Home-made Kayak, 1936 style

Do you have too many wooden coat hangers and are looking for something to do with them? How about a do-it-yourself project like maybe build a kayak with them? This gentleman built his own skin-on-frame kayak from bits and pieces from around his house, including 27 wooden coat hangers. And his paddle is made from a bamboo pole and enamel plates.
Check out the British Pathé clip embedded below.

Through The Keyhole

Aniol Serraolses just went where no kayaker has gone before, namely over the 35 metre Lillooet River Keyhole Falls.
Check out the video below:

Urban Kayaking

The urban jungle -- the final frontier for whitewater kayakers.
Check out the video below:

Pacific Paddling Symposium 2015 Registation Opens Today at 7:00 AM....and Closed Five Hours Later

See? I told you not to wait if you wanted to register for the 2015 Pacific Paddling Symposium. Registration opened at 7:00 AM...and was filled by noon.
They are taking a waiting list. Email them at info@pacificpaddlingsymposium.ca for more info.

Vintage Video

Some vintage footage from British Pathé showing kayakers and canoeists running the rapids in the town of Monschau, Germany in 1963. Although sometimes, the rapids run them instead. Check out the embed below:

Pacific Paddling Symposium 2015 Registation Opens This Saturday

Registration for the 3rd Annual Pacific Paddling Symposium opens this Saturday, January 10, at 7:00 AM PST. Space is limited and the Symposium generally fills up faster than you can say "bow rudder turn." No, serioulsy. It sold out in about a day and a half last year. Don't wait.
As their website says, "The Symposium will be hosted at the beautiful seaside village campus of the Lester B. Pearson United World College, set on the wooded shores of the Pacific Ocean. The location provides easy access to diverse paddling environments, from the protected waters of Pedder Bay to the challenging tidal currents of Race Passage."
The symposium takes place May 29-31, and features so many coaches that they had to make a video to fit them all in (see it attached below). Click here for their registration page on Saturday.

Snow Canoing

Yesterday, we posted our yearly collection of snow kayaking videos, but today we take it to the next level. Here's some snow canoing videos, including a vintage clip from the 1950s. Enjoy!

Kayaks In The Snow

If it's Boxing Day, it must be time for our annual collection of snow kayaking video clips. Enjoy!

HAPPY KAYAKMAS!

That's One Way

Probably not the most conventional way of launching a kayak off the dock....but it worked! Check out the video below:

Kayak Tour to see lights in Brentwood Bay

When I went looking on the blog for postson our times paddling in December to see Christmas lights, all I could find at first were posts mentioning Christmas... So I guess we'll just have to do a December paddle on the Gorge again this year to look for lights. And if you'd like to do your own paddle while watching Christmas lights, there's an opportunity for you in Brentwood Bay! Just saw this notice in the newspaper:

See Christmas lights from a different perspective at Saturday’s Family Kayak Lights Tour. The two-hour tour takes participants into Brentwood Bay in a flotilla of kayaks and canoes.
Tour operator Pacific Paddlesports will give a brief lesson before setting out in the boats, which will be decorated with Christmas lights. Participants are encouraged to dress warmly with a waterproof layer on top. Bring a travel mug for free hot cocoa.
Cost is $25 per person or $75 for a family of four. No experience necessary. The tour runs 4 to 6 p.m. at Port Side Marina, 789 Saunders Lane, Central Saanich. For details, go to pacificpaddle.com.

1890 Canoe Race on the Gorge

Found two old photographs in the City of Vancouver Archives, taken May 24, 1890. They show a holiday scene on the Gorge Waterway, and they're titled "Indian canoe race in gorge, Victoria, BC."  You can click here and here to see the image on the Archives website, and look through other images.

Wonderful to see the canoes, and the rowboats much like those newly-available through Whitehall with their reproductions of classic designs. The shoreline is still thickly forested, while nowadays in this industrialized part of the Gorge Waterway there are trees only on a few private lots and in parks.

I think the location of the 1890 canoe race is on the part of the waterway called the Upper Harbour and Selkirk Water. Races were certainly held here in the past. This part of the waterway is below the narrows under the Tillicum bridge, so these holiday boaters would be avoiding the reversing waterfall at the narrows. If you want to see some modern photos of Selkirk Water and the Upper Harbour, check out these posts on Kayak Yak with photos taken by John.

Old School Irish Kayaking

Here's some British Pathé coverage of a kayak race on the River Liffey in Ireland. If you like a lot skin-on-frame kayaks overturning then this clip is for you.
Check out the embedded video below:

The Most Comfortable Kayak Ever

Memory Lane

I've been going on Kayak Yak and taking a paddle along memory lane today. Remember when Bernie camped on D'Arcy Island? That was an epic kayak camping trip in the wooden kayak he built.
And what about the time a seaplane took off beside us as we were paddling round James Island? Talk about feeling like speed bumps...
I still envy Louise's chance to paddle off Rebecca Spit at Quadra Island. It would be terrific to go as a small group to Quadra, to paddle the Main Lakes, and in the bays. If we had a Clam Shoot, maybe we could book Harper Graham's boat to ferry our kayaks up to Octopus Islands park for the day.
At any rate, that's enough memories for now. Hope you enjoy looking at these past posts too!

There's a Reason For A Skirt

Pro Tip: You should probably put a skirt on before trying a seal launch. Check out the video embedded below:

Kayaking in Light

Here's a look at kayaking as you've never seen it before. This picture, and others like it, are the work of Ontario photographer Stephen Orlando. Using a long exposure technique called light-painting, his kayaking photos capture beautiful curtains of light moving across lakes and down rivers.
You can check out some of his other galleries here; his kayaking gallery is here.

A Leopard Shark Never Changes Its Spots

A couple of weeks ago, a leopard shark checked out a kayaking group in Australia. Check out the video below: