I planned this trip to take advantage of small towns with post offices and grocery stores within blocks of the shore or harbor and each town is located about 10 days of travel away from each other. The grocery stores allow the basic menu to be varied and supplemented as desired. This list is what is included in each mail drop (except cheese, peppers, gorp) and provides about 3500 calories a day.

I hope this will help others planning a trip like this.

Hygiene & Misc

• Small travel sized toothpaste
• Dr. Bronner – Castile Soap Peppermint repackaged to a 1 ounce container
• 10 One-a-Day Vit. Pills
• 15 pack of Action Wipes
• 3 gallon sized plastic bags

Fuel

• 1 3.5 ounce Jetboilcanister

Breakfast

• 10 Carnation Instant Breakfast Essentials
• 3.5 cups of Instant Milk
• 10 Java Juice packages
• 4 Servings Oatmeal: 3/4 quick oats, 1/3 cup Nestle Nido, 1 TBSP brown sugar, 1/4 cup dried fruit, 1 TBSP flax seed
• 6 Servings Cereal: 1 cup Kashi Cereal, 1/3 cup Instant Milk, 1 TBSP brown sugar, 1/4 cup dried fruit, 1 TBSP flax seed

Lunch

• 1 package Wasa Crackers o flat bread or pitas
• (buy one or two red peppers)
• 8 oz block of cheese (sharp cheddar)
• 9 oz Salami or Summer Sausage
• 1 package of Pepperoni
• 1 jar’s worth of Nutella or Peanut Butter
• 10 lunch sized packages of Corn Chips (my happy food)

Dinner

• 10 Enertia Trail Food Dinners (Coleman branded have more calories)
• 10 TBSP olive oil
• 5 packages of Instant pudding/cheesecake, etc…

Snacks

• 20 Clif Bars, Power Bars or homemade (woohoo!) bars
• 16 ounce package of Fig Newtons
• 10 Gornola Bars (hard)
• 1 can Wheat Nuts (pure fat!)
• 1 can Repackaged (double bags w/scoop) Energy Drink (look for glucose polymers (maltodextrins))

Sometimes, I make gorp.

• One big bag of peanut M&Ms
• Can of mixed nuts with no peanuts
• 3/4 box of Goldfish crackers
• 2 to 3 cups of dried peas

Good Resources

Most of the camping cookbooks on the market present recipes and menu plans which just don’t work for me on a high millage long distance trip. There just isn’t enough time in the day to paddle 30 plus miles, set up camp, blog, take pictures, and prepare complicated meals. Out of all the books I own, these are the book I think are the best for this style of trip.

• The Appalachian Trail Food Planner: Recipes and Menus for a 2,000-Mile Hike
• Freezer Bag Cooking: Trail Food Made Simple

Ilena (Expedition Support Manager and Significant Other) and I schlepped over to the East Bay after work for a bit of picture taking for a newspaper article by Andy Piper that is coming out this weekend in Dubuque’s Telegraph Herald.

I grew up in Dubuque, IA and spent lots of time on the Mississippi River with my grandparents and my parents. I remember a time with my father on Mud Lake in a small bass boat being scared out of my mind as we raced towards harbor in big waves. I thought we were going to fly off the end of the world.

It was rather fitting today having been interviewed by the TH that I was trying to get some good wave pictures as a tribute to my mud lake days. The waves were mainly in the one foot range, so I found myself waiting in the break zone for the few bigger waves that were out there. Every once in a while a 2 to 3 foot set would roll in and we’d snap off some shots. It wasn’t nearly as scary as the boat ride I took as a kid. Today started to get humorous when I’d land in waves, jump out of the boat, and look at the camera then get back in and try it again. I’m sure the guests (owner’s weekend) of the East Bay Suites were getting a kick out of it. Jan one of the owners came out to talk to us afterward to see if we got anything good. She wished me good luck on the trip if she didn’t get a chance to see me again.

After the waves were over, Ilena and I decided to go over to Sven & Ole’s for pizza. (For $1,000,000, you can get Lutefisk pizza there.) My last piece of Northshore pizza for 5 months. As always, it was great.

After schlepping, paddling, picture tak’n and pizza eating I can really say that it was a pleasure being interviewed by the hometown paper today. It was the motivation for a relaxing evening on the town.

BTW, here’s my public radio on WTIP Interview. Click Here to Listen: Around the Great Lakes on the Roadhouse with Buck and Bob [22mb, mp3]

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions. Planning for a trip of this magnitude is making a number of small decisions that add up to launch day, and these decisions are tough. Decisions that I make today will effect my trip four months into it, and if on the trip I change my mind, it becomes exponentially harder to carry out the new decision. The hardest decision to date has been selecting maps, (Electronics and camera equipment is a close second.) because a)maps are expensive and b)maps help you know where you’re at and c)USGS topo maps suck.

