Search results

If it’s a contest, I could probably come up with 114 rules, at least two of which I hope would be more than modestly humerous.

What I like best about wilderness canoeing is that there are zero rules. Zero guidelines. Zero asked for suggestions. Keep your rules to yourself.

Earl, Without actually seeing you paddling, I can not know, definitively what you’re doing wrong. I agree with Nick Pending that you should join a canoe club, and ideally take a canoe course. There are great suggestions in this thread, but you need someone skilled, to actually watch you...

Thoroughly enjoyable Steve. Great story to complement my morning tea with eggs and sourdough toast.

Clipper canoes are manufactured in Abbotsford, in the Fraser Valley, in southwestern BC. The paddler’s district is in northwestern BC, a long way from Abbotsford.

I was just going to post this story, Brad. Very interesting.

Very interesting and entertaining to see these trip reports woven together.

Great story. I might be misunderstanding, but why do you burn mosquito coil in the tent? Doesn’t your tent keep out bugs?

Definitely cloudberries. Great to see a trip report. Enjoying your writing style. Understated and self-deprecating. Even though a laudably successful challenge. Looking forward to the next Instalment.

I agree. These lists are essentially meaningless. I know people who disliked the Thelon because of its tundra landscape. Unless one has personally paddled all the world’s rivers, it is a stretch, to say the least, to rank their beauty. One also needs to clarify how beauty is determined. What...

Kathleen and I have paddled the entire South Nahanni River, from the Moose Ponds to Blackstone Landing on the Liard River. Have also paddled the entire Thelon River from Lynx Lake to Baker Lake. Both are spectacular in their own ways, but I think most people would rate the Nahanni as...

Good point, Alan. Kathleen and I both laughed out loud!

I previously posted this in another thread, but it seems appropriate here as followup to boreal birch’s suggestion to pursue new, and hopefully exciting activities when wilderness canoeing disappears with advancing age. It worked for Kathleen and me. In the summer of 2022, Kathleen and I...

Kathleen and I usually carried bear spray, bear bangers and a .308 rifle on our extended canoe trips in northern Canada. I have fired the bear spray at home to see how far it would go. Not very far, it turns out. It would be a close-in defence. Spray would be even less effective shooting upwind...

Despite the story below, I would not want to rely on my boxing skills to thwart a grizzly attack. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/man-punches-grizzly-1.7274199

North and south depends on one’s perspective and experience. Kathleen and I have done quite a few northern Canada wilderness canoe trips. We generally consider anything south of 60 degrees north to be southern, and not something we would pursue. (One exception was the Seal River in northern...

I think you have provided an appropriate perspective, Odyssey. In the summer of 2022, Kathleen and I completed our last northern Canada wilderness canoe trip. To fill the void we finally accepted our daughter Monica’s annual invitation to share her passion for cruising. In May of 2023 we...

That’s actually a composter, not a wine keg. If it had been the latter I would have loaded up my trusty .308, which as yet, has never shot anything other than inanimate paper or tin targets. We need to be tested in real life, drink or die scenarios.

While sipping a glass of wine in our sun room, Kathleen and I enjoyed this visitor wandering by.

Picturesque, like beauty, I suppose, is in the eye of the beholder. It depends somewhat on what one seeks. Even so, everywhere I have paddled I consider picturesque. After all, I would never choose ugly as a paddling destination. That being said, based on the preferences of most people, the most...