Wikimapia

I just found this and so far I'm very intrigued: wikimapia.org. Time to start exploring and find out what this tool can do!

Western Final - Game Day!

Happiness is....

... a silent chain.

Tourism Saskatchewan Video

Several months ago I came across this video on the Tourism Saskatchewan website. At the time, I contacted Tourism Saskatchewan asking for permission to share the video on my blog. They said no. That's too bad, since it's free advertising for them and the more it gets spread around, the more people that see it and the more value they get from the video. However, since then they have posted the video to YouTube so I gather that they have finally seen the light and understand why modern advertising now often aims to achieve something that is often called a viral video. Since it has been made widely available on YouTube where they have enabled embedding, I gather then that I have permission to share this with you.

Another Blog is Born

I recently created a new blog: NorthStarExped.blogspot.com. The NorthStar Expeditions blog is a place for trip reports from a group of friends that do an annual "guys trip", usually in September.  This new blog is planned to be a more light-hearted take on canoe tripping. Some useful information is surely to crop up there and I would hope that some of the information presented will of use to those who travel where we do. However, much of what we write is not to be taken too seriously and will provide some entertainment. Unlike the blog you're reading now, the NSE blog is a group effort, with the other 3 guys contributing some writing, many photos, and a few videos. 

So, enjoy!

NorthStarExped.blogspot.com

Paint The Whole World Green

The Riders won over the Stamps last night in an exciting game. That win meant they finished the regular season in first place in the West!

Two weeks from now the Riders will be playing in the Western Final at home in Regina.

Montreal River Follow-Up

Back in August I ran the Montreal River with a few other folks (Eddy, Wes, Gene & Craig). I posted earlier about the trip and you can find my brief report & comments here. Since then, Wes sent me a few photos of us on the river and I'm finally getting around to sharing them (with his permission). The photos were taken with a waterproof film camera.

 

Craig and Gene are in the yellow EasyRider canoe, Bryan and Eddy are in the red Swift.

Bryan (stern) and Eddy.

Gene.

 

Craig trying out Wes' new solo canoe, a 15'8" Wenonah "Rendesvous". I believe Craig loved the solo experience.

Surfing on the Churchill

With winter weather knocking at the door, I thought I'd post this video of canoe surfing on the Churchill River from summer of '08. The video is of and taken by some friends of mine during a Saskatoon Canoe Club trip. Russell is in the blue canoe and Mark is in the red. The first portion with the small ledge is Carla's Rapid and the bigger wave train is Surf City. I've paddled through, over and past both these spots, and swim there too (purposely of course!) whenever we get the chance. It's great fun!

Scary Mary

Hit the Road With James Raffan

It's only a few more days until canoe guru James Raffan comes to Saskatoon! A blog is being posted of Raffan's travelling adventures on the Canadian Canoe Museum website. Click the top tab that says "Hit the Road With Raffan". And don't miss the presentation on Wednesday!

Paddles

This likely to be the final instalment in my series of posts moving material off of my about to be deleted Geocities site (Geocities is schduled to shut down permanently on October 26th). Some of the text has been edited & updated from the original.


A Greenland Paddle

I started building a Greenland-style kayak paddle several years ago and it was shelved shortly after gluing up the central part of the blank. Years later I came back to the project to finally complete it. The paddle is made of cedar and poplar laminated together such that the poplar forms the outer part of the shaft area (loom) and extends through the length of the blades. The blades are made from additional pieces of cedar glued to the central shaft and each of the four blades should have been made from the same piece of wood. Unfortunately, I forgot why I had been hanging onto those pieces of cedar and at some point I turned one of them into a toy canoe (shown in an earlier post). Since I no longer had a piece of cedar long enough, I glued together two shorter pieces. I should have used a scarf joint and glued them up properly, but instead I simply butted them together and glued them to the shaft. The result is a weak point in terms of aesthetics and possibly also in terms of structural strength. However, lack of strength has yet to become a problem witht the finished paddle. The excellent and free plans used for this paddle were those by Chuck Holst. The picture below was taken after carving. I waited to try it on the water before adding a finish.