At one point, I thought that I’d use USGS 1:250,000 scale topo maps for the US side and NRC 1:250,000 scale topo maps for the Canadian side. My thought was that after I make a right hand turn from the Grand Marais harbor, I’ll just have to keep land on my righthand side and as long as I keep that up, I’ll finish just fine. Plus, I’ve used 1:250,000 scale maps in Canada for kayaking trips successfully and love the overview the scale gives me, so these are being used on the Canadian shore. Then I looked at the USGS topo maps. They’re abysmal and worthless for the kind of detail — shown on Canadian topos — that I’ll need for navigation. That didn’t stop me from spending about 10 hours learning how to download free seamless USGS maps. The 1:100,000 scale USGS topo maps would work, but they were so out of date to be almost worthless.

After abandoning the idea of USGS topo maps, I considered Richardsons’ Chartbooks. When my friends Dave and Amy from Wilderness Classrooms circumnavigated Lake Superior, they used an old chartbook they borrowed from John at Superior Coastal Sports. These chartbooks are wonderful, but heavy, and they contain much more than I really need to know.

I haven’t used many charts in my life, because I typically default to topo maps. I can look at a topo map and know exactly what the terrian is going to look like. I’ve spent 100s of hours looking at topos on trips and when planning for trips, so making the leap away from topo maps took a big step and is probably the reason I spent 10 hours learning how to download free seamless USGS maps. After I looked at the Great Lake’s 1:100,000 scale marine charts, I realized that they’re just as good as the 1:250,000 Canadian topo maps (too bad there are no 1:250,000 NOAA charts). But these things are expensive and most of the charts have just a sliver of land on them and a bunch of water. Seemed like a waste of paper to me.

I don’t like to carry extra paper with me, but sometimes your confined to maps and the extra weight of that paper because of the nature of the beast. I used McKenzie maps on my canoe trip on the Voyager Route, and they weighed a ton. After looking at the 100s of dollars I’d need to spend to get charts I almost abandoned the idea until I discovered the NOAA’s Raster Navigational Chart server. The server provides marine charts for US waters for free.

Free in NOAA’s case has a snag. The snag is that NOAA’s charts are provided in BSB or .kap format. This is a proprietary format owned by a private company and is pretty useless unless you buy software that has the ability to read the .kap file format. So much for our government doing something for the people.

Resigned to paying money for a program that probably wouldn’t be able to print of scale maps to the size I wanted, I abandoned the idea of free NOAA maps until by chance I ran across an old MS-DOS command line program that takes the BSB .kap format and turns it into something that I can use. I downloaded the charts and spent hours typing at a command prompt: bsb2png.exe xxxxx_1.kap xxxxx_1.png Because it uses the command line, I had to type bsb2png.exe xxxxx_1.kap xxxxx_1.png for every map, and within each map, each harbor has its own file, which I had to type bsb2png.exe xxxxx_1.kap xxxxx_1.png to convert. It took me days of free time and many cups of coffee to convert all the charts for the Great Lakes.

All that typing was worthwhile after I saw the resulting .png files. Sample to the right. The detail is great. I imported the .png files into an image manipulation program, played with dpi to get the scale correct, and then cropped the page to 11″x17″ and printed away.

All of the American side of Lake Superior fit on 12 two-sided 11″x17″ pieces of paper, including a 1:60,000 scale map on the Portage Ship Canal in Houghton. The Canadian side of Lake Superior fit on 4 two-sided 11″x17″ pieces of paper.

This did sacrifice the Lat/Long on the side of some charts, and because I’m using charts, my UTM grids are gone, but the maps look great, have very little wasted paper, are light, and saved me a couple hundred dollars.

Now if I could find someone to sponsor me with a Garmin Oregon 400c GPS Unit with BlueChart g2 Coastal Charts, I’d be perfectly set in the navigation department and be set with using Trip Tracker. I am, of course, willing to trade prints from the trip for this unit. I’d trade a 16×20″ print with foam board backing or a 20″x30″ print with foam board backing.

Spring is in the air, 50F temps accompanied by sun have melted our snow pack, and broken up the ice on the lake. This years breakup and the coming spring equinox have signaled the time to reconnect — to discover the summer spirit and summer sports. With the expedition starting in just 6 short weeks, the long winter with an iced over lake seemed a psychological barrier.

Over the last two days, I’ve used these abnormally high temperatures to get out on the lake to paddle. On Monday, I drove south from Grand Marais to Tofte, MN attempting to find open water. By Lutsen, I started to finger my cross country skis thinking it might turn into a ski day. But by Tofte, the lake was open with a few sections of pack ice moving with the wind. The closest put-in was Tofte City Park. The pack ice lined the shoreline in a 50 yard wide band moving with the current and wind at about 3 knots to the west.

I carried my new NDK Explorer down to the water wondering how it would be to paddle through the pancake ice ranging in size from 1′ to 5′. As I finished dressing into my new Kokatat drysuit, a woman wandered up with a camera. We chatted about spring kayaking, her son is the adventurer in the family. She asked to shoot some pictures of me, and the model in me consented.
I sealed myself in to the kayak with my new Seals Sprayskirt, and pushed off into the water. The first paddle stroke of the year was used to push my way through the ice flow. Once onto open water, I felt free. Free to roam the open waters of Lake Superior again. The icy psychological barrier melted and I spent an hour paddling around large chunks of ice.

On Tuesday, after guiding during the day, I went out near Lutsen and paddled a short section of shoreline that I’ve paddled 100s of time guiding trips in the summers. The ice transformed the shoreline to a new terrain. On top of Gull Rock, the Seagulls were back ready to nest for the spring. After the paddle I worked up the bravery to do the first roll of the season. Instant ice cream headache in the 32F water. But it sure felt good to roll in fresh lake water instead of a pool.

It’s sunny spring days like this that winter just melts away, and I realize that I cross country ski only because it’s a way to stay on the water when it’s frozen. And it’s days like this when life is the clearest. What more can I ask for? As my friend Josh used to say, “Living the dream.”

Seals Sprayskirts have sponsored the expedition with a Pro Shocker Sprayskirt. Joe at Seals had my do a cockpit tracing [Seal's tracing worksheet] of my Nigel Dennis Explorer. I sent it in, and we found that the stock 1.4 size will fit my kayak perfectly. If a standard size skirt wouldn’t have fit, they were going to make a custom skirt for me. The whole process was easy and assured that I’ll have a great fitting skirt for those harry surf landings that I’ll be going through.

A little more information about Seals Sprayskirts from their website:

Seals Sprayskirts has a lot to be proud of.

Not only has its diverse U.S. workforce been cranking out innovative and dependable spray decks by hand since July 1983, but the company has supplied every U.S. Olympic Kayak Team with skirts since the L.A. Games in 1984.

Seals is proud to be recognized for sprayskirt innovations such as the tensioned deck stay and rim grip fabrics, but it’s also stoked to be involved in its community. Nestled in the Adirondack foothills, Seals has designed a new Green Initiative Program, confirming the company’s commitment to preserving the integrity of environment around its community. The new program pinpoints energy- and waste-reduction strategies and promotes environmental consciousness. The company has also conducted a full waste-stream analysis to max cost savings as well as to reduce waste that might otherwise end up in a landfill.

On top of that, Seals is intent on improving supports for citizens with developmental disabilities. The sprayskirt manufacturer contracts for sewing and assembly services with two local workshops that employ adults with learning disabilities.

So, we’re not just talking about a company that makes an exciting line of sprayskirts. We’re talking about a company that is committed to social responsibility, and … happens to make kickin’ kayak skirts, too.

I want to thank Seals Sprayskirts for the sponsorship, and I want to thank Joe and Kelly at Seals for getting everything set-up and shipped out.

In just under two months, I’ll seal myself into my new kevlar NDK Explorer, paddle out of the Grand Marais harbor (web cam), and head to my first camping site 20 miles from Grand Marais. The first campsite is located at Lutsen Resort, the company that I guide for. I’ll be camping on a DNR Lake Superior water trail campsite just a short walk from the resort. I may have to soak in the hot tub after the paddle. I’m hoping that a few local paddlers will paddle along on the first day. It’ll be pretty casual.

Winter is almost over on the Northshore of Lake Superior, but it’s one of those rare years when the Lake almost freezes over completely. It’s been great for picture taking, but not so good for training. (My training has been about 20km of cross country skiing 4 days a week.) Last year, we had open water all winter long, so I would have been out paddling by now. Hopefully, in the next couple of days, the warmer weather will break up the ice. I expect that I’ll still run into snow and ice the first few weeks of my trip. It’ll be interesting to see if much of the Apostles will have thawed out.

This is a self-portrait that I took for the press release and magazine articles. It was about 10F and I was in short sleeves. It took 45 minutes until I was happy with a photo. And then I used this one. The second or third I shot.

I’m currently working on the finishing touches of the expedition. March is the month of making all my maps and printing them, sorting the gear as it comes in the mail, making food packages to send out to post offices along the way, and trying to wrap up a few last minute details. Press releases are also going out.

I still haven’t found a tent and sleeping bag sponsor yet, nor a stove sponsor, but I do own those items so I’m not too worried. I was hoping for the sponsorship to help out companies that I believe in through the publicity that this trip is going to generate.

Speaking of publicity. I’ve been interviewed a number of times now. I’m going to be featured as part of an article in the May/June issue of Paddler Magazine. And I have another interview planned for later this month. I ended up guiding for a TV show this winter as well and I had to do a bit of acting.

