GLSKA - News

Current items of interest to GLSKA members and other paddlers
(Updated May 15, 2012)

GLSKA will hold its annual rendezvous this year at Oak Point, Friday, June 22 to Sunday, June 24. Oak Point is a small peninsula of land at the west end of Perry Island, on the Wasaukising First Nation, outside of Parry Sound. The weekend will include lots of opportunity to broaden your kayak skills and knowledge through workshops, talks and on-water sessions. Short and mid-distance group paddles will also be options. A few light-hearted activities will be thrown in for good measure! Saturday night includes live entertainment and our famous potluck extravaganza. For those new to GLSKA, Rendezvous provides an excellent opportunity for new members to get to know the club. We hope that you will join us. For more information, see Rendezvous 2012.

White Squall’s weekend paddling festival returns this year to their shop near Parry Sound May 19-20. It’s a relaxed time to paddle new boats, try your hand at new skills, listen to guest speakers and generally celebrate the start of a new paddling season. Also back by popular demand will be their famous Cardboard Kayak Race. It’s all free. For information, visit the White Squall website.

The 23rd annual West Michigan Sea Kayaking Symposium, run by the West Michigan Coastal Kayakers Association, will be held on Big Blue Lake near Muskegon, Michigan, May 25-28. For information or to register, visit the WMCKA website.

The 4th annual Washington Island Canoe & Kayak Event, will be held June 15-17 at Washington Island, Wisconsin. Activities include a marathon, a half marathon, a kayak symposium, expeditions and a guided eco-tour. For information or to register, visit the WICKE website.

The biannual Rossport Islands Sea Kayak Symposium, will be held June 21-24 this year at Rossport on the north shore of Lake Superior, in the new Federal National Marine Conservation Area. It will offer instruction, tours, gear demos, meals and entertainment. For information, visit the Rossport Symposium website.

The GLSKA Book Shop is a handy source for books reviewed in Qayaq as well as a wide selection of other sea kayaking and Great Lakes books. (It is run in association with Amazon.ca, and other books and recordings they carry are also available.)

PLEASE NOTE: All purchases, including goft certificates, made from Amazon.ca from any link at the GLSKA Book Shop earn commission for GLSKA. So if you plan to purchase anything from Amazon.ca, whether kayaking related or not, please do so via the link at the top of the Book Shop page, and help support our club.

GLSKA member Donna Griffin-Smith, as well as doing pen-and-ink drawings for the newsletter, is also an accomplished watercolour artist. Since retiring from teaching, she is now devoting more of her time to her art. If you have a favourite photo of a sunset, kayaking scene or campsite, Donna will work from your photo to create a realistic landscape in watercolour. She can also include your kayak in the painting (a kayak portrait). Various sizes are available, framed or unframed. You can arrange a studio visit to see examples of her work. For more information contact Donna at don_donna@sympatico.ca.

Since August 2010 a new type of Trip Calendar has been available at the GLSKA website from a link on the Trip Listings page. This is essentially a web page with an embedded Google Calendar. A user guide for this calendar is available on the page. The new calendar holds the same information as the classic Trip Listings page, with the addition of short-notice trips. The classic Trip Listings page, as well as the Trip Listings in the newsletter, remains unchanged. There are a number of advantages to the new calendar:

· It is maintained by the Trip Committee, which eliminates the extra step of having the webmaster post the trips after receipt from the Trip Committee. While the new page is being tested, the Trip Committee will still forward longer term (non-impromptu) trips to the webmaster.

· Short notice or impromptu trips can be accepted by the Trip Committee and posted to the new calendar immediately. Because these trips are sanctioned by the Trip Committee, organizer and participants will be covered by GLSKA’s liability insurance, which is not the case for trips organized via the Forum.

· If you have a gmail account, you can synchronize your personal calendar with the GLSKA calendar and receive e-mail and/or mobile phone notices of new or changed trip postings. (No more missed trips because you didn’t check the GLSKA Forum!)

· There is a link on the new page from which an e-mail message can be sent to the Trip Committee members. This link should be used as it ensures that your message is received by other committee members if the trip committee chair is not available.

We are always looking for contributions for future issues of Qayaq: news items, trip reports, paddling destinations, book reviews, articles on equipment, do-it-yourself projects, kayaking techniques, safety – anything that you think would be of interest to fellow paddlers. Articles may be long or short, and may be submitted on paper (preferably typed but also may be handwritten) or electronically in a format readable by Word or Wordperfect. (RTF format works well.)

Please send articles to Qayaq c/o the GLSKA Postal Box or e-mail to GLSKA at info@glska.com.

Deadlines for each issue are: Spring – March 1; Summer – June 1; Autumn – September 1; Winter – December 1.

As of the Spring 2011 issue, Qayaq, is available electronically in pdf format. (The file size is about 1.5 MB.) GLSKA members who are interested in receiving an electronic version of the newsletter in addition to, or instead of, the traditional paper version may send a request to info@glska.com. (There is no plan to discontinue the paper newsletter.)

Back issues of Qayaq from Volume 23 (2011) on are now available in pdf form on the Archives page. As before, back issues of most issues of Qayaq from Volume 1 through Volume 22 are available in paper form. If you find any articles of interest in the Qayaq Index, please contact the newsletter editor to obtain paper back issues. The cost is $2 each, plus postage.

DIRECTORS
Rob Muylwyk, President
Keith Rodgers, Secretary
Karen Granville, Treasurer
John Fitzsimons
Ralph Gardave
Scott Innes

TRIP COMMITTEE
Ralph Gardave

GEORGIAN BAY COMMITTEE
Keith Rodgers

MEMBERSHIPS
Erwin Buck

NEWSLETTER EDITOR
Sandy Richardson