In September, Nessmuking.com is changing names to PaddlingLight.com. There are lots of reasons for this including some that make good web and search engine sense, but on a personal side, I think the site’s scope has outgrown the old name. I want the visitors to know that this site is about paddling when they look at the domain name.

So, how do you follow along?

• You can head over to PaddlingLight.com and sign up for the RSS or sign-up to get new articles in your email box.
• You can sign up for the RSS feed right here.
• You can follow along on Facebook.

For anyone worried that the information here will go away, don’t. Everything currently on Nessmuking is moving to PaddlingLight. If you link to Nessmuking, please, update your links. I appreciate your help in getting this info out there. The change will happen shortly after I return from end-of-summer paddling trips. Thank you for your continuing support. I hope the name change will get this information to more people.

Thanks,

Bryan

BTW, follow me on Twitter right here.

Recently, I’ve been preparing for a seven-day two-person canoe trip by reorganizing my cooking gear. I’ve settled on taking a Penny Stove, made from beer cans, but what if I wanted to use a canister stove? There are lots of reasons to bring a canister stove, but I find the most compelling reason is its ability to easily control the flame. Least compelling for me is having to use a non-renewable energy source. Still, from a weight perspective a canister stove  makes good sense.

My favorite lightweight canister stove is MSR’s Pocket Rocket Backpacking Stove. Its simply and light design has few moving parts to break, and it packs up into a small container. If I were to revise my gear list for the trip to account for a change in stoves, it’d look like this:

Cooking Gear Weight

• 5.8 oz. – Snow Peak 34-fl.oz. Titanium Pot and lid
• 3.1 oz. – MSR Pocket Rocket
• 0.4 oz. – Light My Fire Sporks (0.2 oz. each)
• 6.4 oz. – Empty Jetboil fuel canister (need two – 3.2 oz. each)
• 15.7 oz. – Total without fuel

Fuel

• 7 oz. – Jetboil propane/isobutane four-season blend (35 boils – 14 meals)

The MSR Pocket Rocket packed into my Ti pot.

Stove Performance

In my test of stove performance, the MSR canister stove boiled 16 ounces in 3:36 minutes. It used 0.2 oz. of fuel. So, I could get 17.5 boils out of a canister. It takes 12 oz. of alcohol on the Penny Stove to achieve about the same number of boils. But, there’s a catch. The Penny Stove requires 0.75 oz. of fuel to bring the same amount to a boil, and then it continues to burn for about another minute. If you drop the simmer ring onto the stove, it simmers for about another 5 minutes. This gives a cook time of around 8 minutes or about the right amount of time to cook a Knorr Lipton Dinners. For the MSR canister stove to achieve the same boil time, it must use 0.5 oz. of fuel, which drops the number of meals in a canister to 7. So, it looks like I need two canisters for the seven-day trip. Note: Breakfast usually requires just a boil for oatmeal, so I could probably get by with 1.5 canisters, but you can’t buy them that way.

I like a cook system to fit into the largest pot I’m carrying. A small Jetboil canister fits into my pot and leaves enough room for the stove. A cup can’t fit into the pot, like it can with the Penny Stove. A larger fuel canister takes up too much room and doesn’t allow the stove to fit in the pot. So, if I take the MSR, I have to find another place to stash the second canister–not a big deal in a Duluth pack.

Total Weight

The MSR system with fuel for this 7 day trip for two weighs in at 22.7 oz. The Penny Stove system weighs in at 21.2 oz. The lightweight Penny Stove ends up weighing less by 1.5 oz. By using a Penny Stove, I gain convenience in storage, but lose convenience in flame control, and I use a more sustainable energy source. As I continue to use fuel with the alcohol stove, my system becomes increasingly lighter. By the last day of the trip, it’ll be about 6.5 oz. lighter. Not a bad breakdown.

Boiling water at the campsite.

