Adventures

April 2020

A Red-Lantern Journey

Ontario's Lake of the Woods

Tom Pamperin had Ontario’s Lake of the Woods in his sights for years. When he finally got underway at a launch ramp on the lake’s eastern shore, he was eager to venture into the maze of islets ahead of him and in no hurry to get back.

March 2020

The Broughton Archipelago

Four for oar and sail

Eric Hvalsoe and his three cruising buddies headed to the north end of Vancouver Island, each with a sail-and-oar boat they’d built, and set out to wander among the islands of the Broughton Archipelago. Tides, currents and whales kept them on their toes.

February 2020

Sunday Pass

A Texas winter getaway

Sunday Beach was a popular spot for sun-worshipping Texans until it was obliterated by Hurricane Harvey in the fall of 2017. Now known as Sunday Pass, the 1000’ gap in the land at Matagorda Island offers new cruising and beach camping opportunities for small boat. Roger Siebert takes us there for a weekend getaway aboard his 15’ Flint.

January 2020

Across an Ocean

Rowing the Atlantic

After Christophe Papillon served as a paratrooper, he retired from the military and needed to find other ways to slake his thirst for adventure. He had done a bit of kayaking and some freshwater sailing, so the challenge he set for himself was a daunting one: rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

December 2019

Southing in the Inside Passage

A sail-and-oar voyage

Bruce Bateau took the summer off, launched his boat near the north end of Vancouver Island, and headed south to a haul-out 350 miles away, with only two sails and two oars to get him there.

November 2019

A Fringe of the Wild

Wisconsin's Turtle-Flambeau Flowage

After an unexpectedly dreary summer, Tom Pamperin drove off with his boat in tow and no clear destination in mind except “away.” He found the restorative “away” he was seeking in the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage of Wisconsin’s north woods.

October 2019

Barron Canyon

Canoeing the Algonquin

Phil Boyer and two of his good friends paddled three of Phil’s canoes along the Barron River in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park, and portaged to nearby lakes where they contended with boulders by day and bullfrogs by night.

September 2019

Running on Sunshine

The Trent-Severn Waterway under solar power

Phil Boyer likes exploring the many inland waterways of southern Ontario and can cruise all day without raising a sail, breaking a sweat, or burning fossil fuel. His strip-built launch, SOL CANADA, has an electric motor and a canopy covered with solar cells. We tag along for his 337-mile solo on the Trent-Severn Waterway.

August 2019

An Uphill Battle

Northern Forest Canoe Trail, the wrong way

In 2013, Peter Macfarlane paddled the 750 miles of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail from west to east, taking advantage of the net 1,300’ drop in elevation. Five years later, he paddled the trail again, but from east to west, the hard way. We tag along for the long uphill journey.

July 2019

Dallying Downeast

Meandering the Maine coast by sea kayak

Michael and Rebecca Daugherty wanted to kayak the Maine coast and take their time doing it. They closed their business, sold their house, and meandered the length of the coast from Portland to the Canadian border—twice. They covered 600 miles before the end of summer nudged them ashore.

June 2019

Lessons from Penobscot Bay

In pursuit of thrills

Arch Davis, the New Zealand-born, Maine-based designer of small boats, set out in a brisk northwesterly wind, hoping for an exciting sail on Penobscot Bay. He got more than he bargained for and the memories and the lessons from that day have stayed with him for 30 years.

May 2019

Zaire, 1986

The Sankuru and Kasai Rivers by pirogue

In 1986, when the country once known as Zaire was under the rule of a dictator, Tom DeVries, his college roommate, and a Peace Corp volunteer rendezvoused in Central Africa country to paddle down serpentine Zairean rivers in a hand-carved dugout pirogue.

April 2019

Roll on Columbia

100 miles upriver by oar and sail

A 12’ skiff is a small boat for a river as big as the Columbia. Torin Lee launched his Salt Bay Skiff near Astoria, Oregon, and worked his way 100 miles upriver, dodging ships, dragging his boat across the marsh, and finishing on the Willamette River in Portland.

March 2019

Downriver, Part 1

Rowing the Upper Mississippi

When David Hudson built a 17’ dory in his back yard last summer, he had in mind to row and sail it the 1,800 miles of the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. The journey was not about racking up miles but gathering experience and memories.

February 2019

A Superior Circumnavigation

Two women, two kayaks, 1,200 miles

Uma Blanchard and Sophie Goeks, two college students with their final exams recently completed, launched kayaks from Little Sand Bay on Wisconsin’s Lake Superior shore and headed west. When they returned to the launch site 86 days later, they approached it from the east, having paddled the entire 1,200 mile perimeter of the greatest of the Great Lakes.

January 2019

Missouri Breaks

Under solar power in Montana

Rick Retzlaff, an engineering professor, needed a project to keep him happily and productively occupied during a long Saskatchewan winter, so he devised a solar-powered micro-cruiser. The build and sea trials were a success and he set out for a solo cruise on the Missouri River through the Montana countryside.

December 2018

River People

A Shantyboat on the Sacramento River

Wes Modes spent two years building a shantyboat using salvaged materials and in 2014 he began voyaging America’s rivers. He takes us along on his voyage down California’s Sacramento River.

November 2018

Sea Trial

A neophyte on the Inside Passage, Part 2

In this final installment, Chris Cunningham continues on his way north along the Inside Passage of the British Columbia coast. As August draws to a close, the channels get longer, the anchorages farther apart, the rains more frequent, and the winds stronger.

October 2018

Sea Trial

A neophyte on the Inside Passage, Part 1

In boatbuilding, according to Pete Culler, “the experience starts coming the minute you begin, and not one jot before.” Christopher Cunningham found that was indeed the case when he built his first wooden boat, and when he set out in that boat heading north along the Inside Passage, experience kept coming, suddenly and frequently.

September 2018

Fogbound

The Bustard Islands of Georgian Bay

Tom Pamperin takes us back to his Georgian Bay cruising grounds, this time to be trapped by fog among the complex archipelago of the Bustard Islands. The more the visibility diminished, the more he saw.

August 2018

The Voyage of the MARY SAVAGE

Memories of boyhood

Nick Blake was 10 years old when his father launched a 31’ boat reminiscent of a 16th century caravel. Nick, his father, and his mother set out from Vicksburg on the Mississippi River with no particular destination in mind. The family cat, Luciano, caught up with the Blakes in the Delta.

July 2018

TORNGAT

Biography of a trailblazer

In 1979, Dave Getchell bought an aluminum skiff that he could use as a base for a climbing expedition to the Torngat Mountains at the northern tip of Labrador. He never reached the mountains, but the boat, christened TORNGAT, found its destiny along the Maine coast in the creation of the Maine Island Trail.

June 2018

The Canoes of Guna Yala

Panama's sailing dugouts

The Guna people of Panama have been building dugout canoes, called ulus, in the same way since they populated these waters two centuries ago, and still rely on them for their livelihood. When visiting yachties brought a sport-sailing mentality to the islands, the Guna crews took to racing their ulus.

May 2018

LEGOLAS

A great escape

Peter Knape was once stuck behind an office desk in the business district of Arnhem, Holland. He mustered the courage to make a break, sold almost everything he owned, had a Drascombe Longboat Cruiser built, and left home, bound for the Mediterranean.

April 2018

From Father to Son

Five generations of boatbuilders

Nick Blake is a boatbuilder living on a plot of Mississippi land that has been in the family since the 1830s. Nick built a modified version of a Chapelle Whitehall with the help of his father, tools passed down from his grandfather, traditions established by his great-grandfather, and lumber milled from trees grown on his great-great-grandfather’s land.