The End Or The Beginning...

Neither! If you're one of those nostalgic about the long ago days when Inuit paddled skin boats and lived in snowhouses, you might be concerned to see what's just happened in Iqaluit. The coffee chain 'Tim Horton's' has moved into town. I understand from fellow blogger from Igaluit, Townie Bastard that there may be more than one outlet for the chain. How times do change!

Mind you, you can still build a snowhouse and paddle a skin covered kayak if you want to, but now you can have a hot coffee at the same time!

(Image from Townie Bastard's blog)

Blog Action Day: Water

It's Blog Action Day!

Water. Who needs it? What's it good for anyway? These sound like silly questions, but when one looks around, it's clear that many of us don't seem to know the answers to these questions. The owner of the pedalo in the photo above didn't seem to get it. He or she discovered that it was fun to be out on the water in the pedalo, but when it disappeared from wherever it was stored, it seemed like it was out of sight, out of mind. Just one more toss away item, it would seem. It ended up at this spot and remained there for a week or more. Finally, helped by my cousin, we towed it to a small nearby beach, drained most of the water out of it and pulled it onto dry land. Last time I paddled in the area, it had gone. Was it the original owner, or someone else who took it? I suppose that's another way water serves us: passing things along!

Another interesting thing about water is it's double edge. What can nourish us can also kill us. What might look like a crystal pure drink may contain deadly organisms. Sea ice, another form of water, allows seals to be seen by an Inuk hunter, but when it forms a thin skim layer on the surface, it can tear the hull of a boat to pieces. Steam, the vapour form, will make a delicious espresso coffee, or burn you. The double edge of water is never far away.

Keeping this ying/yang concept in mind, we need to treat our water with care and vigilance. It will keep us well or kill us. Never turn one's back on water! Like the pedalo, one can be pulled in and set adrift. Unlike the pedalo, landing on a distant beach can be a life or death experience...

Geocache Vandalism

A few weeks ago I participated in a geocaching event in Maine. I chose to look for caches which were hidden around the shores of Flagstaff Lake. This meant that I could spend a day paddling the lake, going from cache site to cache site, combining two fun activities at the same time. I managed to find 9 out of the 10 geocaches I looked for, a pretty good record for me. One of the caches was a brand new one created for the event on an island in the lake. All of them were not easy to find. They were well hidden!

I recently received news that some kill-joy out there has been going around stealing caches and throwing the contents in the garbage. He manged to find and distroy the new cache and perhaps some other ones around the lake. His rationale is that he is "defending the forests" by removing what he sees as trash, littering up the landscape. He fails to mention that most of the geocaches he has removed up to this point actually were hidden in roadside guard-rails, a commonly used hiding site...

Sadly this is a case of a mis-guided person whose actions do nothing to defend the forests, but serve only to alienate him from hundreds of geocachers. In fact the motto of the geocaching world is "Cache in, trash out". Caches are not litter. They are carefully hidden, safe for animals and help promote an appreciation for the wilderness by getting people out there in the natural world. While paddling Flagstaff Lake, I brought along a trash bag to defend the forests and beaches. I collected all the trash I came across - there was a lot of it! - and was able to recycle nearly all of it when I returned home.

Photo Dump

I got dumped on by a fellow kayak blogger the other day for using one of his photos in my piece applauding the work of an Australian kayak maker who's using solar power in his factory. The photo looked like a cute family snapshot so I didn't think anyone would mind it being used. I was wrong. Mea culpa!

The subsequent discussion on his blog makes it clear that the issue of copyright is not as well defined in people's minds as it might be. It's also clear that the concept of copyright has failed to keep up with the internet and the way people have chosen to use it. It's become a bit like the 'wild west of yore' where one needs to be savvy if you don't wish to be victimized by people doing what I did. It's the reason why most professional photographers wishing to protect their work and receive due credit for it use dedicated, protected sites where they retain all their rights and ownership. The average person, like you and me don't bother. Instead, we use photo-sharing sites like Flickr and Picassa to store our photos online. These sites often claim ownership of our photos and many users do not realize this. We sometimes feel flattered or annoyed when our photos appear elsewhere on the net. Who owns what on the internet and how it can be used is far from clear to the average user. The wide-spread copying and using of other people's photos puts one in an up-hill battle against users living all over the world living in a variety of conflicting jurisdictions.

