Digital Media Archives - Light Expeditions

Building Your Expeditionary Skill Stack

Introduction

Scott Adams popularized the idea of a skill (aka talent) stack in his book “How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big.” It’s hard to become the very best at one thing. Very few people get into the NBA, NFL, or PGA tour. But it’s possible to combine a pretty good golf game, conversation skills, and knowledge of persuasion and psychology to launch a successful sales career. Adams could barely draw and had no idea how to actually color his cartoons when he began his career as a cartoonist. He argued that a willingness to take risks and an inability to be embarrassed by having your mistakes revealed in public, combined with solid (but not great) abilities in several skills that work well together, goes a very long way towards success.

Expeditionary Skill Stacks

Can the same idea be applied to expedition success? The Oxford dictionary defined an expedition as follows:

A journey undertaken by a group of men with a particular purpose, especially that of exploration, research, or war.
Oxford English Dictionary

So expedition success can be measured as newly discovered lands, important scientific discoveries, or military victory.

But what if we limit our focus to light expeditions, short journeys that let us venture into pristine, beautiful, wilderness spaces? What travel skills get us there, keep us (mostly) comfortable and well fed along the way, and get us safely back?

Can we build an expeditionary skill stack that might not get us to the top of Mount Everest, but does get us to exquisitely beautiful and private spaces that we can briefly own?

Saint Croix River near Grantsburg, Wisconsin.

The answer is yes. Consider the best expeditionary YouTubers: what do they have in common? They combine multiple skills to get them to remote wilderness spaces most people could not possibly reach.

RoKKiT KiT: Australian Catch and Cook

RoKKiT KiT combines small boat skills; an understanding of local weather, navigation, and islands; and fishing/spearing plus cooking skills to execute multi-day trips to deserted barrier islands in Australia. RoKKiT KiT also records his trips via GoPro and then posts the edited video to his YouTube channel. As of May 2021, his relaxed, engaging, you-are-there dialogue and beautiful locales have led to 343,000 subscribers.

The Baird Brothers: Canadian Wilderness Experts

Similarly, Jim Baird combines whitewater canoeing, bushcraft (including camping, cooking, and survival skills), and videography and editing to create and record his unique journeys in Canada’s wild North country. His brother Ted Baird is also highly accomplished in bushcraft and wilderness travel and has his own YouTube channel.

A Latter Day Viking Sailor

Expeditionary sailors like Erik Aandrea bring core sailing skills but up their game in navigation, heavy weather training, automation, and safety to achieve extraordinary sailing journeys within modest means. Erik has sailed the North Sea during winter numerous times, and recently completed a circumnavigation of the Norwegian Sea.

Building Your Own Expeditionary Skill Stack

Here’s an introduction to how to evaluate the best skills for expeditionary travel. First, you need a travel mode. Sailing, canoeing, boating, hiking, and climbing are excellent choices. Sailing in particular gives you tremendous mobility in open water without the need to constantly re-fuel (assuming you can wait out the slow or no wind days). Canoeing provides excellent flexibility including the ability to traverse lakes, rivers, and short stretches of land (known as portages). Canoes can also traverse highly technical whitewater rapids while carrying a ton of gear. And with canoes, you can always portage around falls and rapids to difficult to cross.

Once you’ve chose a travel mode, you need to learn basic camping skills. How to set up a tent and tarp for shelter, how to choose the right location for camp, cooking meals, avoiding bear encounters, getting water, lighting a fire, and more. Strong camping skills allows you extended stays and multiple day trips to remote spaces. The basics are relatively easy to learn, and the quality of camping gear in general has increased exponentially in the last 3 or 4 decades.

You Can Travel, Camp, and Cook. What’s Next?

Now you can move about in the wilderness and stay for extended periods of time via basic camping and cooking skills. What’s the next skill you should considering adding to your stack?

The next most important skill is judgement based on experience. My advice is to do multiple trips that feel comfortable to you based on your skills. This gives you a chance to experience adverse conditions, including weather, bugs, and gear failures, under controlled conditions. As your experience grows, you can start increasing the length (number of days) of your trips. You can go to more remote places and push the envelope on the level of whitewater rapids while canoeing or storm levels while sailing. Do this gradually and don’t get cocky, but be willing to push the envelope somewhat as you gain experience.

Food and Aesthetics

Once you’ve built up experience and can routinely travel where most people cannot, what’s next? My suggestion is to learn photography and videography. Modern GoPro cameras and drones are inexpensive and when combined with simple video editing tools the allow you to create high-quality videos of your trips that you can share with friends and family on social media.

