shot
Getting up early in the mornings or taking an early evening paddle will increase your chances to see wildlife. Use 200–400 speed film to shoot in the low light. On one early morning paddle I was able to closely approach a small group of deer near our campsite on Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park, Alberta. Drifting very quietly, I waited until the doe peeked out from behind a tree before firing off three frames. The third one was the only sharp one. For sharper images when shooting from a stable kayak, try using a monopod resting on the floor of the boat and brace the camera against your forehead. 

Use fill flash for catch light
Getting out of the boat and wading in the tidal pools at low tide is a great way to discover starfish and other kinds of marine life. In the early evening on the Pacific shoreline near Morro Bay, California, I was able to get quite close to a snowy egret while he was focused on catching supper. Fill flash really helps to bring out detail in eyes and feathers especially in birds with black eyes and dark feathers. If you are shooting skyward at flying birds, use a flash to fill in the shadows underneath. 

akv3i4cover.jpgThis article first appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

 

Editorial: Sufferin’ Succotash!

Photo: flickr.com/loimere
Editorial: Sufferin’ Succotash!

Do you remember the Looney Tunes cartoon where Tweety and Sylvester are stranded on an island, starving? The details are a little vague for me too, however the gist of the story was that Sylvester, the not-too-swift, black and white lispy cat, had a can of food. And Tweety, the annoying, know-it-all, talking canary, had the opener.

Sylvester tried smashing the can with rocks and soon realized he needed the opener.

But instead of working with the little bird and sharing the food, he spent the next nine minutes trying to trick his way to getting it all.

“Ouh, dat puddy tat mad,” Tweety would say after every failed attempt by the frustrated cat to steal the opener.

Life lesson being taught by creator Chuck Jones? Work together.

One of the great things about sea kayaks is that they are hard to hide. It’s tough to slink home with a 17-foot canary-yellow fibreglass boat on your roof after a weekend of paddling and not have everybody in the neighbourhood know where you’ve been. In fact, your being a paddler may be the only thing people know about you—that and you haven’t cut your grass in weeks.

I talked to your neighbour and some guy who works in your office just last week. Everywhere I go I meet people who know you. When they ask me what I do and I tell them I’m the editor of a kayaking magazine, they tell me all about you. You’re the guy down the street who kayaks, or you’re the woman downstairs in accounting who paddles in the harbour on your lunch break.

“I’d love to try kayaking sometime. It looks so fun, fast and peaceful,” they always say. These people are trapped on a cubicle-sized suburban island with a full can of enthusiasm. They spend their summers smashing the can with gardening shovels and staplers trying to get at the enjoyment sealed inside.

Travelling to festivals and events all summer long, I hear paddlers complain that they’d love to paddle more often, if only they could find someone to paddle with. Someone nearby who could paddle in the evenings or share the drive to the beach on Saturday. Well, sufferin’ succotash! My fine feathered friends, you hold the opener. It’s tied to the roof of your van for every housecat on your street to see.

Try hanging a sign on your kayak that reads, “Looking for someone to paddle with, no experience necessary,” and include your home phone number or your office extension.

Who says you can’t learn anything from a cartoon?

akv3i4cover.jpgThis article first appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Touring Kayak Review: Necky Tahsis

Photo: Adventure Kayak Staff
Boat Review: The Tahsis by Necky Kayaks

I’ve been cruising around in my slim, 19-foot, long-distance touring boat for years. I’m so addicted to the speed of its torpedo lines that any standard-length kayak feels as sluggish as molasses. But the price I pay for speed and the stowage capacity of a small galleon is the sloppy fit of an echo-chamber cockpit and the turning radius of a Lincoln Town Car towing a sailboat. In the new Necky Tahsis I’ve found the ultimate combo—a multi-day touring kayak that’s as long, narrow and super fast as my expedition boat, with the snug fit and sporty performance of a day tripper.

[ Also read: How To Buy A Used Kayak: Everything You Need To Know ]

At 18 feet long and 22 inches wide, the Tahsis is almost as streamlined as kayaks come. I was able to reach a max speed over 6.5 knots (12 km/h) and cruise effortlessly at four to five knots.

Necky Tahsis Specs
Length: 18 ft
Width: 22 in
Depth: 12 in
Cockpit: 32 x 15 in
Front hatch: 11.5 x 7.5 in
Rear hatch: 14.5 x 10.5 in
Weight: Fibreglass 60 lbs / Kevlar 55 lbs
MSRP: Fibreglass $2699 USD / Kevlar $3199 USD
Rudder: SmartTrack rudder system $199 USD /Titanium rudder $249 USD

www.necky.com

Empty, the Tahsis is “sporty” or “tippy” depending on how comfortable you are in performance hulls, but that’s what allows it to crank so comfortably into a stable, radical tilt for an outside turn.

On a tilt you’re not only shortening the waterline but engaging several edges of the multi-chined hill. The chines act like arced keels to carve the boat with noticeably more oomph than a soft-chined hull. With no initiation from the paddle, I could zigzag the Tahsis through linked turns by rocking my hips from side to side. It’s like engaging a shaped ski on groomed powder.

I’ve never been so tuned into my hip action in a sea kayak, so I was grateful for a snug, performance fit. Only 1-foot-deep with a flat deck, the Tahsis has a low profile, low windage, and fairly small cockpit—no problem for long lanky frames and size 13 feet, but not a happy place for the big boned. This is a boat for wearing more than sitting in—think ski boots and climbing shoes. If the Tahsis were a wetsuit it would fit exactly my size: medium-tall.

With its long waterline and low profile, the Tahsis catches very little wind and weathercocks only mildly.  In a moderate blow, I found the foot rudder wasn’t necessary at all, but it’s comforting to have the option on a long boat.

The standard rudder is sturdy and beautifully engineered with no sharp edges, with control lines that disappear into a channel below the deck. This refinement adds significant resistance when engaging the rudder but results in a clean appearance.