A great lightweight cooking system should quickly and efficiently boil water, set up easily, and pack up into the system’s largest pot. Lately, because I’m preparing for a seven-day two-person canoe trip, I’ve been looking for cooking gear that meets this criteria. I’ve looked into lightweight commercial cooking gear, like the Caldera Cone and the Jetboil (which I love for solo travel), but everything I’ve looked at seems lacking in some aspect. For example, the Cone doesn’t pack into a pot, and once you add all the accessories to make a Jetboil convenient for two, it ends up weighing significantly more than other options. I also wanted something that used a sustainable fuel, like alcohol. So, I dug out my old soda and beer can stoves to test them again. I was impressed.

Lightweight Cook Kit

For this trip, we settled on using the 34-fl.oz. pot and lid from Snow Peak’s Titanium Multi Compact Cookset, a Penny Ultralight Alcohol Stove, and Light My Fire Sporks. For water purification, we’ll use a Katadyn Hiker Water Filter. To carry water, Platypus 1-Liter Water Bottles, and because it’s cold at night now, we’ll drink hot beverages out of GSI Infinity Insulated Mugs. One person will eat out of the pot and the other out of REI’s Polypropylene Bowl, an Orikaso Fold Flat Bowl, or the pot’s lid–yet to be decided. Together these items weigh 2 lb. 5 oz. Or about 1 lb. 2.5 oz. per person.

Cooking Gear Weight

• 5.8 oz. – Snow Peak 34-fl.oz. Titanium Pot and lid
• 2.2 oz. – Penny Stove (0.5 oz. windscreen, 0.9 oz. pot stand, 0.5 oz. stove, 0.3 oz. base and simmer ring)
• 0.4 oz. – Light My Fire Sporks (0.2 oz. each)
• 0.8 oz. – Fuel container (12 oz. soda bottle)
• 9.2 oz. – Total without fuel

Water and Drinking Gear Weight

• 14.3 oz. – Katadyn Hiker (with stuff sack, platypus adapter, and pro element – New models are lighter)
• 1.6 oz – Platypus Water Bottles (0.8 oz. each)
• 6.4 oz. – GSI Infinity Insulated Mugs (3.2 oz. each)
• 22.3 oz. - Total

Options

• 2.5 oz. – REI’s Polypropylene Bowl
• 1.1 oz. – Orikaso Fold Flat Bowl

Other

• 0.1 oz. – Mini Bic Lighter
• 4.0 oz. – Pacific Outdoor Equipment Bear Bag Throw Line
• 1.4 oz. – Sea to Summit UltraSil Dry Sack for food storage
• 5.5 oz. – Total

Fuel

• 12 oz. – Denatured Alcohol (.75 ounces to boil water – 16 total boils)

Totals

• 9.2 oz. – Cooking Gear
• 22.3 oz. – Water
• 5.5 oz. – Other
• 37 oz. – Total without fuel

The Penny Stove packed inside my Snow Peak pot.

Gear Highlights

I like this system because the stove system packs up small and fits within the pot, it weighs only 1 lb. 2.5 oz. per person and it gives us everything we need without having too many parts. The center of the cooking system is the Penny Stove. The Penny Stove is one of the easiest stoves that I’ve made, and all the accessories are just as easy to make. Out of the many stoves that I’ve built, it boils water quicker and, because the priming plate is built into the stove, with less hassle.

The designer’s website claims 3:59 minutes boil time for 16 ounces of water on 2/3 oz. of fuel. On my version, I got 4:30 minutes boil time on 0.75 oz. of fuel. Total burn time was 5:30 minutes. I’m going to make a second one to see if I can approach the reported boil times on less fuel. My stove system ended up heavier than the designers by 0.2 oz. Maybe the second one will be lighter. Also, I’m using aluminum flashing for my windscreen, which is 0.3 oz. heavier than an aluminum cake pan windscreen I also made. I like the heavier one better, because it stays in place.

The pot is large enough for cooking for two and the lid works well for cooking fry bread (although with an alcohol stove this would be difficult). The cups are the perfect size for hot drinks and they provide just enough insulation to keep the drink warm until we finish sipping. The Katadyn Hiker pumps water quickly. We store it in Platys, because they’re light and durable. The throw line and dry bag work well together for hanging a bear bag.