The possibilities with today’s miniature portable cameras like GoPro are endless.

As you gain more experience cooking outdoors, you can build up your repertoire of possible meals. Portable refrigeration is becoming lighter and more mobile so that for short, 3 to 4 day trips, you can cook almost as you do at home with similar ingredients. Beyond 4 to 5 days, you need to dehydrate meat and other perishables to reduce weight and increase wilderness “shelf” life. For short trips, grilling is ideal because it is quick, can leverage campfires, and results in fewer dishes to clean up afterwards.

Outdoor grilling can create awesome meals in the wilderness.

Conclusion

An expeditionary skill stack is a force multiplier. You can go farther than 90% of the sailors, canoeists, and backpackers who strictly focus on their own specialty. Adding more skills to help you safely navigate and traverse remote wilderness areas means you get more solitude and can experience nature’s beauty without the noise, ugliness, and distractions of modernity.

To learn more about light expeditions and expeditionary travel, here are some previous blog posts you might find useful:

The Power of Light Expeditions

The Best Skills to Master for Light Expeditions

Light Expeditions, Lake Superior Style

The Best Expeditionary YouTubers

I don’t watch television anymore and I only occasionally watch Amazon Prime (Amazon’s answer to Netflix). Instead, my eyeballs spend most of their video screen time on YouTube. There is a wide variety of useful educational content and quality documentaries.

A particular group of YouTuber’s combine expeditionary skills and passion with a reasonable budget to create some truly epic mini-documentaries. I’ve argued before that short trips can behave like mini, or light, expeditions with the right mindset and planning. The following list shows you people who are living this dream during their weekends and beyond.

Erik Aandrea

Erik Aandrea’s sailing channel is called “No Bullshit Just Sailing” or NBJS. He means it. There are no sand beaches, pina coladas, or girls in bathing suits. Just lots of footage of one of the best solo sailors on the planet right now. He sails the North Sea and especially the waters near his home in Haugesand, Norway. Erik’s Contessa 35 is a classic small sailing vessel renowned for its stability in heavy seas. Erik has taken her across the North Sea numerous times, winter included, visiting the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, and islands in the Norwegian Sea.

‘Fear is only produced by the lack of knowledge, or not knowing. To get knowledge you will have to face your fear. When you face your fear, you get knowledge, and you can feel, see, and hear what you fear. At this point, the fear disappears, because you know what it is.”
Erik Aandrea, solo Norwegian sailor, right before entering, and surviving, a Force 10 storm with 20+ foot seas.

His most popular video, Encountering Storm Force 10, shows how he planned and executed a short, 7 nautical mile trip in a Force 10 storm (winds from 55-63 mph and waves 15 to 25 feet high). He started from Rovaer Island and rode the big following sea into Haugesund, coming very close to death when he got too close to a shoal. As in all of his videos, there are many outstanding video sequences and photos taken from his drone, from GoPro’s installed on his boat, and hand-held cameras.

Brad and Leah Jennings

Brad and Leah Jennings canoe eastern Canada, focusing on the waters near their home in central Ontario. Brad and Leah specialize in finding lost canoe routes that are rarely used in modern times. Like Erik Aandrea, the Jenning’s video’s are shot and edited to a very high standard, with narration and structure plus great cinematography. Since I sail and travel Lake Superior often, their 10-day Lake Superior trip video, shot as they traveled the remote northeast coast, is my favorite and is also their most popular.

Jim and Ted Baird

Jim and Ted Baird are brothers living in western Ontario who canoe the wilderness all over Canada, in their local Ontario waters, the Artic, Yukon, and Quebec. Their video style is different than the Jenning’s. They give you a more full, immersive experience in every aspect of their trips. This means they show tent setup, fire-making, cooking, cleaning, camp breakdown, and more. You get the feeling you are along for the ride rather than an observer. And Jim in particular brings you along on both the ups and downs of the trip. RoKKiT KiT has the same immersive style.

RoKKiT KiT

Our final expeditionary YouTuber, RoKKiT KiT, combines solo boating and fishing (including spearfishing) around remote barrier islands near his home in Australia. He ditches formal narration and video structure and like the Baird’s, gives you a full, immersive experience in his expeditions. A classic trip for RK is a solo trip to a beautiful deserted island in his boat where he can spearfish and fish. He shows how he catches, cleans and cooks his catch. He often travels without food, planning on living off whatever he catches on his short 1-3 day trips. Of the 5 YouTuber’s we’ve presented, he has the largest following at 335,000 subscribes. The beauty and isolation he presents, along with his fun, relaxed style drove many people trapped inside during these COVID times to his channel.