A fancy SmartTrack rudder system from Cascade Designs is optional. And if you’re planning to do a lot of rock garden ballet with your rudder down, the rugged titanium rudder option is for you.

[ Paddling Buyer’s Guide: View all touring kayaks ]

The Tahsis is best suited for intermediate to advanced, smaller to medium-sized paddlers (tall ones too!) who want a snug performance boat with the speed and capacity of a long, narrow hull—ideal for multi-day tripping and weekend racing.

Parts of blue kayak

Cockpit (left)

Features that let you wear the boat: comfortable contoured thigh braces; ratchet-adjustable backband; and a padded seat cushion that inflates with a squeeze of the rubber bulb. Add hip padding to taste and you’re ready to surf and roll. Unique to the Kevlar layup (shown) are the black ribs of graphite and, interestingly, a spruce dowel moulded into the keel lines as a stiffener.

Hull (middle)

Mike Neckar’s “diamond” hull looks like a cut gemstone. It has six chines with a concavity along the keel between the bottom chines. In theory, the design improves stiffness and tracking, with the negligible side effect of sitting deeper in the water. In practice, the noticeable effect is its caving ability on edge.

Rear deck (right)

The Tahsis is as sleek as a submarine with recessed deck fittings and rudder controls. Necky calls their time-tested two-piece hatch system “the best of both worlds”—an underlying neoprene cover seals the hatch and the plastic outer cover sits flush with the deck, shedding waves and protecting the neoprene from UV. Expect to see different hatch designs in the future.

This article originally appeared in Adventure Kayak‘s Fall 2003 issue. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or browse the archives here.

Beating the Blue Funk

Photo: Dan Armstrong

“Fearfulness is one of the most basic physiological and behavioral responses we have,” says University of Wisconsin psychology professor Ned Kalin. Although we all have different fear thresholds, fear is a natural, evolved response to danger. Face it. We were born to be afraid of whitewater. 

Good paddlers, however, have long distinguished between good fear and bad fear. Good fear tells you when you’re in over your head. Bad fear—debilitating, self-doubting fear— is the irrational funk that psyches you out before a drop when your paddling skills, experience and fitness are otherwise up to the challenge. 

Psychologists say that these fear responses are ingrained through experience. Any negative or traumatic experiences that we have in whitewater are etched into the brain’s biochemical hard-drive to replay next time we face a similar situation.

Does this mean that we are all confined to a fixed level of mental comfort in paddling? Absolutely not! Through physical preparation and visualization, we can “reprogram” our fear response to match our paddling abilities and aspirations.

TAKE IT EASY

Physical reprogramming is the first step. Consistent time on the water is one of the best fear antidotes. Drop down to a grade of whitewater that’s comfortable for you or go back to flatwater to hone your technique and fitness. Take a course, invest in an instructional book or video, or go out with a friend who is technically better than you. Work on your bal- ance and your roll…on both sides. Create “class V moves” on class I and II. Creek boater Ed Poropat advises, “Above all, don’t be satisfied with ‘I got down OK.’ Strive for grace and excellence when practicing on the easy stuff. Soon, these difficult lines will seem easier, your confidence will soar, and you will know you can hit similar lines on tougher rivers when it really counts.”

GO TO YOUR HAPPY PLACE

The next stage of your transformation is mental reprogramming through visualization, a technique used by top athletes in all sports. Quebec open boater and creeker Gigi Rioux and big-drop performer Tao Berman both routinely use visualization. Visualization can actually change nerve pathways in your brain, altering your brain’s biochemical programming to produce new fear responses.

One of the best visualization techniques, developed for alpine skiers by Dr. Richard Suinn, is called Visual Motor Behavior Rehearsal (VMBR). Suinn says, “The VMBR technique combines relaxation and imagery in a format that allows individuals to desensitize themselves to a stressful situation.”

To conduct VMBR, find a quiet place and breathe deeply, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Calm and quiet your mind and body. Go to a scene in your mind that represents calm, and focus on that scene in full detail. Spend some time switching back and forth between an empty mind and the calming scene.

Next, imagine yourself getting ready to paddle the river, drop or hole that would normally inspire fear. Visualize every detail, from what you are wearing, to the temperature of the water, to every stroke you place. Visualize in real time or even slow motion—don’t skip a step. Keep breathing deeply. If fearful or self-doubting thoughts creep in, switch back to your calming scene and then start over. Intense fear may call for several visual- izations a day; mild fear may only require a visualization before you paddle.

AND WHEN I SNAP MY FINGERS…

Finally, introduce a verbal or physical cue to match the visualization of success. For example, choose a word that inspires strength and confidence and recite it several times after each visualization. Or hold your hands in a certain position while you are visualizing. I used to create a circle with my thumb and forefinger—a gesture easy to do while holding a paddle. As you visualize more using these cues, your brain will associate your word or hand position with images of confidence and success.

When it’s time to paddle the river or rapid that used to inspire fear, try your focused breathing and your verbal or physical cue. As you are scouting or contemplating the run, repeat your visualization. You will likely experience some of the physical aspects of a fear response, and you should—you want your body to be alert and responsive in a challenging situation—but you will also feel confident and focused.

If you’re still gripped, don’t be discouraged. You may need to take more time for physical and mental preparation. Eventually, you’ll get where you want to be, or you may decide that you can have a great paddling career without ever running that drop or going into that hole. Move on and have a good day on the water. In the big picture, being healthy and on the river with your friends is pretty much as good as it gets! 

Dianna Townsend, a boater of 10 years, paddles in the Southern Sierra Nevada, visualizing and breathing deeply on every drop. 

Screen_Shot_2016-04-19_at_2.23.46_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

Northwest Territories’ Highway of Waterfalls

Photo: Keith Morrison

Open a northern tourism brochure and there they are, along with pictures, heights and distances to the nearest city hall. Eleven waterfalls just sitting by the road in the Northwest Territories. All within a five-hour drive of each other, complete with parking, camping, toilets and boardwalks to scenic overlooks. Drops ranging from three metres to 33 metres. And only three had ever been run.

That left eight first descents, something that my pal Stu and I were determined to change. Out of money and with nothing to paddle all winter, we hatched a plan: Run them all, smallest to largest, with me learning as we went. We would get famous bagging the first descents, maybe even make some money. It was a plan bred of desperation and boredom. By the time it collapsed around us, my good friend Stu would be forever one centimetre shorter.

I’d learned to paddle on the Slave and the Ottawa Rivers and was pretty comfortable with churning masses of foam and two-storey waves. My “local river hero” mentality got a bit of a shock, however, when I went to B.C. and paddled rapids that didn’t have ten-metre-wide lines down the middle or monster eddies at the bottom. It was then that I realized I couldn’t creek for balls and, much to my regret, had never run a waterfall. Fortunately, Stu was quite the opposite, a true B.C. paddler. He knew steep and he knew continuous and he was willing to teach me.

By June the water was running and we were on our way up north. Stu took the opportunity to bring me up to speed on the fundamentals. He explained that you can go at drops in two ways: boof them or pin-drop them. Boofing involves landing your kayak flat or at a slight angle to the water. The term “boof” comes from the sound that the bottom of your boat makes when it hits the water: “BOOF.” Pin dropping is just that, Stu said. Dropping over the edge bow-first and falling…just like a dropped pin.

What dictates which way you go is a combination of waterfall height and water depth at the bottom. “You don’t want to land anything flat that’s over nine metres high. Imagine strapping a door to your ass, jumping off the high board at the local pool and landing flat on the door. Vertebrae compress, disks pop, things twist, other things snap, crackle and pop—not a pretty thought!” Stu noted that one may even want to reduce that nine- metre rule of thumb if getting on in years or feeling particularly brittle that day.

So why boof at all, I wondered. Well, I learned that boofing requires a lot less bottom depth than does pin dropping. I also found out that it allows you to retain some of your forward speed and gives you more con- trol over where you wind up at the bottom—a good thing if there’s a nasty hole or some obstacle below that you want to avoid.

The first two waterfalls on our list were close to Fort Smith on the Slave River and a logical place to start. While the Slave is renowned for its big water, the east side of the river is laced with small channels and two three-metre waterfalls of note: Slop Drop and Patrice’s Falls. There are smaller falls on the Slave but, to paraphrase Nealy, a waterfall is defined as a vertical fall over 2.5 metres in height. Anything smaller is just a ledge.

Slop Drop and Patrice’s Falls provided a good training ground for Stu to teach me how to boof. I learned how in order to get your kayak to ramp off a waterfall, you need to throw in a strong forward stroke just as you reach the lip. This boof stroke, combined with an upward pull by your knees and a slight forward movement of your torso, causes your bow to leap for- ward and up and initiate the boof. I practiced this stroke on flat water and perfected it on small ledges before hitting the bigger stuff. I learned that the tendency of water to accelerate as it nears the lip of a waterfall will affect the timing of the stroke, and to be ready for this or be doomed to screw up. 

BOUND FOR FIRST DESCENTS

After our successful practice runs on the Slave we set off from Fort Smith on a three-hour drive bound for some first descents. In the process we drove past Little Buffalo Falls on Highway 5, a 12-metre ogre that required technical expertise that I didn’t have, at least not yet.

The highways of southern N.W.T. traverse vast dis- tances between the minute enclaves of iconoclasts that comprise the culture of the North. In this otherwise tedious landscape of tortured spruce trees and mosquitoes, ancient glacial action has created a huge escarpment over which pretty much all the region’s water tumbles. Government engineers bulldozed Highway 1 along the escarpment’s periphery. Tourism marketers named it the Waterfall Route. The road provides easy access to six waterfalls: Louise Falls at 15 metres, Alexandra Falls at 33 metres, the twin falls of Escarpment Creek at eight metres and 12 metres, Lady Evelyn Falls at 15 metres, and McNally Creek. Only Lady Evelyn Falls had ever been run.

Mileposts every two kilometres along Highway 1 mark off the kilometres from the Alberta border. McNally Creek Falls, at kilometre 120, is a seven-metre straight shot only 100 metres from the road. McNally Creek had a lot less water in it than when we had looked at it a few months earlier, but after a dummy run with an empty kayak we deemed it safe and Stu took the first shot. Unfortunately, Stu didn’t take as nice a line as did the empty kayak. He wound up hitting the large flake of rock that dominates the lip of this waterfall and was kicked to the right and rotated onto his side. The landing was brutal and the impact of the water onto the side of his head knocked all the foam out of his helmet.

It was here in my short but dynamic waterfall running career that I learned it is sometimes harder to go second. Assembling all the nerve I could, I charged straight ahead and hit a perfect boof, landing flat on non-aerated water seven metres below. It was also at this point that I coined the term “nut slap” and added it to the list of reasons not to boof, somewhere between compressed vertebrae and popped disks. Insulted ‘nads aside, I was chuffed at having bagged the first in what we were determined was to be a long series of first descents.

We chose to leave the other, more intimidating falls of the Waterfall Route for the end of our tour and explored up Highway 1 toward the Trout River, which crosses the highway at a place called Somba Deh, a territorial campground at kilometre 320. Armed only with a handful of tourism pamphlets, we went in search of Coral Falls, Whittaker Falls and Wallace Creek. 

Whittaker Falls is an ungodly maelstrom that unleashes all of its fury right below the highway bridge and makes one never want to enter the water again. This evil beast is more of a monster slide than a falls and is pumping into a hole at the bottom so big that it ejects jets of water vapour 15 metres into the air. Petrified, we scratched Whittaker off our list.

Fortunately, one kilometre upstream from the campground on a well-worn river-right trail is Coral Falls, a beautiful four-metre drop into a nice deep pool. We ran that puppy ever which way from Sunday, if only to purge our fear of Whittaker Falls by excessively boofing everything in sight.

DARK AND INTIMIDATING

Drunk on the victory of our second first descent, we headed to Wallace Creek at kilometre 290, parking at a small rest area located by the creek’s bridge. A trail on river left leads to the falls, but we opted to paddle the two kilometres downstream, a pleasant class II with two two-metre boofs along the way.

When we got to Wallace Creek Falls we were a little taken aback. On the surface it looked to be no problem, about an eight-metre drop into a deep pool below. But it was hard to judge the height, as the creek dropped from an 18-metre-deep canyon into a 30-metre-deep canyon with overhung walls. Dropped might not be the right word; dribbled was more appropriate. There was hardly any water in the creek and I was reminded of the Bugs Bunny episode with the intrepid cartoon hero jumping off an impossibly tall tower into a tiny bucket of water. 

We fixed a rope into the canyon above and rappelled in with a throwbag to measure the height. Turns out that the falls were more like 12 metres high. Standing at the lip, that glassy, non-aerated water far below looked pretty dark and intimidating.

It’s after these pivotal moments of your life that you look back and wish that you’d properly answered the question, “Am I more afraid of the waterfall or of my friends thinking I’m chicken?” Beside me, Stu’s mind was churning through the same testosterone-laden thought process. We looked at each other. “I’ll go first,” I heard myself say. The idiocy had begun. 

NOT AS FAMOUS AS PLANNED

We fixed a rope below the falls and Stu rappelled down to provide safety and take pic- tures. I gathered my courage, drove myself over the lip and hucked my weight forward, putting myself into the kayaking fetal position with my paddle at my side. I knew that I didn’t want to land this one flat and that not too much could go wrong as long as I went in pointy end first. Eyes closed, I hit the water slightly over-vertical and got immediately ejected from my craft when my boat slapped into the water upside down. I bobbed to the surface with my stomach in my throat, a roaring in my ears and the faint echoes of Stu’s laughter reverberating off the canyon walls. Later, when Stu got the film developed, there must have been ten shots of me swimming around the base of the falls, looking pissed off.

Now it was Stu’s turn. Not wanting to hang up at the lip or over-rotate like me, he put in a bit of a boof stroke at the top. In my slow-motion, frame-by-frame recollection of the carnage, his kayak floated off the lip of the falls, flattened out, turned sideways and proceeded to flutter 12 metres down to the base of the falls. The hull made a hollow “boof” sound when it landed, flat as a pancake onto the black water. 

Two kilometres from the road, 250 kilometres from the nearest hospital, at the base of a 30-metre-deep, overhung canyon, Stu was floating around in his boat with a broken back. We would later learn that it was a compression fracture of the T-12 vertebra, but to Stu at this moment it was a world of hurt. Fortunately, very fortunately, the only damage was to the bone and not to the spinal cord inside.

Stu would have nothing to do with my intricate plans for spinal boards improvised from paddles and kayak bottoms, let alone let me haul him up a 30- metre cliff with jury-rigged harnesses and mechanical advantage systems. In fact, Stu was able to ascend up the rope 30 metres, walk the two kilometres to the truck and rattle down two and half hours of dirt road to the hospital in Hay River.

And to such ignoble ends come the dreams of men. We are not famous as planned (although perhaps infamous in some circles, especially with our girl- friends) and certainly not rich. But I know a lot more about waterfalls. Stu, although forevermore a little less than his original 6’ 8″, was leading 5.10c rock climbs on gear by October. And there are still five first descents to be bagged in the Northwest Territories, just sitting by the road.

Keith Morrison runs the Slave Kayak Lodge on the Slave River in Canada’s Northwest Territories and has spent the past 10 years exploring the nooks and crannies of the Far North. 

Screen_Shot_2016-04-19_at_2.23.46_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

Big Tips for Big Drops

Photo: Scott Harding

Your goal when running big drops is to find the entry angle that will keep your back and body safe from impact but not hit any submerged rocks or the river bottom. The best way to learn to run waterfalls is to start off on smaller, relatively safe drops and work up to harder and bigger. The higher the drop, the more likely you are to want to pencil.

Pencilling is when your boat pitch matches that of the falling curtain of water and you drop into the pool vertically, rather than flat like a boof. It will take time and practice to confidently line up, launch and safely land big drops, but what feels at first like a big blur will soon become familiar and slower. You’ll develop the consciousness to open your eyes, make fine adjustments and enjoy the ride. 

SCOUTING THE DROP

You should be scouting and running safety for all big drops. Look through the whole drop to see if there is any one part that is obviously unrunnable. If this is the case, begin hiking around or decide if you can either put in just below or get out just above the nastiness.

Be sure of your landing zone and that you can hit it. A safe landing zone is often the reason a drop is runnable or not.

Generally, the more aerated the water the higher you can get away with landing flat. Is your landing big, foamy and soft or is flat, green and hard? Is it too high to boof?

How deep is the pool? Is it deep enough to pencil? The best way to find out is to actually go down and check with a pole or a big stick, or even get into the water and look around. However, this is not always realistic and is rarely necessary. With practice and experience you will be able to roughly gauge the pool depth and location of rocks by looking at the foam pile and boils. Another good way to know for sure is to check when the water’s not flowing and return the next season or, in some cases, the next day when the dam releases.

What other dangers are there? Often wood and other debris will collect in the pool below large waterfalls. On sheer drops the river may not only pound away and erode the base of the falls but also the wall behind it creating a cave hazard. Be sure that you can

either get out from behind the falls or be positive you will finish on the downstream side.

