Cyber paddling: Wintertime surfing on the net By Mike Svob For upper Midwest canoeists and kayakers, it's that time of year when you have to head south or to a nearby swimming pool to get your boat wet. March seems a long
way off for ice and snow bound paddlers, but  there are ways to put the cold days to good use. Pulling on a warm Badger sweatshirt and settling into the ol' Lazy Boy with a good book on paddlesport is one way to go. Another is to dig out your maps, trip notes and guidebooks and begin planning the coming season's trips. Still another is to spend some time every day
working on the muscle groups that you'll need for spring and summer paddling (and, at the same time, taking off some of the extra pounds you've accumulated since Thanksgiving). For paddlers who have access to a computer, however, one of the neatest ways to productively and enjoyably wile away the time is to explore the vast resources of the Internet. In the last couple of years, the
Net sites available to the paddling community have increased exponentially in numbers and quality. At the beginning of the millenium, it really didn't take much time or effort to familiarize oneself with the available Web sites, but now on the cusp of 2003 it's next to impossible to keep up with all of them. Many are absolutely first rate! How to Get Started
If you've never really delved into the vast realm of paddling related Web sites, my advice is twofold. One fruitful and easy introduction to the field is to call up one of the better search engines (my personal favorite is www.google.com, but it doesn't really matter which one you use), then enter one or more key words and/or phrases, such as "paddling," "canoeing," "sea kayaking," "paddling clubs," etc. A general entry like
"paddling" will yield a huge number of sites, and you can spend the rest of the day skimming their home pages. A better approach is to be more specific with your search, and enter more than one term, separating the individual terms with commas, e.g., "whitewater paddling, Minnesota," or "sea kayaking, Great Lakes," or "paddling clubs, Illinois." You'll find that one thing leads to another when you use this technique: when you click
onto a given Web site, it leads you to another, which leads you to still another, and so on. Search engine listings provide you with an extremely useful means of sorting through available sites and finding exactly what interests you.
My other suggestion for getting started is to go to a Web site that provides "links" long lists of other sites, which you can review at your leisure. All you have to do is click onto an item of interest, and the
linkage takes you there. The big advantage, of course, is that the Web site has already selected many of the best sources of paddling information, usually categorized into such groupings as equipment, paddling clubs, weather and stream flow conditions, paddling instruction, etc. There are quite a few Web sites that provide terrific links. Just call up the home page, then click onto the appropriate choice (Links, Linkages, Internet Resources, Web Sites, Paddling Resources, etc.)
Here are a few starters for Midwest paddlers:
Prairie State Canoeists ( www.prairiestatecanoeists.org )
Chicago Area Paddling and Fishing Pages ( www.chicagopaddling.com )
Illinois Paddling Council ( www.illinoispaddling.org )
Canoeing & Kayaking Information ( www.paddling.net )
Badger State Boating Society ( www.bsbs.org )
Wisconsin Sierra Club ( http://wisconsin.sierraclub.org/rts )
Mackinaw Canoe Club ( www.rivers-end.org/mcc/mcc.html )
The Mackinaw Canoe Club site is a particularly good source of linkages: I recommend it as Stop No. 1. Warning: once you begin to play the
linkages game, one thing leads to another; and before you know it, hours fly by.
Some Exemplary Web Sites
There are many sites that I return to again and again as sources of enjoyment and important information. To a certain extent, of course, they reflect my personal paddling tastes: I'm mostly into moving water, for example seldom venturing onto lakes and enjoy both quietwater and whitewater canoeing and kayaking. There are a zillion sites out there on
the Net, so you can find plenty to match your own particular taste in paddling. Here are some of my favorite Web sites. I invite you to try them!
USGS Real Time Water Data ( http://wi.water.usgs.gov and http://il.water.usgs.gov ). Serious boaters will use these sites hundreds of times during their paddling careers. They are the best source of current and historical water level information for specific streams and bodies of water in Wisconsin and Illinois. Comparable sites are available for other
Midwest states. All provide the latest USGS water level readings and recent rainfall data, and can give you an idea of whether the river or creek you're planning to paddle is low, medium or high. All paddlers should visit the USGS site for their state and become familiar with the wealth of data it provides. Incidentally, there are also a number of excellent weather forecast Web sites that you can use in connection with an upcoming trip, such as www.weather.com.
