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Day tripping in Minnesota looking forward to the warm days to come. This is my favorite bent shaft paddle, a highly custom Keith Backlund paddle I was fortunate to acquire from the original customer. Happy weekend everyone!

Spring feels close in Minnesota today

Exped downmat is a great match for my western mountaineering bags including the terralite. Warm. Thick. Reasonably light and compact. Expensive.

It’s great to see a company engaging DY to explore and IMPLEMENT new and intermediate design ideas. That risk takes a lot of capital and a lot of time and a lot of passion and love. The WW canoe community has benefited from temporary surges of investment in this way. It seems that then we get...

@Jim Dodd are you admitting to as much? This cracked me up. Hope you’re well Jim!

For beginners to solo canoes, I think the biggest risk is getting a boat that feels tippy and is a turn off so you don’t go out. Like Alan says, I usually suggest getting something that feels good and gets your excitement up and then you can upgrade later if you figure out what you really need...

Although there is open water and paddle up access we left boats out of the equation for this paddle friend gathering on the longest night. Looking forward to a little more light now.

Minnehaha Creek on a late season run as lakes and slack water bays were just starting to freeze up this fall

It’s hard for me to imagine not having a royalex solo around. It’s my go to for rocky and icy days.

Congrats on your new boat. Bell royalex with vinyl gunwales is a good setup for rocky rivers. Hanging seats from the gunwales should work fine if you go that way. I added cup washers to that setup on a royalex northwind and think that helped since the screws were routed into a channel on the vinyl.

Cooke Custom Sewing is running a 20% off all items sale with code “blackfriday2024” for a few days. Awesome to see a rare discount on some of the best gear available. Noticed they have some new colors on a few products. Glad to see the family carrying on the business. I ordered a few things

Awesome. we love the lower kinni. that’s where my profile pic is from. On the boat question I’d say get whatever you can to get the stoke up and get you on the water as often as possible. S2 is a good all a rounder though a little on the bigger end of the size range. People love that boat. If...

@schledog if the timing works out you might consider participating in the two weekend Canoe-U course the local club puts on usually late May into early June. Tandem and solo options usually with boats available for cheap rental. ACA instructors and a crew of safety boaters to help you push the...

Cross Bay Lake, Boundary Waters, Minnesota.

Sounds like a lot of good questions that would benefit from your own first hand experience to answer. Starting on the brule and the flambeau is a great idea. Trying out solo is a great idea too. Someone here has mentioned they avoid royalex longer than 16.5’ and I think that’s a pretty solid...

@NoelCanoeDad maybe you have the paddle molds too?

@DrewS I second the request from Gumpus. I'd love to hear anything you might be able to share about the timeline (years for the events you mention) or the process by which the carbon cues were made. I came along later but am fortunate to have some first hand experience with a cue and find them...

I don’t mind skipping the fire but groups do tend to have a pyro type, or three. On a recent trip with a fire ban, five of us made do nicely with two sets of LED string lights. Lots of good options now. These were rechargeable, winding and lightweight. Ample ambiance and enough light for cooking...

Had a few days and made it into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness off of the Gunflint Trail. There is a fire ban but weather was nice and unseasonably warm for this time of Fall.

Mine is convertible. Photo shows both options installed when I brought it back from the factory with new rails. Measurements were taken from the old rails, installed as stock at bell in 1998. Measurements: front screws of center seat drops are 5” back from center of the carry thwart. I think...