Consider the water depth at the lip of a drop. If you barely scrape over the lip of a sheer drop, it is very easy to get hung up and go over vertical, not so gracefully flopping your 30 footers onto your head.

Be sure you’ll see your intended line from your boat at river level. Use whatever landmarks are avail- able: bridge pilings, tiny breaking waves or even a friend standing by running safety. Many paddlers (even good ones) have, in the excitement, quickly scouted a drop from shore, hopped in their boat and totally lost sight of a perfect and relatively simple line.

OFF THE LIP

To pencil off a big drop, go off at roughly the same speed as the water using only smooth correction strokes to keep the boat on line. Carrying a lot of speed off a drop may launch you ahead of the water and free of the falls, and maybe over the hole or a rock at the bottom, but it makes setting your pitch far more difficult. You want your boat to fall off the brink,

match the pitch of the water and enter the pool at the same angle as the falls.

For the most part, your body position at the brink of the drop sets your angle for the rest of the ride. Keep your body relatively neutral, leaning neither too far forward or back. On the way down, pulling your legs to your chest will cause the bow to rise and your boat to flatten. Conversely, pushing your legs away will drop the bow or cause the boat’s pitch to steepen—become more vertical. 

These sound like great tricks but in reality are very difficult and take lots of practice.

What to do with your paddle? You do not want your paddle at the same level as your face or neck when hitting the water. Some boaters put their paddles to the side, parallel to the boat, and tuck their heads at the last minute. Others simply keep their blades low around their hips. Avoid the ever-popular and danger- ous skull and crossbones. Throwing your arms above your head leads to: losing at least one hand from the paddle; getting slammed to the back deck; and likely damaging a shoulder.

TOUCHDOWN

Where there is even the slightest chance of hitting rock, using anything other than a creek boat is asking for trouble. Creek boats will by no means make you invincible but are far better equipped to protect you and make the lines you choose easier to hit.

Lean forward as you pencil into the pool. This helps stop the boat from back looping and sheds some of the impact of the fall from your body.

Accidentally landing too flat? Lean forward to help protect your back. And reach for a stroke upon landing to help you move downstream away from the curtain. When landing inadvertent big boofs, turn your head to help you steer clear of a broken nose compliments of your cockpit rim.

Be comfortable surfing in holes. Playing and practicing in holes makes for a fast and bomber roll, teaches you how to manoeuvre and more importantly how to get out if that’s where you end up. 

PRACTICE AND JUDGEMENT

Running big drops is a lot of fun but takes practice and good judgement. There are as many ways to get into trouble as there are ways to run waterfalls. Take rescue courses and always paddle with like-minded boaters whom you trust.

If you cannot set up adequate safety for a big drop, don’t run it. Remember, there is no hurry. The waterfall you are so intent on running today will be there to run next season, or the next. 

Screen_Shot_2016-04-19_at_2.23.46_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

Park and Play: Kananaskis Upgrade

Photo: Ryan Creary

The Kan is Alberta’s most popular whitewater river. Flowing north from Barrier Lake into the Bow River through the adrenaline-sport Shangri-La of the Rockies’ eastern edge, the Kananaskis River is within an hour’s drive of Calgary. It has plenty of variety, including a slalom course and good playspots like Widow Maker, Hollywood Hole and the crowd-pleasing Green Tongue. Freestyle kayakers share the river with beginning canoeists and Olympic racers, and although eddies sometimes get the vibe of a skateboard park with everyone lined up to throw down a sick one, even the biggest huckers are willing to help out a swimmer. 

Best of all, consistent dam-controlled water levels make the Kan a dependable all-season playspot. The water god—TransAlta hydro— doesn’t have paddlers in mind when it plans releases, but things work out so the medium-volume Kan flows roughly 30 cms almost every day year-round.

Now, there are more reasons to hit the Kan—bigger, better, brand- new playspots.

During a low-water period in late April, contractors moved in to add 700 tonnes of new rock and shift around existing features. They created new waves, holes and eddies near the former Santa Claus pourover, halfway along the Kan’s two-kilometre stretch of prime whitewater. The project, spearheaded by Jeff Germaine and Patch Bennett through the Lower Kananaskis River Users Association (LKRUA), aimed to develop high-quality park-and-play spots that would spread out the use on the river and reduce congestion.

Paddlers are stoked about the results of this $50,000 upgrade, which produced three notable new features. 

The middle feature is the chosen one to draw the masses away from the Kan’s ever-popular Green Tongue. Formed from the old Santa Claus wave, this new feature has been provisionally dubbed “St. Nick” until paddlers at the Kananaskis Whitewater Festival can settle on something jazzier than “one, two and three.”

Approaching St. Nick, paddlers see a horizon line and a tight constriction. The river narrows by two-thirds into a super-fast, powerful wave. With a steep face and retentive foam pile this wave allows for spins, blunts and big bounces. “You can air blunt on both sides,” said Bennett.

Bennett is also happy with the results of feature number one. “It’s a breaking wave that you can cartwheel and loop in and blunt and do many of the newer moves. But it’s not super sticky…. We wanted something that offered a bit more wave surfing that you could throw in some cartwheels as well.”

The third new playspot is another wave sized for less aggressive boaters, well serviced by a huge eddy on river right. Kan veterans will notice other, subtler changes including a partially formed fourth feature—a work in progress that timed out when TransAlta turned the taps back on—and a smorgasbord of new eddies, smaller play features and learning spots.

Other improvements, including finishing cleaning out eddies on the slalom course, are in store for later this summer, and if this spring’s success is any indication, the Kan will continue to improve.

“If we’d managed to get three features as good as what we’d already had we would have been pleased.” Bennett concluded. “Now we’ve got two features at least as good as we had before and one feature which is considerably better than anything we’ve had before.” 