The Penny Stove at full burn.

Making It Lighter

This kit could definately be lighter. The biggest offender is the water filter. We could save 11.3 oz. by using Mcnett Aquamira Water Treatment instead of the filter. If we switched out our GSI mugs for the red cups shown in the above picture, we’d save 4.4 oz. My stove is 0.2 oz. heavy, so a rebuild could solve that problem. We could use the lighter windscreen for 0.3 oz. of saving. There are bear bagging systems that weigh 3 oz. on the market. If I switched and paid an arm and leg for one, I’d save 2.4 oz. We could easily cut 18.6 oz. out of our lightweight cooking gear. This is just over half the weight of the system. If we did, our system would weigh 1 lb. 2.4 oz. We’d each carry 9.2 oz. Is it worth it? If we were planning big mileage or heading into a remote area we would change out the gear (except for the bear bagging gear) and save the weight. I always think it’s best to evaluate gear before heading out and always take suggestions.

Would you go kayaking in this weather?

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 lore sayings.

Weather Lore

• Red sky at night sailor’s delight; red sky in the morning sailor’s take warning. Perhaps the most well-know saying. In the northern hemisphere weather typically moves west to east. When the sun can cast it’s light up on the underbelly of the clouds, it means that the sky is clear in that direction. So, if there’s a red sunset, there must be clear skies to the west. If there’s a red sunrise, the clear weather has passed to the east and bad weather is overhead. Another version: A rainbow in the morning, is the sailor’s warning; a rainbow at night is the sailor’s delight. Rainbows appear opposite the sun, so it must be clear in the direction of the sun. In the morning, it’s the east. In the evening, it’s the west.
• A ring around the sun or moon, means rain or snow coming soon. Halos form from the sun reflecting off of high altitude ice crystals. This may mean that a storm is blowing in and sending moisture high into the sky. When sun dogs surround the sun, weather will deteriorate within 18-36 hours.
• Frost or dew in the morning light, shows no rain before the night. And, when grass is dry at morning light, look for rain before the night. This saying depends on the night sky. If it’s calm and clear at night, the temperature will drop and dew forms. If it’s windy and cloudy, dew probably won’t form. Clouds and wind can indicate bad weather moving in.
• Mackerel sky and mare’s tails make tall ships carry low sails. Thin high cirrocumulus clouds that look like fish scales with blue sky in-between or long wispy high cirrus clouds. These clouds could indicate a warm or cold front approaching. Chances are for strong winds and in the case of a warm front, probably rain.
• A veering wind, fair weather; a backing wind, foul weather. Veering winds change direction in a clockwise direction and backing winds change direction in an anticlockwise directions. A veering wind means that the system is passing and a backing wind means the system is arriving.
• If clouds move against the wind, rain will follow. Stand with your back against the wind. If the upper level clouds are coming from the left, a system is approaching from the west. If the upper level clouds are coming from the right, the weather will be clear.
• When the glass falls low, prepare for a blow; When it rises high, let all your kites fly. This saying has to do with the type of pressure system that is approaching. Low pressure systems bring unstable weather and high pressure system more stable. So, when your barometer shows a falling pressure, expect bad weather, and good weather when it rises.

Do you have some favorite sayings?

Weather Lore Downloads and Resources

• Weather folk-lore and local weather signs by Edward Bennett Garriott: A U.S. Department of Agriculture publication from 1903 and now in the public domain. Includes lots of weather lore and prediction tools for cities across the U.S.
• Folklore in Meteorology: WRGB’s collected weather lore sayings and explanations.

The 1898 Passamaquoody Decorated Ocean Canoe comes from page 82, Figure 74 of Edwin Adney and Howard Chapelle’s The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America. The text notes that this is the last known canoe of this style built. Tomah Joseph of Princeton, Maine built the canoe based on a cedar and canvas porpoise-hunting canoe. It has similar pinched ends and rounded tumblehome as the Modern Malecite St. John River Canoe.

