I Love Paddling

Shell Va’a is outrigger canoe racing’s answer to the New York Yankees. The Tahiti-based team is collecting canoeing titles the way the Yankees used to gather World Series trophies. Last week, the oil-company sponsored team won its fourth-straight Leeward Islands Hawaiki Nui Race — a prestigious three-day race between the islands of Huahine, Raiatea, Tahaa, […]

We nearly missed THIS fine story in the New York Times about Nebraska’s Niobrara River. Writer Helen Olsson took to the river earlier in the fall and reports on a unique area with a charming river flowing through it. The spring-fed Niobrara flows through six separate ecosystems, including tallgrass prairie, ponderosa pine, and eastern deciduous […]

We found something compelling in THIS feature story from the James Bay region of Ontario. Author Lynn Harper-Cheechoo, writing in the Wawatay News, tells the story of a canoe trip on the Moose River with blind, 77-year-old Cree elder Susan Koostachin. “Susan watches us with an acute inner vision, amused by our enthusiasm speaking softly […]

Tom Leppard, who until recently lived a primitive life that included canoeing three miles for his groceries each week, has opted for some creature comfort these days. The 73-year-old British man whose body is covered in leopard-spot tattoos has traded his ramshackle cottage and its plastic-sheeting roof for a one-bedroom home. He’s traded his canoe […]

From our “It’s Good to Have a Canoe Nearby Department” … We noticed THIS story in New York’s North Country Gazette about a deer hunter in the Adirondack Park Preserve who accidentally shot himself in the foot. The victim, Julio C. Blanco, 65, of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, walked from the scene of his accident to his […]

If they can swim it, why not try to paddle it? Three canoeists from England made what is believed to be the first-ever crossing of the English Channel in open canoes. Simon King, 44, Steve Seinet-Martin, 52, and Dave Truzzi-Franconi, 59, recently completed the 20-plus mile crossing from Folkestone in England to Wissant in France […]

Fall, we think, is a collegiate time of year. Youthful energy crackles with the start of the new school year. Stately college buildings are beautified in the autumn colors. Who doesn’t have fond memories of October afternoons on a college campus? In that spirit — and as avid paddlers, of course — we were pleased […]

Do you appreciate healthy oceans? Would you paddle a canoe 2,500 miles to protect them? Margo Pellegrino does … and has. The 41-year-old Medford Lakes, New Jersey mother paddled her outrigger canoe the 2,000 miles from Florida to Maine in 2007 raise ocean health awareness. This year, she paddled from Long Beach Island, New Jersey […]