Screen_Shot_2016-04-19_at_2.23.46_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

Editorial: Stand Up and Save Our Rivers

Photo: flickr.com/albertoog

On my way home after a surprising low-water spring run on Ontario’s Upper Black, I stopped at the Sandman Inn and Restaurant for coffee. The only thing keeping me awake was thinking about how I was going to explain the fist-sized dent I put in the bow of Andrew’s new open boat. I suppose I could have been more to the right going over the drop, but where was the spring run-off that usually makes this class IV falls a clean run?

We ran out of water at our house this past winter. A dry fall and no mid-winter melt must have lowered the water table below the reach of our drilled well. Melting snow on the wood stove for tea is romantic at first, but after months of lugging around five-gallon jugs, the Little House on the Prairie feeling quickly dries up.

In North America we use an average of 1,400 gallons of water per capita per day. Industry and agriculture suck 90 percent of this, but still, each person carries 28 five-gallon jugs of river into their home each day. We didn’t require this many jugs of course because in Quadeville you can still slip into your Sorels and piss off your front porch. Not everyone is so lucky.

Back behind the wheel, coffee in one hand and dicta-phone in the other, I began brainstorming the framework for the next national environmental campaign: Stand Up and Save Our Rivers—the instal- lation of urinals in every household.

It might be slow to catch on, like Blue Box and composting, but soon urinals would make it into every home.

It would become a political issue of course and one sure to pass—what man would vote against mandatory urinal use?

My favourite: If “urinal” not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

No more “leave it up or down” domestics, and think of the water we’d save. Water that would flow in our rivers. Water that would have cushioned my landing and saved the bow of my borrowed boat. I was sure that I was onto something, but like all credible green movements I needed some statistical research to support my campaign.

There are roughly 330 million flushers in the United States and Canada and 50 percent of those are men using, on average, five gallons per flush and five flushes per day. North American men flush a grand total of 4.1 billion gallons per day. Now, let’s say that four out of five of these 4.1 billion gallons could be urinal-based. Using only one gallon per pull of the stainless handle, men alone would save 3.3 billion gallons of water per day.

Dividing per-day use by hours, minutes, seconds and converting gallons to cubic feet, it works out that by installing urinals in every home in North America we’d prevent a staggering 5,812 cubic feet of water per second from flushing into our sewers. That’s the equivalent of five Ocoees, one and half Frasers and six raging Upper Black Rivers flowing day and night, 365 days a year.

So you see Andrew, it’s not really my fault. If this urinal thing had caught on five years ago, there would have been plenty of water that day and I wouldn’t have dented your boat.

Screen_Shot_2016-04-19_at_2.23.46_PM.pngThis article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Rapid Magazine.

 

The Garden of Annie: Paddlers Paradise in Tofino

All photos: Josie Boulding
The Garden of Annie: Paddlers Paradise in Tofino

On Vancouver Island’s West Coast, stories grow as fast and tall as the fat red cedars and amazon Douglas firs they’re told under. The characters grow larger than life and their feats beyond human. Take the tales of Cougar Annie, who is rumoured to have shot a cougar one-handed, dealt with more than one husband by force, withstood the shelling from a Japanese subma- rine and cultivated a garden of exotic plants amidst the wild coastal rainforest. Tall tales indeed, except these stories are true. Cougar Lady really did earn her name from her ability to dispatch meddling big cats and black bears and she made a life and a horticultural career for herself far from civilization in an environment where it rains almost every day from October until April. 

So says Margaret Horsfield in her book Cougar Annie’s Garden. By the time I finished reading the introduction I was inspired to visit the storied garden and see for myself if the rumours were true that after years of neglect, Annie’s exotics were blooming once more. 

So I planned a seven-day kayak trip. Beginning in Gold River, a remote West Coast logging town deep in Vancouver Island’s Nootka Sound, I would make my way to the exposed outer coast, paddle south around the noto- rious headland of Estevan Point to Hesquiat Harbour and visit the famed garden at Boat Basin. Then I would zigzag my way further south through the forested islands of Clayoquot Sound to the resort town of Tofino. On the way would be plenty of solitude to give me a taste of Cougar Annie’s life on the edge.

At the docks in Gold River, I loaded my gear aboard the Uchuck III, a former World War II minesweeper that now runs goods and people out to the coast’s remote lodges, homes and camps. With my kayak on board, the Uchuck motored west through the channels leading to Vancouver Island’s outer coast. The forested mountain- sides opened up to reveal snowcapped peaks behind them, fishermen fighting salmon and the odd curious

gaze of a sea lion or seal. Nearing the Pacific, the boat began to roll on a light swell. The Nootka Lighthouse appeared, marking the southern tip of Nootka Island and the entrance to the mouth of the sound. The Uchuck docked nearby at the historic coastal village of Friendly Cove. Today the settlement contains little more than a church, a graveyard, a single house, derelict foundations and a fallen totem pole. It is the landing site of Captain James Cook, the first European to set foot in B.C., and once an important summer residence for the local Mowachaht people. That was back when there were thousands of First Nations spread along the coast in pros- perous communities, and the way it was in 1915 when a woman named Ada Annie Rae-Arthur arrived on the coast with her husband Willie for a clean start and a new life.

The drug problems of today’s Vancouver were problems 90 years ago, and Willie was addicted to the city’s opium dens. The community of Boat Basin, a full day’s travel from Tofino, was remote enough to be free from temptation. Like few others, Annie stayed long enough to witness the decline of the Mowachaht. Until 1986, long after her neighbours had dwindled to none and she had gone blind, Annie stayed at her garden, not leaving for years at a time. She spent 70 years out here; I would spend seven days.

