Articles: Learn about Lightweight Canoeing and Kayaking

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Nessmuking: The Lightweight Philosophy

These Nessmuking articles are the core rough drafts of a future book.

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.

Why Nessmuking?:The simple question is why? Why Nessmuking? Many wilderness travelers who've spent time in the woods using conventional gear and methods, upon seeing someone traveling with just a light bag on their back, a feather light boat, and a smile, often ask why travel so light. Here are some answers.

Nessmuking: Your Paddling Partners and Having Successful Trips. A new Nessmuking essay about how to take care of pretrip planning in order to have a successful expedition.

Map Reading and Navigation: In the modern world of GPS and blazed trails, many adventurers set off into the wilds without the basic knowledge of how to use a compass. Here you can learn how.

A Gear List: Traveling lightly requires analyzing your gear. This is my basic list.

Future Nessmuking Philosophy Articles: Interested in planned future articles that will appear, then check this out.

Getting Light Weight: Learn about lightweight gear systems and how to reduce the weight of gear that you carry.

Free Kayak and Canoe Plans

Goodnow Greenland Kayak Plans: The 16' 8" Goodnow kayak is stunning. It's lines flow beautifully and it begs to be built and paddled. At 17 5/8" wide, I'd have a hard time fitting into it, so I decided to model the kayak for a possible upscale and build. Included here is the FREE!ship file for your download and some information about the kayak.

Free Kayak Plans: Siskiwit Bay: The Siskiwit Bay is all-around fast mid-sized British-style touring kayak. The plans are free. This is a great cedar strip wood kayak for you to build. Some pictures of built Siskiwit Bays

Igdlorssuit: The Anas Acuta's lines were originally developed from a kayak built in Igdlorssuit for Kenneth Taylor in 1959. This kayak was measured in 1964 and those measurements have appeared in several places on the Internet. I had originally provided the lines of this Igdlorssuit kayak in a HULLS file, but now that FREE!ship is available, I've reentered the lines of this kayak.

Free Kayak Plans: Glen Smith often contributor to the Kayak Forum and moderator at the Bear Mountian Canoe Forum has provided the following two kayak designs for free.

Notus: An exercise using FREE!Ship: Using the Notus Racing and Cruising Canoe as the subject, this tutorial shows you how to import offsets into Free!Ship and create decks and sails. Also, included is a spreadsheet to make offset import easy, and the imported plans for the Notus for free.

Free Aleutian Baidarka Kayak Plans: Free plans for building an Aleutian Baidarka Kayak using the Hulls boat design program.

Dear Nessmuking

Do you have questions that you'd like answered in a honest and straight forward manner? If so, send them our way, and we will try our best to get you an answer. Meanwhile, enjoy these letters:

How to Choose..

Avoid the Beaver and Save the Weight: How to Choose a Water Filter: Finding the ideal filter for your travels starts with learning about the different systems available. Ideally, a water purification system will create potable water, have few weaknesses, add little chemical taste and weigh very little.

a Sleeping Bag: With so many models on the market, how do you pick one or two or maybe three? A simple article down to earth article which let you know about how to choose a sleeping bag.

a Tent: A tent is your home away from home. It needs to be waterproof, durable, but most of all it has to be easy to set up. There are many types of tents and which one is right for you depend on many factors. Will you be backpacking, bike touring, or family camping? How many people will be using it? Do you need to use it in winter or will you camp in windy and exposed conditions? By considering a few factors you pick select the perfect tent for your needs..

How to Choose a Canoe: In the Canoe & Kayak Magazine 2006 Buyer's Guide, over 90 canoe manufacturers were listed, and this doesn't include many of the smaller companies that build only a few canoes a year. Quickly scanning the listings, it easy to conclude that the magazine lists over 900 models of canoes. That's a lot of canoes and that makes choosing a canoe one of the most complicated buying decisions out of any outdoor sport. Combing the number of models with the average canoe cost of around $1000 US, this can make the first-time canoe buyer nervous about their canoe purchase. It doesn't have to be that way though.

a Bell Solo Canoe: Having worked for a Bell Canoe Works retailer for seven years, I was asked this question often. I'll give you an easy to follow explanation of which canoe to load up and take home.

Photography

Boundary Waters VR Tour: During a 9 day, 200-mile solo canoe trip, solo canoeist, Bryan Hansel, carried VR Tour producing equipment and produced this 11 node panoramic tour. Each tour image is around 250 KB, so on dail-up connections, they will take some time to load. You must also have java installed and active on your computer to view the images. Almost all modern browers will have this built in.

