Jon Turk begins Part 4 of The Raven’s Gift: A Scientist, a Shaman, and Their Remarkable Journey Through the Siberian Wilderness with a discussion about the mythology surrounding the raven in aboriginal cultures. He relates a myth about Raven dropping a walnut on a man’s head and then laughing about it. The man’s feelings are [...]
Adding a ritual to the beginning of a paddling trip helps create a break from our normal life, which helps to enrich both our experience of the trip and our “real” lives after. After months of planning, organizing, packing and traveling, the start of a paddling trip is a relief. The instant of push-off removes [...]
Paddler: Why? I don’t know why; I don’t know. Never been in a kayak. You? Narrator: No, but that’s a good thing. Paddler: No, it is not. How much can you know about yourself, you’ve never been in a kayak? I don’t wanna die without any swims. The eight rules of paddle club1: You do [...]
A guest post by Lee Gilbert of A Whole Bunch of Ing’s. Lee is the expedition leader for the Paddle to Retirement Expedition. “When did you start kayaking?” is a icebreaker, an epilogue of our paddling to that very moment. Whether it be sitting on a beach next to a roaring fire, in a pub [...]
A guest post by Amy Funk of Campgirlz.com To talk about why I canoe, I have to first address my passion for the natural world. Sometimes tragedy can push you to find comfort. The year I turned six, my brother was killed in a car accident in July. A few months later, one of my [...]
Over at Kayakquixotica.com, Derrik asks, “I know there are lots of very experienced paddlers out there. Help me out and share how you got into paddling in the first place…” Taking up his challenge, I posted a comment on his blog. Many more comments followed mine, and I found each comment interesting and enlightening. From [...]
A guest post by Scott Schuldt of canoepost.blogspot.com. Tuesday, September 22, 2009 – You Can Tell I woke up early this morning. It was dark and I was in bed, but I was already in my canoe. Fall is here. It will be unusually warm today, maybe 15 or 20 degrees above normal. The thermometer [...]
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Several years ago, I started Paddlinglight.com as a hobby website and a place to hold my writing. Since then, it’s morphed beyond my original scope now with 12 authors, over 125 articles and pages, and over 27,000 monthly page views. My hobby website has turned into an information source for fellow adventurers, boat builders, and [...]
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Eager to protect the dramatic landscapes of western Patagonia, Cristian Donoso will lead a 5-month expedition by kayak to this region, one of the most inhospitable places on earth, in 2007. With its labyrinth of rocky islands, serpentine channels and icy fjords, western Patagonia, in southern Chile, is one of the least-explored areas on earth, [...]
Gear breaks and wears out and most of the time it happens in the worst moments. In 2007, I only managed to break a few items. Here they are: Current Designs Phantom FX Composite, Fiberglass straight-shaft, compression molded fiberglass blade with a Lever-lock adjustable ferrel: It’s a mouth full to say and it broke right [...]
In August 2004, two friends started a trip down the Mississippi River. They planned on paddling 560 miles in 15 days, and one of them – me – made it. The other quit early. In this personal essay, I explore the meaning of friendship and how expeditions can ruin them.
Every year it seems that people are making their newest New Year’s resolutions within a day or two after the big year ending celebration of December 31st. And, of course, it seems that if someone has made a New Year’s resolution, then they want you to share yours, and every year, when asked, I say [...]
At the holidays, I find myself, like most Americans back home with my family, and usually just after we finish our holiday ham and while still leaning back with full stomachs, the subject of my life comes up. Often this leads to the discussion of my job or lack of job as they see it [...]
Its that time of year again when the Mississippi thaws and sends giant chunks of ice spinning down to New Orleans or to their eventually return to fluid. Its also that time of year again when we paddlers tend to venture out to the retail outlets and send large chunks of change to the bottom [...]
What’s the Difference between a Kayak or Canoe Expedition, Trip and Adventure?
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 [...]