I have paddled in the Deception Pass Dash every year since the first race in 2006. At that time only about 40 paddlers entered. Since then it has grown into a large two-day festival with about 150 boats, including surfskis, sea kayaks, outrigger canoes, paddleboards and rowing shells. It is easy to come up with reasons why so many people are attracted to this race -- the challenge of paddling in strong tidal currents, the possibility of rough winter storm conditions, the stunning beauty of the Pass, and the excitement and sense of camaraderie that comes from participating with so many other paddlers.
I wanted to commemorate the 6th annual Deception Pass Dash with a video and came up with "Why We Paddle". It was a joy working with my friend Katya, who shot most of the video, and interviewing a handful of racers about what attracts them to paddlesports. Many thanks to the people we interviewed and especially to members of The Pitchfork Revolution, who contributed the music for the soundtrack.
After hearing that the historic art deco era ferry Kalakala was recently put up for sale by owner Steve Rodrigues for $1, I wanted to see it again. The ferry has been evicted from it’s current berth in the Hylebos Waterway so who knows how much longer it will be in Tacoma. It needs to be moved by the end of the year or it will be seized by the Coast Guard. But it may not even be in condition to be moved. The Coast Guard said that improvements need to be made to keep it from sinking or breaking apart when towed.
It is a short paddle (1.5 nm) from the new Dick Gilmur public access kayak beach on Commencement Bay to see it. It looks like it’s in pretty bad shape.
This is the 4th and final part of my Interview with Phoxx Ekcs. He talks about kayaking from Cape Sutil back to God’s Pocket through the worst conditions he’s ever encountered -- out through surf and 6 to 8 ft waves -- and barely making progress against strong headwinds. He paddled from sunup to sundown on the first day after having had nothing to eat for the last 3 days and only a liter of water.
I talked to Phoxx further about his decision to launch his kayak that day. He said that he simply couldn’t stay at Cape Sutil any longer because there weren’t any mussels there. There had been high winds and rain during the few days prior and he thought he was leaving on a relatively calm day.
We wrap it up with a demonstration on how to start a fire using a fire board and spindle.
If each part of this four-part interview can be said to have its own flavor, then this part is bitter. Phoxx talks about some of the most difficult physical and psychological challenges during the trip. For instance,while hiking along the North Coast Trail to Cape Scott Phoxx developed a serious infection in both feet. His feet and ankles had swollen up “like a pregnant woman’s”. You couldn’t tell the difference between his calves and ankles. He had also had sprained toes and huge bruises on his shoulders from the backpack he had been carrying. During the 5 day hike he only ate a handful of salal berries and drank less than 3 liters of water. On day 20 some the guys at Cape Scott Lightstation told him he needed to stop his trip, leave his kayak behind and hike to Holberg and get a ride to Port Hardy. They even started to talk about calling the Coast Guard to rescue him.
I asked Phoxx recently about his choice of brain tanned buckskins for clothing, Could he have chosen more appropriate clothing for the rain? He responded that he could have definitely stayed more comfortable by simply not moving around. He could have stayed warm, dry and eaten well every day by staying on a good foraging beach and sitting in his shelter during bad weather. But that wasn’t what his trip was about. It was more important for him to reach his goal of getting to Cape Scott rather than be comfortable.
I’ve received some scathing criticism of Phoxx and his trip. A sample of the responses so far:
“…This made me think he is more of a fool than anything. I just don't see anything at all to be envied, admired, advertised, respected, emulated or promoted...”
“…It would not have taken very much for him to have died, and then we all would be discussing his "adventure" here in much harsher and unforgiving terms. But he didn't die thank goodness. So instead perhaps the words foolhardy or immature can be used.”
“… isn't the Pacific Northwest about the easiest test for primitive living outside of the tropics? I want to see him spend July in Death Valley with an SOF. Or Detroit.”
“…the whole "expert" having a near-fatal hypothermia experience, and the ill-conceived leather-clothing in a damp environment (where the locals historically wore water-resistant cedar-bark clothing), and the idea of keeping some vague "ancient techniques" alive kind of shoots it all down for me.”