Icrossed the channel from Friendly Cove to the southern edge of Nootka Sound with the waves splashing at my side, glad to be alone on the ocean. I felt like a coastal explorer, with empty beaches, wave-washed cliffs, crashing surf and dense forest on one side, and open ocean, the odd sea otter, seals and sea birds on the other. I made camp at one of the many white sand beaches. Wolf, deer, and bear tracks dimpled the sand in lines that disap- peared into piles of bull kelp. I expected to see hand-sized cat-tracks too, here on Annie’s turf.

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Cougar hunters were held in high regard amongst the pioneers of old, and Annie was the big-cat hunter’s queen. The animals were regular visitors to her garden, and she is reputed to have trapped and shot 70 to 80. Sometimes she would bait them with young goats; other times she would find them treed. She even shot them one-handed in the dark. When she heard the traps snap at night she would check them with a lamp in one hand and a gun in the other. Despite failing eyesight, she never missed a shot.

Annie’s cougar hunting was a profitable business— cougars earned bounties until the late ‘70s, plus there was always demand for hides. Annie was never one to miss a chance to make money—she also sold bulbs and plants from her garden and tended a store and post office. The exotic shrubs, bulbs, fruit trees and flowers Annie culti- vated were not adapted to this rainforest climate, yet her plants flourished and found buyers as far away as Manitoba.

The next stage of my journey took me around the headland of Estevan Point into the protected waters of Hesquiat Harbour and Boat Basin, Cougar Annie’s home. Estevan Point sticks out of Vancouver Island’s western profile like a pimple on a teenager’s face, bearing the brunt of every storm. It also bore the brunt of the only military attack on Canadian soil in recent history. One day during World War II, Annie spotted a submarine in Boat Basin. That night it opened fire on the Estevan Point Lighthouse. Shells were found all over the area for 30 years. Canadian military officials played down the attack, but everyone assumed it was a Japanese submarine.

Puzzling to many was, and is, why the Japanese would sail across the Pacific to attack a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere. Conspiracy theorists argued that it was actually an American submarine, that the States bombed their ally to keep Canada’s resolve firmly in the war. 

Luckily I had calm conditions for paddling around this proboscis-shaped war zone into Hesquiat Harbour. Boat Basin lies at the harbour’s far end. I camped on a long, curving stretch of sand scooped out of the backside of Estevan Point, one hour’s paddle from the garden. I fell asleep that night trying to picture the garden and imagine what I would find the following day. I woke early with a nervous anticipation usually reserved for competitions and first dates. I packed, and tore up the four knots to Cougar Annie’s in record time.

A new boardwalk leads from tidal water through a cedar swamp and up a short hill to the garden. Once only a rare few stopped here, but the garden is becoming famous. Float planes and sightseeing boats now drop in with tourists. But I was the only one around in the early morning hours this day.

I marvelled at the small room that was a post office and store. I walked down plant-lined boardwalks that beckoned me farther into the garden. I gazed in awe at the size of some of the old-growth beams and boards used for building. My eyes were distracted by the hundreds of exotic shrubs, trees and flowers blooming in pocket gardens. Wind whispered in the trees and bugs and birds hummed their tunes. And I was reminded of Annie’s reputation by the rusty traps hanging from trees.

One building, sinking into the ground, was obviously Annie’s home. I looked inside the one-room house. “Eleven kids,” I whispered. Over 70 years Annie raised 11 children and had four husbands come and go—either by death or desertion. After Willie died, Annie advertised for a husband alongside her nursery ads in two western- Canadian newspapers. George Campbell was one of those who replied and came to live at Boat Basin. Evidence suggests he beat Annie, and, not long after arriving, Campbell died suspiciously of a gunshot wound. Annie’s explanations varied between “it went off accidentally while he was cleaning it” to “it went off accidentally when he threatened to kill me.”

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In Annie’s early days the area was busy with a thriving aboriginal, missionary and immigrant pioneer com- munity—enough to make a store and post office viable. Later on, Annie’s only customer was herself. Somehow she was impervious to the multiple forces that drew everyone else away. Today the only residents are a few Mowachaht at the remote reserve on Hesquiat Harbour’s northwest shore and Peter Buckland, who lives full-time at the garden.

Buckland was no stranger to life on the West Coast. He built a small prospector cabin close to Nootka Sound and spent his share of alone time there, whenever he could get away from his law profession in Vancouver. In Annie’s later years, he visited the garden to help out. He stayed for as long as he could spare before returning to his practice in the city.

In 1987, after Annie’s death, Buckland bought her homestead, moved in and began rescuing the garden from the encroaching forest. Partway through my visit I bumped into Buckland, a handsome grey-haired man of the woods. He was friendly and welcoming but not in a “tell all your friends to come here too” kind of way. He just seemed glad to have someone to chat with for a few minutes while pointing out the sights with his work- worn hands. I complimented him on the state of the gar- den, the flowers blooming, the orderly paths and under- control shrubs and trees.

“I practice what I call chainsaw gardening,” he said. Using a chainsaw, axe and machete as gardening tools, he has been reclaiming the former garden. Under the salmonberry and salal, he found the garden struggling to survive. He discovered the fruit trees still bore fruit and most of the shrubs, perennials and other flowers still bloomed despite the heavy cloak of the intruding forest. After 15 years of hard work he still turns up forgotten sections of garden and the plants hidden in them.

Buckland has built himself an incredible abode from the surrounding forest and he plans on being here for many years to come. He has built new cabins, constructed two kilometres of boardwalk and opened the garden to the public. He recently turned the garden over to the not-for-profit Boat Basin Society to ensure its preservation. For the cost of a $50 Society membership, anyone can come to the garden, wander through the oasis protected by towering stands of fir and cedar, and contemplate the tenacity of two modern-day pioneers.

What Cougar Annie and Peter Buckland had done inspired me. I had commitments back home and packed up to head for Tofino, but I was already working out a plan to come back and carve a living for myself out of the coastal rainforest. I paddled south and pulled up on a pocket beach for the last night of my trip, eyeing the forest for a spot to build a cabin and set up a garden as I unrolled my sleeping bag on the sand.

