Lake Superior’s Shipwreck Coast, in the southeast corner of the lake, runs approximately 50 miles from the sand spit of Whitefish Point to the first safe harbor at Grand Marais, Michigan. As part of my Port Huron to Home trip in the spring and summer of 2011, I kayaked past this mainly undeveloped area. At [...]
Last week, I wrote about the difference between an expedition, adventure and a trip. After many comments, I still don’t know if I have the perfect criteria for determining if a trip is an expedition, but I do think that we figured out that expeditions don’t necessarily need to be adventurous. In the comments of that thread, Roman [...]
It’s wintertime again, which means that I start to get all philosophical again. It’s probably from the lack of paddling. The only water time I’ve been getting lately is second rate, because it’s on the solid kind with cross country skis instead of the liquid kind with a kayak. Over the years, one topic that [...]
I love to winter kayak especially when Lake Superior starts to freeze over in late February and early March. It’s a time of the year when other paddlers stay home bundled up in front of the fireplace, and it’s a time of the year that the shoreline changes almost everyday due to the varied ice patterns. When [...]
For issue 28 of Ocean Paddler, I wrote an article about my approach to kayak expedition photography. In it I touched on the subject of how to pack camera gear for kayaking. I use a similar approach for canoeing. Essentially, my approach is based on the idea that if you can’t get to the camera, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 Great Lakes are five vast inland seas. Lake Superior, the largest, is approximately the same size as Iceland. Taken together, almost two Englands could fit inside the total surface area of the lakes. They’re big. Because they’re contained within smaller basins they don’t have tides like you’d see on the oceans, although the Great [...]
I don’t have empirical data to prove it, but I would place a bet, that shoulder injuries are one of the top 5 injuries for kayak paddlers. Probably the primary cause of shoulder injuries is the obvious problem with incorrect arm position during a brace. This places the shoulder in a vulnerable position. Using poor [...]
Fatbikerafting the Arctic
Starting in the early spring of 2012, Andrew Badenoch is heading far north on a 7,000-mile, six-to-eight-month, lightweight journey and attempt to hike, packraft and fatbike a circuit that starts in B.C. heads north to Great Bear Lake, then the ocean, west to Alaska and then back to the starting point. On the trip, he’ll travel 7,000 [...]