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#1
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How about kayaks
Well this news group seems to be empty. was there a war or something? I like
touring in my kayak. I am not mean or hateful. Can I post here? |
#2
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All the news groups relating to paddling and boat building have slowed
down it seems. I think it's because the holidays. After Christmas, the boards got really active last year. I've gotten out a few times when the weather was nice. I have clothes in case I dump over but I'm a wimpy fair-weather paddler! 55 degrees (F) air temp is the lowesest I'll go and that sun better be shining. -- Matt JEM Watercraft http://www.jemwatercraft.com/ Techrat wrote: Well this news group seems to be empty. was there a war or something? I like touring in my kayak. I am not mean or hateful. Can I post here? |
#3
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It seems to be off-season for many paddlers, so if your
favourite paddling lake is covered with 20 cm of ice, here is a winter idea. Ice sailors call their sport "hard-water sailing" so why not "hard-water paddling" for human-powered vessels across frozen lakes? Maybe I'm stretching the analogy a bit? :-) I have recently discovered two vehicles for exploring frozen lakes. Interestingly, they are both Swedish inventions: . long-distance touring skates (långfärdsskridsko) . kick-sled (sparkstötting, or just "spark" for short) Until now, most of my ice adventures have been on the kick-sled, since it requires less skill and handles rougher ice than skates. My full description of kick-sled at: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dermott/ski/spark.html My longest ice-tour has been 60km/day. Here is a list of some photos of some of ice tours in Nova Scotia and Alberta: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dermott/ski/sparkpics.html Lately, I've been trying more skating, as my skating technique improves and when the ice is smoother. The main advantages of skates are the better portability (or "portage-ability" ) and their elegant simplicity. According to my readings, tour-skating has become hugely popular in central Sweden in the last decade. One count put the number at 300,000. There are hundreds of skating clubs, SSSK in Stockholm is the largest at 12,000 members. Club tours average about 40 km/Day but some of the elite skate up to 200 km/day. The skating clubs make extensive use of the Internet, digital cameras, GPS/digital mapping. So there is lot of info about it on Internet. Of course, it's mostly in Swedish :-) The North American expert on tour-skating is Jamie Hess: "http://www.nordicskating.org/" Jamie also runs a mail-order skate store : "http://www.nordicskater.com/" Other articles in English: Timo in Finland: "http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/timonice.html" LLK in Sweden: "http://www.llk.se/english/index.htm" SSSK in Sweden: "http://www.sssk.se/english/index.htm" Al's Ice Adventures, an Australian discovers Swedish Skating: "http://xray.bmc.uu.se/~alasdair/sport/ice/SKATING/index.html" Swedish skaters make good use of digital cameras and update their on-line photo-albums after every tour. Here are a few albums, (little or no Swedish required): Maud's outdoor photo albums (kayak/skates): "http://www.bahnhof.se/~robberts/" A few other albums: "http://www.llk.se/foto/index.htm" "http://www.frilufts.se/stockholm/alliansen/album/index.htm" It seems that the most popular summer activity of Swedish skaters is kayaking, on the same areas that they skate in winter. Humorously, they call summer "Den stora svarta vaken" (The big black hole in the ice! ) -- David Dermott , Wolfville Ridge, Nova Scotia, Canada email: WWW pages: http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dermott/ |
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