Tennessee, September 2nd, 2022 – Jackson Kayak is excited to announce our latest whitewater kayak—the Gnarvana. With over five years between core creek boat designs Jackson took advantage of a top team of creek boat paddlers and developed an innovative and user-friendly down river offering to replace their Nirvana.
The longevity of the Nirvana came from its ease to paddle, something Jackson tries to make a staple in their designs: A unique focus at helping users push their own limits, without compromising safety and comfort on the river. The Gnarvana is a combination of confidence-inspiring design that enables ease with advanced creek moves, speed and maneuverability. It will be available in three sizes.
“For the past decade Jackson has continued to gauge, analyze and dream what the perfect creek boat could do,” highlights Emily Jackson, whitewater brand manager. “We took input from our team, dealers, consumers and core designers to create a kayak that is forward thinking, innovative and ridiculously fun to paddle. All without compromising on user friendliness.”
The Gnarvana will be coming to the market with an all new rocker profile by whitewater design legend, David Knight and design team (Dane Jackson, Nick Troutman, Clay Wright, Stephen Wright, Colin Kemp and Emily Jackson). The team will be introducing a new high rocker profile with width and length that contributes to keeping the bow dry, hull stable and not only maneuverable but zippy and playful.
The team working with Knight ensured that the end result would be a kayak that is drier, very maneuverable in and out of current, and with a secondary stability that aids in creek and river running progression for beginners to advanced paddlers.
“The way the Gnarvana is fast yet extremely easy to paddle, makes me certain this will be my race boat in 2023.”
— Hayden Voorhees, 2022 North Fork Championships Winner
“The Gnarvana has a unique blend of being extremely forgiving as well as being dynamic and playful. I’ve had it on my home run of the North Fork Payette, smaller volume of the Ashlu and true big water of the Stikine. The Gnarvana wasn’t just good on each run, it excelled in every style of whitewater.”
— Alec Voorhees
“Whether on the Stikine or the LDub, this boat continually blows my mind. Even though this kayak is the best weapon for me to handle the hardest whitewater, it is also the most joyful kayak I have every experienced.”
— Dane Jackson (He’s okay at kayaking)
“Holy… I’ll write more soon but all I can say right now is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
— Chris Korbulic, Factory Team Paddler and Expedition Leader
“Having this boat in 3 SIZES has me excited to get personal first descents and approach new runs! The Small will be our biggest small to help the ladies and anyone in the 120–155 pound range feel confident and in control when approaching any whitewater.”
— Emily Jackson, Brand Manager
“With the rocker profile, stability and volume placement, I feel invincible in this boat.”
— Nick Troutman, Factory Team Paddler and
First Descent Paddler for many classic Mexican runs
About Jackson Kayak
Jackson Kayak was founded in 2004 and currently resides in Sparta, Tennessee with over 150 employees. Jackson Kayak immediately became a leading whitewater brand, then quickly evolved into the recreational and fishing kayak sectors. Jackson has since expanded their high-end kayak product line to include Orion Coolers and Kennels. These initiatives have Jackson Kayak reaching an ever-broadening array of outdoor enthusiasts worldwide. Jackson Kayak remains a family owned and operated company today and continues to be a Made in USA manufacturer supporting the local economy in Tennessee.
The Jackson Kayak Gnarvana is the Best Whitewater Boat of 2023 as voted by the public in the fourth annual Paddling Magazine Industry Awards. Read more and see a complete list of winners here.
Boomer notching a first descent on Baffin Island. | Feature photo: Sarah McNair-Landry
No hike is too far to paddle some sweet whitewater. During summer 2020, Sarah McNair-Landry and I set out to cross the Meta Incognita Peninsula on southern Baffin Island. Our 40-kilometer hiking route was prime for first descents, connecting four unrun rivers in the Canadian Arctic.
Arctic paddlers find first descents in their own backyard
When traveling in the Arctic, it’s important to be completely self-sufficient, prepared for bad weather and expect delays. We started the trip with 20 days of food and fuel, which meant our kayaks were loaded with 110 pounds of meals and gear—more than I had ever taken on a kayak-hike trip before. We also carried a 12-gauge shotgun, bear alarm fence and a solar panel, which accounted for some of the brutal weight. Baffin Island is home to polar bears, and we needed to be prepared.