Lake Superior Time Lapse:Ahhh. The perfect place to rest your soul. View a time lapse image of the waves on Lake Superior.

A Thousand Words for One Image: Ever wonder what kind of camera would be best for your expeditions. This article discuses 35mm camera systems.

The Lomo and Canoes: This Russian camera means big fun for paddlers.

Trip Journals and Reports

Skiing down the Cascade River: In Northern Minnesota in winter, skiing down the frozen rivers is an exciting activity. A broken ski binding on the Cascade River turns a short ski into an adventure.

Shoulder High: A Georgian Bay Trip: Bryan Hansel and Steve Hauptli find adventure in the 30,000 Island area of Georgian Bay. On a four day trip, they're pounded by gale force winds in an attempt to make it to the Bustard Rock Lighthouses. This is the tale of their 50 mile trip.

In the Wilds of Patagonia: 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.

Last Day in Paradise: When the Ham Lake Fire of 2007 closed all the entry points on the eastern side of the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness, Richard "Doc" Gams and his crew were forced to change their plans. Some quick last minute planning and their trip to the BWCA turned out heavenly.

Trip Report: Canoecopia 2007:A trip report for the 2007 Canoecopia. This is the world's largest paddlesports expo. It occurs each year in Madison, WI. Here are the highlights of the show.

Lake Superior Day Trip – Grand Marais to Fall River and Beyond: This short paddle from Grand Marais to the Fall River (4.5 mile round trip) makes for a great short outing and the paddle from the harbor to Terrace Point (10 mile round trip) adds some distance to your trip.

Adventures in the Hills: The 2006 Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup: The Custer State Park Buffalo Round was the destination of Bryan Hansel and Steve Hauptli in the Fall of 2006. This trip report has nothing to do with paddling, but sometimes a trip that doesn't include paddling can be a good thing. This travel story includes beautiful photography.

Up a Lazy River: This is an account of Shipp Webb's solo six-day trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a trip that covered 13 lakes, 4 rivers and 28 portages totaling about 72 miles. Thirty-one hours quickly passed paddling and portaging. It was a trip with varied weather and an abundance of wildlife sightings including eagles, moose, deer, and most importantly a wolf.

An Electric Paddle Down Buffalo Creek: Join the crew in this classic electrifying canoe adventure down the Buffalo Creek. Originally published in The Iowa Paddler.

Day Trip To Stairway Portage: The 8.5 mile day trip from Bearskin Lake to the Stairway portage is a classic day trip in the Boundary Waters. The reward at the portage is a beautiful waterfall and one of the best views in the Wilderness Area.

Great Lake's Weather Conditions: The weather and wave forecast for the Great Lakes and more detailed reports for Lake Superior.

Vern River Loop:A challenging overnight route through parts of the Boundary Waters that never get paddled but are only a few steps away from the most popular parts of the BWCA.

Canoecopia 2006: Trip Report:A trip report on the 2006 Canoecopia expo in Madison, WI.

Along the Banks of the Saskatchewan: Robert N Pruden returns to the pages of Nessmuking with a tale of adventure. For this installment, he paddled his homemade kayak from from Edmonton to North Battleford on the North Saskatchewan River. Along the way, he discovered a connection with the wilderness as well as a corpse...

Interview with a Solo Canoeist Part Two: Part Two of the interview between solo canoeist, Bryan Hansel, and himself. This one is after the trip was finished.

Interview with a Solo Canoeist: During a 9 day, 200-mile solo canoe trip, solo canoeist, Bryan Hansel, interviewed himself. His trip started in Voyager National park and ended on Lake Superior. Warning a sort of racy picture.

Down the Mississippi River: In August 2004, two friends started a kayaking 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, written shortly after the trip, I explore the meaning of friendship and how expeditions can ruin them if you're not careful.

Canoecopia 2005: Trip Report: A quick review of the Canoecopia event in Madison, WI.

Disaster at The Saskatchewan Crossing.Robert N Pruden writes about a harrowing disaster on a trip he took several years ago, and he reports about the important lessons learned. What you read here could save your life.

Solo in the Boundary Waters(Fall 2003): A tale of bad fall weather, abundant wildlife, and a good solo paddling trip.

Canoeing the Namekagon, St. Croix, and Mississippi Rivers; Experienced canoeist, Bill Collet paddled solo down these rivers to Dubuque, IA in the Summer of 2004. He gives a detailed journal of his experience.

Boundary Waters Solo Fall 2004; A slightly slow trip inspired a trip journal about noticing the details and it is pepper with haiku.

