The (eager) Intern: Joe Jackson; 25, five years kayaking; 15 days/year; paddles Wave Sport Y
Three years ago I told the owner of Mayuc Rafting in Cuzco, Peru, that I was a solid Class IV kayaker when Class III was pushing it for me. On my first day as a safety boater I flipped, broke my nose, and gashed my face in three places. After that, I took a break from kayaking until this summer. I still wouldn’t consider myself a Class IV boater. But I have been paddling—and sometimes swimming—Class IV. Click for piece
In 1998, Big Brother skateboarding magazine launched its second video, titled “Number Two.” Although it never broke from the skateboarding niche, the footage did propel a nobody named Johnny Knoxville into infamy with a couple-minute clip showing him testing mace and a taser on, well, himself.
Ten years later, Big Brother’s seed of self-flagellation coupled with professional athleticism has sprouted into kayak porn through Tao Berman’s production debut, Pulse. Click for story
I wrote all of these New Products showcases except for the Thule Ascent, Crazy Creek Longback Chair, and the Keen Copper Canyon Sandals. Click for piece
Sitting high on the rock wall west of wave No. 3—in his khaki shorts, trimmed goatee, and Mion sandals—James MacBeath looks like any other spectator enjoying the Rodeo semifinals at the Reno River Festival. You’d guess he’s a boater by his World Kayak T-shirt and his appropriately timed cheers when an athlete completes an obscure trick. But what his casual outward appearance hides is a business savvy that just might contain the right components for the future of whitewater kayaking. Click for story
Halfway through one of the last days in November, Rush TV camera crews were filming Todd Anderson—the 23-year-old owner of Hood River, Oregon’s Columbia Gorge Kayaking School—as he nervously peered down Middle Palguin Falls in Pucon, Chile. He had every right to be apprehensive; in minutes he planned to seal launch off the rock ledge perched above a small, tumultuous lead in to the 70-foot
waterfall.
If you are one of the 150 or so students who will attend his kayaking school this year, you probably won’t ever learn about this drop. In fact, Anderson doesn’t want you to. In the world of professional kayaking, where bragging rights and egos can make careers, the young entrepreneur has based his school’s success around being humble, kind, and welcoming for the two years he has owned it. Click for story
I wrote all of these New Products Showcases except for the Thule Ascent, Bending Branches Splash, Seaward Kayaks’ Chinook, and the NRS Wingman. Click for piece
When Chad Long refers to his father and semi-boss, he rarely uses formalities. The kayak school coordinator for Cascade Raft and Kayak on Idaho’s Payette River usually doesn’t weigh you down with his father’s given name or say “my father” when he tells you stories of how the man, Tom Long, started the company’s kayak school in 1991—ish. He simply refers to him as, “Dad.” Cascade Raft and Kayak is a family company in the oldest-fashioned sense of the term. Click for story
Matt Streib speaks with a soft and even tone, even when asking his wife to tell an employee’s children to stop the ruckus that would awaken his sleeping 10-month-old son. Streib’s canoe and kayak retail shop, Fluid Fun, is based out of his home in sleepy Bristol, Indiana—a town with two stoplights and 2,000 residents.
Fluid Fun averages 600 boat sales a year. Yes, that’s correct, 600 boats per year.
“It works out to about 550 kayaks and 50 canoes,” says Streib. Click for story
I wrote the showcases for Petzl’s Myo XP, ExOfficio’s Ambush Pant, OR’s Women’s Misto Sombrero, Big Agnes’ Yellow Wall, Smith’s Interlock Trace glasses, and NRS’ Pilot knife. Click for piece
Be it the way it stays warm in your hands, the manner in which it interacts with the water, or the dynamic shapes that wood grain makes on a paddle or oar—wood
feels more traditional. There’s the obvious factor that all of the original paddles were made out of wood. There’s also the intangible fact that wood seems to have more soul than plastic.
Bruce Bergstrom, owner of Sawyer Paddles—the main manufacturer of oars in the United States—is keenly aware of the intricacies of the tradition. Click for story
The (eager) Intern: Joe Jackson; 25, five years kayaking; 15 days/year; paddles Wave Sport Y
