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:

1. You do not talk about Paddle Club.
2. You do not talk about Paddle Club.
3. When someone falls over, or goes limp, even if he’s just faking it, then the rescues begin.
4. Only one paddler to a kayak.
5. One stroke at a time.
6. They paddle with pfds and dress for immersion.
7. The paddles go on as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first night at paddle club, you have to roll.

This spring our local paddle club debated rules, insurance and liability. In the end, we decided that we’re just a group of friends who paddle together and that each paddler is responsible for himself. We also decided that we’d only paddle with people who know how to perform self and assisted reentries. And paddlers must have the right gear for the conditions. Rules? Not really. It’s just how we select the people we’d paddle with.

I’m curious what other small clubs do. Does your club use insurance, have rules, worry about liability?

Fight Club Music Video

¹Watch Fight Club if you don’t know where the rules come from.

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 being introduced to new paddling partners, or socializing at a symposium; this is the simple nexus that drawls so many different people together. And here’s mine.

I grew up in a modest house in rural Newfoundland with salt stained windows, which my mother would feverishly clean after every storm. Kelp was a common site in our garden after storms….as well as fish , and various cru stations. Now I wasn’t a newcomer to the ocean living of Newfoundland, I have had family living there permanently since 1641.

Growing Up in Boats

While kayaking wasn’t really heard of or popular when I was growing up we spent much of our time in boats or on wharfs fishing. Rural Newfoundland was a childhood dream with thousands of km’s of nothing, and our parents had little to worry about when sending us kids “outta da house” as soon as breakfast was ate. As far as they were concerned kids shouldn’t be sitting around the house unless they were being punished for a indiscretion; like getting caught robbing someone’s rhubarb patch.

My first recollection of being self propelled on the water was a rickety old raft I build out of drift wood on my front lawn. I build a crude sculling oar/ pole to propel myself and was quickly exploring our bay in which we lived. My mother tried applying limits of exploitation, geographically named as Wiseman’s cove etc…which only ensured I would sneak around it.

Teenage Years

Then the teenage years approached. Beer, girls and mild narcotics became my main point of interest. And aside from hunting or fishing my attention was swung away from exploration of the wilderness and more so in exploration of my newly acquired recreation. Having said that I became an expert in packing my rucksack as to not have beer bottles clanging together as I said goodbye to mom and dad for a weekend of camping. We also began building cabins deep in the woods to escape the watchful eyes of other parents in the outport who would quickly report our illegal activities to our parents (police were non existent). However during these outings I became enthralled by the nature around me. I watched many a sunrise after a sleepless night, I watched two eagles locked by their talons in their passionate lovers free fall about 100 feet…only to hit the water. It was beautiful and funny all the same time.

One of the guys we hung around with had tragic news that his brother was missing. An avid kayaker his brother had departed one day into Trinity bay and was never seen again. Many stories circled among the outport men of what they thought could have happened to him. However his body was never found. That was my first memory of kayaks.

Married with Children

Fast forward a few years and suddenly I am a Sergeant in the military married with children. On a training exercise a few years back I broke my fibula and really messed up my ankle. Not only did this put a damper on the training; it ceased my first addiction…running. Suddenly my fit frame was getting doughy from a lack of my strict schedule of a minimum of 20km running a day. I needed to find a exercise I could do while healing.

One day I was struggling to mentally get through another workout on a concept rower. Watching the seconds tick by and the pseudo kilometers build, I brainstormed about a low impact activity that would get me back outside. As watching these dudes walk around with protein shakes flexing in a mirror was not my idea of a nice relaxing activity.

Then it hit me. Kayaking! I quit my workout at 52 minutes instead of the required 60. No longer would the rower tyrannize me with it’s beeping and timings. Off to my computer to have a look at where I could buy a kayak.

The Kayak Adventure Begins

I lucked out and picked up two poly day touring kayaks for under 2000 bucks. By far the best two grand I have ever spent. My riot sprint has well over 2000 km on her from 4 meter swells next to icebergs in the North Atlantic to the calm streams of Ontario. This little 13 foot kayak really got me hooked and I began the journey of trial and error in skills, and subsequent kayak and kit purchases which has lead me to where I am today. Not only do I collect kayaks like hockey cards I refuse to part with any of them. They are a apart of my paddling history, and I can’t bear to get rid of them as they remind me of certain trips, certain feelings. Feelings that I had not felt since bright crisp fall mornings in the 80′s as a young child finding a new droke I had never been at before, or exploring over the next hill and finding a large granite cliff. A feeling that everything was good, everything was new.

Be it be an hour paddle in the afternoon after a stressful workday or a 10 day trip along Georgian bay, I relish each moment I spend in my kayak. While the kayaks and skills improve and the locations vary, it all boils down to one thing.

