Kokatat continues to support Northern Lights Expeditions, a project seeking to establish links between children of isolated indigenous communities of the Arctic and children of the U.K., as they are preparing for phase two of its three-part service project. Kokatat has provided the team with the necessary products for this expedition, such as the GORE-TEX® Expedition Dry Suit and Ronin Pro PFD.

Northern Lights explorers Richard Smith and Craig Mathieson founded the project to help develop the children’s confidence and self-reliance through what Smith and Mathieson have coined “inspiration of exploration.” The participating schools are developing online projects exchanging ideas and media through projects covering areas of global warming, song, dance, and social cultural comparisons.

During July and August 2009 Smith and Mathieson kayaked between remote Inuit settlements of Eastern Greenland forging links with Scottish schools and delivering donated laptops to assist with connecting children from different cultures. Since returning to Scotland, the team has toured the Scottish schools, training the children and teachers how to develop and participate in online projects to exchange ideas about global warming and socio-cultural comparisons. A BBC Radio 4 documentary about Northern Lights is currently in production and set to broadcast in the coming year.

In August 2010, the team will travel back to Greenland with the teachers to make introductions to the Greenlandic schools and to ensure that all required health and safety assessments are in place prior to the exchange visit of the pupils. During the winter, pupils from schools in Scotland and the French Alps will participate in a mini-expedition by dog sled across the sea ice of the South Eastern coast of Greenland.

Northern Lights intends to expand the program to involve other indigenous communities from Arctic countries in the future, making first contact again by kayak.

Below is an update from Conor, who is currently on the third leg of his journey, on how he packed for a 5 month sea kayak expedition:

“There are many routines that I have per day that help me do everything from ensuring I don’t forget gear to helping me maintain a disciplined camp site including food storage that is as bombproof as possible. Packing the boat for instance has changed in only a few ways since the very beginning of the trip which makes it quicker to load and easier for me to know if something is different and figure out why. This blog will describe a few of the routines so you can get a picture of what kayak camping is about in order to explore the amazing wilderness of Alaska and BC.

How can you possibly bring items like a laptop, an electric shaver, a SLR camera, and hundreds of zip locked bags of food on a kayaking trip over 5 months? There are so many issues to deal with, especially having emergency gear reachable from the cockpit, managing the corrosive effects of salt water, the potential flooding of the cockpit or some hatches, the magnetic deviation that metallic objects such as tent poles can have on my navigational compass. Once a 30 mile paddle became a 40 mile paddle in one day because of a compass that was deviated due to tent poles in the hatch beneath it so that lesson is still with me. All of these little factors come into play when sorting dry bags, packing the boat, and so on.

Here is how I pack each hatch:
Rear hatch: Tent, Rain Fly, Ground cloth, poles, stakes, tennis shoes, sleeping bag, 1st bear can, Kokatat dry suit, and rope for hanging.
Day hatch: Cooking Mess Kit, SLR Camera, Books, Pelican Case with Sat and Cell Phones, Flare gun, headlamp, bear spray, first aid bag, and repair kit.
Cockpit: 10L Dromedary bag for water, rope for bowline and tying up on shore, and a Gatorade bottle for peeing (tied down with elastic to the seat).
Front hatch: 20L bag with Surplus food, Coat, clothes, notebook, electronics (MP3 player, spare batteries, etc), 2nd bear can, water filter, spare fuel, toiletry bag, rain pants, Nalgene water bottle, dirty clothes bag, Noah’s Tarp, and fuel bottle. No strongly magnetic objects in this hatch to limit magnetic deviation of compass. To be safe, metal objects should be farther than 3-4 times their longest dimension from the compass. Test to be sure by bringing objects close to the compass and then removing.
Deck: Rear side with 2 dry bags with lunch and snacks in one and sleeping pad/duct tape/mosquito head net in the other, and my Crocs attached with carabineer. Front side has spare paddle, and deck bag with chart case, bilge pump, float, maps, camera with pelican case, suntan lotion, and air horn.
Ronin Pro PFD: 1.5l water bag and tube, VH-F radio, strobe light, SPOT device, ACR PLB for back-up, emergency blanket, Laser Flare, Cliff Bar, swabby in zip lock to clean camera lens and glasses, knife, whistle, signaling mirror, and two Orion flares. My baseball cap is attached to the PFD so I don’t lose it in the wind.
Water filtration: This one is easy but essential to prevent guardia or other protozoa. Boiling water would be far too fuel expensive for this long of a trip, so I much prefer filling up in towns, filtering from streams, or getting water straight from the glaciers. I have two 10L dromedary bags, a Nalgene, and the 1.5L bag, so a total of 22.5 liters which can last me two weeks if need be. But I normally just fill the one 10L bag and that lasts me 2-3 days. BC and SE Alaska have water streams abundant and most charts indicate the major flows. And near the glaciers, water filtration isn’t even necessary because I was at the source. Any other time, I used my ceramic MSR filter, as seen in the picture.
Food storage: So you need a food storage system to prevent bears/raccoon et al. from getting to food and toiletries. I use bear canisters and hanging bags between trees. Normally I only have to hang stuff when I have surplus at the beginning of each leg of the trip, after that everything fits in the bear cans. Recently I was lazy and left the bags in the kayak hatch and before I fell asleep, I heard a thump on the kayak, followed by silence. The next morning I saw that the fuel bottles which were in the cockpit had fallen all over the place and there were some scratches near the hatch…probably a black bear in the area – I saw scat nearby. I’ll stick to hanging the bags. Using a 2 to 1 rope tension system is very handy to hoist food bags high above the reach of bears without shredding your hands on rope. It essentially reduces the weight lifted by the person in half. Grizzlies especially can stand to 9 feet and reach very high. Black bear have been known to climb trees, so the idea here is to suspend the food between two trees and have the bags around 20 feet high.