Sleep came easily but during the night I woke to the breaking-twig sounds of an animal hunting in the dark. I stayed awake nervously waiting for a cougar to pounce and shred the few layers of nylon that encased its next meal. A quote from Horsfield came to mind: “When you shoot a cougar, sight fast and aim for its chest. That way you’ll hit the giant cat’s heart,” Annie advised a newspaper reporter in 1957.

I didn’t have a gun but I did have a knife. In a sleep-deprived lunacy, I grabbed my headlamp and the knife, took a deep breath, and turned to face the cougar. Two red eyes flashed in the bush, then turned and ran. With a sharp dose of reality my fears dissolved, but so did my dreams of a life in the bush. Like many before me I realized that it takes a rare type of person to make it out here. I woke the next morning and, like the mouse that had disturbed my slumber, high-tailed it home.

When he’s not exploring the mountains and shores of Vancouver Island, Ryan Stuart lives, writes and enjoys human company in Courtenay, B.C.

akv3i3cover.jpgThis article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

Urban Adventures: Sault Ste Marie

Photo: Andrea Maenza
Urban Adventures: Sault Ste Marie

As a Lake Superior sea kayak guide, I have become accustomed to a watery horizon and shorelines of granite, cobble, sand and cedar. On the St. Mary’s River, however, concrete, steel and glass replace the natural rock and forest; smoke-belching industry and the blanket of society have wiped out any feeling of wilderness. But I have learned that wilderness lies in the eyes and mind of the beholder. The St. Mary’s River is my teacher, aided by the ghosts of an enchanted past. 

Road-weary visitors to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, can enjoy a full-day, half-day or evening tour on the St. Mary’s. The view from the water affords a new perspective of this city of 75,000, and for paddlers on their way to the splendours of Lake Superior, a stop here is a good way to loosen up and get a sense of the area’s history.

With the international border running down its spine, the St. Mary’s is bounded by Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to the north, and the smaller Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to the south. The river—the only connecting channel between lakes Superior and Huron—begins in dramatic fashion, dropping six metres out of Superior in a kilometre-long rapid, before flowing placidly for another 80 kilometres.

Sea kayakers can explore either side of the bor- der—from the two-kilometre-wide main channel below the rapids to the narrow, island-pocked pas- sages on the American side—but you must obey bor- der laws and land on the same side you launch from. For a two-hour paddle, I launch my kayak at the Pine Street Marina on the Canadian side and follow the main channel upstream. There are also good access points with plenty of parking at the Bellevue Park Marina, just east of Pine Street, or the small sandy beach by the downtown public library. On the U.S. side, launch from the Sugar Island ferry docks in the east end of Sault, Michigan, or from Sherman Park, upstream from the locks.

Heading upriver toward the International Bridge, I ignore the sights and sounds and slip back in time. The motorboats buzzing around me become the canoes of the natives; the massive lake freighters, Montreal canoes bound for Lachine or Fort William. 

The glimmering reflections from the windows of riverside estates reappear as campfires, and the hum of traffic fills my ears as the singing of voyageurs. The tugs and barges moored at the Purvis Marine Pier morph into the glacial boulders strewn beneath the cliffs of Old Woman Bay, Lake Superior, and swallows swoop down from barge cavities like peregrine falcons from the cliffs. 

The setting sun is framed by the International Bridge and reflects from the amber-tinted windows of city hall. Beyond Purvis Pier, three kilometres from my launching point, I begin my 20-minute ferry glide against a moderate current to Whitefish Island and the base of the St. Mary’s rapids.

Like the Ojibwa, I too am drawn to Bawating—the “place of falling waters” that marks Lake Superior’s eastern terminus. Before hydro development, the Falls of the St. Mary’s were several kilometres long and spanned the entire one-kilometre width of the river. Centrally located and with an abundance of whitefish, Bawating provided a summer rendezvous site for some 10,000 nomadic Ojibwa. Whitefish Island, a large island on the Canadian side of the rapids, contains archaeological evidence of 4,000 years of seasonal use. Yet in only 200 years of European inhabitation, the fishery was decimated. The wild attributes of the St. Mary’s River, maimed by development, have been lost forever.

The St. Mary’s was recently designated a Canadian Heritage River and is also con- tained within the managed boundaries of the Great Lakes Heritage Coast—which stretches from the Ontario–Minnesota border on Lake Superior to Georgian Bay’s Port Severn. No such designation can restore the river to its former splendour, but in the magic hour of the early morning mist or the evening’s set- ting sun, there are moments when the past overpowers the present. Tonight, it’s as though nothing has gone wrong. I see the fires and hear the drums and songs of reunit- ing people. I sit and reflect amidst the roar of the ever-powerful rapids before paddling on toward another era in the history of the St. Mary’s.

It was the construction of locks, a 15-minute paddle north of the rapids, which tamed the wilderness of the St. Mary’s. No longer was it necessary to endure the long portage upstream; gone was the danger of damaging a birchbark canoe on the downstream run.

Today, the American locks continue to provide commercial access to the breadbasket of the continent. The Canadian locks—a National Historic Site—allow for small craft thoroughfare.

I often lock through, following the posted protocol to call the lockmaster on my marine radio, then posing for the cameras of dozens of tourists while waiting for the water level to adjust.

Locking through allows access to Lake Superior, its open waters another 10 kilometres distant. But for tonight this is the end of the line. The first stars appear on the eastern horizon as I retrace my route downstream, escorted by a beaver that disappears as mys- teriously as it appeared, diving deep into dark waters.

When not leading kayak tours on Lake Superior’s north shore, Conor Mihell is most likely back home in the Soo, day tripping on the St. Mary’s River. 

akv3i3cover.jpgThis article first appeared in the Summer 2003 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.

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