That moment of total peace, of amazement, of joy, of absolute exhilaration. The childhood feeling of excitement. That very second as I round a headland to see the perfect scene. The day a muskrat crawled onto my deck, or the day a sea otter decided he was very angry at my intrusion into his cove. The crackle of a fire, the cool fog on my face on a early morning.

Kayaking is my vessel to more things than destinations.

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 Mom’s best friends died of a brain tumor, and the following month, my cousin was killed in a fire started by a Christmas tree. I remember this time as very confusing and scary. I also remember this time as my first glimpse of the healing solitude of the outdoors.

Trying to deal with all the emotions and turmoil, I started to create secret forts around my neighborhood. I had many “hiding” spots in various bushes and trees in my neighborhood. I am not sure if it was the grief or my natural personality, but I spent a lot of time alone in my hiding places. I was happy and peaceful in solitude. I loved to hear the wind, or watch a spider spin a web. I would follow ants around or look for ‘pillbugs’. I routinely would get in trouble because no one knew where I was and I couldn’t hear my Mom calling. I wanted to be outside at all times in all sorts of weather. I had a special affinity for following water. After a rain, I would follow the flow of water down our streets and check out the levels in a creek that ran through town. I would make play boats with leaves and send them off to see what course they would take. Over the years, I kept those hideouts and my fondness for being alone in nature only grew. I never could understand why others could not feel the complete beauty and healing touch of just hanging out in wild places.

My First Experience with Canoeing

My first experience with canoeing was in middle school, through a neighbor named Les. He owned property along a local river, the Mackinaw. While he worked on his property, he would set four of us neighbor girls adrift in canoes down the river. At the end of the day, he would pick us up downstream. I instantly fell in love with canoeing and the flow of the river. The river sights, sounds and smells were all new to me and I felt like I had found another hidden world. In many ways, the river became another secret hiding spot for me. To this day, I am madly in love with rivers. The idea of traveling along waterways captures my passion in a way few things do.

My Yellowstone, the 'Mud Puppy', we did a very small creek, very twisty, lots of gradient, some portages. It was so fun. I love to portage, by the way. I guess I am crazy.

During college, I worked as a camp counselor and naturalist for various Girl Scout camps in Illinois. In all serious, one of the main reasons I accepted an assistantship and went to graduate school was to have some more summers as a naturalist. I know a lot of people can relate to the horrors of giving up on living in the woods! I owe most of what I learned about canoeing to a lady named Linda at a camp along the Mississippi in Northwestern Illinois. She shared her passion and expertise on canoeing with me. I learned to teach girls to canoe and learned some boat control and technique. She was a huge influence on me and one of the reasons that I want to keep reaching out to girls to encourage them to explore. She was the first one who showed me that girls can do this type of thing. Although I always had a dream to take off and explore by canoe, gradually, in my 20s I stopped canoeing. I had only used aluminum tandems and no longer had any partners to go out with. I focused on my other passion, hiking, and exploring the woods by foot.

Rediscovering Paddling

Fast forward to about 2005. I had a health scare that I thought was serious. When the doctor originally talked to me, I thought I was ‘not long for this earth’. As I sat in her office after she told me, my first thought was of my family, especially my kids. But, my second thought surprised me! I actually almost said out loud, “I haven’t canoed enough rivers.” Driving home, I had an almost uncontrollable desire to be back on a river. I had to go through surgery and a biopsy to get the results, which were thankfully benign. While I waited, I joined a few message boards on the internet. I read about lightweight solo canoes, and was ecstatic! I didn’t know anything about all the new materials and options. I also realized there were people out there who loved the outdoors as much as I did. I could hardly read trip reports about Canadian Rivers because I wanted to be there so bad.

A picture of my Mad River Independence, 'Gypsy 42' in the Boundary Waters during a Mom-daughter trip. That is my daughter, Dani, living the life.

I bought a kevlar Mad River Independence. (She is gorgeous). I joined a local canoe club and started canoeing down my beloved Mackinaw again. Over the next couple of years, I bought more canoes and became fully entrenched in my new addiction. I took a couple of white water classes. And, last year, I attained one of my dreams to go on a Canadian River trip. I was able to get in with a group that did the Kopka River. It was so beautiful and serene and remote. My favorite memory is on a duff day or rest day. I took the canoe out by myself near a spectacular waterfall. I sat there for a long time, holding my place in the frothy water, listening to that powerful water and watching the churning of the waters. That really is what life is about for me. I find such serenity and clarity in those moments.

What Paddling Means to Me

Just a few months ago, I started a website to encourage girls to explore nature. Especially today, there can be a lot of pressure on girls to attain all sorts of superficial and meaningless stereotypes. It would be great if every girl had the natural world to fall back on. A ‘secret’ place to be herself and find her truth. Now that I am getting older, I lean towards nature even more. It helps me accept aging and still know my place in the world. I still love to go exploring as much as I did when I was six. To travel by canoe is to follow the path of my heart and soul.