The first thing you will notice when you look at the picture is that it doesn't look like most kayak paddles you may have seen. It is such a different style and that is one reason I wanted to build one - just to see what they are like to paddle with. The following is quoted from the introduction in Chuck Holst's plans:

Apart from its romantic association with the people who taught Europeans to kayak and to roll, the narrow-bladed Greenland paddle is popular because it is easy to brace and roll with and is not very susceptible to strong winds. Also, because it slips a little at the beginning of a stroke, it is easier on the muscles, and thus less fatiguing on day-long trips than wide-bladed “Euro”-style paddles. A further benefit for northern kayakers is that the Greenland paddle is adapted for paddling in freezing conditions. The shoulders where the blades and loom meet make an ice-coated loom easier to grip, while the narrow ends of the blades, which are immersed in water while paddling, offer an ice-free grip for emergency braces and rolls. The Greenland paddle is also popular because it is very easy and inexpensive to make with simple tools in a home workshop, which is the subject of this article. Working entirely with hand tools, it is possible to make a Greenland paddle with less than $10 worth of materials and 24 hours of labor.

I spent more than $10 on materials and more than 24 hours in the construction, but it was fairly inexpensive and once I got around to actually doing it, the project went fairly quick. Those who paddle with these "sticks" get pretty passionate about it. I haven't put a huge number of miles on the paddle, but I have used it a fair bit and really like it. The first impression was that it really wasn't all that different from the more familiar modern paddle. It still catches a fair bit of water, I can accelerate quickly and can paddle in a "normal" manner just fine. I like the long reach I have with it when I want to do a sweep stroke. Although I've attempted rolls with it, I can't say that it works any better, or any worse, in that department. So far, my rolling has not been terrible effective (one of these days I'll take some lessons on that). I should probably build a couple more greenland paddles and reduce the weight as well as possibly trying out different lengths.

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Kids Paddles

I have made two small beaver-tail style paddles scaled down to be suitable for small children. The plans I used were scaled down from those in the book Canoe Paddles - A Complete Guide to Making Your Own by Graham Warren & David Gidmark. These paddles are very easy to carve out of cedar and one can be made quite quickly. The latest one that I have finished was for my daughter & I completed that shortly before we went on a canoe trip when she was 3. The graphic with the seal is just clip-art printed with an ink-jet printer onto a plastic overhead sheet. I cut out the graphic and used epoxy to glue it onto the face of the paddle. I then fibre-glassed over top and the graphic is now entombed on the paddle blade. This method may not be suitable for something which may flex since any flexing could possibly result in separation of the layers above and/or below the plastic. However, it has stood up to 4 years of abuse from two kids just fine. On the other side I practiced my wood burning technique to draw a flower & my daughter's name. With the whole blade covered in fibreglass, it is quite strong and has withstood much abuse. (These pictures were taken after a season worth of use and therefore there are numerous cosmetic scratches.)

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Canoe Paddle

This is a "voyageur"-style paddle I built several years ago based on plans from the book Canoe Paddles - A Complete Guide to Making Your Ownby Graham Warren & David Gidmark. The paddle is laminated from maple and ash gleaned from the scrap bins of the local Habitat Re-Store. Both woods are strong and able to flex without breaking. Due to the strength inherent in the woods used, I was able to make the blade and shaft both quite thin and as a result the weight of this paddle is very reasonable. The tip has a mahogany insert running across the width in order to protect the tip from abuse and to prevent the laminations from splitting.

This paddle is LONG. The blade alone is approximately 30" long and as a result, this paddle is for use in deep water only. I think I also made the handle a bit too long for me. Unfortunately, it is tough to use in the shallow South Saskatchewan River and I have never really gotten the hang of using this paddle effectively. It sure looks nice though. (I need to take a better picture where the minor imperfections aren't magnified such that they seem far more prominent than they do in real life.)

2009 Update: I never really got the hang of using this paddle, it simply seemed too long. However, in 2007 my wife & I did an 7 or 8 day trip on Lac La Ronge & the Churchill River and I forgot my usual touring paddle (a basic Grey Owl bent-shaft) at home. Thus I was "forced" to use my voyageur paddle (we still had one more spare with us - on of those awful plastic & aluminum things). After several hours I started to finally develop a relationship with this paddle. Before long, I came to love it. It's light weight, thin edge, generous flex are endearing features. With such a long blade, it does best when the blade remains underwater, being knifed forward in and underwater recover stroke such as the "Indian" or "Canadian" strokes. I slowed down my paddle stroke, but put more power behind them, and the recovery becomes part of the correction to maintain a course.

A Canoe & A Kayak

Another in the ongoing saga of moving things off of my very soon-to-be-deleted Geocities site. Originally published online 3 or 4 years ago.