It’s been a busy winter, but I’ve also been having a ton of fun. The above picture is from a photo shoot with Eric Larsen, a friend of mine and fellow Grand Maraiser. (There are a ton of adventurers in this little town.) We were shooting pictures for the sponsors of his upcoming Save the Poles Expedition. You should read his humorous blog post about the photo shoot. Getting some friend time in before 5 months of solo travel and making new friends is important for me.

I’m still looking for a bit of logistical support around the way, so if you want to help out. Drop me a line.

Did I mention hats?

Over at the Great Lakes Canoe Expedition 2007-2009, Stephanie and Jonathan have plotted their route using the online Google Maps application. You can now view my Google Maps for the Around the Great Lake Expedition. I’ll be updating the online version with research, resupply locations, etc… as I continue planning. Right now, you can find a few planned campsites for the first and last days of the trip.

View Larger Map

General Timeline (Subject to change):
Leg Destination Arrive
Leave Grand Marais, MN 5/2/09
1 Bayfield 05/09/09
2 Muninsing 05/20/09
3 Manistique 05/31/09
4 Illinois Beach State Park 06/10/09
5 Manistee 06/20/09
6 Oscoda 07/01/09
7 Lakeside 07/12/09
8 Niagara 07/21/09
9 Port Darlinton 08/01/09
10 Niagara 08/06/09
11 Sarnia 08/19/09
12 Little Current 08/28/09
13 Wawa 09/07/09
14 Grand Marais 09/19/09

Pouring over maps and trying the estimate the distances for this trip is like a little game where I have to decide just how good the weather is going to be, how easy a crossing is going to be the day I arrive, and how close I’ll want to stay to shore on any one day. I’ve been using Google Earth to play this game.

Google Earth is a free program that allows the user to view satellite imagery, maps, and terrain. It will even allow you to make an virtual tour of your paddling route. Here’s one I made from my last fall Lake Nipigon Trip.

To use Google Earth to do this, you turn on the Path Tool, zoom using the mouse scroll wheel into the location you want to inspect, and click a point. Then move to your destination and click another point. The Path Tool will add the distances between all the points you create and give you a total. The picture below shows a screenshot of Google Earth in action.

The distances that I’ve estimated are below:

Lake Huron estimated path

• Lake Ontario is 410 miles. Estimated 14 to 17 days.
• Lake Erie is 565 miles. Estimated 18 to 22 days.
• Lake Huron is 775. Estimated 25 to 31 days.
• Lake Superior is 950 miles. Estimated 31 to 38 days.
• Lake Michigan is 870 miles. Estimated 29 to 35 days.

The total is 3,570 miles, plus the connecting rivers. Estimated 117 to 143 days, plus connecting rivers. With the rivers and if I tackle Georgian Bay, the trip is well over 3,800 miles.

Using this tool, I’ve also identified interesting features. As you zoom in with the program, the detail is amazing. This becomes a fun guessing game in and of itself, because I can attempt to imagine the kinds of photos I’ll be able to take in some of the more interesting locations.

Everything that I’ve found, gets transcribed onto the maps I’m creating for the trip using USGS 1:100,000 maps that can be downloaded for free.

Other Great Lakes

• The Great Slave Lake is 760 miles.
• Great Bear Lake is 925 miles.
• Lake Nipigon is 215 miles.
• Lake Winnipeg is 760 miles.
• Lake Athabasca is 350 miles.

6d6Design, a Freelance Web Design and Graphic Design company, has sponsored the Around the Great Lakes Expedition with a new theme for the expedition website. 6d6Design has built websites for photographers and explorers and, perhaps, most notably Brian Brawdy. For this site, he had two main design challenges:

1. Produce a website theme that could tell the story of my Around the Great Lakes Expedition.
2. Build the site, so each section could be easily searchable for visitors looking to paddle that section.

Over the last few months, 6d6Design has taken the website from this:

To the current look:

The new theme not only displays multiple random images from the gallery, but it prominately displays my sponsors, and allows my posts to be more easily seen and searched. It also is in tune with my Around the Great Lakes Expedition Sponsorship Proposal [Download - 870kb]. I love the random header images, and the support for Piclens and Cooliris, which has to be one of the coolest ways to view the image gallery.

This is a top notch theme that I’m proud to display on my website. If you’re looking for top quality original work, check out 6d6Design.

For the trip, I’ll be paddling a new NDK Explorer. It’s on the ground in the US and will soon be shipping my way. The boat was given to me by an anonymous sponsor. He heard about the trip and thought I should be paddling one of the best expedition kayaks in the world, so now I will be.

Thanks for the support! Getting a new kevlar expedition proven kayak is a huge plus for the trip.