Good Day,
I've been paddling some thing or another since I was 8 years old and won the canoe race in an aluminum Grumman at YMCA Camp Douglass in Michigan. Got my first boat in the late 1970's, a 14' glass canoe from Bart Hauthaway, raced it on the Kenduskeag, wrong boat for racing but also took it down the Dead, Pleasant, Sebois Stream, East Branch of Penobscot, St. Croix, all of the Down East Streams, Machias, etc ...
Once floated with Mike Krepner down the lower Narraguagas River out into Narraguagas Bay and camped on one of the islands out there. We caught mackerel, dug clams, foraged chanterelles. Of course Mike had brought the canned corn, potatoes cream and white wine. Gotta be the best pot of fire brewed chowder ever known to man. The full moon rising over the bay driving the tides viscerally cemented my understanding.
First learned to roll in a Gyramax C-1. At one point I could solo roll an Old Town Tripper as outfitted by the Boston Chapter of the AMC with the foam blocks along the insides. Did the AMC whitewater circuit in a Dancer. I remember competing with Roger Marshall to see who could collect the most and highest ratings. I tied him with Class IV in OC1, OC2, C1 and Kayak, but he beat me with a Senior Leader rating. One summer I guided sea kayak trips in Boston Outer Harbor from Hull Gut, kind of like playing on an expressway with a bicycle.
A couple lifetimes later I'm up in Anchorage, AK where cold grey glacial water reigns. Love my IK for that, drysuits are de rigeur, rafts are too big and cumbersome, and I've been playing with a packraft.
But, this is a canoe tripping forum. My darling is the used royalex Bell Wildfire I picked up used for $500. Just put on some Dynel skid plates having worn through at the stern. There is world class canoe tripping to be had here in Alaska. Forty Mile, Birch Creek, Swan Lakes / Swanson River, Nancy Lakes, Little Susitna, Gulkana, Delta, Yukon, and those are just the well known ones on the road system.
The Swan Lakes / Swanson canoe trails are superb in my Wildfire going traditional bushcrafting style. Build a fire, catch and grill some rainbows or shoot a grouse on the portage.
I'd like to trip the Kenai River from Snow River all the way down to tidewater, not sure what boat, might be a sea kayak because there are no portages and some large long windy lakes. I like solo tripping and my greatest fear is capsizing a canoe in big cold water far from shore. I can roll or renter my sea kayak in gnarly conditions.
Bucket list is the Nahanni, but I'm planning on getting in as many arctic / Brooks Range rivers as I can while I am here. Forgive me if I take my IK as I don't have a folding canoe and most of them need a bush plane to fly in and out.
I'm always ready to be a resource if you are planning on a trip up here, might even have a spare bedroom or a ride from the airport.
For those other folks from Alaska, I'm always looking for paddling partners, keep in touch.
Doug (Monel) Stephens
Anchorage, AK
I'll try to add a few photos.
I've been paddling some thing or another since I was 8 years old and won the canoe race in an aluminum Grumman at YMCA Camp Douglass in Michigan. Got my first boat in the late 1970's, a 14' glass canoe from Bart Hauthaway, raced it on the Kenduskeag, wrong boat for racing but also took it down the Dead, Pleasant, Sebois Stream, East Branch of Penobscot, St. Croix, all of the Down East Streams, Machias, etc ...
Once floated with Mike Krepner down the lower Narraguagas River out into Narraguagas Bay and camped on one of the islands out there. We caught mackerel, dug clams, foraged chanterelles. Of course Mike had brought the canned corn, potatoes cream and white wine. Gotta be the best pot of fire brewed chowder ever known to man. The full moon rising over the bay driving the tides viscerally cemented my understanding.
First learned to roll in a Gyramax C-1. At one point I could solo roll an Old Town Tripper as outfitted by the Boston Chapter of the AMC with the foam blocks along the insides. Did the AMC whitewater circuit in a Dancer. I remember competing with Roger Marshall to see who could collect the most and highest ratings. I tied him with Class IV in OC1, OC2, C1 and Kayak, but he beat me with a Senior Leader rating. One summer I guided sea kayak trips in Boston Outer Harbor from Hull Gut, kind of like playing on an expressway with a bicycle.
A couple lifetimes later I'm up in Anchorage, AK where cold grey glacial water reigns. Love my IK for that, drysuits are de rigeur, rafts are too big and cumbersome, and I've been playing with a packraft.
But, this is a canoe tripping forum. My darling is the used royalex Bell Wildfire I picked up used for $500. Just put on some Dynel skid plates having worn through at the stern. There is world class canoe tripping to be had here in Alaska. Forty Mile, Birch Creek, Swan Lakes / Swanson River, Nancy Lakes, Little Susitna, Gulkana, Delta, Yukon, and those are just the well known ones on the road system.
The Swan Lakes / Swanson canoe trails are superb in my Wildfire going traditional bushcrafting style. Build a fire, catch and grill some rainbows or shoot a grouse on the portage.
I'd like to trip the Kenai River from Snow River all the way down to tidewater, not sure what boat, might be a sea kayak because there are no portages and some large long windy lakes. I like solo tripping and my greatest fear is capsizing a canoe in big cold water far from shore. I can roll or renter my sea kayak in gnarly conditions.
Bucket list is the Nahanni, but I'm planning on getting in as many arctic / Brooks Range rivers as I can while I am here. Forgive me if I take my IK as I don't have a folding canoe and most of them need a bush plane to fly in and out.
I'm always ready to be a resource if you are planning on a trip up here, might even have a spare bedroom or a ride from the airport.
For those other folks from Alaska, I'm always looking for paddling partners, keep in touch.
Doug (Monel) Stephens
Anchorage, AK
I'll try to add a few photos.
