All Posts Written by "ken"
The Northwest Room
I have some writing to do. Not just for this space, although it always seems like I’ve got at least a half-dozen ideas on the hook that I need to babble on about. I have another guide book that I want to get busy with (more on that next year, hopefully), and a few other […]
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The Buzzkill Brigade, and so on
The sport of sea kayaking (if indeed it is actually a “sport” at all), is in the process of falling off the radar. The sea kayaking demographic seems to shift notably upward every year and the percentage of younger people who are getting into paddling these days is minute. Of course, there are a pile […]
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Back
The northern tier of the San Juan Islands is a special place, one seemingly made for paddling. Distances are short between the islands but the strong currents make each crossing a chance to exercise navigational skills as well as muscles. There were several times this past week when I had to dead reckon our passage […]
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The top of the Juans
I have two guiding trips scheduled over the course of the next eight days. Both based out of Sucia Island, one 3-day and one 4-day. It’s a recipe for burnout, sticking trips together like this, but it’s the end of the season, they’re a couple of excellent groups and I am lucky to be able […]
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Ecotopia – A book report
In a nutshell: The Pacific Northwest secedes from the Union and forms its own country. Northern California, Oregon, Washington and the coastal regions of BC and Alaska are put together to become Ecotopia, an environmentally sustainable society where cars are extinct and wildlife flourishes. (Which is essentially the opposite of what we have now.) The […]
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When did this happen?
There is nothing more silent than darkness approaching. Shadows lengthen, imperceptibly, quietly and without footfall or creaking floorboard. Daylight turns, looks once over its shoulder, and then it is gone. I am not sure when the change occurred but it must have been sometime in the past couple of weeks. All I know is that […]
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Perspiration
It has been a while since I set up a wilderness sweat lodge. I’ve done it on a few different occasions, with a variety of people and groups, but I think the best one I ever built was one that I put together on a solo trip. It was November and I was on Sucia […]
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What’s in a name? (Sequim edition)
As it turns out, the town of Sequim has been hiding its true nature. For the past hundred years or so, the name of the town has been taken to mean, in the parlance of the local Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, “Quiet Waters.” Kind of tranquil, slow-moving and sleepy, (like so many of the drivers out […]
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Yvon Chouinard’s dictionary
Yvon Chouinard is the founder of and guiding light behind Patagonia, the wildly successful and unconventional outdoor gear and clothing company, based in Ventura, California. One of the early rock jocks in Yosemite (and elsewhere), he used his metal-smithing abilities to create rock climbing protection – chocks, pitons and the like – for the other […]
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New Release
A story of sea kayaking and science on the rugged coast of Alaska. Coming – Spring 2014.
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