OffTheTongue LEARN TO KAYAK ON THE OTTAWA RIVER
Much Can be Learned from a Hamster In the 70s, Hammy Hamster, an awarding winning TV show staring a cast
of talking rodents, came on every morning before my school bus arrived. Eating a piece of toast and peanut butter, I remember Hammy planting flow- ers scattered about his yard. The Riverbank animals Matty Mouse, Turtle and the Wise Old Frog came by to see what the timid but resourceful ham- ster was up to: they thought he was odd not planting in flowerbeds or in rows. I agreed: until Hammy and GP flew over in GP’s airplane, and the flowers planted so helter skelter at ground level, spelt out, “H-A-V-E-A-N-I- C-E- D-A-Y” from a bird’s perspective. I’m sure I learned more that morning than I did all week at school. I thought of Hammy Hamster when I was putting together our first ever
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editor@rapidmag.com
Teen Kayak Camps WORLD’S PREMIER
photo annual. Sorting through the thousands of images on dozens of CDs, DVDs, and websites, at ground level it was mind-numbing chaos. We need- ed a different perspective. We began projecting a slide show of all the images, at high speed. We planted only the images that immediately struck us. We used this Hammy elimination technique to shortlist our submissions to about 100, then 50, and finally, the photographs in this issue. With the final picks laid out in front of us, we flew over them in GP’s air-
plane and realized the images we’d chosen, the images that struck us the most, spelt out the words: A-D-V-E-N-T-U-R-E and L-I-F-E-S-T-Y-L-E. In our photo annual you’ll find 30-foot first descents, Ugandan moped
shuttles, a dusty forest road, and one man who thinks he’s a caribou. You’ll find images that, except for the one of some schlepper portaging 25 blue bar- rels on a bicycle, made us want to be on that trip, or on that river. The breathtaking shot on the opening spread reminds me of the story
about the Flood. The River was rising swiftly. Hammy went upstream to investigate, and had a harrowing whitewater adventure over GP's waterfall. GP said it was the beaver dam backing up the water, so they headed down- stream to ask Barney Beaver for help. Together with GP's Digamabob, Barney worked to clear the dam in time to save the Riverbank... But that, my Riverbank friends, is another story.
Scott MacGregor editor-in-chief
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