“What is exceptional about doing everything so wrong on purpose that you nearly die 14 ways in 28 days? …this is not good publicity for SOF kayaking.”
“If Mr. Phoxx would have skated through his trip in saftety and comfort, now THAT would have been impressive. As it is he comes across as an amature in so many ways. I hope for his sake and others that he has the attitude of a student and not a teacher.”
“Unfortunately for Phoxx, you have capture him accurately, from the choice of name to the choice in gear. I feel that, "Only after you know the rules can you break them". What he did was put the reputation of our sport at risk …”
People accuse Phoxx of breaking all the rules of sea kayaking safety and taking unnecessary risks, and almost dying of hypothermia because of it. (For the record, Phoxx’s near death experiences with hypothermia occurred while hiking on the trail and not from paddling.) They responded negatively to his inauthentic hodgepodge of pre−European Contact technologies that were not native to the Pacific Northwest, specifically, his skin−on−frame kayak and leather clothing. The leather clothing was a particularly poor choice because it was ineffective protection against the rain. The most bizarre accusation of all is that Phoxx did the trip to make a profit by promoting himself and his story. Without even seeing the whole interview, people expressed their complete lack of interest in hearing about a rank amateur blundering his way through the wilderness and almost dying from his foolishness.
This kind of response surprised me, although it really shouldn’t have. It was certainly a crazy-sounding idea to begin with, with significant risks involved. People had been telling Phoxx from the beginning not to do it. The lighthouse keepers he met at Cape Scott had told him it was unsafe to continue, and that he needed stop immediately. They even threatened to call the Coast Guard on him. (More on that in Part 3.)
What I really didn't expect was that these comments would come from the traditional kayaking community, which I thought might be a little more welcoming to a trip that demonstrated how skin−on frame kayaks could be used for serious expedition kayaking. Some were even concerned that it would reflect poorly on the skin−on−frame community and put the reputation of traditional kayaking at risk.
What was Phoxx’s attitude toward breaking all the rules? Here is what he said at the cafe, when I asked him about his decision not to wear a life jacket or a wetsuit:
“Where is my confidence? If I don’t have confidence without a life jacket or a wet suit I probably shouldn’t be on the water. If I think that I’m going to fall in the water I probably shouldn’t be on the water. Granted, there are things that happen… but you deserve what’s coming to you. If you get on the water on a bad day, that’s your choice. I never put myself in a position where I was in a terrible position except the last few days paddling.”
I do not believe Phoxx was at all ignorant at all of the risks, or of the limit of his abilities, or of what safety rules he was breaking.
For primitive humans, discomfort, illness and death were always present. In our modern lives, we don’t expect to die eating contaminated food or water, being attacked by bears or wolves, falling off a cliff, drowning, starving or freezing to death. One may argue about the authenticity of the mix of modern and primitive technologies used on this trip, but I think exposing oneself to significant risks is an essential part of the primitive living experience.
Part 1 of my 4 part interview with Phoxx deals primarily with the daily life on his expedition: where he went, what he wore, what he ate, and the kind of gear he used.
Phoxx began his trip in Port Hardy and paddled 30 miles west as far as Cape Sutil. His goal was to make it to Cape Scott on the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island. Because of rough sea conditions west of Cape Sutil he decided to hike the remaining 30 miles from Cape Sutil to Cape Scott along the North Coast Trail.
Only about half of my interview with Phoxx ended up in the final cut. In one of the deleted scenes we talked in more detail about the risk acquiring paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) from eating foraged mussels and clams. (Surprisingly, he did not find any oysters.)
“PSP was in the back of my head the whole time," he said. "I’m going to wake up and I not going to be able to move. And the next thing I know the paralytic toxin attacks is my heart. And I’m going to die slowly.”
If Phoxx had had a radio he would have called in every night to see if the shellfish area he was in was safe but instead he relied on simple field tests. One way to detect PSP is to rub the raw flesh of the animal on your lips and mouth and wait for a few minutes to see if you feel any tingling or numbness. Kiliii Fish described a technique where he would take a small bite and hold it in his mouth for 5 minutes while avoiding swallowing any saliva. If you start feeling any numbness or tingling then you can assume the organism is contaminated.