About Campgirlz.com:

Campgirlz.com was created to encourage girls of all ages, from 1-99, to explore nature! It is dedicated to all girls, young and old, who have a passion for the outdoors. Is your passion hiking, bird watching, skiing, canoeing, kayaking, camping, and/or star gazing? Do you like to explore & play in the dirt? Then, you are you a camp girl. Don’t worry if you live in a city- your own backyard or local park can be a wild place to explore.

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 the comments, it’s easy to see how appealing the sport is to all types of people.  The more I thought about this, the clearer it became to me that doing a post on Nessmuking about how I got into paddling would be a perfect way for me to expand the topic.

How I Got into Paddling

Growing up, my parents owned a beat up red fiberglass canoe. The hull was built from fiberglass mat or was sprayed into the canoe mold by a fiberglass chopper gun. It weighed a ton, and without a portage yoke, we hauled it around by the ends taking many rests on the way to the dock. Once or twice a summer, the canoe sprouted a hole, so we’d try to repair it using a fiberglass repair kit from the auto parts store–those repairs never seemed to hold.

My siblings, cousins, and I paddled the canoe on the backwaters of the Mississippi River near Savanna, Illinois. My aunt owned a cabin sandwiched between the railroad tracks and the water. A steep wooden stairway lead down to a wooden dock where we launched out into the backwaters. Paddling the shores, we hunted frogs, fished, and explored. We dodged water snakes pretending they were water moccasins. Despite warnings from our parents, we explored beyond the back waters into the main channel.

On one memorable adventure, we wandered the backwaters until we dead-ended in front of a small opening between islands leading to the channel. Water from the main channel poured through the opening creating a small drop from the channel into the backwaters. I didn’t know if we could paddle through current like that, because we’d never tried. We got a run into the current with all our strength, but the current stopped us. Luckily, we stopped near an upstream rock, which we pulled and pushed on to get into the channel. Looking back, it was so shallow that I should have just stepped out of the canoe and walked it out, but the spirit of adventure kept us in the canoe. It was probably that day, pushing our limits, trying to see what we could do, exploring boundaries to see what was around the corner, that helped form my drive to keep pushing myself in outdoor sports.

Where I Went From There

After those early adventures in our fiberglass canoe, I expanded my outdoor sport interests to include backpacking, mountain biking, and climbing. My studies in college and the job I worked to pay for it didn’t leave time to explore the outdoors, but with an excellent mountain biking trail near the university, it seemed like the perfect sport to take up. I spent my free time riding 10 miles to the track, 10 miles around, and then back home. In summers, I worked for the DNR and in the IC Park and Recreation department. I tried to be outside as much as I could and desired to embark on a long paddling trip.

College ended, and I found myself working seasonal outdoor jobs. During winter, a buddy of mine and I talked about paddling a canoe down the Mississippi River. In the end, because of the cost of buying a canoe and a special on PBS that we both watched, we decided to hike the Appalachian Trail instead. Six months later I found myself back in Iowa for the winter and when summer came I discovered climbing.

Both rock and ice climbing consumed my every free minute for years. I climbed all over the country including my two favorite climbs–a winter ascent of Devil’s Tower via the classic Durrance Route and a long ice route in Smuggler’s Notch. On both climbs, my climbing partner and I rappelled down in the night.

At some point during those climbing years, while working for a retail operation, I discovered kayaking. I bought my first touring kayak, a Dagger Magellan, and used it to explore Iowa’s waterways.

Rediscovering Paddling

Those explorations took me on trips down the Maquoketa River, the Iowa, the Upper Iowa, and out onto the Mississippi. It didn’t even occur to me that kayaks were designed to be paddled in open water. I read the magazines filled with worldly adventures, but with all the waterway’s of Iowa, I had no desire to paddle anywhere else.

After a season or two with the kayak, I sold it. Some years later, I bought a solo canoe and started to build a cedar strip tandem canoe in my apartment’s living room. During the years between selling the kayak, my focus and wanderlust that had been quelled by the Appalachian Trail reappeared. New disposable income that allowed for climbing travel also opened up my eyes to the wonders in the paddling world. I had always known about the Boundary Waters, so I decided to go.

In 2001, just days after the September 11th attack, my friend Steve and I journeyed north with two solo canoes. The town of Grand Marais, which I instantly fell in love with, was a ghost town. We put in on a route along the border. Several times a day, fighter jets flew along the border above us. At camp, we tried to catch news about the attack on a radio I brought with me. We had great campfires built with Canadian wood. We paddled on seeing no one until our last night. On the portage to the lake with our campsite, we ran into two guys who were heading out of the BWCA. They hadn’t heard the news, so we didn’t tell them.