The Stats

Length over all: 17ft 4in
Design beam: 36in
Design draft: 0.436in
Displacement: 510lb
Length of waterline: 15.8ft
Wetted surface area: 29.5ft^2
Optimum capacity: 300-800lb
Pounds to immerse an inch: 145lb

Linesplan

Free Canoe Plans Downloads

The free cedar canoe plans come as an A1-sized pdf (free Adobe Reader required to view) that you can print off at photocopy stores.

• Free Canoe Plans: 1898 Passamaquoddy Ocean Canoe

Donate

If you build this canoe, consider donating $30 for my time and effort. Any donations are appreciated. Whether or not you donate, please, send me a picture of your build–I’ll add it to a builder’s gallery.

Recommended Books to Buy Before Building

• Canoecraft: An Illustrated Guide to Fine Woodstrip Construction: The gold standard for cedar canoe builders. Use this book with the provided free plans and you’ll end up with a great canoe.
• Building a Strip Canoe by Gil Gilpatrick: A great cedar canoe building book that explains excellent shortcuts.
• Strip Built Canoe: How to build a beautiful, lightweight, cedar strip canoe: Well written and easy to follow. Every builder should own this.
• Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own: Paddle building techniques included with canoe and kayak building books are typically crude. Follow the directions in this book and end up with a beautiful and functional paddle to go along with your canoe or kayak.
• Building Strip-Planked Boats: The newest book by kayak and canoe building authority, Nick Schade. A must have.
• The Strip-Built Sea Kayak: Three Rugged, Beautiful Boats You Can Build: The gold standard of kayak building books. Clearly explains all the sets of boat building from tools to epoxy work. There are so many tricks and tips in this book that you’ll be able to save time.
• Kayakcraft: Fine Woodstrip Kayak Construction: Presents a slightly different way to build cedar strip kayaks. Lots of great ideas.
• The New Kayak Shop: More Elegant Wooden Kayaks Anyone Can Build: If stitch and glue is your thing, then this is the book to get.

At the summer Outdoor Retailer show, Wenonah introduced two new canoes. The first is called the 17 Wenonah. The company founder, Mike Cichanowski, originally built this model in his parent’s garage when he was 16. The boat sat on display at the company headquarters until they decided to dust it off and build a mold. It’s now available in all Wenonah’s layups.

The second boat is a canoe/kayak hybrid called the Canak. The boat is a decked Prism solo canoe with a kayak seat and a built-in holder for a portage yoke. The large hatches are covered by fabric hatch covers. It’s definately geared towards canoe destinations like the Boundary Waters where boats need to be portaged between lakes to move on. Normal kayak hatches make packing and unpacking so many times in one day a hassle. The thought here is by using large fabric covered hatches, the paddler can drop a pack into the boat and only pack it in the morning and unpack at night. I can’t imagine using it on anything but calm days elsewhere. I actually saw a prototype of something similar being built in wood by a guy in Grand Marais, MN. Interesting that the concept is being produced by Wenonah.

Video from RapidMedia TV below:

At the 2010 Summer Outdoor Retailer show, the yearly pilgrimage for gear obsessed outdoor store owners and buyers, Mad River announced the release of five new canoes.

The first two ultralites weigh in at 45 lbs and 43lbs for the Explorer 16 KX Ultralite and the Malecite KX Ultralite, respectively. They range in price from $2,749 to $3,089 depending on the options, like wood gunwales. Both feature resin-infusion w/ something called custom MRC core system. If the MRC core system features a molded-in bunny, like shown in the picture, we hope it doesn’t make it into production boats. Resin-infusion results in a layup with a high fiber/resin ration, which means lighter and stronger. It’s also healthier for the canoe builders. The builders seal the laminate in a vacuum bag and pull the vacuum. Then the resin comes in via feeder tubes and runners. It evenly impregnates the laminate delivering a controlled amount of resin.

