I Love Paddling

We were intrigued by THIS story in the Ocala Star-Banner about a modern-day tramp named Lee Young who is busying himself these days by carving a dugout canoe from a fallen cypress tree he found along Florida’s Ocklawaha River. Young, who’s exploits include a multi-year horseback trek from Atlanta to New Mexico via Wyoming prior to the “river tramping” he’s doing now, records his […]

Paddling a concrete canoe, at first blush, seems about as wise as flying in a lead zeppelin.  THIS story in UCLA’s Daily Bruin, though, will quickly have you believing otherwise. At the school best known for its 1970s basketball dynasty, members of the UCLA concrete canoe team spend the better part of a school year designing and […]

“Try not to canoe under any cypress branches,” an Okefenokee Swamp park ranger tells Michael and Brendon Dolan before they set out on their paddle last summer.  “Snakes have a tendency to hang out over the water and drop down into your canoe to hitch a ride,” he continues in Michael Dolan’s Philadelphia Enquirer story HERE […]

Paddlers drawn down the great rivers of the Canadian tundra – the Kazan, the Dubawnt, the Thelon – often find themselves crossing the path of one Joseph Burr Tyrrell. Tyrrell, a geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada, was the first Euro-Canadian to descend the Dubawnt (in 1893) and the Kazan (as far as Yathkyed […]

We enjoyed THIS story about low water levels in Florida’s Lake Trafford, near Naples, which uncovered some ancient dugout canoes. While radiocarbon tests to determine the exact age of the boats are on-going, educated speculation suggests they are at least a thousand years old. In 2000, Kevin Lollar’s story reports, drought caused lower water levels […]

The Quetico Superior Foundation’s Wilderness News publication (which, in full disclosure, we produce in the same shop as Canoeing.com) recently published THIS profile of Ely, Minnesota’s Bill Rom, the long-time canoe outfitter and environmental champion. Alissa Johnson’s story notes that Rom earned his regal nickname “Canoe King of Ely” in a 1960s Argosy magazine story.  By then, the […]

Two of six defendants charged with terrorizing visitors to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area last August pleaded guilty to charges yesterday. Travis Erzar and Casey Fenske, both of Ely, Minnesota, each pleaded guilty to one count of felony aiding and abetting terroristic threats in connection with the night-time incident on Basswood Lake, according to THIS […]

The latest issue of the Minnesota DNR’s Conservation Volunteer magazine features THIS interesting story by Gustave Axelson about the Savanna Portage.  Currently preserved as a State Park, the Savanna Portage was once an important — and roundly unloved — link in the historic canoe-based transportation routes through the area.  The six mile carrying place connected the Great Lakes watershed with […]