Does that make me less guilty? No, of course not. I used another person's photo without giving them proper credit. When contacted about it, I offered to give him due credit. I didn't get a reply to that statement. Instead I got dumped on publicly on his blog. I don't mind being corrected when I make an error and I don't mind correcting my errors if I can. It was a useful wake-up call, but unfortunately it won't really help my fellow blogger retain ownership of his photos.

Hiking the Trail

While at Flagstaff lake the other day, I met a couple of people who had spent the summer thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. I enjoy day hiking and can see myself getting into doing some over-night hikes, but taking on the challenge of a long trail like the Appalachian is truly mind-blowing. We're talking walking around 2000 miles over some of the hilliest terrain on the planet. Beautiful, but tough.

So my admiration goes out to these people as they reach their goal of being a 'thru-hiker', someone who walks the total length of the trail in a single season, more or less non-stop. Many people keep an on-line journal of their experiences which can be accessed here.

Changing Feet

In the photo on the left, a birch tree has grown on the decaying trunk of a predecessor. As the old trunk slowly disappears, the young birch appears to have a set of legs well above the forest floor. It reminded me of the legacy we all share with each of our pasts. We are what our pasts has made us, aren't we?

I'm trying to change a bit of that past these days as I recently discovered I can no longer paddle in the old comfortable way I've done for the past five years or so. In 2005 I bought a kayak with a Smart Track rudder system. Over the years I have developed the habit of pushing on the foot peg on the same side as I was placing my paddle: left foot, left hand; right foot, right hand. Doing this would enable me to give the rudder control lever on top of the peg a little tweek to keep the kayak going in a straight line.

Why change now, you might think? Well, my new boat has no rudder. Direction control is based on what I do with the boat. Placing both foot and hand effort on the same side of the boat with each stroke causes the boat to wander off course. Until recently, I would correct this with a bit of edge or by adjusting the skeg. This would work, more or less, but I was starting to wonder why it was happening. It turns out much of the problem is to be found by the way I was paddling, all one side, then all the other.

I began paddling using a left hand side stroke combined with a right foot push on the peg, followed by the opposite diagonal pattern. I immediately noticed less wander and more boat control! Now I have to unlearn an old habit as I must consciously avoid falling into the old pattern. As many of you know, breaking old habits isn't easy. That old trunk is still there affecting everything I do!

Eustis Geocaching Event

Geocaching has becoming a regular part of my life when I'm out paddling or hiking. I'm not much into looking for caches when driving around, but I've discovered that geocaches are often hidden in interesting and scenic areas well worth kayaking and hiking into. Flagstaff Lake in western Maine is one such area. I camped there briefly last summer, but only now have found the time to return to explore and look for caches. I found there were some serious challenges! In some cases, the fall draw-down of water has created a shoreline which is both shallow, strewn with snags, with a bottom composed of boot-sucking mud!


Once onshore, the challenge continues! I found it was seldom possible to land directly in line with the geocache's GPS coordinates, so it meant heading along the shore before entering the area of the cache. Some bays, like this one, are packed with wood debris. The gorgeous mountains in the distance, full of their fall glory made it all worthwhile, however!


On the other hand, much of the lake has shores of fine sandy beaches. Easy on the kayak's hull and it sure makes looking for a cache a whole lot easier.


The lake itself being dam controlled varies in depth over the year. Fall is the time when the water level tends to be lowest and many spots were shallow. Happily, the sandy bottom in most places means that a sudden grounding of hull or paddle isn't that damaging. The whole day varied from cloudy, then sunny and just as suddenly windy and rainy. Still, the whole lake has beautiful mountain vistas, covered at this time of the year in glorious fall colours. Highly recommended!

Ontario Greenland Camp

Most folks into Greenland style paddling and rolling know about QajaqUSA's fall retreat called Delmarva and many have made the annual trek to meet up with friends and share their knowledge and skills. Well, now we have the makings of a similar event in Canada. Learn To Kayak, two people from the Toronto area with the help of friends and businesses put on the first annual Ontario Greenland Camp last weekend. Space was reserved for 50 kayakers and mentors at Camp Tamarak in the Muskokas and we got down to business.