After discovering the BWCA, there was no going back. I fell in love with the place, gave up climbing, learned to freestyle my solo canoe, and went on several Boundary Water trips a year, including many solo trips covering 100s of miles. (Links highlight just a few.) I fell so heavily in love with the Boundary Waters that during one solo trip, I knew that my place in life would be to move near it. Somehow I knew I’d have to leave my great job, the security it provided, to move into the unknown.

Back in Iowa, many of my friends were kayakers and rolling looked fun. So, I built a skin-on-frame kayak, got into rolling, built a plywood version of the skin-on-frame and used it to paddle 500+ miles of the Mississippi River. Although just the section between Jacobson, Minnesota and Dubuque, Iowa, it gave me a taste of the adventure I could have had if I had canoed the Mississippi instead of hiked the Appalachian Trail. Paddling became all-consuming. It was no longer a hobby, it was my life.

The Move North

Just after the Mississippi River trip, I moved to Grand Marais to be closer to the paddling in the Boundary Waters. I started Nessmuking.com. I paddled often in the BWCA using one of my two solo canoes or my tandem canoe. I also discovered kayaking again on Lake Superior.

Kayaking on Lake Superior is like kayaking on a freshwater ocean. Waves, open water, and its miles upon miles of shoreline grabbed my attention. Using what I learned from my other kayak builds, I designed a new kayak and used it to explore the lake. During that time, I started guiding kayaking for a resort, and obtained instructor certification from the American Canoe Association. I took kayak trips to places like Georgian Bay, Lake Nipigon, Norway, and many locations on Lake Superior. I built another kayak and designed custom boats for other paddlers.

Eventually, my kayaking cumulated in a failed attempt to paddle around all five Great Lakes. Early in the trip, I developed tendonitis in my elbows, something that has plagued me for years, and just before the trip I had re-injured an old climbing injury. I knew I had to cancel the trip when I wasn’t able to even hold a port-side stern rudder on following two-foot waves. Since the trip, I’ve slowly been able to paddle short distances again, but I continue physical therapy in hopes that the pain will eventually go away and that I’ll be able to attempt a long expedition someday.

And that brings me to today.

What Paddling Means to Me Now

Knowing what paddling means to me is almost impossible to put my finger on. For over 10 years, there hasn’t been a day in my life I didn’t think about paddling. If I wasn’t out paddling, I wished I was. My injury and having to quit my expedition forced me to look elsewhere for outdoor recreation–to look elsewhere to try to redefine myself. It challenged me to discover who I was again. I took up light-duty mountain biking, trained for a bike tour, and road my bike from Duluth to Dubuque, Iowa. But, I just came back to paddling. It’s just who I am. I paddle. Other than Ilena, it’s what makes my life complete.

What’s your story?

Please, share.

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 will say summer. The simplest and easiest measurement will lead one astray, as simple and easy information often does, in all things. It is fall and while at the scientific level there are dozens of measurements that say so, it is the qualitative that tells me so. The light has changed. Gone is the harsh washed out scenery of summer days when my photographs were all about timing and the tricks of nature; early light or dramatic clouds that filter rays and cast shadows. The fall light brings deep rich tones and contrasts. In fall, my photographs are about composition first, and keeping the shots with good light. The air has changed as well. The nights are longer, cooler and damper and day seems to struggle to return summer’s warmth. The longer nights bring unplanned but orchestrated smells and flavors. It’s not of showy flowers, but of the hidden deepness that sustains life. Summer air was tinned spices while fall is fresh cardamom seeds crushed this very second under my rolling pin. Winter will change all that, deadening the spices, but it will bring its own beauty in an even trade. Observations – the lily pads are browning at the edges. They show a summer’s wear with chunks missing and deep tears. A flock of 100 coots has returned to the bay. Cormorants are sitting on the new dirtbergs that have hit the surface in mid-bay. I spot two green backed herons, some great blue herons, wood ducks, and two horned grebes.

About the View from the Canoe Project

‘The View from the Canoe’ is an art project that has followed a two-year long evolution that started with my getting back into canoeing.  Seattle is primarily a sea kayak area, but even after 20 years, I just never connected with kayaks in the way that I do with canoes.  In 2008, I bought a used canoe and a few months later started blogging my 3 to 4 day a week trips in and around Seattle, writing my observations of the natural changes throughout the year and reflections on how people see and use the water, both in the present and in the past.  Recently, I started recording my better writings in my own voice, which lead to adding photographs, which lead to taking video and recording background sound effects.  Still a work in progress, The View from the Canoe may end up being a short documentary film, art video or “book on DVD”.  As often happens with an art project, I am just along for the ride.

On the surface, the project documents and reflects on nature and man’s use and abuse of water.  Underlying that, the work also shows how I have managed to find a sense of wilderness while in the midst of a major urban area.  Most of the writing happens in the canoe, as does the photography, film and sound effect work.