How I Got To Heaven in a Sea Kayak

A View of Heaven

What does Heaven really look like? I was about to find out as I pushed my kayak from shore. I needed to cross 6 miles of big water with strong wind blowing to get to a bay my sailor friends had described as “Heaven”. Read on and you can find out if I made it and what heaven really looks like.

In previous posts I’ve described several boat camping trips on Lake Sakakawea and a sea kayak trip down the Missouri River. Here I describe crossing Lake Sakakawea in a sea kayak on an overnight trip. My goals was to connect with sailor friends at a place they told me was Heaven.

The Trip Plan for Lake Sakakawea

I had done a few short day trips in my sea kayak on Lake Sakakawea to help build up more big water experience. Lake Sakakawea stretches 180 miles from the dam near Pick City in central North Dakota to Williston, on the border with Montana. The lake is the second largest reservoir by surface area in the US after Lake Oahe and it averages between 3-4 miles in width. It has 1320 miles of shoreline. That’s longer than California’s coastline. This article in the New York Times provides excellent descriptions of the lake and its shoreline.

My goals this trip were to do my first overnight camping trip in the sea kayak, and do an open water crossing where I wasn’t just hugging the shoreline as I traveled. My reward was a the chance to stay in one of the prettiest bays on the lake while connecting with my good friends who had sailed there ahead of me.

Heading Into the Open Water

The trip occurred over a weekend in June 2015. I traveled to Indian Hills resort and boat landing on the north side of the lake, about 30 miles due south of Parshall, North Dakota. My destination was on the south shore, roughly 7 miles southeast from the entrance to Good Bear Bay, where Indian Hills resides.

And this is where things got interesting. At this point my sea kayaking experience was very limited. Large waves in open water were new to me. In fact, I had abandoned several previous attempts to connect with the sailors because it involved 8 to 10 miles of sea kayaking over open water against a big wind. But today, as I worked my way out of Good Bear Bay to the big lake, I had decided no matter what, I was going to cross the lake.

The shoreline on Good Bear Bay where I started the journey across the lake.

On my way to the open lake a peninsula on the edge of the big water was perfect for lunch. The wind to that point had been light, about 5-7 knots, but it was gradually increasing to 12-15 knots from the west. The waves were building to 2 to 3 feet rapidly across a fetch (stretch) of 10+ miles. Should I go, or not?

Decision Time and the Margin of Safety

If the wind continued to increase, the waves would get even bigger. But the forecast was for winds around 15 knots, which I was seeing. Sailors use the Beaufort Scale to gauge wind speed from sea state and conditions ashore. But wind forecasts are often inaccurate, and the wind speed could increase. Going downwind and warm water (meaning I could swim for it for hours if necessary) reduced the risk. If I ended up in the water I would have to get back in and bail out the kayak. My VHF marine radio could be used to contact boaters and the first responder station in Twin Buttes if things went south. A high quality PFD and equipment to get me back in the boat increased the margin for error.

There were literally thousands of these spiders on the shoreline.

Pushing off from shore and within a few minutes and the kayak was in the larger waves. But the kayak surfed the waves easily. As I headed south-southeast, I quartered on them to enhance stability. My 17-foot Wilderness Systems Tempest 170 sea kayak was stable and comfortable to paddle. There wasn’t much paddling necessary as the waves drove me towards my destination.

The Trip in Open Water

I traveled more south than southeast to get closer to the south shore as quickly as I could. The compass bearing was 110 degrees from my starting point to Heaven Bay, based on my map and the GPS coordinates the sailors had given me. Heaven Bay and that part of Lake Sakakawea’s shoreline were new to me. Often one bay looks like the next one on the big lake.

GoPro video from my crossing. Here I am about mid-lake.

After about an hour, I had covered four miles and was about 300 yards from the south shore, but further west from Heaven Bay. This is a common practice when navigating: taking a bearing and then deviating to one side or the other as you travel towards your destination. Once you reach shore, you travel in the direction to recover from your deviation, and you can methodically travel looking for your specific destination. This is exactly what I did and it worked perfectly.

Arriving Near the South Shore

The waves had become smaller as I approached the south shore, and fortunately the wind and hence wave sizes didn’t change during the crossing. I had gambled and won.

