Where to Sea Kayak in Newfoundland

I've been drawn to the idea of kayaking Newfoundland and Labrador ever since Outdoor Learning Adventures' John O'Halloran's badly written if hauntingly photographed account of his trip there appeared in Atlantic Coastal Kayaker. O'Halloran complained of bad food, worse weather, food caches mauled by wolves or coyotes, and gave a distressing account of their imported fold-up kayaks lost by their air carrier.

But it read like a true adventure: O'Halloran and his crew had also brought along mountain climbing gear to make first ascents of the provinces' summits. But what were most complelling were the photographs: a tree-shorn land, low basins, soaring summits, abandoned fishing villages.

Here was the greater mystery Rockwell Kent wrote about. I have wanted to go there since, warnings about blackflies and mosquitoes from O'Halloran and others notwithstanding, and despite a friend's recollection of the food available in the province while on the road: Nothing but fried fish and canned peas everywhere you go.

Fine coincidence, then, that Tom Casey and others are planning an expedition there next year, and that a copy of Wavelength I have in my files mentions Kevin Redmond and Dan Murphy enticing and helpful if in many ways flawed guidebook. Many will likely want to buy it, but not as their sole reference for paddling the waters of these remarkably remote and isolated Canadian Maritime Provinces.

Redmond and Murphy divide their book into two parts: the first, an overview, describes the provinces' geology and geography, its flora and fauna, and includes a paragraph or two about whale watching. A couple of chapters which describe ocean hazards skirt the particular hazards of the area: katabolic winds, steep cobble beaches, rough landings, and how to paddle near icebergs: never approach them.