Five splintery rungs ascending higgledy-piggledy into a low cloister of fragrant cedar boughs. It was my beanstalk, my yellow brick road, my Argo.
In fact, it was my childhood tree fort, constructed haphazardly in the woods just beyond the backyards of my neighbors. No matter that the barking of suburban dogs penetrated its airy deck. To my fertile imagination, it might as well have been the Hounds of the Baskervilles. It wasn’t the remoteness or grandiosity of the roost that mattered—it had neither. Looking back, it may have been the tree fort’s very accessibility that made it such a cherished escape.
More and more, the idea of humble trips, grand adventure is defining many people’s paddling experience. Peruse the stories on the following pages and you’ll notice this recurring theme. In his column, Waterlines, Tim Shuff writes of the transformative and unexpectedly enchanting experience of kayaking a local urban river. Frequent Rock the Boat columnist Neil Schulman urges paddlers to embrace accessible mini-adventures and stop measuring their achievements on the unrealistic yardstick of well-marketed, international mega-expeditions. Our obsession with the latter, writes Schulman, “robs more realistic trips of their own considerable grandeur.”
Wild Image Project adventurer Daniel Fox collects photos and videos from wild places to share with and inspire the many people who are increasingly disconnected from the natural world. His Minute to Nature video series encourages viewer to tune out distractions and engage with nature in a meditative way, if only for 60 seconds – an achievable sabbatical for anyone, you’d hope.
The featured image in Fathom depicts photographer Bryan Hansel’s favourite campsite, “just a long afternoon adventure from my home port.” Hansel ups the adventure ante not by cleaning out his savings account and shipping off to Fiji for a month, but by paddling solo and returning to familiar places with a different perspective.
Reading these stories, talking to other paddlers and reviewing the comments on Adventure Kayak’s social media pages is a reminder of the diversity of our readers and, by extension, kayakers the world over. For a huge number of folks, any boat that floats and makes kayaking accessible is sufficient. For others, like Facebook fan Dennis Mike, a kayak should be nothing less than a gleaming pinnacle of naval engineering: “Spend at least $4,000,” he advises, “otherwise you’ll feel like a putz.”
A determined few dream and paddle truly extraordinary adventures. Far more find joy and contentment on quiet local waterways. Having graduated from free forts to tents – and to the apiary that is adult responsibility – I’m often forced to acknowledge that some of my paddling ambitions are, well, ambitious. While they simmer on the someday burner, the waters beyond the backyards of my neighbours beckon.
This article first appeared in the 2015 Paddling Buyer’s Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine and get 25 years of digital magazine archives including our legacy titles: Rapid, Adventure Kayak and Canoeroots.