The only real problem is that I had trouble connecting the features I was seeing on the south shore with the topographical map. I tried haling the sailors on the VHF radio but they were behind several hills and couldn’t hear me. (Always bear in mind VHF marine radios work best when there is direct line-of-sight to the other radio.) One of them climbed the hill, we connected on the radio, and he provided good directions. With my binoculars I could also see a sailboat entering the bay when I was about 3 miles west of the entrance. I navigated towards a landmark on shore (in this case, a distinctive cliff face).

Arrival at Heaven Bay

The Tempest sea kayak with sailboats Sovereign, Avalon and Czechmate II tied to shore.

Left to right, sailboats Sovereign, Avalon, and Czechmate II.

A large, beautiful, rounded butte guarded the entrance to Heaven Bay. As I turned into the bay, I saw three sailboat masts standing tall and knew I had made it. A few minutes of paddling and here were my sailor friends enjoying the sun and the mid-day heat. It was exhausting and exhilarating, not so much from the few hours of paddling, but more from the adrenaline and stress caused by this being my first big crossing. It was also my first encounter with 3 foot waves in the kayak.

I pulled the kayak up on shore, greeted my friends, then jumped in the water to cool off. After swimming for about 20 minutes, I sat down and did what sailors usually do in port: poured a drink and savored the great company and the beauty of Heaven Bay. I thanked my friends for sharing it with me. After catching up and relaxing for a bit, it was time to get back to work. The gear from my kayak was unloaded. The tent was set up on a small, flat peninsula.

Heaven Bay’s Geography and Geology

Indian Hills and Heaven Bay are in the middle of the lake. Further west the lake turns north towards the huge Van Hook Arm and also south into the Little Missouri arm. It’s ideal for sailing because you can choose the direction you go to optimize your travel based on the wind direction. Heaven Bay is unusual for this portion of the lake in that it is an outcropping of the badlands that dominate the lake shore in the Little Missouri Arm further west. These badlands were formed when ancient volcanoes spewed ash over the swamps that covered North Dakota 65 million years ago. Runoff from ancient mountains added sand and mud. After the buildup stopped, these formations have been slowly eroding to create the badland’s buttes and valleys we see today.

This butte’s face was more pillowy, in contrast to others in Heaven Bay with nearly sheer vertical walls.

The evening was fantastic, with eagles, vultures, and night hawks entertaining us with their flight and the setting sun painting the tops of the butte in a beautiful soft light.

The Trip Back

The next morning I awoke early to take some golden hour photos. After breakfast and coffee, I said my goodbyes to my friends and headed back across the lake to Indian Hills. There was no wind. The lake was still, a flat calm. After three hours I arrived in Good Bear Bay once again, and traveled up it to the Indian Hills take out.

New Indian Friends

While packing up for the drive back home, I met two young Indian men. The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation contains the middle section of Lake Sakakawea where I was traveling. Most of the locals are Native Americans.

While taking my kayak out at Indian Hills boat ramp none of the other boaters were very friendly. This is expected. Fishermen just want to get their boats in or out of the water and get going.

However, the two Indians from Mandaree asked me if I fished from my kayak and said they really liked my boat. I told them the eskimos did use the original kayaks for hunting, and modern sea kayaks were just pale imitations of the original sea kayaks the Indian’s made. The Indians told me how they use their kayaks for fishing. We had a good chat and then shook hands and parted. I need to figure out how to connect more with my new Indian brothers the next time I’m out sea kayaking on the reservation.

Early morning golden hour shot I took around 5am.

Observations

The rounded butte on the right center of the photograph guards the entrance to Heaven Bay. This is the view to the north out of the bay.

Margin For Safety

It could be argued that it was too risky to make this crossing the first day. In fact, many sailors who ply the lake were concerned as they had seen the lake at its worst. As I mentioned, the sea kayak was much more stable in the 2-3 foot waves (and occasional 4 footer) than I expected. I’m not sure what it’s rated for, but I think I could handle up to 5 foot waves if I can quarter on them and the waves are mostly regular. More experienced sea kayakers are welcome to provide their thoughts in the comments.

Gear Improvements

One thing I changed after this trip is the system I used to tie gear down on the deck. There was too much gear not properly tied down and just hanging from my neck, and if the kayak had flipped, it would have been painful getting it all back in place.

For longer trips over open water, a compass on the deck above the bow is a necessity. It’s almost impossible to both paddle and look at the compass often enough to stay on track.