Phoxx says that he always used the rub test, but thought it was highly subjective and nonspecific. His mind tended to wander and he sometimes imagined that his lips were tingling when they really weren’t. As far as he knows, there is no scientific evidence to validate the test. On day 6 or 7 he experienced burning in his throat after eating a batch of mussels, but didn’t get sick. Sometimes he just ignored the tingling sensations because he simply had to eat something: “When you are hungry you are hungry! Sometimes you just have to eat.”
Even if the shellfish are contaminated, Phoxx said if you eat only one it is not likely to kill you. You could eat one and wait 12 hours and if you don’t get sick you could assume it is safe to eat the rest. I might add that I know of even better test: if you happen to be traveling with a friend, you could do what I did while paddling in the Broken Group and let your friend eat a bunch of oysters first. If he’s still alive the next day, then you know they are safe to eat.
Phoxx did very little fishing and caught only one fish, a salmon, which lasted 3-4 days after drying. Foraging on the beach at low tide was simply easier. It was also more risky to be on the water without a lifejacket or wetsuit. When it was windy and raining he would be risking hypothermia.
Phoxx early on abandoned the idea of going entirely primitive, but the “modern gear” he acquired was basically trash he found along the way: a plastic bottle for water, some string, and a tarp. For hiking along the North Coast trail he fashioned a backpack, which was basically his gear wrapped up in his blanket, wrapped up in the plastic tarp, and tied together with salvaged cord. These few items added a little more comfort to the trip. Although he doesn't mention it in the interview, he also said that the move away from an exercise in primitive living also came about from the realization that he was facing a problem of simple survival.
The handful of other modern items he carried included a DSLR camera with 14 batteries in a drybag and SPOT satellite messenger. Apparently there were several days where the messages he attempted to send to indicate his location were not received.
Although I had spoken with Phoxx through Skype in June, I hadn't actually met him in person until after he completed his 28 day expedition along Vancouver Island’s north coast. He called me soon after his trip and said he would be in Seattle for a couple days. I was very happy to hear that he was in town. If you know anything about his trip, you know what a crazy idea it was −− a “primitive living” expedition in a skin−on−frame kayak with no modern gear. No tent or sleeping bag. No drysuit, and, I would later learn, not even a PFD. He didn’t bring any food or water with him from the moment he left Port Hardy, and fished and foraged for food along the way. No one has ever done anything like this before (as far as 21st century North Americans go). So by “happy to hear from him” I meant that I knew there was a real chance that he might not come back from Vancouver Island at all −− alive, anyway.
We decided to meet over lunch and after slogging through Seattle traffic and finding parking, I found Phoxx standing next to the back of his truck talking to my friend Katya. To my surprise, he had already given her his kayak! I guess he had grown tired of it and was done with kayaking for a while. Katya, a photographer and graphic artist, had already made plans to use the kayak as a canvas and paint designs on it.
Phoxx’s SUV was stuffed with gear −− a large hand−felted wool blanket, baskets, wooden bowls, bark tan paddling vest, bone fish hooks, a gaff made from antler, obsidian knives in leather bags. Both he and his gear smelled strongly of a dozen campfires.
Phoxx was still dressed in brain tan buckskins. He said he had to catch a photography shoot later that day. A commercial photographer was going to take pictures of him and his gear, so he needed to keep his beard on and look the part. He was looking forward to shaving afterwards.
The three of us talked over sandwiches in a busy Capitol Hill café. I took notes but it was hard to keep up with him. He had so much to tell and the stories were rich in detail. It was hard enough to keep everything straight without a map to follow where he went. Fortunately, the voice recorder of my iPhone picked up our conversation over the din of the café.
I remembered that I happened to have a map of Vancouver Island in my car and excused myself to grab it. He pointed out how he had covered over 120 miles round trip from Port Hardy to Cape Scott, half of it sea kayaking and half hiking along the new and challenging North Coast trail.
