I’ve been thinking lately about the word adventure. Five years ago we gathered around a kitchen table brainstorming titles for the launch of our new magazine. The obvious kayaking magazine titles were taken. We had to be more creative—we had to think outside the box, as they say.
Adventure to me is something I like to add to things others would have enjoyed. For example, imagine a wintry afternoon walk down a well-used trail at a local conserva- tion area. Fresh air and exercise sure, but rather predictable wouldn’t you say? I’d suggest trudging through the valley because there looks to be a goat path on the far side below the cliffs. And that goat path, I bet, leads to the bottom of the frozen waterfalls; wouldn’t it be cool to climb around on them?
My wife Tanya considers herself wiser now. She’s rappelled off icy bluffs, walked out from the bottom of the wrong mountain bowl, forded streams with her mountain bike over her head and paddled into camp late, cold and hungry, one too may times. All this because I said, “Ah come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”
We still climb, ski, bike and paddle together, but my little adventures, as she calls them, are now something I do alone or in the company of other like-minded bush-whackers.
Wendy Killoran is a bushwhacker on a global scale. Being a schoolteacher by day leaves her plenty of time to be a die-hard paddler. I’ve heard her boast at symposiums that she paddles over a hundred days a year and gets in her boat at least one day every month; no small feat on the Great Lakes in February.
Wendy was the first woman to race in Iceland’s Hvammsvik marathon. This past summer Wendy found adventure on the east coast of Greenland floating among thousands of “bergy bits.” In her story “Frozen Assets” it’s clear that for her adventure is about landing on a gravel strip outside Kulusuk on the backside of Greenland, a place where the locals still paddle in skin boats.
Not everyone needs to be lost in the fog or feel the thunder of calving glaciers. Adventure, according to reality television shows, requires just two things: young, good- looking people and a beach. In that respect Ken Whiting fits the bill, except instead of battling conniving contestants for a million bucks, Whiting is making a modest living publishing books, producing paddling videos and playing in the surf. Whiting isn’t a circumnavigator of remote islands, he’s a whitewater playboater turned sea kayaker, finding his adventure in the surf zone, tidal rapids and currents.
Ken told us he thinks sea kayaking is poised to see a huge growth in people paddling for fun—paddling, maybe, in the same spot all day, surfing the same break, going nowhere exotic, never being lost. If you think this sounds boring and devoid of adventure, like the walk in the park I was trying to avoid above, you need only watch Justine Curgenven’s new video This is the Sea. If you don’t think playing in surf is an adventure, try standing an 18-foot sea kayak on its nose.
Hours before our premier issue rolled off the printing press we settled on the name Adventure Kayak. Five years later, I still think it’s a good choice. Kayaking adventures aren’t always on the sea, nor are we always touring in our kayaks. It’s a great name because adventure, just like kayaking, can be so many things. We design the magazine to be like those books we read as kids, so that in each issue you can choose your own adventure.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