The Meta Incognita Peninsula separates Sarah’s hometown of Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, and the small community of Kimmirut. The peninsula’s plateau rises about 2,000 feet high and features hundreds of freshwater lakes feeding the many rivers descending through the south coast. On flights into Iqaluit, I would occasionally get a glimpse of waterfalls on the peninsula and always wondered what those rivers would be like to paddle. Since travel was erratic in 2020 with pandemic restrictions, we decided it was time to find out what was in our backyard.
Boomer notching an Arctic first descent on Baffin Island. | Feature photo: Sarah McNair-Landry
Hiking toward a highway of whitewater
From the ocean, we spent two days hiking uphill. At first, our loads were too heavy to carry all at once, so we broke them into two. The only downside to dividing the gear in half is we had to walk three times the distance to cover the same route.
After a lot of hard work and sweat, we reached a series of lakes leading us to the first river. It felt good to be paddling downstream even though we didn’t expect many rapids at first, based on our scouting via satellite images. This low-volume river was our highway to access three more rivers that showed even more whitewater potential, based on what we could see on satellite images.
To our surprise, this first river picked up speed and pinched through a small gorge with class V drops. The first two falls led into a large turbulent pool and another waterfall just downstream with a nasty undercut and no way to set safety properly.
Fortunately, a microeddy on the right gave me the option to run the upper section. I managed to get out, portage around the dangerous rapid, and seal launch back in. Sarah set safety. With her throw line bag in one hand, she snapped the photograph that accompanies this article before portaging around the canyon.
Not long after this surprise canyon, we hauled our kayaks onto our shoulders and hiked seven kilometers up and over into the next river drainage.
Arctic rivers offer up the unknown
Before departing on this trip, the only information we could get on these remote arctic rivers was from low-resolution satellite images and rudimentary topographical maps. We were rolling into the unknown, which is what I love the most about these exploratory expeditions.
In June 2022, Erik Boomer and Sarah McNair-Landry set out on another 70-day multisport adventure, their third Baffin Island summer vacation.
This article was first published in the Early Summer 2022 issue of Paddling Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
Boomer notching an Arctic first descent on Baffin Island. | Feature photo: Sarah McNair-Landry
What better way to learn about yourself and the people around you than 40 days traveling by way of canoe? Through heinous portages, bug-infested nights, and over a month of paddling with all their equipment, Hannah Maia’s film, Wood On Water, follows a group of 12 young women on an epic summer adventure. A 400-mile canoe trip with Camp Keewaydin through the Canadian wilderness.
Feature Image: Hannah Maia / Wood On Water
The Canoe Trip Summer Camp
Keewaydin was established in 1893. It’s one of the oldest operating summer camps in North America. A cornerstone of Keewaydin is its focus on canoe trips.
According to the camp’s literature: “Today we look much the same as we did in 1893; paddling in wood canvas canoes, using tump lines to portage canoes, double packs, and wannigans (the wooden boxes) in which we carry food and equipment. Meals are cooked over open fires and sections prepare all of their food from scratch. Groups (sections) of six to eight kids travel the surrounding wilderness waterways, often portaging from lake to lake or up and down rivers, making camp at new spots each night, and sleeping in tents with one or two other campers.”
[ Find your next canoe trip in the Paddling Trip Guide ]
While the camp has remained much the same in its 130-year history, there has been one major shift within the past 20 years, when girls were first permitted to attend the program.
Image: Hannah Maia / Wood On Water
Changing currents at Keewaydin
“The first year of the girl’s program started in 1999. Myself and a couple other women came up to help start the program,” Emily Schoelzel, Keewaydin Camp Director, explains in the film. “It wasn’t until I got there that I realized the staff community, the male staff community, had very mixed feelings about girls being there. Keewaydin was 105 years old. Had been boys only for 105 years. And all of a sudden by introducing women, a lot of things were going to change.
“I also do think there was a lot of question if women could actually do canoe tripping the way Keewaydin does canoe tripping,” Schoelzel goes on to say. “To me it seemed the most simple and direct path was that we just needed to do it exactly the way they did it, and then they wouldn’t have anything to question. I knew we could. There was no doubt.”
Maia was keen to know why something established over a century ago to promote the idea of manliness and roughing it in the woods is relevant to teenage girls today. The result is the story shared in, Wood On Water.