Scott Schuldt’s Bio –

Scott Schuldt is a Seattle based artist working in content- and concept-driven art (non-fiction, detailed and often narrative).  Born and raised in Minnesota and schooled in engineering, Scott dropped the engineering career in 2005 to pursue artwork on a full time basis.  His primary medium is hand-sewn beadwork, but has increasingly moved towards working with whatever medium will get the story across.  ‘The View from the Canoe’ is his first step into writing and film work.

The View from the Canoe Blog is found at- canoepost.blogspot.com

Scott’s website – www.scottschuldt.com

Several years ago, I started Nessmuking.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 wilderness enthusiasts.

I’ve been excited by the expansion, and for the last year I’ve known that at some point I would have to upgrade the website from basic html to a content management system. For the last three months, I’ve been working to change all the old static html pages to this new version of the website. I’ve done this for several reasons.

The new system makes it easier for me to:

• Update old pages.
• Maintain the entire website.
• Change one items and it will change over the entire site.
• Write new entries.
• Create useful links and organization across the website.
• Add useful extensions as needed.

More importantly, this update allows visitors to:

• Easily search the website.
• Find articles and information quickly.
• Leave feedback on the articles.

This also, sets up the website for the future. If it is ever needed, I can:

• Add Authors.
• Add Editors.
• Create new ways to generate revenue to help pay for web hosting fees.

With any major upgrade, it’s important to watch for broken links, missing pages, etc… I believe that I have a system in place to handle any problems, but more importantly, I hope by taking my time during the upgrade, I’ve managed to find all the problems before they happen, but if not, be sure to let me know about them.

This upgrade is about you, the visitors, and I hope that you find the new website even more useful than before. I appreciate all the support, visits, email, and articles that I’ve received since I started this website, and I look forward to growing and I hope you’ll join me for that ride.

Thank you for all the support!

Bryan

Bryan Hansel drinks coffee (Java Juice). Georgian Bay, ON.

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, with annual rainfall reaching up to eight metres and winds frequently rising to hurricane force. Nestled among glaciers that hug the slopes of steep Andean peaks and drenched by storms that blow out of the southern Pacific, the harsh region deters all but the hardiest explorers.

That has not stopped Cristian Donoso, a young Chilean lawyer who over the past 14 years has ventured more than 30 times into the region’s most inaccessible corners. Just like the indigenous peoples who paddled their fragile canoes here for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, he often travels in a sea kayak, a shallow craft that allows him to manoeuvre around the narrowest fjords and discover their hidden beauty.

“In order to strengthen protection of this territory, we’ve got to know what’s there,” says Donoso, who reports that today most Chileans have little knowledge of it. Along with team member Richard Vercoe, a naturalist from the United States who has documented the impact of economic activities on Chile’s environment, he warns that such ignorance makes it easier for those seeking commercial gain to exploit the region’s natural resources – seafood, water, virgin forests – with little respect for its biodiversity. Selected as an Associate Laureate in the 2006 Rolex Awards for Enterprise for his fearless commitment to exploration and for his plan to gather vital new knowledge of western Patagonia, Cristian Donoso believes that his next major expedition will ensure greater public awareness of the region.

With his team of three men and one woman, the 31-year-old explorer is planning an ambitious five-month Transpatagonia Expedition starting in September 2007. They will traverse 2,039 kilometres of the central part of western Patagonia on open sea, lakes and rivers, as well as travelling overland for 150 kilometres – including 22 kilometres atop glaciers, dragging their kayaks, weighing 200 kilograms each, behind them as sledges. The group will ascend unclimbed peaks and visit uncharted territories. Expedition members hope to encourage the region’s small indigenous community of Kaweskars (or Alakalufs) to reclaim their ancestors’ canoeing skills and host adventure tourists. Donoso, who plans to write a guidebook to the region, believes such sustainable economic ventures will help assure the region’s protection.

Detailed plans for the odyssey include locations to camp each night and a system, designed by Donoso, that will allow the team to sleep suspended from the cliffs rising out of the frigid waters when no suitable campsite is available. The explorers will bring their own food, but supplies will be replenished twice by a boat from Puerto Edén, a small indigenous village where the Chilean Navy maintains a base. The trip will place great demands on the kayakers, who have begun an intensive physical and nutritional training programme and are making three-week training runs into the region.