Build It Yourself

The Simplest of Seats: Richard Hayes returns to the pages of Nessmuking with an article about how to make a simple and comfortable multiuse lightweight seat for your kayak.

Building Ken Taylor 1959 Kayak – the Igdlorssuit: In this set of articles, I take you from entering a traditional kayak into the computer to building it from cedar.

How to Make a Fiberglass Skeg: A simple method of constructing a field maintainable skeg for your kayak.

Free Kayak Plans: Siskiwit Bay: The Siskiwit Bay is all-around fast mid-sized British-style touring kayak. The plans are free. This is a great cedar strip wood kayak for you to build.

2007 MN Meet at the Beach Pictures: Pictures from the 2007 MN Meet at the Beach.

Building a Kayak Paddle: Richard F. Hayes provides instructions for an inexpensive and easy to make, tough and light paddle(about 950 gms.).

Nessmuking and Stitch and Glue Boat Building: Eskimo Tom Gerds, professional wooden boat builder and owner of Finewoodwatercraft.com, writes about using stitch and glue boat building techniques to create canoes and kayaks that Nessmuk would have been proud to paddle. Learn about his lightweight building secrets as he presents a great overview to the S&G process.

Goodnow Greenland Kayak Plans: The 16' 8" Goodnow kayak is stunning. It's lines flow beautifully and it begs to be built and paddled. At 17 5/8" wide, I'd have a hard time fitting into it, so I decided to model the kayak for a possible upscale and build. Included here is the FREE!ship file for your download and some information about the kayak.

A Paddle with a Twist: Making a Feathered Kayak Paddle: Wouldn't it be nice to be able to build a one piece wooden kayak paddle with feathered blades? This article describes a method that involves twisting multiple laminates to the feathered angle and holding them in place on a building form while the glue dries. This is a slick method for building paddle shafts.

Easy Aluminum Fittings For a Sailing Canoe: Canoe sailing enthusiast Charles E. Campbell describes an easy method of making aluminum fittings for a sailing canoe. These specialized fittings are hard to find, but even harder to find is any information on how to make the fittings yourself. Learn how in this article.

How to Make Rope Kayak Handles: Pedro Almeida describes how to make rope handles for your kayak. These work well as carry handles for singles and especially doubles for those who don't want or need a typical end toggle on their kayak.

Vacuum Bagging a Canoe: Aaron Miller writes about techniques to use for vacuum bagging a canoe. Vacuum bagging is a technique that can be used to produce a lighter canoe or kayak than can be produced in typical hand layups.

Building a Nikumi:With an early spring falling on northern Minnesota, it seemed like a good time to build a baidarka, so Nessmuking's Publisher and Primary author, Bryan Hansel, started a new project. This one: Building a Nikumi, a Tom Yost style baidarka.

Light but Strong - Building Cedar Strip Canoes for Wilderness Tripping: Take care of the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves, is Jay Morrison's motto. Learn how Jay utilized this moto and developed new techniques to build a Wilderness Tripping tough cedar strip canoe weighing 35 pounds.

Igdlorssuit: The Anas Acuta's lines were originally developed from a kayak built in Igdlorssuit for Kenneth Taylor in 1959. This kayak was measured in 1964 and those measurements have appeared in several places on the Internet. I had originally provided the lines of this Igdlorssuit kayak in a HULLS file, but now that FREE!ship is available, I've reentered the lines of this kayak.

Free Kayak Plans: Glen Smith often contributor to the Kayak Forum and moderator at the Bear Mountian Canoe Forum has provided the following two kayak designs for free.

Notus: An exercise using FREE!Ship: Using the Notus Racing and Cruising Canoe as the subject, this tutorial shows you how to import offsets into Free!Ship and create decks and sails. Also, included is a spreadsheet to make offset import easy, and the imported plans for the Notus for free.

Building a Perfect Kayak: In this set of articles, I take you from designing a kayak to building one from scratch.

Bryan's WorkShop in 3D:This is a 360 degree Virtual Tour of my workshop for boat building. It's shot with a prototype wooden panohead that I've developed. I will eventually turn this head into carbonfiber.

Free Aleutian Baidarka Kayak Plans: Free plans for building an Aleutian Baidarka Kayak using the Hulls boat design program.

Make Your Own Cockpit Cover: A simple project that you can complete in an afternoon, and it will keep rain out of your kayak.

My Homebuilt Boats: I've built and helped to build several canoes and kayaks. I show mine off, and provide a few of my plans for any builders out there.

Layout Panels From Hulls: Hulls is a free boat design program from Carlson's Designs. It is easy to use, but sometimes it's not so easy to figure out how to get your design out of the computer. Learn that here.

