I Love Paddling

We enjoyed this recent story about a canoe-based, northern Wisconsin deer hunt. St. Paul Pioneer Press outdoor writer Chris Niskanen and friends pushed out into the Namekagon River during the Wisconsin firearms deer season in an effort to take deer in a new way.  Their story is HERE. The group found deer hiding out on the river’s […]

Sign of the time or sign of the apocalypse … you be the judge. Our friends at Paddling Instructor brought to our attention THIS 2010 photo calendar of scantily clad canoe instructions from Great Britain’s Wye Valley Canoe Centre.  The instructors stripped down to raise money for some local charities. You can see some of […]

Nick Turnbull and Murray Jowett, two University of Winnipeg students who were attempting to canoe from Winnipeg to New Orleans this fall, have changed their plans due to an accident last week. The pair had their canoe swamped by high winds and waves on the Mississippi River near Muscatine, Iowa.  The duo lost much of […]

Old Town Canoes & Kayaks, a storied name in North American canoe-building, has moved its operation into a single new factory, Johnson Outdoors, Old Town’s parent company, has announced. Previously, Old Town built boats in two facilities in Old Town, Maine, work which will now be carried out in a new 136,000 square-foot facility. In […]

You never can tell what you might discover on a canoe outing.  Mastodon tusks, however, rank fairly low on the list likely finds. But for paddler Glen Keeton of Mount Hope, New York, tusks of the extinct mammal were exactly what he found one year ago on a canoe outing with a friend down New York’s Wallkill River.  Keeton spotted […]

Maori artist George Nuku is restoring an early 19th century war canoe known as a “waka” at the National Museum of Scotland. As the BBC reports, HERE, Nuku, a carver and sculptor from New Zealand who is tattooed with traditional Maori facial markings, is restoring the boat with a blend of traditional and contemporary designs […]

Renowned Canadian canoe-builder Walter Walker of Lakefield, Ontario died on Monday.  He was two weeks shy of his 102nd birthday. Walker was inducted as the first “Canoe Builder Emeritus” in the Canoe Builders Hall of Fame established by the Canadian Canoe Museum. He received numerous awards and certificates for his work in the canoe industry. Walker’s […]

We expect the paddling season to wind down when winter-like conditions come early to the Midwest, but we were surprised to see it’s also wrapping up in far-off Hawaii.  For the inter-island racers who paddle outrigger canoes at least, the season climaxed last weekend with the Super Bowl of outrigger racing: the Moloka’i Hoe.  The 41.7 mile paddle […]