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Canoe and Kayak Building Resources
Building resources for wooden canoe and kayak homebuilders.
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Photography and Paddling Mix in My New Video
The other morning, I paddled out to a location that I’ve wanted to photograph at sunrise for a couple of years. I paddled about 20 to 30 minutes in the dark and landed under cloudy skies. I thought it was going to be a big bust. In the end, the clouds broke up and the sunrise was amazing! Pictures below. The video I made from the morning is a mix of paddling and photography. Most of my photography is landscape photography, but if I’m traveling by canoe or kayak I’ll put a canoe or kayak into the landscape. It’s a combination of the two activities that I love most. I…
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Northstar Polaris Canoe Review
This is my Northstar Polaris review — well, mini-review of the Polaris. Summary: If I could only own one canoe in the world, this would be it. Longer Northstar Polaris Review The canoe is a Northstar Polaris. I’m using one with their BlackLite layup, carbon fiber and Aramid with a resin coat on the outside. It has wood trim, which is an upgrade over the standard aluminum trim. The seats, thwarts, yoke and deck are laminated ash and walnut and the gunwales are ash. I ordered it with a kneeling thwart to use solo after the rest of the crew is hanging in camp and I need to paddle somewhere…
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North House Folk School’s Wooden Boat Show 2016
Each year on the summer solstice weekend, the North House Folk School in Grand Marais puts on its annual Wooden Boat Show. The 2017 dates are June 16-18, 2017. The event not only is a gathering of handcrafted canoes, kayaks and other boats, but a festival weekend full of classes, workshops, talks, slideshows and more. It’s a fun weekend and if you love wooden canoe and kayaks, you should put it on your calendar as an event to attend. It also features a wooden boat auction. I let a wooden canoe go that I would have loved to restore this year, because I don’t have the space on my project list…
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Under Armour UA Storm Tactical Patrol Pants Review: Best Canoe Pants?
Late this summer, I was in a store looking for a first aid kit (I left mine at home) and I stumbled across Under Armour’s UA Storm Tactical Patrol Pants. I wasn’t aware that Under Armour made pants or anything other than underwear, so I was surprised to find the pants. Over the years, Under Armour has formed strong relationships with the hook and bullet stores, and these pants are geared towards the hook and bullet crowd, such as hunters, sport shooters or people who fancy themselves some kind of tactical-militia person. They have all the features a pistol-carrying enthusiast would desire, such as an offset belt loop to allow for proper…
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Skin-on-frame Têtes de Boule Hunter’s Canoe Built
Several years ago Alan Sinclair downloaded the free canoe drawings for the Têtes de Boule Hunter’s Canoe, a 9-foot, 8-inch pack canoe. A year or so later he sent in a contribution of $50 to help cover the costs of the time spent producing the drawings. Then he began construction with no clue how to do anything. He made it as skin-on-frame, regretting the departure from tradition, because he thought that would be simplest and would make a very light boat. It’s taken a very long time but he finally got it finished. Alan sent several pictures and a thank you upon completion of the canoe: Thank you so very much for letting me get the plans…
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Winter Canoe Paintings
Each winter photographers and painters from around the Midwest gather at the YMCA canoe camp Menogyn for the Grand Marais Art Colony’s Winter Arts Festival. This year, the art’s festival ran from January 25th to February 1st. During the week, plein air painters, Neil Sherman, Matt Kania and Tom McGregor painted canoes racked for the winter at the camp. The contrast between the white snow and blues, reds and greens of the canoes popped off the wall during the show that runs all of February at the Grand Marais art colony. (Featured painting by Tom McGregor.) I caught up with each of the painters and asked them a few questions: PaddlingLight: Canoes,…
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The Joy of Canoe
The ripples slap against the sea green hull of my canoe and the light wind rumbles in my ears as I paddle towards the clam, leeside of Devil Track Lake. Kneeling in the center of the canoe, leaning the boat to make it easy to reach the water, I take strokes only on one side of the hull. A bow draw blended with a forward blended with a “J” keeps the canoe going straight despite the wind. When my attention wanders, the wind changes my course and I have to pull harder on the draw and push harder on the pry until the canoe reclaims the correct direction. Subscribe to…