I had intended to write an article about his trip for this blog, but Phoxx had another idea. Why don’t we just shoot another interview? After all, it’s far better to hear about his journey in his own words. It worked for me too, because personally I prefer cutting video than writing.
We shot the interview the next evening at my place in downtown Tacoma. Phoxx is an intense and engaging speaker, and just flowed with story after incredible story, about making deals with bears, going days at a time without food and very little water, paddling into 8 foot waves and 60 mph winds, and barely surviving hypothermia. Even though I cut out a lot for length, there was so much to tell in this epic journey that the final cut came to almost an hour. I divided it into four parts to make it fit into the YouTube constraints and easier to digest.
I also put together this trailer, to give you a taste of what the interview is like. I will start releasing the interview parts on YouTube one at a time every few days.
While walking along the north end of Lake Union last night I ran into a couple assembling a homemade sectional plywood sailboat. The builder has a background in engineering and designed the boat to be able to store it in a small space, such as a condominium storage unit. He lives nearby and transports the boat on a cart.
The construction is marine grade plywood with fiberglass tape/epoxy along the joints, and metal strips along the sheerline. Metal plates and bolts are used to join the sections together at the sheer. Two cables run from the bow to the stern under the hull to hold the sections together. Each section is constructed with air chambers outfitted with plastic plugs for draining/decompressing. The bow is split into two sections so that it can nest into the forward (daggerboard) section. Note the rubber insulation strips at the corners of the forward section to protect the corners when the bow sections are nested.
The length overall is 15 feet. The mast and sails were salvaged from a smaller 11 ft sailboat that the builder found on CraigsList. I was on my way to watch A Clockwork Orange at the Fremont Outdoor Theatre so, unfortunately, I couldn't stick around to see the boat complete. Apparently, it takes at least 30 minutes to put together.
Home-built sectional boats have been around for quite a while. Check out this catalog of plans from the April 1940 issue of Popular Science.
For a couple very interesting sectional kayak designs, check out Dick Mahler's stitch and glue plywood 3-piece Pygmy Arctic Tern 14 and sectional skin-on-frame Greenland kayak built by Lodro Dawa of Monkcraft Kayaks.
Yesterday looked like a good day to do the long paddle to Friday Harbor from Anacortes. It was supposed to be sunny and 73 degrees. There was an ebb current in the morning that would assist you down Rosario Strait to the south end of Lopez Island, and a strong flood current in the afternoon that would propel you north through Cattle Pass. Unfortunately when I arrived in Anacortes the islands were completely enveloped in a thick fog. Although crossing through fog can certainly be done with a compass and chart you run the risk of being run over by huge tankers, ferries, and other boats in Rosario Strait, so I won’t do it. Instead I switched to Plan B and pulled into the line for the ferry but was told I would be on the waiting list, even though I arrived over an hour early for the 10:25 sailing. Things were so busy getting on the ferry, while watching the line grow even longer I suddenly realized that it could be nearly impossible to get a spot on the return ferry Sunday evening. So I quickly changed my mind, pulled out of line and got a refund. Now for Plan C: park my car and walk on the ferry with my kayak. Of course the parking lot was completely full so I couldn’t even do that! I just want to warn you that even if you want to walk on the ferry to go to the San Juans during peak season you might have trouble. This just illustrates the two big problems traveling in the San Juans during the summer: 1) fog. 2) crowds.
The San Juan Islands on the east side of Rosario Straight are easily accessible by kayak from Anacortes, including Burrows and Allan Island. These two islands are essentially uninhabited and their exposed rocky shores, kelp forests, and seal colonies give them that characteristic San Juan flavor. Burrows Island is a favorite kayaking destination because of the light station. It also has a Washington Water Trails campsite. As far as I can tell, Allan Island is still owned by Paul Allen and has been on the market for some time now. The price has come down quite a bit from $25 million to $13.5 million, which might interest any bargain hunters out there. It also comes with a 1200 square foot log cabin built in 1985, landing strip and dock. It would be a nice place for a evil villain’s secret lair, except that it is too close to the mainland. By the way, Allan Island was named after a Navy hero, not Paul Allen.
