Ken Campbell, Author at The Last Wilderness

Thoughts on death and surfing, part 5

Posted by Ken Campbell April 28, 2011 0 Comment 1129 views

The funeral was yesterday. Clear blue sky and 80 degrees, with a breeze coming in from the west as we all assembled at the graveside. Words were said and songs were sung. Tears were shed. People who hadn’t seen each other for many years got to reconnect – happy, shining moments on an otherwise somber […]

Alice Marie Campbell

Posted by Ken Campbell April 23, 2011 8 Comments 2292 views

Alice Marie Campbell passed away this morning after an extended battle with Alzheimer’s. She was my mother. Alice was born on June 7th, 1920, in Milan, MN, the thirteenth of fourteen children born to Danish immigrants Eli and Anna Willadsen. Before her second birthday, the family had relocated to Sheboygan Falls, WI, where Alice grew […]

Lotusland

Posted by Ken Campbell April 22, 2011 0 Comment 1779 views

“We landed in the country of the Lotus-Eaters, who live on a flowering food… My men went on and presently met the Lotus-Eaters, nor did these Lotus-Eaters have any thought of destroying our companions, but they only gave them lotus to taste of. But any of them who ate the honey-sweet fruit of lotus was […]

A Word from Wendell Berry

Posted by Ken Campbell April 21, 2011 0 Comment 1136 views

A Meeting In my dream I meet my dead friend. He has, I know, gone long and far, and yet he is the same for the dead are changeless. They grow no older. It is I who have changed, grown strange to what I was. Yet I, the changed one, ask: “How you been?” He […]

Campus Point, 2011

Posted by Ken Campbell April 20, 2011 0 Comment 1489 views

I finally got on the water yesterday afternoon. I put in at Goleta Beach and paddled out, past the UCSB skyline, to Campus Point. There was a wind blowing at me on the half-mile run, and once I got to the point, there really wasn’t much going on. A few rides, shallow water, little point […]

Thoughts on death and surfing, part 4

Posted by Ken Campbell April 17, 2011 0 Comment 1071 views

I won’t say it was completely unexpected, only that it happened quickly this time. The landscape was a blur out my side windows. Cities and towns fell behind me in regular succession: Portland, Eugene, Redding, Sacramento, Paso Robles… I’m back in Santa Barbara again, where the sun is brightly shining, where the mockingbird sings. I […]

The News from Arcata

Posted by Ken Campbell April 15, 2011 0 Comment 1193 views

Kokatat has a good blog. There are a lot of stories here that make me want to go too. (Especially that first one.)

An anniversary

Posted by Ken Campbell April 13, 2011 0 Comment 1195 views

The time does fly, yes? It was twenty years ago this week that I started working for Tahoma Outdoor Pursuits as a canoe guide. It was up at Farrell’s Marsh, in Steilacoom, WA, a week of doing twenty-minute canoe trips for groups of 6th graders on the cloudy, brown water of the bayou. I remember […]

Butts in boats

Posted by Ken Campbell April 12, 2011 0 Comment 1195 views

I am not sure about symposiums. Or expo’s, festivals, or whatever the kids are calling them these days. I like them, I really do, but I don’t know whether they are still as relevant to the paddle sports world as they once were. It used to be that if you wanted to hear about so-and-so’s […]

San Juan orca; an update

Posted by Ken Campbell April 11, 2011 0 Comment 1586 views

There’s new guidance out for whale watchers, whether on commercial barf boats or in kayaks. Here’s a real good synopsis of the regulation changes and their effects on people and whales alike, but the main update for paddlers is that we have to stay 200 yards away from the orcas now, compared to the 100 […]