kayakgreenland1959
kayakgreenland1959
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Jul 23, 2011 (15 years) |
- | 4 | 0 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Jul 23, 2011 (15 years)
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Bio
With my old friend Campbell Semple, I kayaked the West Coast of Scotland from the Firth of Clyde up to and around Cape Wrath back in the 1950s. The day before we went around Cape Wrath we met Dr Harald Drever, a geologist at St. Andrews University. He had been to Illorsuit, Greenland I think it was four times by that date (1958) and was a great admirer of the kayaking skills of the villagers.
That winter he arranged for me to spend the summer of 1959 in Illorsuit. That was quite simply the most wonderful summer of my life!
The kayak that Emmanuele Korneliusen made for me is the famous one that Duncan Winning later surveyed and that the Anas Acuta and Nordkapp designs are "descended from." Emanuele also made an identical kayak frame for John Heath.
That experience led to my studying cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. While there I made a canvas covered (rough) replica of the kayak which I used to perfect my kayak rolling, based on what I'd been shown in Illorsuit, and also used on two camping/kayaking trips on the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada.
I spent some years in Brazil, came back to the US, revived my interest in kayaking with a rented Chinook on a trip to the Thousand Islands and then built a Chinook-sized canvas covered kayak based on the Illorsuit design. I've used that one (which I still have) on camping/kayaking trips on the coast of Maine, in the Algonquin Provincial Park, and in the Quetico Wilderness Park, both in Canada.
That (and some kayak rolling in the pond at Twin Oaks Community where I now live) had been that for a number of years.
A few months ago David Heath contacted me with the sad news of his father John's recent death and also put Harvey Golden in touch with me.
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