Skill sessions were held in a number of areas including rolling, of course, forward strokes and harpoon throwing. In the photo above, a rolling demo was put on for us to enjoy. I missed the games event which was re-scheduled, but it included a race taken right out of Knud Rasmussen's movie, 'The Wedding of Palo'. I understand it was lots of fun although the weather conditions were somewhat better than that seen in the film!

All in all, a fun event! I hope to return next year... If you're a FaceBook member, lots of photos from the event can be had on the Learn to Kayak page.

Silent Lake, Ontario

Here's my routine these past few weeks: Pack the camper, drive to the chosen destination and set-up camp. Usually, if the area has enough interesting paddling spots and some hiking trails, I'll stay in a campground where I can have easy access to showers, toilets and so on. If not, then it's either, quicker and rougher stealth camping - or sometimes kayak camping in a tent. Here, at Silent Lake Provincial Park, it was the former. There are no paddle-in camp sites here, but it's a nice little lake with lots of hiking trails. I ended up spending four nights on this spot.


Access to the water was quick and easy, although it required a drive from the campsite. Once at the beach, it was an easy launch on a lake which at this time of year was almost mine alone to enjoy.


I managed to grab one lakeside geocache, but spent the rest of the time exploring all the little channels and bays on the pretty lake. There's a hiking trail which works its way around the lake as well as several loop trails to various ponds and bogs nearby. The Kawartha Highlands area is just a short drive away and it too offers lots of lakes to explore. I didn't get into that area this time, but with better weather and more time, it looks like an interesting area to explore.

Geocache at Crotch Lake

Almost a year ago Mairi Watson and I left a geocache at site #42 on Crotch Lake in Ontario. It was placed in a couple of ziplock bags and hidden under the ground juniper cover. We knew it wasn't the best arrangement, but it had been a spontaneous thing so we went with what we had. In the spring of 2010, we visited the cache and finally registered it on the official Geocaching site. Within a couple of weeks it was discovered. Naturally comments began coming in about the container... Finding myself in the area once again last week, I launched early in the morning to see what I could do to put things right.


Site #42 was all in order, much as we had left it, although someone had added a green plastic chair, and some firewood, all carefully stacked. The rain and high winds of the previous weekend had required people to add a multitude of rocks to hold down their tents as well as some overhead scaffolding for tarps. I headed off to look for the geocache. I was shocked to find it lying in full view! The juniper bushes were much thinner this year than last exposing the ziplock cache for all to see. In fact, it looked more like trash than a geocache...


So here is a photo of the new container with its original 'hot' contents together with some of the additional items which discoverers have added over the summer. The new container has been covered in 'camo' duct tape and hidden in the original spot, buried in the ground cover making it less visible, less 'trashy'. Who will be the first to find it now?

Grenadier Island Paddle

On Labour Day Weekend some friends and I paddled out to Grenadier Island, one of the 1000 Islands downstream from Kingston, Ontario in the St Lawrence river. It was a new area for me and I was looking forward to doing some exploring. I'd been upstream in the Ivy Lea area years ago, so I knew the paddling would be interesting both because of the currents and the incredible houses that have been built on some of the islands. Leaving from Mallorytown Landing, we paddled over to Grenadier and set up camp, our base for the weekend.


I woke up during the night as rain began dropping on my tent. Oh no, not a rainy weekend after weeks of glorious hot weather! It got worse. By morning, the rain turned to showers but two of us decided to make a re-supply run back to the cars to ferry over things which didn't make the cut on the trip out the day before. On the return crossing, the wind picked up. A lot! The crossing quickly turned into a sideways surf ride! By the afternoon the wind was clearly trying to blow the water out of the river, or so it seemed! Paddling was put on hold while we scratched around for other things to do.


With paddling on the river temporarily put on hold, we followed the island trails visiting some geocaches, some old houses, a golf course (!), a couple of ancient cars and an ice vender! Cold beer! Just the thing when you're stranded on the shore for a weekend without paddling!

Parc Frontenac, Québec

It's probably a truism that one tends to seek adventure farther from home than closer. Such has been the case with most of my travels which have taken me wide and far. That changed this past weekend when I loaded up all my kayaks, yes the four of them, and together with two other couples, headed to Parc Frontenac only about two hours from home. I'd never been there before, so I was primed for adventure!


We spent the first day paddling on Lac Sauvage. There were loons and mergansers swimming around and some bald eagles keeping on eye on our technique from lofty tree perches. I paddled my skin-on-frame for the first time this year. It was a tighter fit than I remembered. What can that mean...?