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Twin Lakes Canoe Route Trip Report
Just 25 miles from Grand Marais, Minnesota, the Twin Lakes Canoe Route [pdf] offers canoeists a five lake adventure that unlike the nearby Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness doesn’t cost a dime and doesn’t require a permit. The US Forest Service describes the the Twin Lakes Canoe Route as a quiet, wilderness-like lake experience featuring five water accessed campsites, four portages and plenty of fishing. While we’ve day tripped on the lakes before, we never camped, so with only one night to spare, we decided to give it a go. The Twin Lakes Canoe Route Put-In Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and…
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Kayaking and Canoeing Participation Rates
The Outdoor Foundation recently published the Outdoor Recreation Participation Topline Report 2012 in which it publishes the participation rates in outdoor recreation from 2011. I find these numbers of interest to paddlers, and these numbers are something that we can directly affect be introducing people to the sports of kayaking and canoeing. The report starts out with some good news: In 2011, outdoor recreation among americans reached the highest participation level in the last five years. Nearly 50 percent of all americans ages six and older, or 141.1 million individuals, participated in at least one outdoor activity in 2011, making 11.6 billion outings. In fact, last year, americans enjoyed 1.5 billion more…
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Review of Canoe and Kayak Building Books
If you want to build a kayak or canoe from the free plans found on PaddlingLight, you should buy a couple of canoe or kayak building books. Most use different methods, which you can combine to make your boat uniquely your’s. There are lots of books out there to cover in a review, so I’m going to break them down into different categories and arrange them from the first to buy to the last. I’ll write a quick one-paragraph review. I’m leaving lots of books off this list, because I think these are the best. Cedar Strip Kayak Building Books Most of the plans that I do are designed for…
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Paddling Weather Lore and Prediction
Paddlers live at the mercy of the weather. On a calm day, we can paddle miles. On a stormy day, a strong headwind makes progress a crawl, and nothing is worse than lightning striking during a long crossing. Having simple tools to help predict the weather during a paddling trip helps with the decision making process. It can help answer the question, “To go or not to go?” In the backcountry, one type of weather prediction available is weather lore, which is a collection of folk sayings that help predict the weather. These sayings can be helpful for paddlers wishing to predict the weather. Here are a few favorite weather…
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Public Domain Canoe and Kayak Images
I always enjoy looking through old canoeing and kayaking images. They remind me that people have been paddling for a long time–what we do isn’t new, because it’s been around for thousands of years. It reminds me that our recreational activity links us to all those back through time that have enjoyed it. They enjoyed adventure as much as we do. It also reminds me how much better we look doing it now; look at some of the goofy outfits worn by paddlers of the past. My two favorite locations are on Flickr’s The Commons, which has a small but interesting collection, and Minnesota Historical Society’s Visual Resource Database. Every…
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Taking Great Canoe and Sunset Pictures
Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address Subscribe A canoe, glass-calm water, and a sunset goes together like bananas, ice cream, and whipped cream. But unlike the quickly fading delight of savoring a banana split, capturing a sunset in a picture allows for sharing and enjoyment for years. Sunset pictures are tricky. Typically, like in the pictures below, you can capture either the detail and color in the sky and have the canoe go dark and black or your can make the canoe light and visible, but lose the color in the sky.…
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Outfitting Your Canoe’s Thwarts
Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address Subscribe As a canoeist, I’m always looking for a place to stash a map, water bottle, or my compass. On days with scattered showers, I want a place to store my rain jacket that I can quickly get to it. In the past, I’ve just stored stuff in the bilge of the canoe, which isn’t ideal–items get soaked or roll around. Years ago, I decided to make my canoes more like my kayaks by adding bungee cords. In a kayak, bungee cords crisscross the deck in…