There are many more routines that I’ll eventually write up, but now it’s time for me to get packed up for leg 4 because Kim is arriving soon and it’s time to paddle!” – Conor Flannery

Kokatat will provide a Bahia Tour life jacket as a prize for each winner in the “Youth” and “Avid Angler” divisions for each of the five tournament stops. Every event has an entry fee of $75 for Avid Anglers and $50 for Casual Anglers and Young River Bassers, but contestants who enter more than one event will receive additional discounts for each additional stop they enter, and early entries will receive prize packages worth over $80. The 2010 stops are located in major cites where Bass Pro shops are located: Atlanta (GA), Sevierville (TN), Charlotte (NC), Birmingham (AL), and Macon (GA). For event dates and details go to our online calendar.

In honor of Phil “Swampthing” May, and avid kayak fisher and outdoorsman diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), a portion of the tournament’s proceeds will benefit the ALS Association.

“The annual New England Paddlesports show organized by Kittery Trading Post was a big hit in 2010. Kokatat life jackets were flying off the racks as if they had wings. Bahia Tours were the pick for many recreational boaters seeking high-back seat comfort, and MsFit Tours for most others who were aware of their great reputation. T3 Tempest pants garnered much interest, especially with sport fishers, providing a lightweight, waterproof and breathable alternative to traditional waders. Drsuits were on the wish list for those familiar with their ability to expand their season, range and confidence, and some who were good this year had Christmas come early.

Kayaks are everywhere you look, in every color of the spectrum, some tall, some small, some don’t look like a boat at all; more like a hybrid cousin of a sports-car. The atmosphere of folks seeking to invest in their joy of watersports was palpable, hanging in the air like an infectious laugh. The arena of the UNH Field House is a fitting place to support this specialized industry which has been reaching out to create products that help make the sport accessible to all levels of athletes, from the curious speculators to the seasoned pros.

Kokatat rep Suzanne Hutchinson is a local rock star with a loyal fan base in New England, unflinchingly assisting those seeking her professional opinion and willingness to stir the soup of good humor and passion for getting outside and making the most of their paddling experience. Kittery Trading Post’s New England Paddlesports show is a great venue to grow your knowledge and gear collection as well as rub shoulders with folks of similar ilk.” – John Moseman

Hole – noun:
meaning: an opening through something; gap.

Eternity Hole – playspot:
a little known place tucked away in the mountains of Western North Carolina, providing endless amount of fun and ice cream headaches.

“As many paddlers can relate, the best part of paddling is getting to spend time with good friends. Eternity Hole has been the location for many of my fondest memories out on the water. Friday, March 19th was no exception. My good friends Ben Bloemsma and Quillan Snyder joined me for a throw down session, which started at high noon. The weather was nothing sort of perfect: 65 degrees and sunny. However, someone forgot to warm up the water, which was a bone chilling 38 degrees. While that might make some chuckle and say “That is not cold” remember – we’re talking about the Southeast!

We got in the water, and soon realized that it was a good idea that we were all wearing our dry tops. Quillan and Ben both threw down with authority, and as the day wore on began trying moves which neither had attempted before. As for my time spent at Eternity Hole, I just enjoyed kicking off the spring in the right fashion, playboating at my favorite local spot and getting out of the water dry…. bone dry. Starting out the playboat season at eternity hole felt great and I can not wait to see what this season holds in store. Happy paddling!” – Casey Jones

Photos courtesy of Ben Bloemsma and Quillan Snyder.

Team Kokatat athlete Anthony Yap is one member of this five-country, eight-athlete collective. Led by Yap and fellow Australian paddler Lachie Carracher, this trip is the fourth consecutive year a group has explored the Kimberley in an effort to educate the public on the exploitation happening to the one of the world’s oldest, largely untapped regions.

After a nearly 4,000 kilometer drive northwest from Melbourne, the team will board a chartered aircraft to the upper reaches of the Fitzroy. Once on the water, the expedition will be made all the more challenging by the Fitzroy’s peak monsoonal flows.

To maximize safety in these demanding conditions, the team wisely chose Kokatat’s Ronin Pro as their life jacket for the duration of the trip. Advantages of the Ronin Pro include a trimmed-down profile and unique internal harness, which provides a comfortable secure fit, full spinal protection and improved side protection. Kokatat worked with representatives of Underwriters Labratories (UL), the United States Coast Guard (USCG), swiftwater rescue professionals, fire departments, recreational user groups, and other manufacturers to help update the standards of Type 5 rescue certification.

Working closely with Australian Conservation Foundation advisers to draw attention to the environmental issues that are facing the area, the team’s experiences will be documented in a feature film to be produced in March 2010. The film will showcase the area and the team’s exploration of one of the world’s most inhospitable environments. Additional information available at www.kayakthekimberley.com

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Kokatat MsFit in "berry" colorway

About the MsFit life jacket: Anatomically cut foam panels provide a comfortable fit for men and women, and uniquely adjusts to fit comfortably and securely, allowing maximum freedom of movement. Bellows pocket keeps small items close at hand on this vest made of rugged 500 denier Cordura® nylon outer, and 200 denier nylon inner shell. Made with GAIA® PVC-free foam. More information here.