Jim Henry designed two triple layer plastic canoes for Mad River. The new Journey 158 and 169 models will put you on the water in something backbreaking for under $950. If that’s all you can afford, then these look like good options.

For canoeists looking for something longer, the Expedition 176 looks promising. When compared to the BWCA standards, like the We-no-nah Minnesota II, the Bell Canoe Works Northwind and the Souris River Quetico II, it’s a bit weighty at 57 lbs. But for the extra weight you get curvy seats, a shaped yoke (hopefully, yoke pads will work on it), and a molded in Mad River rabbit on the floor. I love the Bell-like shouldered tumblehome.

More info on the Confluence Watersports OR Blog.

The Explorer Ultralight looks to be a nice BWCA canoe.

When an expensive piece of equipment breaks during an expedition, you fix it, swallow your losses and then get home. Once home, it sucks having to buy a new piece of gear, especially if you loved the broken one, and it was expensive. Luckily, most outdoor equipment offers some type of warranty and many brands offer lifetime warranties. Before you buy a new piece of gear to replace your old make sure you try and take advantage of the warranty.

Recently, I had a small problem. The feathering sticker on my Werner Cyprus’s adjustable ferrule came off. The first solution that popped into my head was to paint dots corresponding to 0 and 60 degrees onto the shaft. Then I decided to drop Werner’s repair and warranty department a quick email to see how much a new sticker would cost. A few days later, new stickers showed up in the mail for free. Thanks, Tammy.

In the past, I’ve used other warranties. A couple of years ago, I had problems with both of my Marmot Dri-clime Windshirts (the best coat on the planet–you should buy one now). The zipper was failing on the oldest and the stitching on the shoulder of the other was coming out. I liked the cut and fit of the older version better than the new ones, so I knew I wanted it back. I sent both in with a note asking to repair the old one and repair or replace the new one. I gave them color choices for the new one. A few weeks later, my coats showed up. Marmot gave the old one a new zipper and sent me a new replacement for my other. Thanks, Marmot.

When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, several pieces of my gear failed during the 6-month trip. TNF sent me a new Cat’s Meow sleeping bag, Raichle boots replaced my delaminating soles with a new pair of boots, and Gregory replaced a defective backpack. Recently, Big Agnes replaced a rainfly on my Seedhouse SL2–not because it was broken but because the newer version was better. And when I needed a new spring clip for my Aquabound paddle, they sent three for free.

When you’re buying high-end gear, you’re not only paying for quality gear, you’re paying for a companies guarantee and warranty to back that gear up. If something goes wrong, take advantage of the warranty you paid for. It’s as simple as going to their website and finding a phone number.

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 once in a while, a Google image search results in good finds. Below are a few interesting pictures from our paddling past.

Title: [Alton Smith and Al Zaebst loading a captured alligator into their canoe : Weeki Wachee River, Florida]
Date: Photographed on December 13, 1948.

Thousand Islands, ON, about 1915
Wm. Notman & Son
About 1915, 20th century

M2000.113.6.223
Mrs. Cotter kayaking on the North West River, Hamilton Inlet, Labrador, NL, 1909
Hugh A. Peck
1909, 20th century

Ojibwe women and children in a canoe.
Photographer: Charles Alfred Zimmerman (1844-1909)
Photograph Collection, Carte-de-visite ca. 1885

Crossing to St. Helen’s Island, near Montreal, QC, 1875
Alexander Henderson
1875, 19th century

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. Using a Graduated Neutral Density filter, you can capture both a colorful sky and a detailed foreground and end up with a picture like the one to the right.

Required Gear

• Cokin H250A P-Series ND Grad Kit
• A camera, like the Nikon D700 Digital SLR(I used my Nikon D200 for this picture) or any camera that accepts filters.
• A wide-angle lens. On my D200, I use a Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED IF.
• A Cokin P-Series Adapter Ring. Match the ring to your lens’s filter size.
• Tripod

ND Grad Filters

Once you have your Cokin P-Series filter kit, you need to modify the holder to work with a wide-angle lens, especially if your wide-angle requires filters bigger than 70mm. When you look at the filter holder, notice the multiple slots for filters. Cut off the extra slots to leave only one. Unless you plan on using the filter holder for some of Cokin’s other filters, you won’t miss the extra slots. If you leave the extra slots, you could end up with vignetting in your picture.