The price to make it a reality is time, effort, sacrifice and sweat. — Usain Bolt. | Feature photo: Rob Faubert
I have a friend who loves to plan trips. The ratio of trips planned versus taken is probably 10:1. Whether remote expeditions in foreign countries or unlikely routes close to home, planning paddling dream trips is what he does for fun. There is always a route in the works with miles measured, logistics considered and maps spread out on the desk that they are eager to discuss. Occasionally, a trip comes out of it.
There’s no right way to plan an adventure. The famous mountaineer and explorer Eric Shipton, whose journeys spanned the globe from the 1930s through to the early ‘70s, said, “Every good expedition can be planned on a bar napkin.”
The price to make it a reality is time, effort, sacrifice and sweat. — Usain Bolt. | Feature photo: Rob Faubert
I have a group of friends who dispense with the napkin altogether and just go, planning be damned. Some are lucky if both a sprayskirt and helmet make it to the put-in, let alone a map or first aid kit. These folks tend to stick to local day-run adventures, but I have also seen the throw-all-the-stuff-in-a-garbage bag gong show on multiday trips.
Say what you will about the method; they do get out a lot.
[ Plan your next paddling adventure with the Paddling Trip Guide ]
And don’t forget the dreamers. Dreamers tend to have the longest and boldest list of rivers to run, with unbridled enthusiasm for each one. But the difference between a dream and a plan is substantial. Dreams don’t direct resources—it’s all ideas, emotion and potential, and often little action. Real trip planning is more like goal setting, focused on the specifics and being achievable, realistic and timely. Once a plan is in play, it directs attention, time and money, all with the intention of getting closer to the put-in.
Dreaming, planning and doing
I dream of paddling the Firth River in northern Yukon, during its brief Arctic summer window, or the Selway River in Idaho with its notoriously difficult permit lottery—but they are just dreams. I love the idea of both trips, but I’m not putting my name in the Selway permit draw and will never run the river unless I do. If either of those dream trips dropped in my lap, I would jump on them, but I’m not the one who will make them happen. Wow-worthy as they would be, I have some other plans.
The 100-mile upper Missinaibi River in northern Ontario is at the top of my list. I have the maps, collected beta on the raft-ability of the significant drops, roughed out the camp locations, and sorted the logistics. Of course, it helps that this river is only a day’s drive from my home. The next step is to carve out the time this summer or next. A float trip on the historic Hayes River in northern Manitoba is also planned, waiting for the right time to make it happen.
There are dreamers, planners and doers, and sometimes each of us needs to be a little of all three to get to the put-in. Waiting for dreams to drop into our laps or major plans to come together means a lot of unpaddled days and a lot of dream trips never realized. After all, a bar napkin is all it takes to make a trip happen. And for some, not even that.
This article was first published in the Early Summer 2022 issue of Paddling Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
The price to make it a reality is time, effort, sacrifice and sweat. — Usain Bolt. | Feature photo: Rob Faubert
Jackson Kayak took the acclaimed Nirvana, and cranked up the dial for their newest creek boat design, the all-new 2023 Gnarvana.
The Gnarvana brings more bow rocker than Jackson has ever produced, and the list of design features keeps rolling from there. The goal, to produce high-flying boofs, fast skips, a dry ride, and most of all, complete confidence in whitewater. In this video from Jackson Kayak, Dane Jackson provides a complete Gnarvana walkthrough.
The Jackson Kayak Gnarvana is the Best Whitewater Boat of 2023 as voted by the public in the fourth annual Paddling Magazine Industry Awards. Read more and see a complete list of winners here.
Cross-continent canoeist Mike Ranta is known for dreaming big, and his 110.5-foot-long paddle is the latest proof of the paddler’s larger-than-life mindset. Affectionately called the Big Dipper, Ranta’s mammoth bent-shaft blade was confirmed in 2021 by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest paddle, ousting from the record books a 60-footer in Golden, British Columbia.
World Record recognized: in 2021 as world’s largest paddle/oar
7 weird facts about the new biggest paddle in the world
The Big Dipper resides on the shores of Georgian Bay at the Killarney Mountain Lodge in Killarney, Ontario, where it celebrates the rich voyageur history of the area and is also a tribute to veterans, Ranta says.
Known for crossing Canada two-and-a-half times on solo expeditions, Ranta didn’t let a little thing like inexperience with a spokeshave deter him. “I’ve built a few paddles and done a few woodworking projects, but never anything on this scale. I learned a lot about woodworking,” he reports.
