I just received an email from my friend Conor Mihell to let us know that along with his paddling partner Craig Zimmerman; they finally completed a substantial 8-day paddle on Lake Superior out from Wawa to Michipicoten Island then due south to Caribou Island and home again.

Though the total distance of roughly 300 kilometres isn’t that huge; what’s impressive is that approximately 110 km of it was over open water. You see, to get out to Caribou Island you need to make two major crossings (16km and 35km) then do it all over again when going home. Over the course of 8 days you need four at the right time with good enough weather to make the crossings and that’s rare on Lake Superior.

If you haven’t heard of Caribou Island that’s perfectly ok. There isn’t a whole lot out there and it can get confusing due to the fact that there are six Caribou Islands in Ontario alone and two of them just happen to be on Lake Superior.

View the Caribou Island Expedition Route in a larger map.

The one I’m talking about on the eastern end of the lake is about 35km (22 miles) due south of Michipicoten Island and about 65km (40 miles) west of the nearest shore. The island is uninhabited and often described as swampy and buggy by those researchers who have been lucky to get dropped off out there.

With that amazing(ish) sales pitch, it’s amazing that only two other groups have kayaked out to the island in the past. From what Conor and Craig can tell; a gentlemen made the crossing solo in the mid 80’s and another team of Americans did it as part of a three-night trip across Lake Superior in the 90’s. I know there isn’t a great public record of these types of things so others might have done it before and didn’t tell anybody.

Conditions of the major crossing south were near perfect (flat, cool and little wind) but it wasn’t long before thunderclouds started building to add some stress to an already stressful day. Luckily the storm passed over head uneventfully.

After briefly exploring Caribou Island they paddled over to Lighthouse Island to spend the night which is about 1km away. Lighthouse Island is home to one of the tallest lighthouses on Lake Superior towering at 125 feet high.

I have wanted to make this same trip for a long time. About 3-4 years ago, a friend and I planned and came very close making a stab at it but sadly discovered I didn’t have enough vacation time when taking into account potential wind-bound days. I think we are going to need to pull the charts and start planning again.

Photo Credit: Conor Mihell

This has been a big month for large expeditions going on around in North America. Here is a quick update of three that have come across my radar.

CanoeacrossCanada

Dave Turgeon and his son Matheson are half-way through canoeing across Canada to raise money for the Sick Kids Foundation here in Toronto. According to the update on the Paddle Canada blog they started in Vancouver, BC back in April and have just crossed the border from Manitoba into northern Ontario.

Lake Superior Circumnavigation
Two women from Marquette, Michigan are aiming to be the first women to circumnavigate Lake Superior. What makes this expedition interesting is that Lindsay Bean and Jess Laxo, who are also ACA instructors, are paddling a 17-foot canoe. In this day and age most people would have chosen a sea kayak as their mode of travel around the largest of the great lakes so it’s refreshing to see the trip tackled in a canoe again.

According to the Daily Press newspaper, the ladies are planning on doing 16 miles a day with the rough plan to be home again by September 1^st but I think somebody might need to check their math again. The total trip is 1,400 miles so my trusty calculator says they will need almost 90 days to complete it (not counting wind days) so that would put them home at least at the end of September. Update: Kenneth corrected me today and said they actually started their trip on June 12 so a 2 1/2 month trip around the lake actually makes sense.

The Ultimate Crossing
Bart de Zwart is pretty proud of his recently completed journey. Last Sunday night he completed a 5-day, 300 mile stand-up paddle journey from Hawaii's Big Island to Kauai.

The Chicago Tribune reported:

[blockquote]Strapped to his 14-foot (4.3-meter) longboard were enough freeze-dried meals and water in watertight containers for seven days. He slept on inflatable water mattresses glued together to form what resembled a kiddie pool, he explained: "At night, I blew it up and strapped it on the board." The choppy waters and windy conditions would occasionally flip the board over, startling him awake in the water.[/blockquote]

Here is a capture of his route as reported by his Spot:

Throughout the trip he lost 12-pounds and estimated he paddled 215,000 strokes.

Five Great Lakes, 5 Days

Finally, let’s go back to the Great Lakes again as my friend Mike let me know about this crazy adventure that took place right at the end of June.

