TH

Friday, November 26, 2010

The Backyard

I'm slightly bummed that I'm in Deep River right now but the view is still pretty good.

Looking North-West

Mt. Martin in the clouds

Sunday, September 26, 2010

One day I was paddling on the Ottawa when somebody in the eddy was talking about the upcoming Pan-American championships that will be held on either Garb or Push Button. I figured I’d ask for the time off and give it a shot in the pro men category. I had no hopes of winning but my goal was to be in the top ten after the first round. I wanted to do well so the week leading to the comp was practice sessions with Irish Dave and the Airborn guys every day working on my 45 second rides.

The event was held on Push Button because the river was at -3 on the owl gauge. The wave was completely green for the most part, which made it more difficult to stick moves and score points. I felt that this was a good thing because in order to have a solid ride you had to throw tricks with prefect technique and not be sloppy on the wave.

For my first freestyle competition I feel I performed decently but could have done better. During my first ride I flushed on my second trick and only scored 35 points. Luckily that seemed to get rid of my jitters because during my second ride I stomped the majority of the tricks I planned to throw and scored 200+ points. This was a huge confidence boost because it showed me that if I keep working at it I am capable of accomplishing my competition goals and being successful.

Photos: Dave Crerar

Monday, August 16, 2010

Dano - Alive Today

I've just finished the cover art for the re-release of Dan Tait's premier album Alive Today. Check it out.

Check out his site aswell www.myspace.com/thedanoman

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Mission: Montreal

So, Montreal, oh man. Lachine is the bomb, I love that place, except for the haul back to the eddy, that shit is a bitch. It messes w

ith you on a couple different levels; you can be surfing Big Joe or Pyramid wave and be thinking: “wow this is the best wave ever to try new tricks but I don’t want to mess it up, flush, and have to spend the next ten minutes dragging yourself over rock getting yourself above the wave for another try”. Regardless, I was totally privileged to be with the people that I was there with. Blake, John, Foxy, Pat, and Ben were probable the best people I can think of to session with. The group was totally of mixed skill but all on the same level with new things to try as well as the general love of kayaking and partying. After a full day session and much deliberation about what ice cre

am to buy we found ourselves a hotel room for the night. If you mix five sun-wrecked kayakers with one of the best party city’s in the world, good things happen. Catching me out of nowhere I was all of the sudden pedaling a rental bike at high speed through Montreal launching stair sets, nearly running over homeless people, searching for a party. After some bar hopping and general drunken debauchery and after an XL putin, Johnny’s genius box got us back to our hotel room safe and sound. The second day of paddling was a bit slow er than the fir st due to various reasons bu

t the session was still in full swing. By the time Tuesday evening we were fairly wiped and we departed Montreal on our drive back to Beachburg.

Photos: John O'leary

Monday, July 19, 2010

Lachine, Montreal

My first trip to the Lachine rapids on the St. Lawrence River in Montreal was kick ass, Chris Thompson and I drove down for a day of paddling. It was also my first time kayaking in an urban area; we got some strange looks walking through the parking lot. I love the colour of the water in the St. Lawrence, a heavy contrast to the bog stained Ottawa River. I was not a huge fan of walking/dragging myself back above the wave to drop in every time but that’s because I’m spoiled with eddy access play spots on the Ottawa. The main wave at Lachine is Big Joe and it was in fine form for our session. It a had a cool cycle of foaming up and greening out and was fairly steep making it super fun to throw on.