I Love Paddling

Michigan paddler, beer drinker, and Detroit Tigers fan Doc Fletcher is back with a second book: Michigan Rivers Less Paddled: The Rivers, the Towns, the Taverns. The guidebook is a companion to last year’s Weekend Canoeing in Michigan, a book we reviewed HERE. Fletcher, you may remember, is the intrepid author who not only describes […]

Quetico Provincial Park, the renowned wilderness paddling venue in western Ontario, turns 100 years old this year. The million-plus acre park,  just across the international border from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, was first protected on April 1, 1909 as the “Quetico Forest and Game Reserve.”  In honor of the anniversary — and the fantastic paddling […]

The day after a 6-inch snowstorm — that’s what we got outside the Canoeing.com office here in Minneapolis — may not seem like the time to plan a canoe trip, but it is. Reservations are now available for permits to paddle in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness between May 1 and September 30, 2009.  The […]

Would you want to paddle on something called the Reeking River? Luckily, back in 1969, according to THIS Houston Chronicle story, 120 paddlers chose to do exactly that at the first annual Reeking River Regatta, a canoe race down Houston’s Buffalo Bayou.  Organizer Wayne Walls started the event in an effort to clean up the river and halt an […]

A veritable who’s who of Far North canoeists have expressed official opposition to a proposed uranium mine on Nunavut’s Back River on the Canadian tundra. Che-Mun, a Canadian wilderness canoeing journal, reprinted comments made to the Nunavut Impact Review Board by tundra river guide Alex Hall, Canadian Canoe Museum curator James Raffan, filmaker Robert Perkins, and 1962 Back River descender […]

It’s not your father’s canoe.  But then, that’s the point. Nova Craft Canoes, in conjunction with students of London, Ontario’s Fanshawe College unveiled three new hull designs aimed at attracting younger paddlers.  Canoeing.com’s own Alissa Johnson has the full story, HERE, in our Canoe Guide section. Seventy-four students submitted designs, three of which were declared winners and then manufactured […]

Friday’s episode of “How It’s Made,” a program on the Science Channel, will feature a segment on Kevlar canoe-making.  The half-hour program airs Friday, February 20 at 8:oo p.m. CST. Producers of the episode recently visited the Wenonah Canoe factory in Winona, Minnesota, according to THIS Winona Daily News story.  Dustin Kass reports that a four-person crew […]

A newly published edition of The Dangerous River, R. M. Patterson’s classic advanture book about his canoe travels on the Northwest Territory’s Nahanni River in the late-1920s includes an episode from the original edition of the 1954 book that had been removed in recent printings. Patterson, whose son Alan spoke at last weekend’s Wilderness Canoe Symposium in Toronto, made […]