I built two boats in my garage in the spring of 2005. First was a Chesapeake 17 stitch & glue kayak based on the plans in the book The New Kayak Shop by Chris Kulczyki of Chesapeake Light Craft. The kayak was constructed of 1/32" birch plywood, "stitched" together with cyanoacrylate glue (aka slow-drying crazy glue). The hull was covered with a single layer of ~6 oz. fibreglass and the deck and cockpit sealed with epoxy. The second boat was a 17/6 Redbird canoe based on plans from the book "CanoeCraft" by Ted Moores. The canoe as I've built it is some sort of cross between cedar strip & dugout canoe construction. The hull was first made of cedar "strips" and the interior of the hull subsequently carved out. Again, the outside of the hull was covered with one layer of fibreglass and the interior sealed with epoxy.

OK, if you haven't yet looked at the pictures below you're probably wondering what the heck I'm talking about. The boats were 1:12 scale models. Barbie can paddle them, but that's about it. (Actually I was disappointed to find that Barbie doesn't fit in the kayak - her hips are too wide. Maybe I should steal one of my daughter's barbies and use various power tools to administer some cosmetic surgery to make her fit - all in the name of getting a nice photo.) I made these boats as toys for my daughters and as "fun" little projects. Another reason for building these boats was to practice techniques (stitch & glue construction for the kayak, carving was used for the canoe). The kayak was a PITA and I'm not sure I would attempt another (at least with a normal size boat your pieces are big enough to hold properly). It was very tedious to get the thin plywood panels (cut with a scissors) to line up just right and to stay in precisely the right orientation until the glue dried (clamped with binder clips, tape and my fingers - which often became a structural part of the hull thanks to the glue). There are bulkheads in place so that the bow and stern compartments are fully sealed so it won't fill with water and sink. The kayak is very strong and should stand up to a fair bit of abuse.

As alluded to above, the canoe was made by first gluing together some scraps of cedar. I then pasted onto this block outline drawings of the canoe copied to the correct scale from the book CanoeCraft. I then used the drawings as a guideline to cut the general canoe shape out of the block using a band saw. With the rough blank cut, I used a spokeshave to carve away anything that didn't look like a canoe. This was very easy and went well. I'm sure it doesn't share the same lines as the original canoe design it is based on, but it still looks pretty fair and it is just a toy. I once tried the band saw to remove a bit more material, but ended up slicing into the canoe and had a patch I had to repair. I find that often I don't save any time by using the power tools, I just create a mess to repair. With the outside of the hull carved, I used a gouge to hollow out the inside. Carving the interior of the canoe was much more work and I never did get it perfect (it's just a toy after all). There are three reasons this portion of the carving did not go well: 1) I had only one gouge to use with a fairly narrow width (I opted to purchase one good tool rather than a set of multiple mediocre tools); 2) I did not sharpen the gouge after purchasing it (though it was still plenty sharp to cut me very easily when I slipped); and 3) I don't know what I'm doing. All three of those factors can only improve with time.




The picture below shows the plywood panels of which the kayak is constructed. The hull (bottom) is composed of 4 panels and the angle where they meet at the side is called a "hard chine." The presence of a chine gives particular handling characteristics to this style of boat with it's own pros & cons. The deck is curved over a masik or deck beam located just ahead of the cockpit opening. I constructed the curved deck beam by steam bending strips of 1/32" plywood and forming them around a spray can. Once dried, I glued the strips together, again using the can as a form. This laminated beam was then sanded smooth on the sides and cut to fit and glued to the shear clamps (strips of wood where the hull and deck meet, not visible in these photos).




As a sad conclusion and 2009 update, my kids have lost the very tedious to build kayak. I really hope it turns up again sometime, but it's been missing for a year or two now so I don't expect to see it again.

Bacon Explosion

Bacon Explosion: The BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes

Oh my.... I think that I'll have to try that on the new smoker this weekend!

So much to do, so little time

Winter seems to be on the doorstep and pushing it's way in (we have received a few inches of snow over the past several days) so it seems like a good time to evaluate all the things I want to get done in the coming season.

The Short-Term List

1. Clean the garage - Somehow my garage has developed some rather bad personal hygiene issues. Time to put stuff away for the winter and generally tidy up the place.
2. Oil the canoe - The wood components of our new canoe need a coat of oil to maintain their good condition. This should be a simple wipe down then the canoe can be put away.
3. Build a canoe hoist - In order to store our new canoe out of the way and protected from the elements, I want to build another hoist similar to what I did for the kayak. The hoist I built was inspired by the nifty but expensive Harken Hoister. However, my version used too small of pulleys combined with too small of rope. The small rope is hard to pull on, and the small cheap pulleys eat up a lot of energy through friction. So, Mk II will have to use better pulleys and better rope. Getting the canoe up out of the way will go a long way toward helping out with the #1 item listed above.
4. Varnish snowshoes - My snowshoes should get a coat of varnish before the season to keep them in good shape and to preserve the babiche. The earlier I get this done, the better in order to give the varnish time to better cure (and harden).
5. Fix the foot brace on our fiberglass canoe - A metal bar with ends cut & squashed to attach to a bracket, one of the ends has broken.