Mike Ranta
Length: 5 feet, 8 inches
Weight: 220 pounds
Time to make: 50 years
Constructed with: Pasta, especially lasagna
World Record made: unofficially in 2016, for the longest single-season solo canoe trip (4,660 miles)
With his canine companion, Spitzii, by his side, Ranta will put the finishing touches on the paddle in summer 2022 and seal a 200-year time capsule into a hollowed out portion of the paddle shaft.
[ Plan your next Canada canoe expedition with the Paddling Trip Guide ]
“It’s not just the biggest paddle in the world; it’s going to be the prettiest too,” says Ranta. “I want to add a table in the shade next to it, so those who visit can sit and honor who they’re thinking about.”
This article was first published in the Early Summer 2022 issue of Paddling Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
When assessing risk, 10,000 hours isn’t a magical threshold. Time in cockpit is only one factor to making good decisions. | Feature photo: Kevin Light
Those with a lot of training and experience outdoors like to think we know what we’re doing when making decisions in risk environments. Our ability to make sound judgments about the terrain, timing, group management and safety is something we generally believe improves the longer we spend in the field. But the oft-cited threshold of 10,000 hours is no guarantee that we’ll strike the right balance when it comes to risk.
Does 10,000 hours really equal good risk management? Research says, “No”
For many recreational paddlers, the number of days on the water is a badge of honor and a way of providing evidence of competence. “Dude, I’ve paddled 120 days this year so far!” When advertising guiding services, guides will highlight the number of years we have worked in the field on our websites because we believe it instills confidence. Who wouldn’t choose a guide with 20 years and thousands of field days of experience over one with only three years? Three years, by the way, is the average length of time most guides remain in their field careers.
The common assumption is more days equals more skill. As Malcolm Gladwell points out in his bestselling book Outliers, it takes at least 10,000 hours—or 2,000 five-hour paddling days—for someone to become an expert in any field. Practice, repetition and skill development all take time, and the more you do it, the better you get. Right?
Maybe not.
When assessing risk, 10,000 hours isn’t a magical threshold. Time in cockpit is only one factor to making good decisions. | Feature photo: Kevin Light
When assessing risk and making good decisions based on those assessments, time is not the only factor. Sometimes the more “time in” we have equals an increased likelihood of an incident and poorer decision making in outdoor risk environments.
Over the past decade, studies from the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and academia have correlated more instructor years in the field with higher incident rates. A few factors cause this increase in incidents in an experienced instructor’s career.
First, as our confidence increases on the water over time, often so can our tolerance for higher levels of risk. As our skill level goes up, we tend to move into more challenging terrain where higher consequence incidents are more likely to occur. Second: Ego breeds complacency. Decreased attention to detail can result in poor decision-making. We can become less attentive to hazards when we adopt a been-there-done-that attitude.
Non-event feedback is the crux of the matter. As we go through our paddling careers, we are continuously exposed to near-miss situations. A near miss is where something could have gone wrong but didn’t. It would be nice to think all near misses are obvious, but sometimes, perhaps often, we don’t notice the giant boomer we just paddled over exploding in a gnarly mess of barnacles and white water behind us. We may squeeze by in situations where we think we had miles to spare, or have become so complacent we didn’t even recognize the scope of the hazard. We also become more comfortable with risk when it is familiar, which is a well-documented heuristic trap in the study of avalanche incidents. The more we paddle a section of exposed coastline without incident, the more our brains decide it’s safe, even though the risk hasn’t objectively changed.
Event feedback is crystal clear—the shattered kayak, dislocated shoulder or hypothermic client will all make us think twice the next time we paddle that type of water—but it is much less frequent than non-event feedback. The more unacknowledged near misses we collect, the more evidence we have of our true decision-making prowess.
[ Browse the widest selection of boats and gear in the Paddling Buyer’s Guide ]
In the paddling world, we’ve adopted the rationale more is inherently better. The more field days you have, the higher you can go in the certification levels. You can’t move from one level to the next or take the next course or exam without putting in a certain number of days in between, ranging from 30 to 200 depending on the level. Certainly, there should be a minimum number of days of guiding experience someone earns before moving up to more complex terrain and greater leadership responsibility. But the assumption inherent in these systems is the more days you have, the more competent you will be at your job and the better your judgment will be. However, time alone does not equal competency.
