Speaking In Qajaq!

Obviously it's no secret, kayaks or qajait were invented and refined long ago by Inuit people in Canada and Greenland. Today we benefit from their skills and knowledge and use that information to produce the boats that most of us paddle in places around the world. Some of us have tried our hand at reproducing the original kayak designs by building 'skin-on-frame' (SOF) boats of various sorts. This endeavour has enabled the builders to get a bit closer to the Inuit and their way of thinking.

Now there is another way to get closer still. Learn to speak the language of the Inuit themselves: Inuktitut! The one hour audio book called Inuktitut will get you started hearing the sounds of the language and provide you with some useful phrases and vocabulary. As most SOF builders chose to build Greenland style kayaks, this audio book is particularly helpful as the dialect taught in the book is 'Greenlandic'. This dialect varies somewhat from the Inuktitut dialects spoken in arctic Canada, however there are many similarities between the various dialects (and some often amusing differences as well!). Clicking on the link above will bring you to the site at Audible.com, however it's also available from the iTunes store by searching for 'Inuktitut'.

Dreamtime With Paul and Freya

Freya continues to hurtle along Australia's south coast on her 'Race Around Australia'. In a few short weeks she will complete the circle only done once before.

I was looking around for some biographical information on the first person to paddle around Australia: Paul Caffyn when I discovered a short piece on his Amazon.com page. Here is a brief excerpt:

"In December 1981, Paul set out from Queenscliff near Melbourne and spent the next 360 days achieving the first kayak circumnavigation of Australia. This 9,420 mile paddle is acknowledged as one of the most remarkable journeys ever undertaken by kayak. Paul had to contend with a tropical cyclone which nearly swept him off a small offshore islet in the Coral Sea, raging surf, tiger sharks which frequently bumped into the kayak in the Gulf of Carpentaria, crocodiles, sea snakes and three sections of sheer limestone cliffs. To overcome the three 100+mile plus long sections of cliffs, Paul used Nodoz tablets to stay awake and lomotil to keep his bowels dormant during these overnight paddles. The longest stint along the awesome Zuytdorp Cliffs in Western Australia, took 34 hours of continuous paddling. After 10 years of trying to interest a publisher in a book about the Australian trip, in April 1994 Paul finally self-published his story as The Dreamtime Voyage.

Sadly, most of Paul's books are not readily available, but perhaps Freya's journey will prompt a publisher into returning them to the market. In the meantime, go, Freya, go!

Map from vskc.org, Australia.

Winter Reading

Given the state of the water around here these days, it's time to read and plan and dream. I recently started reading Robert Miller's Kayaking the Inside Passage, not because I'm actually dreaming about paddling this route, and not because I'm planning anything that ambitious. Am I?

The Nova Scotia Paddling Guy

I went down to Halifax, Nova Scotia last weekend for a bit of socializing, pub crawling and, inadvertently, to experience their interesting December weather. As I drove through Maine, it was obvious that things would be a little out of the usual when I saw snowplow trucks lined up along the inter-state, their salt bins full and at the ready. Passing into New Brunswick, the freezing rain caught up with me just moments before I pulled into my B&B in St Andrews. Wildly fluctuating temperatures with shifts of up to 16°C within a few kilometers - 'ribbon weather' was what one friend called it - were commonplace along the route as were high winds said to be close to 90 kph! The wave action along the Fundy shore was spectacular!

Browsing the waterfront's bars and bookstores seemed more in order than any outdoor activities! I was happy to discover a series of paddling guidebooks written by Bryan Darrell. These books are aimed at folks heading out of the Halifax area, the most recent being on the Bras'd'Or lakes of Cape Breton. His web site also has information about some stitch 'n glue kayaks boats he's designed for the home builder. Thinking back to my paddling trip to Nova Scotia last summer, I wish I had known about these books. Once the weather closed in, I could have profitably gone on many of the short days paddles listed in his books as I waited for improved conditions to return to the sea. Check out his site if you plan to visit Nova Scotia!

Bloggers Beware!

I suspect that no matter what got you started as a blogger in the first place, the last thing on your mind was a major life change! In the recent best-seller 'Petite Anglaise', blogger Catherine Sanderson thought it would be fun to blog about her new life as a young English lady living and working in Paris.

It was a fun pastime for her in the beginning. Her blog began to attract attention from outside readers; she started to get comments from readers and blogging was good. Then things began to go wrong. Her family life started to unravel, her relationships started failing and her employer fired her for blogging about office life. People who have read the book she has written about her experience have not been very kind to her either. Comments like "Catherine comes across as totally and utterly self-absorbed and lacking in any sort of humour or sense of irony. Frankly, it hardly seems surprising that she experiences a number of failed relationships."(Sybille) are typical and are hardly the reward any of us strive for when we begin blogging.