Lac Barbeu was next on our list. It's seen in the two photos above. It's a eutrophic lake meaning it's silting up and nearing the end of it's life. In time, it will become a marsh, then slowly dry out as forest cover begins to invade. The most obvious feature for me was how hot the water was! I didn't have a thermometer, but it was very bath-water like in the shallower bays.


The last day of our visit, we tried out Lac Des Isles. True to it's name, it was dotted with islands as well as rocky gelcoat scrappers hidden just below the surface. I cringed each time one of my friends added another scratch to the bottom of one of my boats. Mind you, I scraped quite a lot of paint off the bottom of the SOF, so I guess I shouldn't complain to vigorously! The most interesting find was this thread of algae encased in gelatin-like material. When held up, the tiny green algae formed a spiral through the gelatin. It was a beautiful work of nature!

Like many of the SEPAQ parks in Quebec, we found it both expensive and clumbersome to camp in Frontenac. For example the base fee is reasonable (~$25), but then you get charged to make a reservation, another daily fee to enter the park, more for the showers and so on. By the time you've paid for everything, the price is over $34 per day. A similar facility elsewhere would cost almost $10 per day less... . Wilderness sites feature several camping spots connected to one common facility which can be great if your group takes all the sites. Otherwise you will find yourself sharing with strangers who may or may not be like-minded. When they're not, it isn't much fun...

Changing Labrador

Traveling through Labrador constantly brought surprises, some more unexpected than others. I knew all about arctic flowers, how colourful and vibrant they can be, but still it was almost shocking to see them again. We used to suck the sweetness out of these ones and cook them in bannock.


Now and then we drove through areas which had burned over during forest fires. These too I had seen before and recalled that fire renews life in these boreal forests, allowing new seeds to grow and establish themselves as though they were the phoenix trees.


Labrador is not just forest, but much of the land is covered in peat bogs. Now and then one comes across patterns in the bogs such as you can see here. These areas of patterned ground, as they're called, is the result of alternating freezing and thawing of the soils over long periods of time. This one in the photo was particularly interesting and large.


Nature hasn't been the only one at work in Labrador and along it's border with Quebec. Here mountains are being taken apart, the iron ore extracted and then shipped south the smelters so we can build buildings and make cars. This has been going on for nearly 50 years in Labrador and there seems to be lots of mountains left to mine!


Finally, now in Quebec, is the Manicouagan 5 power dam, sending electricity into the North American Power grid, so we can all enjoy a coffee every morning and heat our homes at night. This dam has created a giant circular lake as its reservoir which begs to be paddled some day...

Building Boats in Cartwright

Looking for a hiking trail in Cartwright, Labrador led to an unexpected find. The trailhead was supposed to be on a particular street, but driving up and down in search of it, nothing like a trail entrance or beginning looked obvious. Finally we broke down and drove into a driveway, parked the van and headed towards the garage behind the house where we could hear voices. This is what we found...


It seems the trail began right beside the garage and headed up the hill. The rocks we'd seen painted white, blue and green, Labrador's official colours, had actually not been some child's prank, but were the beginning of the trail! Meanwhile we focused on the folks in the garage. They were building a boat, a 'speed-boat', they called it. It normally would take about two weeks to put together a boat like the one in the photos. The design was a local one, adapted to the waters in the area. As we spoke they had just finished nailing the last of the ribs into her. A little finishing here and there, some paint and she'd be in the water ready to swell-up and head out fishing.

The Roads Of Labrador

One of the reason for going to Labrador this year was the news that the Trans-Labrador Highway (TLH) would be open for private vehicles for the first time. Until this summer, it wasn't possible to drive from Newfoundland all the way to Goose Bay and south into Quebec. One had to drive to Cartwright and take the ferry instead. You can still take the ferry, but once the road is finished at the end of the summer, the car ride ferry will end.


In Red Bay where the Basques used to render the whales they caught in the 1500's, the TLH switches from pavement to gravel. There is also a gate which opens only when the road is passable. We gassed up the car and headed out wondering what it would be like. We'd heard a few tales of woe..


It wasn't long before we were passed by another vehicle and got to see the dust. By the time we got back on pavement we'd collected enough dust to make our own road! We began to pray for rain...