The Mid-Term List

1. Repair wear & tear on guillemot kayak - There are a couple of spots underneath the kayak that could use some repair.
2. Varnish kayak - I've not re-varnished the kayak since I finished it a couple of years ago. The sooner these two items are complete, the more time the epoxy and varnish will have to cure before the paddling season starts again next spring.
3. Repair wear & tear on the kid's kayak - The girls' kayak received a lot of use this summer. With all that use, came some wear & tear. The fabric has worn through at one spot on the bow and other spots show some wear. Interestingly, aside from that spot on the bow, most of the wear seems to have occurred during transport where straps would rub.
4. Build a portable wood stove - I purchased a used canvas "hot tent" recently. Now that I have the tent, I need a stove to go with it. Commercially made stoves range in price from $80 to $800 depending on size, materials, construction style, etc. However, there are DIY plans out there so I might as well give it a go. See here for Dave Hadfield's version and here for a good discussion on some improvements or variations.
5. Fix paddles - My wife's bent-shaft paddle developed a curve and crack on the blade during the last trip so that has to be fixed. I also have a kayak paddle from the canoe club that I volunteered to repair some months ago. My ulterior motive for fixing the kayak paddle was to use it as a template to make make my own version.
6. Varnish the kayak moby latches. (Not to mention to write the promised follow-up post on how to build the mobies.)
7. Build a crooked knife - Murat recently completed a similar project. I've started the process of turning an old file into a knife blade by removing the temper from the file and have started to grind it down. When completed, this knife would come in handy for the next item on my list.
8. Carve some paddles - I want to carve some paddles for my kids and some for friends too, plus I'd like to build one or two for myself. I was recently in the store at Classic Outdoors and saw some absolutely gorgeous one-piece cherry paddles from Badger Paddles. They were light with a fine edge and flexed beautifully - it re-kindled the fire to build paddles again.

The Long-Term List

1. Carve more paddles.
2. Build a knife handle - A few months ago I bought a blade because I want to build my own camping knife. I have various pieces of wood that might be good for the project, but have not yet gotten around to taking it on.
3. Build a toboggan - I want to build a long plastic toboggan that will be able to haul my new tent & stove over the snow into the bush. If it doesn't fit with my current arrangement then this item will get bumped up in priority.
4. Build a canoe - But which one?
5. Build a shaving horse - Useful for paddle carving.

Of course this is really just a sampling of some of what I have in mind. There are various projects on the "honey-do" list that should be cleared off before I undertake some of those listed above. I should also make some effort to finish the kids' playhouse before the snow really arrives.

James Raffan in Saskatoon

The Saskatoon Canoe Club, Recreation Division, will be hosting Dr. James Raffan, author and Executive Director of the Canadian Canoe Museum (http://www.canoemuseum.ca/), as part of his National Treasure tour. Dr. Raffan will be presenting an entertaining multi-media event celebrating canoes, Canada, and the wonders of the Canadian Canoe Museum. The presentation is all about canoes in popular culture, canoes in Canada (voted in 2007 as one of Canada's Seven Wonders), and will feature just a few of the many amazing stories attached to craft in the museum's collection of canoes and kayaks.

One of the newest acquisitions that Dr. Raffan is excited to talk about is a canoe that once belonged to Farley Mowat's family. Raffan writes "one of the newest canoes in our collection is one that was purchased and paddled in and around Saskatoon by Angus Mowat, Farley's father, when he was the Chief bookminder at the Saskatoon Public Library back in the 1930s. Farley claims that this canoe (a 1921 Peterborough sailing canoe) was the vessel that first took him into nature on the mighty South Saskatchewan and in the sloughs around Saskatoon--he also claims that this canoe is actually the reincarnation of the original canoe in which he was conceived on the Bay of Quinte ... and therein lies a bit of a tale."

This event is open to everyone. Admission is by donation with all money collected going to the Canadian Canoe Museum.

What: James Raffan, "National Treasure" Presentation
When: Wednesday, October 28th, 7:00 pm
Where: Castle Theatre at Aden Bowman Collegiate, 1904 Clarence Ave South, Saskatoon

Castle Theatre is a large venue so pass along this information to anyone who you think may be interested! Word of mouth/e-mail is the best advertising.

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