Sailing Canoes

Wigeon: A Sailing Canoe: In this letter, Charles Campbell sums it up best when he writes: We need more recreational sailing canoes around. They seem to have gotten lost by the wayside when racing took over the scene back in the 19th century. And from what I can see, the current racing classes are too restrictive in their class rules to be of general interest for someone who wants a recreational canoe dedicated to sailing. If we could just open the door a bit...

Technique

How to Clean a Drysuit:It's that time of the year to break out your drysuit. What's that smell. Well, here's how to clean a drysuit.

Tarp Shelter Set-Up: A lightweight weather-proof tarp set-up to use when you want to stay dry. This article was hidden for the last three or four years on a climbing website, so it's about time it migrates to Nessmuking. This is one of the best ways to set-up a tarp for camping under.

An Acorn Whistle: In this fun haibun-article learn how to make a whistle from an acorn. Might be handy someday.

The Lightweight Secret: Most paddlers would sit up and listen when told they could actually travel the same distance without working any harder in less time. They'd lean in much closer when told that there was a secret that could allow them to travel an additional 24 miles in a ten day trip without any additional hours on the water, and most would be surprised to learn the secret is actually simple. Learn the secret in this article.

Cell Phones in the Boundary Waters:A test of cell phone reliability in the wilderness of the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness.

Forward Paddling a Kayak: Visiting author, Jakob Jelling, writes about how easy and important a good forward stroke is when paddling a kayak.

Ration Planning NOLS Style for Camping: Exploring NOLS system of menu planning for an canoeing expedition across the Boundary Water. This article shows a NOLS plan for a twelve day trip, and discuses how well it worked.

BWCA: Insider Tips: Three tips that will make your next couple of trips to the BWCAW easier on the wallet and then mind.

Lost and Found: What to do when you find something in the Woods: When you find an expensive item in the wilderness, you may be tempted to claim salvage rights, but to learn what you really should do, read this article.

How to Use a Padded Food Pack: Sometimes, simplicity, is using the same foods you do at home when you're in the woods. Here's how to do it.

How to Keep Clean in the Woods: Do you paddling partners stink? Make them read this.

How to Solo a Tandem Canoe: Does your canoe partner constantly oversleep causing you to miss prime fishing time. Leave your partner in the tent and head out alone. This article will teach you how.

Equipment

Icom M72 VHF Radio Cheat-Sheet: A cheat-sheet designed for the Icom M72 VHF radio. It'll fit on a 3x5 index card when printed. This cheat-sheet includes cheats for functions not often used and on the back includes a handy cheat-sheet covering the basics of good radio talk and a step by step list on how to call out Maydays, Pan Pan, Securite, Station to Station. It's useful for everyone.

Things I broke 2007: A list of things that I broke in 2007.

Sample 35 Day Challenge List: Bryan used this exact gear list recently on the Vern River Route in the Boundary Waters. It all fit inside a Sealline waterproof Boundary 35 HD Day Pack. Check out the pictures. It's hard to believe you can travel for five days with such a small pack and be completely comfortable.

Get Bent: Many paddlers often wonder about those funny looking paddles with bent shafts. Find out why they're using them.

Personal Essays

OFF SITE: benkrieg: I found out last night, that Ben Krieg, who I've known since grade school and who was my neighbor when we were kids, passed away . Ben was one of three brothers that my brother, cousin, and I were friends with, and he was the one that I ran into most often after we grew up, went to college, and got jobs. He was full of energy, never stopping for mediocrity in his endeavors, and he always had a story of a recent adventures where he went for it all and won. Please, visit the site linked to above. His younger brother, Sam, has built a place for memories, and a testament to the lives he touched. He will be remembered. I've added a page to this site that will be up as long as I continue to publish this online magazine: In Remembrance of Ben Krieg.

Down the Mississippi River: In August 2004, two friends started a kayaking 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, written shortly after the trip, Bryan explores the meaning of friendship and how expeditions can ruin them if you're not careful.

Some New Year's Resolutions. After a month of reflecting on last year and my accomplishments, I've come up with a few resolutions and paddling goals for 2005. I'm sharing them with the world, so now I have to actually do them.

Getting By: Sometime what you learn in the woods can translate to your home life. Originally, a presentation I gave at my old job, here it is surrounded by a fictional family holiday meal.

Multi-Tool Envy: One of these days, I'll get around to buying one of this little gems, but for now, I'm just envious.

Where the Road Ends: When I accidentally drowned a rabbit trying to save it, I'm reminded of a story, and then have to build a paddle.