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When They Want to Take Away Wilderness
On PaddlingLight, I try to steer clear of politics, but one of PaddlingLight’s missions is to increase wilderness protection so I have to stick my toes into it now and then. Recently, we had some alarming numbers on wilderness participation rates, and with an increasingly anti-environmental U.S. congress, which according to some numbers is the most anti-environmental congress in the existence of the United States — as of September 2011 they made 125 votes against the environment and 33 votes to undermine protection for public lands and coasts — I feel like it’s my duty as a paddler, a blogger and a lover of wilderness to speak out. Especially now with…
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Courage in Wilderness Travel
courage: mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty In February of 2011, I was thinking about courage and how technology can change the amount of courage that a wilderness trip requires (see: Modern Technology and Courage in the Wilderness). I concluded that certain types of technology can reduce the risks of wilderness travel and reduce the courage it takes to tackle the trip. In a more recent article a commenter made a remark about how boat type can affect courage. In his example, he used an inflatable kayak in an area where the norm is hard-shelled sea kayaks. While his choice may or may not make…
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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 has interested me is a question of semantics and the intensity of multi-day paddling trips that we take. Truly, whatever the trip is, is whatever the trip is. But, I like to try and place a trip into some kind of category so that it registers in my mind correctly. One way of categorizing paddling…
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Nessmuking: A Return to Simple
The article that started it all. A brief look to the past to see what we can learn from Nessmuk, a writer from the late 1800s. Bryan Hansel examines Nessmuk and formulates a philosophy that can be used by modern wilderness trippers.
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