Henry Dorfman from Cincinnati just became the first person to cross all five Great Lakes in five days. Yes, all five in five.

He started in Munising, Michigan crossing Lake Superior followed by Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Once that was done he crossed into Canada knocking Lake Ontario off the list. After a quick drive to Cleveland he paddled north to finish off his last major crossing on Lake Erie.

Lakewood Patch has the info:

[blockquote]When Patch caught up with Dorfman on Friday, the aquatic adventurer said it’d been a pretty smooth and exciting ride, but that the long kayaking stretches and 2,000-mile road trip to get from lake to lake was catching up to him.

“It’s pretty rigorous,” he said. “You burn off a lot of gasoline, a lot of energy and a lot of soda. You’re either driving, paddling or drinking diet coke pretty much nonstop for five days.[/blockquote]

It’s too bad that the news article didn’t provide more details into the logistics of the trip. For example, it doesn’t mention if he had one vehicle or different groups meeting him. Depending on his crossing route the paddle across the lake could have been quicker then the van ride around.

Congrats to Henry on the completion of a fantastic feat of endurance and will. I can appreciate the hard work. I want to give up after just crossing a small bay!

CanoeacrossCanada photo credit: Dave Turgeon
Henry Dorfman photo credit: John Deike

Congratulations are in order for lightweight paddler and friend of the site, Bryan Hansel for completing his 800-mile, 99% solo, 45-day expedition covering two of the Great Lakes.

The massive trip started in Port Huron, Michigan progressing north up through Sault Ste. Marie then West along the Southern shoreline of Lake Superior to his home in Grand Marais, Minnesota. You can see the full route below.

View Port Huron to Home in a larger map

As many people know Bryan is a prolific twitter user (@bryanhansel) so of course he was updating his followers throughout the trip. What made it a lot of fun for us sitting at home was that the trip was unannounced and for the first 10-15 days he wouldn’t publically tell anybody where he actually was. All we got were distance updates and other location teases. This lead to lots of debate online as to where he was and some nerds people were even watching weather patterns to help narrow it down based on recent tweets.

The actual reason for the location blackout was because he had to be incognito while paddling along the West shore of Lake Huron. There isn’t a lot to offer in the way of public camping forcing Bryan to guerrilla camp along much of that shoreline.

I’m glad that Bryan made it home without injury. Readers might remember several years ago when Bryan had to bail out on an attempt to circumnavigate all the great lakes when a very bad case of tendinitis flared up after a very short distance.

I’m sure he is feeling much better coming home from this trip then the last big one.

Photo credits: Bryan Hansel

I feel terrible for Tim Taylor. Looks like he had to put his expedition with the goal to kayak around New Zealand on hold for the next couple of months. Things had been going pretty good for the past seven months and 4700km (of 5500km) when he got stuck for two and a half weeks at Ahipara waiting for the seas to calm down.

Special thanks to Costain for filling me in on a really great expedition going on right now. Several Paddle Canada sea kayak and white water instructors got together and organized a three month trip paddling from Beachburg, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia via several rivers including the Ottawa River, St. Lawrence River and the St. John River. The total distance will be almost 1500km (including 216km which will be done on bicycle). The best part of the trip is that 0km will be done using gas.

The Paddle to the Ocean expedition has several purposes. Firstly it is a memorial for Corey Morris who died on a Nova Scotia river in 2009. Corey always encouraged people to get outside and be active which leads into their second goal for the expedition. They are raising funds and awareness for the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) and the Nova Scotia Heart & Stroke Foundation (NS H&SF). The Making Tracks (EAC) program is a program designed to encourage parents & children to walk & bike to school & throughout their community and the Heart & Stroke Walkabout (NS H&SF) is a provincial initiative designed to teach people how to walk more in their daily lives.

All funds raised by Paddle to the Ocean will be split between these two programs.

Like every good expedition, they are using filmmaking to help tell the story. The trip started back on May 1 and they have just posted their first update which you can view below. The short film has them paddling down the Ottawa River ploughing through the Class IV white water in a sea kayak. You need to see it to believe it.