I shouldn’t need to remind you that Paul Allan is a very rich man. So keep that in mind if you feel the need to stop to pee on his island. I didn’t see any “No Trespassing” signs, roaming guard dogs or armed patrols. In fact, the log cabin looked vacant and there is no evidence at all that the island was occupied. Locals say that it has remained untouched since Allen bought the island in 1992. Apparently he much prefers Lopez. Who knows −− there could be a high tech hidden security system with perimeter cameras and laser−triggered booby traps all over. On the other hand, the super−rich in this country have little to worry about: working class stiffs do a good job of keeping themselves in line without their help, due to the sense of awe and deep respect we have for obscene wealth, and our own self−loathing. Evidence of this can be found by how the class war of 2009 failed miserably. My, aren't we all such pathetic slavish losers!
The Burrows Island Light Station is undergoing restoration. Built in 1906, the lighthouse is the oldest effectively intact wooden light station in Washington State. In April 2011 the Northwest Schooner Society became the custodians of the property and began work cleaning it up. Previously, the 2 storey wooden lighthouse keeper’s house was boarded up but now it is accessible. The warning posted outside the backdoor entrance reads, “Visitors are not permitted inside the buildings, but we know there is no way we can keep you out. If you must go in, be aware that there is lead based paint contamination, asbestos, bats, and falling hazards throughout.”
Another reason the Burrows and Allan Islands are a good destination is that you can usually find some exciting tidal rips along the way. I almost always run into one at the west entrance to Burrows Channel. This time I also found one in the channel between Allan Island and Burrows Island and just in front of the lighthouse. The flood current was at its maximum and was stirring up some waves. They are ephemeral though so spend the time to play if you run into them. They don't last long.
In the early 1950s, the government of Canada adopted programs to assimilate the nomadic Inuit into southern Canadian culture. Although most of the Inuit were living self−sufficiently off the land, whalers and fur traders had affected Inuit survival and economic practices since the late 19th century, shifting the focus from subsistence hunting to commercial trapping. The stated goal of the forced resettlement was to provide employment alternatives to the fur trade, which had largely collapsed, and ensure that the Inuit had a reliable food supply and access to education and health care. The Canadian government also wanted to establish its sovereignty in the arctic during the Cold War, as well as expand programs for exploiting the mineral resources of the north, which required educated employees with sedentary housing.
Noted anthropologist Wade Davis recounts the story of one Inuit elder who refused to go to the settlements. Fearing for his life, his friends and family took away all his tools and weapons but he managed to escape into the wilderness using nothing but a knife fashioned from his own excrement.
I find this story incredibly fascinating. Although superficially it is yet more evidence of the remarkable ingenuity and resourcefulness of the Inuit, which has enabled them to survive in a harsh and barren arctic environment, I think it has a much broader meaning, which may explain why it resonates so deeply. It has to do with the concept of “anality” eloquently explained by anthropologist Ernest Becker in his book, The Denial of Death.
The tragedy of the human condition is that we are both physical creatures and symbolic ones. Humans live largely in an infinite and enduring world of symbols and ideas, yet we are each trapped in a finite, fallible animal body that has ascendancy over us by its demands and needs. As children, we learn that our main task in life is the denial of everything the anus represents. In fact, ALL culture and man’s creative life is a fabricated protest against natural reality, a denial of the truth of the human condition, and an attempt to forget what a pathetic creature man is.
What psychoanalists call “anality” or “anal” character traits are really forms of the universal protest against death. To say that a person is “anal” means that he is trying hard to use the symbols of culture as a means to protect himself from the accidents of life and danger of death, to triumph over Nature. Becker states that “The anus and its incomprehensible repulsive product represents not only physical determinism and boundness but the fate as well of all that is physical: decay and death.”
The Inuit elder accomplishes a complete reversal of this condition. He uses the locus of animal fallibility, the anus, as the source of transcendence. This is the quintessential meaning of anality, to prove that of all animals man alone leads a charmed life because of the splendor of all that he can imagine and fashion, what he can literally spin out of his anus.
I highly recommend watching Wade Davis’s complete presentation, titled “Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World”, here..