The good news was finding that the road was maintained in excellent shape by a series of graders working full time. I live on a gravel road and know what regular grading can do to keep a gravel road passable. In Labrador it was common to see the graders pulling a truck so that at the end of his shift, the operator can park his machine and drive back home.


The new section heading to Goose Bay was passable, but a 30 kms section was pretty rough. Parts were still being blasted out of the rock, lightly covered with rubble and gravel and called a 'detour'. We'd met folks pulling large trailers who'd told scary stories of their transit of this section, but our van managed to get through with only a few scrapes. Had it really rained and there been mud, I'd probably be writing this from the bush somewhere...


Was the trip worth the effort? You bet it was! Instead of a long boring drive through muskeg and black spruce, we were continually amazed and intrigued by what we saw.

Cartwright, Labrador

If you're up on your Norse Sagas, you'll recall mention of a golden strand of sand discovered in the world to the west. It turns out that endless stretch of sand is located on the coast just north of Cartwright and I had the idea it would make a good paddling destination on my Labrador trip. We suited up and launched using Experience Labrador's hospitality and water access.


Out we headed in almost calm seas, ready for a day's adventure. To be on the safe side, we decided we'd use some islands along the way as a wind shadow for the east winds expected to build up during the afternoon. That would also allow for two short open water crossings rather than one longer one which was reputed to have adverse tidal issues we could avoid.


All went as planned, but when we reached the first crossing from the mainland to the first island, a good sea was running and it was still morning, long before the arrival of the expected winds. What to do?


While we wondered what to do, we decided to do some fishing and have lunch. The waves continued to build and as time went by, I knew we weren't going to risk crossing the now white capped channel. We continued to fish and I went out to surf in the waves to get an idea how serious they might be in the planned crossing.


The warm weather began to work on our heads. Why paddle into the fray when we could have fun where we were, surfing, fishing and playing? The Viking strand could wait for another day, couldn't it?


We headed out in the waves to play instead. It was weird seeing the snow still on the hills ahead of the boat as we sweltered in our drysuits, but that's part of paddling in Labrador. Things are not always what you might expect.

Battle Harbour, Labrador

Had you been born 100 years ago or so in Newfoundland, you would have certainly heard of Battle Harbour. Today, few people know the community and it's place in history, but it was well known for a variety of reasons. Perhaps most widely known is the news which Admiral Peary burst upon the world when he announced to the press gathered in the upper floor of the Battle Harbour salt store that he and not Cook had been the first to the North Pole. Why did he make the announcement from there? It was the first telegraph post he came to on his voyage south from Greenland.


The community sits in a strategic location just to the north of the Straits of Belle Isle and at the point where the Labrador coast turns towards the northwest and the fishing grounds found up the coast. It became a center for all sorts of things including commerce and fishing. Almost no one passed by without stopping in, buying supplies and getting the news from the coast of far away England.


However, times changed and over the course of the 20th century, Battle Harbour lost its place as mainland communities like Mary's Harbour and St Lewis took over and linked to the road system. Today you still need to go to Battle Harbour by boat.


In the early 1990's however the spirit of renewal brought Battle Harbour back to life. Many of the original buildings have been restored and it's now possible to visit and gain a real appreciation for what the place once was and the lives people lived back when salt cod was king. I could easily have spent longer there soaking up the history. It would make a great base from which to kayak the many bays and inlets, islands and shoals in the area...

Whales and Bergs In Labrador

Leaving Newfoundland and heading to Labrador on the ferry to Blanc Sablon, our only regret was not seeing much in the way of icebergs and whales. Perhaps we were too early. Perhaps we weren't in the right places, it was difficult to say. All that changed once we arrived on the Labrador coast however! These icebergs were soaking in the sun, grounded in Fox Harbour and off nearby Battle Harbour.


Walking on historic Caribou Island after rowing across the tickle from Battle Harbour, we spotted this interesting iceberg literally sailing past like the schooners of old.


The whales weren't far behind. In fact we caught up with them off St Modeste where this humpback was leaping after schools of caplin making their way northward. It was an exciting drive along the coast where whale after whale came out of the fog and sported after food. At times we could see half a dozen or more herding the fish.


A bit far offshore for that really dramatic shot of a tail flashing as it's owner sounds into the depths, but it's a whale's tail nonetheless. It was one of those days when you could park the car, sit on the beach and watch the show. Wonderful!