I suspect those of us who blog regularly about our personal lives need to tread more carefully than we originally thought. As one commentator mentions, "It must not be easy to write one's personal life so openly and to expose oneself to the judgement of people who would have acted differently in the same circumstances." The world can sometimes be a harsh place when we expose ourselves to it. Then again, some people, like Sanderson, like to live in the midst of controversy!

New Arctic Books!

Here's a small part of what Donat Savoie has to say about Tivi's new book on his life in northern Quebec (Nunavik):

This book of Tivi Etok's interviews and stonecuts is a valuable source of wisdom and teachings, worth of close examination. NON-INUIT will find in these pages the story of a courageous and artistic life, and a model for us all. Various photographs that I had taken during my stay in the community are also included in the book (these photographs are now part of Avataq archives).

Sounds like an interesting addition to anyone's library if they have an interest in this part of the world. Years ago I had the chance to visit Tivi's home town and meet some of the great people there. I'm going to try and get a copy of his book and catch up on the area. Contact the Avataq Cultural Institute for information.

The second new book out is Among Inuit and Whalers on Baffin Land, 1883-1884, the collected diaries of Wilhelm Weike who was with the whalers in the late 1800's. He wrote his accounts at the suggestion of Frans Boas, the famous anthropologist who was also in the Baffin area at the same time. There is a large section following the actual diaries of explanations and additional descriptions including his relationship with Boas. Again, another interesting book for the arctic historian. The diary is available from Mindener Geschichtsverein (Minden Historical Society) in a translation by William Barr.

Widen Your News Sources

We like to think of ourselves as kayakers, but are we really keeping up? Here's your chance to read Sermitsiak, Greenland's daily newspaper. Find out what's really going on - if anything - in the qajaqing world! The hardcore among you can flip to the news in Greenlandic... I'm sticking with the English version for a while, until my Greenlandic skills improve. Enjoy!

Stories of Northern Leaders Series

Much has changed in recent years in the Canadian Arctic. This is especially the case surrounding the creation of Nunavut, the new territory which was carved out of part of the former Northwest Territories. Several Inuit were responsible for this happening and gradually the series of books called 'Life Stories of Northern leaders' is bringing their biographies to light. The latest to appear is on Peter Ittinuar. Here is part of the press release regarding the book's launch...

La biographie de Peter Ittinuar intitulée "Teach an Eskimo how to Read..." est enfin publiée. C'est le quatrième volume de la série "life Stories of Northern Leaders" et il est disponible auprès de Lise Fortin ( Fortin G ) au coût minime de 25$. La couverture attachée à ce message vous donner plus de détails sur le contenu du livre.

Les histoires de vie d'Abe Okpik et de John Amagoalik ont déjà été publiées dans la collection, celle de Paul Quassa et James Arvaluk devraient sortir sous peu).

If your French is a bit shakey, then it's interesting to note that this title is the fourth in the series following biographies of Abe Okpik and John Amagoalik. Two more are in the works on Paul Quassa and James Arvaluk and will be out soon. All can be obtained from Lise.Fortin@CIERA.ULAVAL.CA at Cdn$25 each. If you're at all interested in the development of Nunavut and its 'Fathers of Confederation', these people are ones to read about. They changed their world!

Stroking Your Kayak

I picked up a copy of Doug Alderson's 2007 title Sea Kayak Strokes the other day. Now there are lots of 'how-to' books out there explaining what to do with your paddle while you're in your kayak, but I particularly like the approach this book takes. To begin with, there are lots and lots of pictures. Then there are lots of paddles used including the Greenland paddle. As I paddle with one, I found this refreshing.

Another nice addition to the usual explanation given in books, are some exercises to try out after each chapter description. These are useful for the beginning paddler who doesn't always have an instructor close by to say, "Ok, here are some thing to practice...". As someone who mostly had to learn to paddle from books and videos, I know what the beginner goes through trying to figure out how to paddle.

The book deals as well with bracing and rolling. I liked the way the two were presented in the book as a continuum, a low brace being a slight roll, and a full 360° roll being a complete brace. This fits in with my way of thinking about learning to roll where a person acquires a series of braces right up to a controlled capsize with a balance brace at the water's surface. Once at this stage, any roll can be turned into a balance brace or a sculling brace position and, from there, turned into a recovery to the upright position.

I'd recommend this book to anyone starting out, to teachers and to people like me, with lots more to learn.