Privacy and Ease of Camping

Two other things struck me about this trip. First I was surprised how easy it is to camp on Lake Sakakawea. There are beaches and flat prairie everywhere, lots of dry driftwood for fires, easy access to water, and privacy. It turns out that fishing boats and power boats are often reluctant to cross the lake, and Heaven Bay is quite far from any boat ramps on that portion of the south shore of the lake. So except for the occasional sailboats, it’s a private place.

Prints of the Photographs

If you would like to get prints of any of these photographs, you can do so by going to this web site.

Photo Blog: Minnesota North Shore Winter Grouse Hunt

Here are some photos from a grouse hunting trip near Tofte, Minnesota that included some shore hiking and hiking up the Devil Track River near Hovland, Minnesota. Our winter wonderland did not disappoint. The black labrador hound is Duke, my faithful companion for 13 years. Winter is paradise in the North if you know how to make it work for you.

Hunting grouse on a logging trail north of Tofte.

*Hunting grouse on a cross country ski trail north of Tofte.*

Wood fireplaces are the best fireplaces.

Duke patiently waiting for our next move.

Devil Track River northeast of Grand Marais, Minnesota.

Shoreline looking southwest near Hovland, Minnesota.

Pigeon River just southwest of the falls at Grand Portage, Minnesota.

Sun over Lake Superior peeks through the clouds near Tofte, Minnesota.

St. Croix River Photo Blog, July 26-27, 2020

I’ve been canoeing the St. Croix River for years due to its wilderness feel and accessibility. It’s a one hour drive from my home and there are good outfitters conveniently located on the river. I described my first trip on the St. Croix in 2020 in this blog post. It also provides some background on the river itself. In a second blog post I described my second canoe trip of 2020, in May 2020, where I traversed parts of both the Kettle and St. Croix rivers.

I was fortunate to be able to get out on the St. Croix River for a third overnight canoe trip in July 2020 with my brother Daniel, and two nephews, George and John Dunn.

We paddled from the Norway Point landing to the Highway 70 bridge, staying overnight at the Points South campsite, at the confluence of the St. Croix and Kettle Rivers. Except for some scattered thunderstorms, the weather was ideal and the trip a good one. It’s always good to be outdoors with family, exploring, working together, and discovering nature’s beauty while improving our outdoor skills.

The rest of the this short post tells the story of our trip in pictures.

Heading out from the Norway Point landing with Ekdall Wetlands State Natural Area on river left.

View south near Norway Point, St. Croix River, Grantsburg, Wisconsin.

Dan O’Keefe, John Dunn, and George Dunn.

Dan O’Keefe telling us his weather prediction.

Tent at Points South campsite, on the Confluence of the Kettle and St. Croix Rivers.

Beautiful summer flowers at the Points South campsite.

Aerial view of our Points South campsite.

Aerial view of the St. Croix River, looking towards Grantsburg, Wisconsin.sacn.pdf

How An Overnight Boating Trip on Lake Sakakawea Lead to a Great Golden Hour Photo Shoot

Lake Sakakawea Boating Trip Log, Berthold Bay Trip, May 30-31st, 2020

Day 1 — May 30, 2020

Lake Sakakawea stretches 180 miles from the dam near Pick City in central North Dakota to Williston on the border with Montana. The lake is the second largest reservoir by surface area in the US after Lake Oahe. It averages between 3-4 miles in width and has 1320 miles of shoreline. That’s longer than California’s coastline. This article in the New York Times provides excellent descriptions of the lake and its shoreline.

South shore of Lake Sakakawea. May 30, 2020.

It’s a big, remote, and effectively a locals-only lake that sees a busy day trade from local fisherman, but only the rare, occasional sailboat or powerboat cruises the lake on multi-day, multi-overnight trips.

As a result, it’s possible to get a remote expedition experience with a wilderness feel, if you have the right boat and skills.

The lake’s shoreline is North Dakota’s in-back, the physical inverse of Australia’s outback but similar in its remote, unsettled nature. The outback is found in Australia’s vast remote interior, fringed by a thin strip of civilization on the coast; conversely, Lake Sakakawea’s shoreline is a narrow, undeveloped, isolated fringe surrounded by North Dakota’s civilization: farms and ranches.

Berthold Bay, view towards southwest. March 31, 2020.

Sakakawea’s shoreline is rough country and mostly uninhabited, especially further west, and a lot of it is used for pasture. State and county parks and land dedicated to wildlife are common. In many places, steep, dusty hills and buttes plunge into the lake. The boating season is short, a mere 4 months, and most of the lakeshore is owned by the Corp of Engineers. This limits human development. But for those willing to learn its secrets, the lake offers many rewards. If you know how to boat safely and have some camping game, there are 100’s of scenic, remote, and very private bays you can stay in.