The team will carry sophisticated first-aid equipment. In case of a serious accident or illness, the supply boat can come to their rescue – though during much of the trip it would take three days to reach them. To enhance understanding of the region’s geological past, soil and rock samples will be collected, shipped out on the supply boat and analysed by university scientists. The explorers will also collect fossils and inspect geological evidence, including stalagmites in caves on Madre de Dios Island, showing how the climate has changed over time. The team’s scientific investigator, Chilean geologist Rodrigo Fernández, participated in a landmark expedition in 2000 to Madre de Dios for which the leader, Jean-François Pernette, won a Rolex Award in 1998. Scholars of the region’s human history eagerly await the expedition’s reports on the remains of fishing and hunting camps that belonged to the Kaweskars, ancient sea nomads who travelled the region for more than 4,000 years. Team member Kai Salas, a French archaeologist, will carefully document and site the settlements using GPS units.

A famous incident, the 1741 sinking of the English frigate Wager on the north coast of the Guayaneco Archipelago, will come alive again when the explorers dive into the sea to seek the wreck’s exact location. They will then seek to trace the route narrated in the journal of John Byron, who survived the shipwreck thanks to assistance from two indigenous groups who spirited him and three other survivors through the treacherous waters in their canoes.

Throughout the journey, a website will track the expedition’s progress, with the explorers providing updates by satellite phone. One team member will produce a documentary video for broadcast on television in Chile in 2008.

According to team member Mariela González, a professor of physical education at the University of Concepción and a skilled kayaker, Donoso’s comprehensive vision of Patagonia helped convince her to join the group. “He has a deep commitment to showing Patagonia from a wide perspective, combining the different worlds of science, sport, history, photography, ecology and interviews with the stories of people who live there,” she says. “With profound respect for the significance of navigating through such pristine areas, he wants to know these areas, love them, and, by publicising their millennia of history, preserve them for many millennia more.”

INTERVIEW WITH CRISTIAN DONOSO

Why have you undertaken so many expeditions to Patagonia?

Patagonia fascinates me. I find extremes there. You feel the intense sky, the rain, the rocks, the ice – all very intense. And the intimate contact with this geography through sport is something that brings me deep spiritual satisfaction.

What is the most daunting challenge for you personally in the 2007 expedition?

I have a vocation for logistics, which during the planning of the expedition demands great imagination and an ability to envision problems we could encounter. Later, the expedition will demand an ability to improvise in isolated settings and with limited resources.

Why are you using kayaks?

Kayaks give us a profound and immediate contact with the space we’re exploring. We could use means that are more comfortable and efficient, but they would generate a vision of the environment that is more superficial. Using kayaks allows us to see things the way Kaweskars did long ago, and forces us to adopt similar behaviour as we face up to the elements. It also helps us understand the strategies they used to adapt to their environment.

Kayaks will also allow us to discover places that cannot be reached by any other craft. This is essential for our field work and for scientific observations in western Patagonia. Your kayaks are similar to the canoes that the indigenous Kaweskar used for centuries.

How are the remaining Kaweskar going to benefit from your trip?

They live in poverty, with few tools for economic development. We want to help them recover canoeing, which they practised for thousands of years. It could be a way to build long-term sustainable development in the region.

Learn more at: INCOGNITO PATAGONIA

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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:

Tarptent Double Rainbow.

• 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 at the put-in. The Lever-lock adjustable ferrel broke putting the paddle together. Thank goodness for spare paddles, because we had to use a spare for the rest of the four day trip.
• The North Face Paramount Convertible Pant: I finally ripped out the butt seam in these 7 or 8 year old pants. I’ve worn these things nonstop at least once a week since I bought them. I have three pairs and the other two are finally showing some wear. These pants are one tough hombre. Buy some and you won’t be sorry.
• Tarptent Double Rainbow: I didn’t really break this tent. It came broken. The no-see-em mesh was not sewn into a seam for a full inch. I’ll need to fix this on my own, because the company never responded to my emails.
• Cedar Strip Freedom 17 Canoe: I put a hole in the outer fiberglass of this canoe again this year. It’s to the point where I need to count on two hands to track how many times I’ve done this on this boat.
• Stohlquist Brik: After many years, I favorite pfd of all times finally broke. I snapped the plastic zipper off the main zip while trying to get it off. I was ice coated at the time after an early spring wavy day paddle. I used cord to open the zip for most of the season and then bought an Astral Aquavest 300 to replace the Brik. I really need to quick release tow belt built in and the extra large front pocket for guiding. If I hadn’t needed those features, I would have bought a new Brik.
• Lowe Alpine Summit Attack Pack: I slammed the waist belt buckle in the car door. It broke. I replaced it. Pack is back in service. It’s nice that this buckle system is designed for quick and easy replacement.
• La Sportiva Backpacking TRK: In the middle of the day during work, the sole finally gave out. I must have put a 1000 plus miles on this pair. These boots were always about a 1/2 too small, so I’m buying a new pair instead of a resole. I’m buying La Sportiva Glaciers.