The Golden Book

Those of us who paddle kayaks like to think we are kayakers. We train to improve our skills and techniques. We regale our friends of the trips we've made, the places we've paddled, but, in the end, what do we really know? Can we tell the kayak's story? Do we know of the kayak's birth, it's growing up, it's working life, it's near death? Or do we only know the present, it's new life in what might be called 'kayak heaven' where all things have become possible?

Harvey Golden has made it his passion to learn the story, the history of the Greenland Kayak and now he has made it his business to market a marvelous tome of stories and designs, The Kayaks of Greenland. I met Harvey and first saw his book over a year and a half ago when we were both at the Delmarva Paddlers Retreat. I knew then I would need to have his book, but for some reason I waited. I don't know why. I have no excuse, really. Now I have got over these silly inhibitions and bought the book. What a relief! I'm going to slowly go over each design, each story, each line drawing, each photo. I will probably wear a mask so I don't accidently drool. Thank you Harvey! I'm beginning to think I might become a real kayaker some day after I've read this book a few times, build a few more boats and paddle a few more hundred miles...

The Kayaker's Way

The other day I wrote about the two sided brain and why, as kayakers, this conceptual model can be useful in learning new skills or addressing one's fears in doing new things. There is a companion set of ideas found in a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. While there are some parts of this book I don't agree with, it is useful if you're having problems getting up off your couch and heading out on that great paddling trip you always said you'd go on. In other words, it's a guide to unblocking the fears that keep most of us at home, safely hiding behind our comfort curtains, making up excuse after excuse for ourselves.

Going out on a paddling trip, whether it lasts only a few hours or stretches into an expedition style voyage of several months, can be daunting. How do some people get out there? How do they make their escape from the 'ties that bind'? Julia Cameron's premise is that life is a creative voyage which takes courage and sensitivity to do well. The more we understand the mechanisms at work, especially the ones operating inside our heads, the more successful we'll be, first in getting out there, then enjoying our time on the water and finally coming home to share it with others, be it on a blog, in a book or over a meal at the dinner table. Recommended reading for a winter's day!

Kayaking on the Right Side of the Brain

A book by Betty Edwards' called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain changed many things for me when I discovered that the little voice in my head coming from my brain's left side was actually a controlling demon telling me all the things I couldn't do. I'm sure you've heard it too! It's also at work when we paddle, telling us the boat is too tippy, the waves too big, and roll too difficult, the headland too far...

This past October Dubside put up a nylon belt a few feet off the ground during the Delmarva Retreat and many of us tried to walk along its length. We talked about why our legs went into a sideways shaking movement whenever we got on to make the attempt to walk it. He pointed out it was just a natural feedback loop working in our brain. If a person focused, he or she could stop the looping action and successfully walk along the belt. It was exactly like dealing with that little voice on the left side of my brain! What I needed to do was to shut the voice off and focus on breaking that shaking feedback loop action going on in my head. It was another example of the struggle between both halves of my brain.

Kayaking has many of these little feedback loops in it. The trick is usually to deal with the little voice, focus and keep moving!

Reading Like a Goldfish

Somewhere along the way my little family of four began telling a story about the short-term memory of a typical goldfish. In the story, the fish lives in a bowl together with a little castle. As the fish swims round and round the bowl, it repetitively discovers the castle and joyously remarks, "Oh! Look, a castle!". Recently, the story has begun to take on a more sinister edge. I'm re-reading Paul Theroux's travel book, The Happy Isles of Oceania after many years and while it's vaguely familiar, most of it, like the little castle, seems to be completely new and fresh to me...

While Theroux carries with him and actually paddles a small folding boat from time to time, the book's real interest for me are his comments about the people he encounters on the various islands. He was hoping to find living chunks of a sea-faring culture scattered through the islands. After all, were these islands not first discovered and settled by people who covered vaste distances in small open canoes and did these people not use the sea to sustain themselves for a 1000 years or more?

Instead, he discovered islands full of people who, for the most part, had turned their backs on the sea. Most were terrified even of taking a ferry to a nearby island and cautioned him not to paddle his kayak beyond the reefs. Even fewer ventured out fishing. So what happened? Theroux has some opinions on the subject, but it made me think about Inuit culture, what it's become and where it's going. I know people who are concerned with language loss and other rapidly disappearing cultural attributes, but I wonder if enough people care enough to rescue what's left. I hope so. Theroux's book has me scared a bit.

The Hebrides

After reading Cailean McLeod's review of it, I just had to get a copy of Ewan Gillespe's new book titled Hebridean Waves. I ordered direct from the publisher and received the book within a week. I'm just finishing the last chapter now and a great read it is. He has a easy way of writing and gives the feel of a good story-teller recounting the day's outing at the pub afterwards.