4 ways to manage risk and use better judgment
So, what is the antidote to this gap between experience and the development of good judgment and sound decision-making in risk environments?
1 Avoid risk creep
Watch for risk creep in your terrain choices and paddling circles—before you go, consider the what-ifs, and even in familiar terrain, make a plan individually and as a group for shit-hits-the-fan scenarios.
2 Develop your intuition
Put the ego and external pressures aside and get quiet enough to tune in to what your gut tells you.
Even the most familiar terrain can have a drastically different character and set of consequences depending on the weather, season, and the group you’re with. Know the forecast and the terrain, but pay attention to the actual conditions, including human factors.
4 Make a study of near misses
Study your own mishaps and those of others. There is copious wisdom in the world of outdoor risk management we can learn from. Understand the heuristic traps leading to misadventure and use this information to analyze your own decisions.
This article was first published in the Early Summer 2022 issue of Paddling Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
When assessing risk, 10,000 hours isn’t a magical threshold. Time in cockpit is only one factor to making good decisions. | Feature photo: Kevin Light
North Of Inn Valley, the waters of the Brandenberger Ache cut decisively through the limestone of the Austrian Alps. The pinching walls of this section of the river are known as the Kaiserklamm, or “Emperor’s Gorge.”
The whitewater ricochets around in the swirling potholes, making for a natural wonder, and alas, burly whitewater run with solid flows.
[ Find your next whitewater destination in the Paddling Trip Guide ]
Bren Orton saw the potential for capturing the gorge in its visual entirety. The Pyranha paddler teamed with professional FPV drone pilot Juli Strauss. The result is this incredible footage edited by Orton and published on the Senders YouTube channel.
Feature Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
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Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
Feature Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
Image: Georgia Read / RIVERSPORT Foundation
The Riversport OKC paddling center on the Oklahoma River was built with the intention of training Olympians and hosting international-scale events. On August 26-28, 2022, Riversport put its vision on display as the host of a global gathering in Oklahoma City that spanned the paddling spectrum.
Oklahoma City held three paddling events melded together into one weekend: the ICF Standup Paddling World Cup, the invitational ICF Canoe Sprint Super Cup, and Red Bull Rapids, a fun-loving and amusing rafting race at the Riversport whitewater park.
[ Find your next destination in the Paddling Trip Guide ]
Athletes from 20 countries landed in Oklahoma to compete in the events and enjoy the paddling festival, appropriately called the World Party.
The only true competition is with ourselves, argues Shuff. Agree or disagree? | Feature photo: Elizabeth Gadd
As a sea kayaking fan, should you root for the activity you love to become an Olympic event? The benefits of shining a global spotlight on the sport seem obvious, but the drawbacks of high-profile competition merit a second look—especially for paddlers who value personal exploration and the simple freedom to play around.
According to the Dutch scholar Johan Huizinga, play exists on the margins. “A free activity standing quite consciously outside ordinary life as being ‘not serious,’” he defines it. Many outdoor adventure sports were created in this spirit by tinkering renegades and free thinkers turning their back on the spotlight of competition and the big business of sponsorship and sales. But most of these sports have changed.
The quintessential counterculture pursuits of mountain biking, rock climbing and surfing were all featured in the Olympic Games in 2021, the pinnacle of mainstream sellout. We celebrate this as progress, but why? Should we want the same result for sea kayaking?
Sea kayaking will never be an Olympic event—and that’s okay
High-profile competition brings money, power and influence to various entities involved in promoting, officiating and outfitting these sports. Manufacturers can sell more widgets, convincing more people they need the best and newest gear, and promote their brands so non-participants will want to be seen in their logo clothing. It also brings more kids into the development assembly line so there will be greater numbers of entry-level products sold, more coaches who can make a career of it, more airlines can sell tickets to events in far-off places, and so on.
Granted, it’s nice to share the benefits and joys of the sports we love with the masses. And a greater pool of participants from a greater range of ages and backgrounds brings with it a higher level of performance and exponential innovations in technique and equipment. New talent comes out of the woodwork, and it’s inspiring to watch elite athletes break records and exceed the bounds of what we ever thought possible.
The only true competition is with ourselves, argues Shuff. Agree or disagree? | Feature photo: Elizabeth Gadd
Despite these benefits, I remain a contrarian, and a selfish one at that. Because I wonder, why would I want my outdoor sports to become more popular? I asked myself this question repeatedly when I briefly worked in the outdoor industry and heard people at conferences talk about “growing the sport” as if it were a house plant. Wouldn’t it just mean more people in the places where I go to get away from them?