Things I Lost

• Gerber River Shorty Knife: This was an interesting loss. I was demostrating the scramble reentry at a roll pratice season, and the knife must have come out. I believe I actually saw it shortyly after, but hadn’t realized that I’d lost mine at that point. Later, we searched for about an hour and then I spent another day searching. The sad part of the story is it was lost on a swimming beach, so some kid will probably step on it. It’s a nice rescue knife, so I bought a new one. If you’re looking for a pfd knife, think about the Shorty.

That’s it for 2007. It was a pretty easy year on my gear. I often break more gear in a year.

My wooden kayak on the Mississippi River in fog near Cassville, WI. This type of fog hides everything including sounds.

The fog, thick, hid most of Artist’s Point along the shore of Lake Superior. I needed to waste about an hour of time, so I decided to take a hike along the point and listen to the waves from Superior crash into the solid granite for a while. I had just finished dropping off a letter that spelled the end of a several year friendship, and needed to walk it off. As I walked, slowly tall forms began to take shape in the fog. At first, I thought a group of people was out in the fog, but as I drew closer, I noticed that my group of people was a group of Inuksuit: a form of Inuit art. This type of sculpture consists of big rocks balanced precariously on top of each other with smaller wedges of rock working to hold the whole structure in balance. The tallest pillar in this display came up to my shoulder. I walked around them. The fog and the precariously balanced rock pillars made me think back to a trip this last summer I took with the recipient of the letter I had just sent.

My friend Wes and I had been planning for months to kayak down the Mississippi River and end in our hometown of Dubuque, Iowa. Originally, our plan was to start at Lake Itasca, the source of the river, but due to time constraints, we choose to start further down the river. And due to a further time constraint that I only found out about shortly before the trip, we needed to shorten the trip further, so on the car ride up to the drop off point, we moved the start point further down the Mississippi to give us 15 days to go 560 miles. Or 37 miles per day.

Physically, we both knew it would be tough, but both of us being in good shape figured we could handle the stress it would cause our bodies. We never considered the mental stress it would cause or the stress it would inflict on our friendship, something that we later discovered when pushed slightly would easily fall out of balance, like the striking Inuksuit that I walked among.

I had first met Wes at a sporting goods store where I worked. He purchased a kayak from us, and then several years later he applied for a job. I hired him simply for his passion of kayaking and knowledge of gear. We worked together, slowly, getting to know each other, but we didn’t become good friends until he decided to build a wooden kayak. I had built several canoes, and had a West Greenland kayak half finished in my shop when he mentioned this to me. I had always wanted to build a wooden kayak, so I told him he could build it in my shop. Over the next couple of months, building his kayak we became good friends and hatched the Mississippi River plan, a dream of his since he started kayaking. In our plan, I would build a kayak also. We finished our kayaks; Wes just putting finishing touches on his the day before we left to drive to our put-in.

Near Brainerd, MN the sunset provides a nice end to the day after a long paddle on the upper Mississippi River.

On the first day of the trip, we woke to a slightly misty morning, and happily squirmed into our kayaks pushing away from the muddy sand launch. The river was much different than I expected, it wasn’t as majestic as the part of river I grew up on. Its muddy banks were lined with run down houses, and in places, it was only a foot deep, and there were riffles and small drops. At the most, the river stretched 50 feet wide, sometimes much more narrow, and it twisted and turned like a rattlesnake in overdrive. Then during the next couple of days, the river slowly changed from a twisty mud hole with only piles of logs to get out on to a straighter rocky banked river. Eagles perched thickly in the trees, and it wasn’t unusual to see twenty deer browsing the shoreline in a day. We paddled big miles, including a 50 mile day and spoke of lofty ideas:

“I don’t really have a purpose for this trip,” I said. “You don’t have to have a purpose for everything. Sometimes, you do it just because it’s there.”

“Yes, but by giving something a purpose, doesn’t it have greater meaning?” Wes asked.

“No, sometimes, you can do things just because they are fun,” I said. “What is your purpose for this trip?”

“I’m trying to decide if I want to marry my girlfriend,” he said. He had carried the engagement ring with him for the whole trip. “What would you say if a reporter asked you why you decided to take this trip?”

“I would say that the Mississippi River is the heart of America, and it helped build the U.S. Without it, the U.S. wouldn’t be the same nation, and by following the same path that Native Americans, the early explorers, loggers, steamboat captains, and everyone who helped make this country the way it is, I would come to know the U.S. through their eyes, and then by understanding the past, I could come to know myself better. And besides, paddling Huck Finn’s river is the childhood dream of everyone who read his adventures. What more of a reason would you need than that?”

It was this conversation, which lasted much longer than my summary of it, that gave the first push at our friendship. For some reason, his trying to convince me that life was better with purpose, and my insistence that purpose isn’t needed for everything left us at odds that would only grow deeper. Slowly, over the rest of the trip, the Mississippi became grander and wider and bigger and that was reflected in a growing rift between us. We began to paddle at much greater distances apart from each other and only carried on minimal conversation, much of which was strained.