More than ever I am encouraged to make a paddling trip to these islands some day, and this, in spite of Ewan's accounts of paddling in huge seas and being nearly blown away on a few occasions! I don't pretend to be as high a caliber a paddler as he obviously is, but others who've written about the area have convinced me that there is plenty of good paddling for the competent kayaker at my skill level.

See you there?

67/100

How's It Going, Partner?

I've just finished reading a book I picked up on the way home from my recent trip into the good ole USA. It's by Jill Fredston and called Rowing to Latitude. Like me she has had a passionate attachment for wilderness tripping, especially in the arctic environment. Unlike me, she and her husband partner have paddled just about everywhere one can imagine going in Alaska, Greenland and Norway.

In these days of finding - and keeping - like-minded paddling partners, Jill and Doug Fesler have much to teach us. These two slowly took the time to learn each others' gives and takes before and during their paddling adventures. It also seems that the landscapes they absorbed as they paddled were not just the visual ones they saw with their eyes and heard with their ears, but also the mental ones that formed in their minds. As one reads the stories in the book, the overwhelming message is one of shared experiences, respect for partnership, of caring, loving and the joy of simply being. The book is a good read on many, many levels. My kind of book!

63/100

Not Too Terrible

Dan Simmons, in his novel The Terror has written an interesting account of Sir John Franklin's last voyage, the one where he and his two ships the Erebus and Terror and all the crew vanished into the arctic ice back in 1845. I say interesting because he does an admirable job of arranging the few known, but often confusing, facts into a somewhat logical story sequence. Much of what he writes could have been the way it actually happened.

At the same time, Simmon's use of the fantastical and mystical, his bear 'monster' and the interplay of Inuit mythical stories takes much away from the account. It makes for a good story, but one that most Franklin fans will toss out after reading. For myself, I'd read it again for the assemblage of facts, skipping over the rest. As I bought the 'electronic' paperless version of the book, I might just do a little re-writing of my own!

Diversity, the Food of Life

Nice little stream, wouldn't you say? It could be one of the streams that made up the old Indian canoe routes that criss-crossed northern New England and my part of Canada in the old days. Last evening, my wife and I walked our dog along an old rail bed now converted to a biking trail that parallels the stream for a good part of its length. As pretty as it is, it's not really suitable for paddling on. It's full of nasties, some left over from industries now long since closed and today farms pump tons of nutrients into it by refusing to provide buffer areas along its banks. These nutrients were the major cause of the cyano-bacterial outbreak on my lake last summer which prevented whole towns from drinking the water.

The book cover pictured to the left is by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a wonderful read, but a sad one as well. It describes how we are ruining ourselves, depleating our planet of its diversity and its food sources. Like the stream, it tells the story of our greed and thoughtlessness. At the same time, it holds hope. The stream could be repaired and brought back to its pristine glory, if we want. Kingsolver talks about how her life and that of her family were enriched by searching out 'real' food sources, grown and bought locally, in season, then cooked and eaten for its taste. They discovered that eating food shipped from one side of the planet to the other was ill-advised, unnecessary not to mention, tasteless!


Finally, like this marsh, life can become rich in its diversity. The trend towards mono-culturism,


agri-business and long shelf-life vegetables for pill-popping couch potatoes doesn't have to happen. But it will if we do nothing.

How's Your Carbon Footprint?

Before leaving on my paddling trip to Florida this year, I posted that I wanted to do something positive to offset the increase to my 'Carbon Footprint' that this trip would produce. As well, I wanted to know more about the effect this single trip would make on my contribution to the global warming underway on the planet.

While waiting for people to arrive at the Tampa airport one evening, I bought Tim Flannery's book The Weather Makers, probably THE book to read currently on the topic. Frankly, the book scares me: ALL the paddling locations I visited during the trip will be under water in 50 years unless we begin acting immediately! Not a pleasant thought, not a very satisfactory planet to be handing over to our children in the years to come. We can do better!

On the bright side, he makes some suggestions on what we can be doing. Interestingly, small changes made today can have enormous benefits down the road. One thing that's easily done is to offset the carbon dioxide my car put into the atmosphere during the 6653 km (4754 mile) trip, about 1.2 tons of the stuff! There are a number of places that will invest your money - in my case US$ 24 - in carbon sequestering projects which can help to offset the damage I did during the trip. I've listed a few places below which you can visit to learn more and also find your own 'footprint'. It's incredible how rapidly the carbon tonnage mounts up, yet the costs of the offset are so reasonable. I intend to begin paying for the real costs of my travel from now on. We all have to start, each time we head out, and especially on non-essential travel trips.