The Mackinaw Canoe Club (www.rivers-end.org/mcc/mcc.html). Dan
Faust of the MCC has painstakingly put together a site that should serve as a model for all canoeing organizations. I'm a tad biased, perhaps, having cut my eyeteeth in this central Illinois club many years ago, before moving to Wisconsin. The Web site is a relatively new development for the MCC, and it's a cornucopia of trip reports, photos, message board, linkages and other valuable information.
Its value is definitely not limited to "flatland" paddlers! Many clubs are
now on the Net, and some are well worth checking out. The Sierra Club, Badger State Society and Prairie State Canoeist Web sites were listed above, for example. Also take a look at the Mad City Paddlers (Madison area) site at www.geocities.com/yosemite/falls/1922.
Great Outdoor Recreation Pages, or GORP ( www.gorp.com ). What I like most about this wonderful Web site is that it's an encyclopedic source of information for all kinds of outdoor activities not just paddling but also bicycling, hiking, skiing and many others. The site address cited above takes you to the home page; from there, click on "Activities," then "Paddling" in order to get into the paddling pages. There you'll find all
kinds of good stuff, including some instructional tips on paddling technique.
Chicago Area Paddling and Fishing Pages (www.chicagopaddling.com). Primarily of interest to paddlers in northeastern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin, this is another model
Web site that everyone (even paddlers outside the area) should visit at least once. Over the years, John Nelson has pulled together an astonishing amount of information on paddling, sailing, rowing and camping in the Chicagoland area. Using John's attractive graphics, you can zero in on any river, creek or lake in the area and find maps, photos, trip descriptions, trip reports, campgrounds, and all kinds of other goodies.
Paddleguides ( www.paddleguides.com ). Based upon the experiences of the University of Wisconsin based Hoofers Outing Club, this Web site includes many descriptions of challenging whitewater runs in Michigan, Wisconsin and even Illinois. Parts of the material eventually found their way into the pioneering guidebook Whitewater Quietwater. The site
doesn't have much visual appeal, but the descriptions of whitewater runs (some of which are quite out of the way) are invaluable.
Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Indiana Paddling Guides (www.michigankayaking.com,
www.dnr.state.mn.us/water_rec, www.state.ia.us/parks, and www.in.gov/dnr/outdoor/canoe ). Each of the four states provides online a basic guidebook for rivers, streams and sometimes lakes. The four Web sites are rather uneven in quality and depth, but are an excellent starting point. (Much more detailed information is to be found in printed guidebooks for Michigan, Minnesota and Indiana).
Rutabaga Paddlesport Shop, Madison, Wis. ( www.paddlers.com ). Sponsor of the annual Canoecopia event in March the world's biggest and best canoe/kayak exposition Rutabaga contributes a great deal to the vitality of paddlesport in the Midwest, including a spiffy Web site.
Other dealers and outfitters that have developed good Web sites are Carl's Paddlin' of Madison, Wis.( www.paddlin.com ), Canoesport Outfitters in Indianola, Iowa ( www.canoesportiowa.com ), Offshore Marine in the Chicago area ( www.offshore.com ), Chicagoland Canoe Base ( www.chicagolandcanoebase.com ), the Bear Paw Inn Outdoor Adventure Resort ( www.bearpawinn.com ), Midwest Mountaineering in Minneapolis ( www.midwestmtn.com ), and Glacier Valley Wilderness Outfitters ( www.glaciervalley.com ).
State Department of Natural Resources Web sites (www.dnr.state.mn.us, www.dnr.state.wi.us, www.dnr.state.il.us,
etc.) For paddlers, it's a good idea to check the state DNR Web site regularly. As you'll see when you go to the home page and look at the choices, there's a wide range of information on conservation, water quality, state parks, camping, events, wildlife and many other topics of interest to paddlers. The Wisconsin DNR, for instance, regularly keeps an inventory of boating related deaths (canoes and kayaks included) and analyzes them at year's end.
American Canoe Association and American Whitewater Affiliation (www.acanet.org and www.americanwhitewater.org ). Both sites are
quite newsy, with stories about streambed preservation and other conservation efforts, access issues, boating safety, dam removals, paddling equipment, etc. Links enable you to explore many other options, too.
There is so much paddling information available on the Internet, and I spend so much time on it, that I wonder how I ever got along without it. Happy surfing!
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