It cumulated the foggy morning that I was reminded of while walking in the fog and among the Inuksuit along Lake Superior. On that foggy morning, Wes and I had our last fall out of the trip. It started over a simple disagreement over navigation, but cumulated in a shouting match that cut through the fog. For ten minutes, we argued back and forth and finally split up. He quit and got a ride home from Winona, which was only a few miles downriver from where we had our argument. I went on alone for the next four days and finished in Dubuque.

Wes paddling into the Twin Cities. The half-way point of the trip.

During those four days, paddling alone I thought about Wes and our falling out in the fog, and I concluded that a few things had lead to it. By the time, I reached Dubuque, I was very angry, but in an email, I apologized to him. Then over a few emails, we continued the same arguments we had on the Mississippi River. It was as if the trip, although physically over continued mentally for me and from his emails I sensed that it was continuing for him. I wanted to believe that I was 100% right in my sense of what happened and it seemed that he did also.

Finally, the morning I took that walk along the shore of Lake Superior I finished my last letter to him. I dropped the letter in the mail, and in my mind, I was finished with the Mississippi and our friendship. Then I went to waste an hour along the lake. It was finally over, I thought, and not a second to soon. Then the fog reminded me of our trip and our lost friendship. As I walked along the Inuksuit, my mind wouldn’t let it go. But as I looked in awe at the sculpture, I realized that when there was a big storm, these fragile but beautiful sculptures would be washed away, like Wes’ and my friendship was washed away during that foggy morning. The artist had to expect this, because there could be no other outcome from building rock art this close to the shore of the lake. These sculptures would be wiped out and their pieces would come to rest on the granite bedrock of the point. At some point, the artist could come back and rebuild the Inuksuit, and like that, friendship can be rebuilt. But how I failed our friendship was by concentrating on the storm and trying to recall its fury, instead of slowly and carefully rebalancing the large rocks with small concessions that become the points of balance, the small rocks, in all our friendships.

Inuksuit on Artist's Point, Grand Marais, MN.

On the final day of the Mississippi River trip, I landed on a beach in Dubuque. The first thing I did was to reach down into the sand. I felt the grit under my fingernails. I held a fist full of sand up and let the grains filter down to the ground, and then I flung the rest in a sweeping arc that spread out across the ground in front of me. Like friendship, when together sand can hold a great deal of weight, but unlike sand and the heavy rocks of the Inuksuit that come to rest close to where they fall in a storm, friendship can only last if you put work into it and move past the stormy moments, otherwise it’s just swept away like a single grain of sand in the current created by a storm. By being stubborn, I allowed the current created by our stormy argument to sweep away our friendship and take it down the Mississippi to its end.

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 I don’t have any, because I often wait for a while to see if I want to make any. It turns January into a month of reflection on the last year, and lets it sink in. I often ask myself the question: What did I accomplish? What did I want to do and didn’t? And with these questions in mind, I try and come up with a few goals for the next year. Here are some of my paddling goals for 2005:

1. Paddle my Bell Wildfire more often. This is my favorite solo canoe, and in 2004, it took a back seat to my Bell Magic and my homemade Stitch and Glue and my homemade Skin-On-Frame kayaks. I plan to do this by paddling the Brule River down to Lake Superior from the Boundary Waters.
2. Get a bomber Eskimo roll. Right now, I’m a one sided roller, and I can get it almost all the time on that side, but on the other, I’m a no go, so by the end of this year, I plan to be able to roll all the time on both sides in any condition.
3. Build a new kayak. I really like my two kayaks, but I want something that tracks better and is faster than my two. I’ve been working on design for a while now and have it all ready to build, but I want to sell my S&G Fool’s Gold before I build a new craft. And before I start, I want to really decide on whether or not I want to do my own design again. I’ve been looking at some baidarka designs and a kayak on One Ocean’s website.
4. Sell my Fool’s Gold S&G homemade kayak. I would like to get $400 out of it. I managed to downsize my fleet last year by giving one kayak to my brother and conned my parents into keeping a canoe in Iowa for my nieces to paddle. Too many boats, not enough time.
5. Take a trip in the Boundary Waters right after the ice starts to break-up.
6. Canoe an artic river (maybe the Thelon) or spend a good amount of time on whitewater in the southeast. If I can get a crew together for a three-boat trip on the Thelon for three weeks, this would be ideal. If I can’t get the people for the trip, then I’d like to paddle much much more whitewater, and maybe even taking a lesson from the NOC, and I’ll spend two to three weeks down there.

Well, those are my New Year’s resolutions for you to read about. I urge you to come up with your own tick list for paddling in 2005, and if you really want to put your neck out, I’d be glad to post yours online, so there would be a little pressure to accomplish them. Happy New Year.