Greenland Kayak Camp: Guest Blog by Heather Adams!

Here Heather eloquently describes the first night and morning of our trip to the first annual Ontario Greenland Camp, in Bracebridge, ON. Enjoy! -Nena

“It’s the Canadian Shield”, Alan explained, when I asked him to tell me about the beautiful rock formations that we began seeing about 30 or so miles south of Stonleigh Lake (just north and east of Bracebridge, ON), where Nena & I were heading for the weekend of Sept 11-12^th. The Shield is exposed bedrock extending over 3 million square miles in central and northeast Canada, the Adirondack mountains, and then across the water to Greenland. This common ground brought together paddlers from Canada, the US and Greenland last weekend for the first annual Ontario Greenland Camp. James Roberts and Dympna Hayes, co-owners of LearntoKayak.ca (Toronto, ON) hosted the event with support from Kelly McDowell, owner of the shop, The Complete Paddler (Etobicoke, ON). I admit to feeling rather star-struck as we arrived at camp and I met our instructors for the weekend – a Who’s-Who list of Greenland paddling champions – Adam Hansen, Heather Lamon, Cheri Perry, and Turner Wilson!

Our lovely mentors for the weekend!

Alan, one of the other students at OGC, told me about the Canadian Shield during the social hour on Friday night – an opportunity to meet our fellow paddlers and get oriented to the weekend activities. After dinner, Cheri & Turner presented a slide show about their own trips to the Greenland games and then showed an old film from the 1930s with the cast entirely drawn from native Greenlandic people. The plot and acting were weak, to say the least, but there were important moments in the film where traditional Greenlandic life was depicted, including hunting from kayaks. For the early-birds in the group, Saturday morning began at 6:30 a.m. with a yoga class led by Cheri.  Nena made the class while I just kept on sleeping. After breakfast, we walked down to the lake for Turner’s paddle strokes class.  We began the lesson on shore, with a discussion of fluid dynamics (Nena to provide some engineering comments here!) and how the Greenland paddle operates on the principle of lift, compared to the euro blade which operates on the principle of drag. Turner explained that a euro blade, at the ‘catch’ (when the paddle first scoops into the water) essentially pulls the kayak forward as the paddle drags itself through the water. The shape and movement of the Greenland paddle through the water creates lift, not unlike an airplane wing. Another difference…most power from the euro blade stroke comes during the entry phase; the Greenland paddle stroke contains most of its power during the 2^nd half of the blade’s time in the water. 

Turner describing how the Greenland paddle does its magical work! Nena looking  either confused or pensive in the background... Photo courtesy of The Complete Paddler.

After this introduction to the Greenland paddle, we jumped in our boats and headed onto the water. Stonleigh Lake is a narrow lake running north to south. The camp is situated on the west side of the lake. Earlier in the morning, the lake was shrouded in mist but by the time we started paddling, the sun was well up and the lake was clear. We worked on our forward paddle stroke, reverse sweep, forward sweep, and two kinds of bow rudders – including one with the end of the paddle tucked under the armpit! Turner then introduced a draw stroke by saying that he had learned it from Maligiaq and demonstrated the simple technique of turning one’s top hand open to the work. I was given much corrective feedback about my edge turn, which I had been performing as a lean turn. Edge, lean, edge, lean. But too soon, lunch was waiting onshore, so we paddled back in, practicing one last technique along the way – the sliding stroke. This is most effectively used in high winds (and with a storm paddle) in order to minimize the amount of blade that will catch in the wind.

There is much more to tell about our weekend at the Ontario Greenland Camp – tons of rolling, Greenland ropes demo & practice, Greenland Games (Nena was on the winning team!), talks by Heather Lamon about her trip earlier this summer to the Games, and by Adam Hansen, about his life growing up in Greenland.  For all this, I’ll turn the blog back over to Nena for the rest of the report. I’ll just close by saying that when I arrived at camp, my singular goal for the weekend was to come away with as many new Greenland rolls as I could learn in two days. 

Working on rolling! Photo courtesy of The Complete Paddler.

When we left on Sunday, sure, I had some new rolls, but more importantly, I had gained a deeper appreciation and knowledge of Greenlandic kayak culture, and made many new like-minded, “skinny-stick” friends. I am looking forward to seeing them all on the water again in future! 

- Heather Adams 

Click here for another post with more details about the first annual Greenland Kayak Camp by Nena!