Needless to say, I didn’t last long in the business.
Whenever a sport gets caught up in the mass marketing machine of commerce and competition, it becomes harder to separate what’s essential about the pursuit from all the distractions: titles, trophies, toys, and gadgets. Once so-called success in a sport starts to be defined on a measurable continuum, Huizinga’s realm of the “not serious” departs.
Hitting the mainstream means making some sacrifices
Look what has happened to running. Recreational runners now have to consider whether they want to shell out twice as much money to buy the latest shoes, like the Nike Vaporfly, which allegedly make you four percent faster for twice the cost.
Ditto for gear-obsessed cycling, which saw all its pro riders switch to racing with disc brakes. Disgraced former racer Lance Armstrong lauded this innovation, saying on his podcast it would be great for the industry because all the amateur riders would want to go out and buy new bikes. How typical of the bike business, which is great at making everybody think they need a different frame material or wheel diameter every couple of years. And when that doesn’t work, they invent a whole new product category, like gravel. Carbon replaced aluminum replaced steel. Next comes electronic shifting. Then electric assist.
I’m their worst nightmare because I bought just one cyclocross bike for commuting two decades ago and have used it for every type of riding since, from Ironman racing to group road rides to trails. I made my bike as long-lived and versatile as my kayak. Can you imagine what other industries would say if you suggested their products should last for as long as we keep our kayaks and canoes?
This nonstop cycle of specialization and obsolescence is driven by a business mindset that goes hand-in-hand with the competitive mindset. Nobody ever mentions all this so-called innovation is an environmental disaster, a hyper-acceleration of our disposable culture, or questions whether it is good for the sport’s participants, those poor suckers who have to shell out for the gear. When competition creeps in, the gear soon becomes more technology than craft; we start to take for granted that it will be worn out or obsolete within a few years, like an iPhone or a computer, instead of a wooden canoe or kayak, which can be indefinitely repaired.
Soon enough, whatever competitive edge you get from the carbon-plated running shoes or the aerodynamic bike with deep-dish wheels and ceramic bearings vanishes, either because the gear wears out or gets replaced by something better, or the benefit is neutralized by everybody else buying the same equipment. In the world of competitive sports, the top-of-the-line gear becomes a baseline requirement, raising the price of participation. The only true winner is big business, which has figured out how to con us into spending twice as much, twice as often.
Competition can obscure other measures of success
And once sports become competitive, they are inevitably plagued by scandal and controversy. The never-ending push and pull of governing bodies struggling to ensure a fair and level playing field while individual competitors try to squeak out every possible advantage. And now there’s the issue of transgender competition, where at the very time our culture is moving away from binary identification and toward greater diversity, competition gatekeepers are fortifying their definitions of who can compete against whom, all to elevate the winners to a podium. This controversy just underscores the fact that the only pure competition is ultimately with ourselves.
I prefer sports where the individual experiences are unique and participants focus on internal measures of success and the pleasures of the moment, rather than the elevation of the end goal, and where the equipment is secondary to the experience.
Sure, anytime humans take on an activity, some will try to do it faster, longer and stronger, and others will cheer them on. I would be lying to suggest I’m immune. If anything, I’m just trying to protect my paddling experiences from being corrupted by my own devilish competitive streak. I spent a morning last summer obsessively watching the Tour de France riders battle in the Pyrenees, bloodthirstily eager to see who would crack on the Col du Portet. All the while multitasking on my phone to check out how my trail run metrics stacked up on Strava.
There’s a place for competition. But I love wilderness canoeing and kayaking all the more because they take me away from it. The whole notion of going into the wilderness is to remove ourselves from the culture where such comparisons are possible and to pretend we’re traveling in a place where there aren’t even any other people to compare ourselves to.
The experience is genuinely playful in that it is outside the ordinary. It’s too dazzlingly rich and complex to quantify and measure, a Zen koan in contrast to the linearity of conventional sport. How fast we paddle and the equipment we use doesn’t matter, as long as we get where we need to go—not just in space but also in spirit.
This article was first published in the Early Summer 2022 issue of Paddling Magazine. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
The only true competition is with ourselves, argues Shuff. Agree or disagree? | Feature photo: Elizabeth Gadd