I haven't completely made up my mind how I will offset the carbon dioxide I produced during this trip. I'd like to see the money used to promote not just carbon reduction, but also to support human powered transport at the same time. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Here are a few places to click on for additional information:
1 - Tim Flannery
2 - Climate Friendly Information
3 - Calculate your carbon footprint

Trail Magic

Winter, naturally is the time to read. The other seasons of the year lend themselves to getting outdoors, doing things and going places. Recently, I've been rollicking through the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell. In a way, these are the land versions of Patrick O'Briens wonderful series with Captain Aubrey.


For a break however, I am presently enjoying Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. This is a tale recounting his hike along the Appalachian Trail, but in many ways, it could be about any human powered adventure, anywhere. There are many parallels to paddling on kayak trips that will bring smiles to your face as you recall that last 'adventure' you were on. Here's a just one idea of what I'm getting at...

All of us do some planning before we head out for a few weeks, but mostly it is of the 'how many undies to bring', 'where to leave the car' and 'how do I get home after it's over' type of planning. The rest is a matter of throwing some food and the usual paddling gear into the boat and heading off, hoping you can do without the stuff you forgot to bring. What you can't plan for is something very special that Bryson calls: 'Trail Magic'. And it is this ingredient, perhaps more than any other, that brings us back on the water time after time.

This is actually a well known phenomenon that happens to virtually everyone who has gone out into the natural world seeking adventure. What am I talking about? It's waking up in the morning to discover you pitched your tent in a patch of strawberries. It's looking down at the bottom of the lake below you wondering where all the fish are, and then a big one darts out of the shallows and swims under the boat. It's thinking you've never seen an egret on the Great Lakes, and one suddenly lands and starts feeding a few meters away. It's landing on a small island and a patch of tundra gets up and trots off looking very much like a caribou, it's heading into the brush for a leak and when you return you see a wolf jump over your kayak and keep running down the beach...

These make up the essential magical ingredient in wilderness travel which has us believing we've participated in a 'spiritual' revival when we go out paddling. Trail Magic.

Bryson's writing style, his wacky descriptions and easy humour make for an enjoyable read on a cold winter's evening. Hopefully as all you adventure kayakers sit down to compose your stories of paddling in far off places, you'll remember to include some 'Trail Magic' and remember, lace the tale with a good dose of humour. For some of us, a good laugh may be about all the exercise we can get when it's really cold out!

Who's Making Dinner?

I was reminded the other day by a fellow blogger, Alison Dyer that we need to eat decent food while we're out paddling and that doesn't happen by accident! This is especially true if you're planning to be out paddling in the wilderness where the opportunities to shop en route are lacking. Here's what I currently do about this situation...

First, I refer to my trusty cooking-in-the-wild guidebook, The Wilderness Cookbook by Bonnie McTaggart (ISBN 1-896764-18-5). What I particularly like about this book is the way the information is organized. I begin with the section on drying your own food - I have a food dryer - but you can use your oven if you wish. The next section gives the recipes themselves, broken down by the usual breakfast, lunch, happy hour and dinner and, of course, snacks. The last section I use helps with meal planning based on the length of your planned trip. Here she gives useful tips on what to eat first, ie, which foods keep the longest and a few examples of what would a typical series of meals look like over a multi-day trip.

The recipes themselves are not just the basic rice and pasta variations, but include some interesting spice ideas, a variety of stews, curries, Mexican dishes, stir-fry veggies, dumplings and so on. McTaggart helps as well by suggesting with each recipe what to do at home - like what to dry - how to package - either in bulk or by meal - and then how to prepare the food once you've camped.

All in all, it's a great little book, obviously written by a person who's 'been there'! When I have a trip in mind where I can't shop, I get out the cookbook, chose what meals I'd like to have enroute and fire up the food dryer to dry the ingredients I'll need. I have done both separate meal packages for shorter trips and also just bagged in bulk as well. Next I prepare spice mixes and either add a spice pack to each meal package or again, keep them handy when I'm eating from bulk packs. I have a box in our freezer where I store all this stuff so that at trip time, I just sort through the box, selecting appropriately.

I have also gone the 'store-bought' route as well, buying easily stored dried food, but it's nicer to prepare your own to your own specifications and tastes. In fact, I still have some store-bought items left over from that trip down the North Shore that I never finished, but I don't have anything left that I prepared myself! Enough said.

Lastly, don't forget to look for local 'country foods' along the way. For example, what about seal meat jerky? How about 'fish 'n brewis'? What about fresh ginger ice-cream?