go light A 12-STEP
WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM for LIGHTER and FASTER TRIPPING
B Y D AV I D H . J O H N S TO N
#3: Replace your tent. PHOTO: RYAN CREARY
I brought as long as the canoe kept afloat. When I switched over to a sea kayak, the philosophy
B
changed only slightly. With the limited space I was forced to think about the volume of gear I brought along. Over the years, however, I developed new packing and boat-loading techniques which allowed me to bring increasing amounts on every trip. By the end, I was the guy who brought the most stuff even though I had one of the smallest boats. Eventually my friend Sean Keelor organized a group in-
tervention about my gear issues and gave me a valuable revelation: with less stuff, I could travel faster, keep more organized and thus enjoy kayak tripping more. I used to think that since I wasn’t carrying the gear
on my back, weight didn’t matter. In reality, the oppo- site is true. Similar to backpacking, travelling with a light boat and gear results in less draft in the water, making it easier to paddle. You move faster than your buddies and at the end of the day have some energy left to enjoy the best part of the trip, sitting around the fire.
EFORE I BECAME A KAYAKER, I was a canoe tripper. Canoe tripping taught me that you can never have too much gear. It never seemed to matter how much
Other kayakers often ask me why I would even consider
giving up so much. Doesn’t less stuff just mean less com- fort? It’s a good question, but it hasn’t made a huge differ- ence. I sometimes miss my big camp chair but the light- weight blue foam pad cut to the size of my butt works just as well and it’s 90 per cent smaller and lighter. Of course, there are limits to how much you can cut
down before it starts to undermine trip safety as well as the fun factor, but in my experience, you can cut quite a bit before you really start to run into that problem. Sean and I decided to put the lightweight camping
theory to the test last May. We planned a seven-day trip along the North Shore of Lake Superior from Wawa out and around Michipicoten Island. The trip involved very cold wa- ter and two 15-kilometre offshore crossings. We still wanted to paddle our small performance boats,
but with very limited space, extreme remoteness (due to the time of year) and cold water, we had to make some sacri- fices. We needed extra clothing and safety gear to make it home safely so we had to closely examine all of our gear and leave any non-essentials at home. Here are some lessons we learned about how you can slim down and go light.
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