contents

by the Publisher. • U.S.A. Newsstand distribution by Curtis Circulation Company and Ingram Periodicals Inc. Printing by Quebecor World, Lebanon, OH. • REPRINTS: Contact Wright’s Reprints to purchase quality custom reprints or e-prints of articles appearing in this publication at 877-652-5295 (281-419-5725 outside U.S. and
Foreign, $40. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Canoe & Kayak, P.O. 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. Advertising Office: Jim Marsh, (425) 821-1265, PO Box 3146, Kirkland, WA 98083. All rights reserved. Contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part unless expressly authorized in writing
Canoe & Kayak (ISSN 1077-3258) is published six times a year in March, May, June, July, August, and December by Source Interlink Media, Inc, 261 Madison Ave, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices. Subscriptions: U.S., $19.95 per year; Canadian, $28,
FEATURE
42 Gone Native By Mark Anders
Three 21st-Century adventurers draft Chippewa elder
Ray Boshey on a modern-day paddle quest in Minnesota’s
Boundary Waters. The twist? They have to do it the old way.

DEPARTMENTS
20 Put In
Sea kayaking’s new school and Kid Kayaker McKinley
Rodriguez. Plus, what’s happening in the paddling world

Canada). Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40612608 Canada Returns to be sent to Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2 Canada • SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Call: (800) 829-3340 or visit www.CanoeKayak.com
26 The Paddling Life
The Olympic spirit, up close and personal

30 Ask Eddy
Eddy expounds on the 1814 Pemmican War,
seasickness cures and why Eastern Europe rules slalom
32 Skills
Fine-tune your river-running accuracy, plan remote
expeditions and commute via canoe
38 Aquaphile
Sam Bass takes a paddling man-cation
152 Rants and Raves
C&K readers sound off
160 Unfiltered
Southern-fried canoeist Michael Lewis

162 Dirtbag Diaries
Endless Summer redux, Moroccan-style

2009 Buyers Guide

Everything that’s new and cool, and how to choose.
Plus, C&K’s Chosen Ones awards.

54 Sea Kayaks
60 Goods: Rough Water Wear
62 Whitewater Kayaks
70 Sit-on-top and Fishing Kayaks
74 Showcase: Lens Envy
76 Inflatable Rafts and Kayaks
Photo by Michael Appleton

82 Canoes

“ tall
88 Apparel

Josh is 90
104
Goods: Aprés paddle
Product Listings

and gangly
and happy, and the on the cover
floral-print Speedo he Gear to Grovel For: Wavesport’s redesigned Diesel
creeker (p. 64) and Wilderness Systems’ new carbon/

wore only accentuated his Kevlar Zephyr 155 LT (p. 54).

c&K Online
pale, hairy limbs and There’s more on the Web. Share photos and videos,

general goofiness. p.38

”
and get the latest scoop at canoekayak.com

Per capita, U.S. paper consumption is more than six times

the world average. C&K proudly uses paper made from
85 percent post-consumer waste.

12 canoekayak.com // DECEMBER 2008

CAKP-081200-TOC.indd 12 10/7/08 9:59:11 AM

 aquaphile essays from the field
“Rules are for boy scouts—I’m the king of the world.”

caption info here is tk.

Michael Appleton
MOOSE river BRODOWN
by sam bass
Someone stuffed the blond-haired blow-up doll into one of the canoes
just before Andy, our guide, pulled onto the highway. The trailer was loaded with eight
green Old Towns, and the pale-pink plastic legs dangled from the one on the upper
left, flapping suggestively in the drizzly wind. Packed into Andy’s van were nine mus-
tachioed, beer-fisting dudes on a bachelor party for our friend Josh. Whatever vague
sense the guide may have had about the nature of this three-day trip down Maine’s
Moose River must have come into sharper focus when he saw us struggling to load two
coolers containing more than 450 canned beers into his van.
The other four of us were following in Andy’s truck and trying would have regarded us any differently.
to figure out how to tune his satellite-radio receiver to the Grateful Josh is tall and gangly and happy, and the floral-print Spee-
Dead channel when the breeze dislodged our poor girlfriend, buf- do he wore only accentuated his pale, hairy limbs and torso and
feted her into a glorious Triple Lindy, and sent her skidding onto general goofiness. He’s a former whitewater raft guide, and his
the gravel shoulder. We couldn’t stop to pick her up because we confidence in rough water—inflated to hubris by alcohol and a
needed to follow Andy to the put-in. Thus it began. groom’s pride—may have led him to believe that this small, in-
Twenty-four hours and 170 beers later, we howled up to nocuous-looking ledge drop would pose no problems. It was a
the scouting ledge at Spencer Rips sporting tank-tops printed straightforward greenwater tongue that fell over a short ledge
with Josh’s face, and tumbled out of our boats—buzzed and with no rapids below. So with his younger brother Joey in the
blustering, gripping cans and paddles. Fifteen greasy teens in a bow, Josh stroked ahead, aiming to graze the hole’s left shoulder.
camp group stood next to us, and from their slack-jawed stares, He didn’t know there was a rock hiding in the foam, and none of
I gathered our arrival must have cut short some earnest discus- us standing on the ledge knew that another in our party, Jesse,
sion of backwoods etiquette. If we had been intergalactic visitors had bet the campers our only watermelon that the brothers would
beamed to the ledge from a hovering saucer, I don’t think they clear the drop.

38 canoekayak.com // december 2008

CAKP-081200-AQUA.indd 38 9/15/08 5:51:21 PM

 Josh and Joey crested the ledge
and dove foamward, their bow pitoning
into the hidden rock. Joey shot from the
boat as it swung sideways and flipped
upstream, dumping Josh into the cur-
rent and broaching on the boulder. A
mouthy camper immediately demanded
the watermelon prize.
Andy, who’s a middle-school sci-
ence teacher when he isn’t guiding,
smiled and shook his head. “Better give
it to them,” he said. “You can’t Welch
on a bet.” The rest of us loomed, fum-
ing, around Jesse who, in his coonskin
cap and aviators, seemed a mash-up of
Davy Crockett and David Koresh of the
Waco cult.
That evening we made camp
above Attean Falls a few hundred yards
upstream of the campers and the lake,
and Garth stole back the watermelon.
I had always pegged Garth, a former
children’s music teacher, as someone
possessing a strong moral compass.
But now, as Andy mixed batches of
margaritas in a portable blender pow-
ered by a weedwhacker engine, Garth
hastily chopped up the evidence into
our drinks.

Josh and Joey

crested the
ledge and drove
foamward, their
bow pitoning into
the hidden rock.
Whether or not a bachelor-party
canoe trip is a good idea depends on
whom you ask. Our trip was no floating
Bible study; we weren’t dipping paddles
into pristine waters on a misty morning,
contemplating Creation beneath the
gaze of a lone eagle perched in a gnarled
pine on a deserted shoreline. But it was
an exercise in faith and fellowship, and
canoeing was the medium.
Another thing we learned that
evening—from Andy’s wife Leslie who
had motored across the lake to cook us
lobsters—was that her eightysomething
father had found the doll on his way into
town to drink coffee with the old boys.
What they thought of it I never heard.
But when a large group of males assem-
bles with the goal of intense fraterniza-
tion, the shrapnel is hard to control.

CAKP-081200-AQUA.indd 39 9/15/08 5:51:21 PM