The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is a million acre wilderness area in northern Minnesota established to protect pristine boreal forests and historic and recreational canoe routes. It has over 1,000 lakes and 2,000 campsites. If you use a GPS unit, finding GPS data for BWCA campsites and portages was difficult. Now, you can get [...]
Over the past few years, I’ve written articles about both canoe navigation and kayak navigation. I based the articles on the navigation classes I teach with the premise that navigation shouldn’t be confusing, and it isn’t confusing once you understand the basics. To help people learn during my classes, I concentrate on the results instead [...]
Many checklists that help with organizing camping gear are broken down into categories that don’t necessarily reflect how we live our lives in our homes. For example, a checklist might break the list into paddling clothing, camp clothing, personal gear, group gear and personal items. At a glance, you can’t really tell what you’re bringing. [...]
This is part two of Learning the Greenland-style Storm Roll. Before reading this start with part one of Learning the Greenland-style Roll. The Storm Roll Now let’s bring all of the pieces of the puzzle together. This time we’re going to capsize and bring the paddle around under the boat with us. The set up [...]
Being a Greenland-style kayaker I take great pride in my ability to roll. I’ve spent many hours practicing and honing tiny details to make my rolls smooth, graceful, and quiet. And I am not alone. There are tons of us out there. We are a bit of an odd bunch, even amongst kayakers, because we’ll [...]
Years ago when I was a climber, I ended up getting tendinitis in my elbows. It went away quickly with rehab, but showed up again later during a 560-mile kayaking trip. After the trip, the tendinitis went away with minor rehab, but I started noticing it again now and then. Then a couple of years [...]
Building a kayak stand or canoe stand needn’t take long nor cost much. I whipped up this canoe/kayak stand in about one hour, which included the run to the lumberyard to buy supplies. It packs down small enough to fit in the trunk of a small car, and it’s sturdy enough to support a boat [...]
The Snow Peak Titanium Bowl measures 5.5 by 3 inches and holds 20 fl. oz. It weighs a claimed 1.6 oz. It’s made out of titanium which means that it doesn’t rust and you can cook in it. It fits perfectly inside Snow Peak’s Titanium Multi Compact Cookset. By combining the lightweight camping bowl with the [...]
8 Lunch Ideas for Your Next Canoe or Kayak Trip
On kayak and canoe trips, I like to carry simple meals that require little prep and take up little room in the portage pack or hatches. Usually that means that I pack one or two types of lunches for a 10-day trip. By day 10 that can get a little old. Recently, I posted on [...]