Canoe exposed right, but the sky is lost.

The sky looks good, but the canoe is too dark.

After you’ve modified your filter holder take time to sort through the ND Grads that came with the kit. Each of them looks like the picture to the right. To use them, you screw the holder onto your lens and slide the ND Grad into the slot. The clear side of the filter lets in all the light from the area that you’re placing it, and the dark side tones down the light coming into the picture. Because the sky is brighter than the ground, you place the dark part over the sky and the light part over the ground. The transitional area goes over a part of the frame that will disguise the change. In my picture, the disguise occurs along the tree line. Using an ND Grad in this way evens out the exposure across the frame allowing you to capture detail across the entire picture.

When you’re looking at the filters in your kit, notice that each filter is slightly darker in the gray area than the others. This determines how much light, the gray area allows through. For bright sunsets, use the darkest and for darker sunsets, you can use the lightest. One issue to watch when using the darkest ND Grad is that the reflection of the sky in the water doesn’t look too much lighter than the sky. I find that the middle darkness or a 2-stop ND Grad works best.

Composing Canoe and Sunset Pictures

These types of photos work best using two compositional techniques. The first uses the rule-of-thirds. For this rule, divide your viewfinder up into a tic-tac-toe board. On your board, imagine that parts of your image can only take up 1/3rd or 2/3rds of the frame. In my picture, the water and canoe takes up 2/3rds of the frame and the sky takes up 1/3rd of the sky. This moves the horizon out of the frame’s middle and makes for a more dynamic composition by making an asymmetrical image. The human mind wants everything to look symmetrical–because our faces and bodies are generally symmetrical our mind accepts that better. When an image is asymmetrical we tend to look at it longer trying to figure out why it isn’t symmetrical.

The second technique is using leading lines. Leading lines take elements your picture and set them diagonally to the horizontal and vertical edges of your picture’s frame. The canoe acts as a leading line in my picture. It captures the viewer’s attention at the bow and funnels their eyes into the picture to the background and upper left. English speakers start viewing pictures in the upper left of a print, because we’re trained to start reading there. By funneling the view to the upper left, I create a circular effect for the viewer’s eyes. They start viewing in the upper left, work their way down to the lower right and then the leading line takes them back to the top of the image.  The leading line creates depth and makes the picture dynamic because it is working against the vertical and horizontal lines in your image.

The clouds have changed so much, it's hard to tell that this was taken during the same sunset.

Using ND Grads and Composition for a Great Photo

To pull all this info together, get a campsite with a sunset view. Find an interesting place to take a picture from. For mine, I found a shallow rock bed. Set your camera up on a tripod. Maneuver the canoe around until it becomes a leading line. Put your ND Grad on your camera and line it up so that the transition disappears into the trees. Take a picture. Make sure that your exposure looks good with a properly exposed sky and detail in the foreground. If it doesn’t look good, adjust exposure compensation until you have detail in the sky and foreground. If you still can’t bring everything into an even exposure, use the next darker ND Grad.

Notes:

• Even on a calm day, if your boat is floating, it’ll drift around. Setting the canoe over a rock bed allowed me to build a small island to set the bow on. Towards the stern of the canoe, I also built a rock island that stopped the canoe from drifting to the right. The slight wind was pushing the canoe that direction.
• Compose your shot to include the entire reflection of the canoe for more impact.
• Wait around even after the sun sets completely, because you may get better color in the sky then. During this sunset, the clouds changed shape and color considerably. I have pictures from the sunset that look so different, you’d hardly be able to tell they’re from the same sunset.
• Take a bunch of different pictures from different angles using both horizontal and vertical framing.
• You can do this technique digitally by capturing a properly exposed sky in one picture and foreground in another and then combine them with a gradient mask in Photoshop.