Author Archives: canoelover

From my Sunday column to my customers. Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.He went flying down the river in his boatwith his video camera to his eye, makinga moving picture of the moving riverupon which his sleek … Continue reading →

Written for The Isthmus, December 2024 It’s December, and a canoe sits on the front lawn. Around it are duffels and packs, a few paddles, and two Rubbermaid containers. One contains small chunks of hardwood, fuel for what’s in the … Continue reading →

Wrote this for the Isthmus, June 2023 issue. Wisconsin’s natural diversity was not lost on many of the early conservationists, such as Aldo Leopold, John Curtis, Albert Fuller and Norman Fassett, a UW-Madison professor of botany and taxonomy. They all … Continue reading →

I wrote this for the Isthmus for the April 2022 issue. Measuring from the Sauk City Dam, the Lower Wisconsin River flows almost 90 miles to its confluence with the Mississippi. I’ve paddled as far as 40 miles in a … Continue reading →

Insane. I open my blog and some French bookkeepers who run numbers on all sorts of sports put over 7,000 posts on this blog, ostensively to increase links back to their sites for SEO benefits to them and massive inconvenience … Continue reading →

  I really need this. Three people said this to me when I asked if they wanted to go for a quick overnighter. I didn’t have to tell them that I needed it too. I used to do a big … Continue reading →

I’m off to the Outdoor Industry Association Rendezvous, an annual meeting of the hoi polloi of the outdoor industry, plus me. You can’t swing a wildcat by the tail without knocking over at least one CEO of one huge outdoor … Continue reading →

A few times a year I attempt to take a short solo canoe trips, usually no more than two or three days.  The duration of the trip is influenced by a myriad of externalities; family and work responsibilities, water levels, … Continue reading →

I’m writing a column about camp stove selection, which required some photos and examples. I dragged the Rubbermaid bin with the laminated tag that says STOVES. In it I found seven or eight stoves.  Two of which I forgot that … Continue reading →

There is nothing I love so much as teaching solo canoeing.