The Trip

I had moved my 22-foot Zodiac 650 RIB (rigid inflatable boat) from Minnesota to North Dakota in mid-May 2020 while I stayed in North Dakota for a month. (My current home base is in Minnesota.) The 650 is trailered so it’s mobile, and yet it is also rated for the open ocean and sea states up to 15 feet. Given Sakakawea’s huge size, both features are useful, and are precisely why I purchased this boat. I can move the boat to Lake Superior (where its open water rating is very handy) or any of 100’s of lakes within 1 or 2 days drive.

A small bay in Lake Sakakawea’s Little Missouri Arm.

I had done a couple of day trips when I first arrived, but I was looking for an interesting overnight trip. Conveniently, when I’m in North Dakota I stay at my home on Lake Audabon, which I share with my two brothers. Together, we bought it from our siblings after my mother passed in 2015. The home had been in the family since 1983, and it felt right to team up with my brothers to keep it in the family.

Lake Audabon islands with Lake Sakakawea in the far background. Foreground to background is east to west.

Lake Audabon is connected to Lake Sakakawea so it’s easy to strategically position this boat on whatever portion of Lake Sakakawea is my expedition target.

The Sakakawea Sailing Fleet

Humans are social, and sailors are especially social. Several years earlier, I had connected with sailors on the east end of the lake and started cruising with them. The boats were mostly 28- to 34-foot cruising sailboats with sleeping quarters, a small galley, and a head. We would sail and explore the lake together, then at night I would set up a camp while the sailors stayed on their boats. This particular group has sailors who have been on the lake for almost 4 decades, and they very generously shared their knowledge of the lake and it’s best anchorages.

Sailors of Lake Sakakawea after dinner at my home on Lake Audabon.

The sailors were heading out May 30th to Berthold Bay, a beautiful bay on the north shore about 12 nautical miles west from the marina near the dam at Lake Sakakawea State Park. I put the Zodiac in late in the day about 5 miles north, across the lake, at Ft. Stevenson State Park.

Berthold Bay trip Navionics app map display during the trip.

I got on the water around 5:30pm and headed west. Winds were 5-7 knots from the southeast. The trip was a pleasant 30-minute ride. The Sakakawea sailors overnight anchoring practice is to go as far back into a bay as possible, then put the bow on shore and tie lines from the port and starboard stern cleats to shore. This gives easy access to shore and isolates the boats from any big waves on the main lake. You can also tie stern lines together so a group of boats can raft together on shore. I tied into the group of four sailboats already rafted together then set up my tent.

With the sun setting I took some iPhone shots from the hill above the small bay the boats had tied up in, with pretty good results.

I then had dinner with my pals Dan and Roxanne Vondrachek on their 33-foot Ranger sailboat Czechmate II. Getting onto their boat I had a nasty cramp in my pec from pulling on the forestay to get on board, but my ankle (which I had severely sprained a week ago) felt much better. It was a lovely evening with perfect temps around 65-70 and a late sunset, around 10pm. After dinner I prepped for my camera shoot the next day, and set my alarm for 5:20am.

Day 2 — May 31, 2020

Rising at 5:20am, it was cold (upper 40’s) and windy (10-12 knots). Golden hour started around 6am and would last until about 7:30am. I should have brought my wool clothing, wasn’t it supposed to be spring? I went back up on the hill overlooking the anchorage, and proceeded to take photos with the sun slowly rising, with my Sony A7III, iPhone, and GoPro cameras.

Wildflower, Berthold Bay, Lake Sakakawea.

Sailboats rafted together on shore, Berthold Bay, Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota. May 31, 2020.

It was surprising how easy my iPhone 11 Pro was to use, with 3 lenses built in and its own automated color correction and editing. I lacked a wide angle lens for the Sony, a fail. I also realized a prime lens would be useful for better quality on my regular shots. I then got the drone out and put it to work. The drone performed very well even in the moderate to high winds.

Drone shot from Berthold Bay looking southwest out of the bay, with Lake Sakakawea running east to west in the distance. March 31, 2020.

The Trip Back

After the photo shoot, I prepped for the trip back. There were heavy winds from the southeast; I needed to head due east. I worked the three nautical miles through Berthold Bay to the main lake, prepping my boat gear and clothing along the way. I enabled my SPOT device that remotely tracks my location. SPOT helps others locate me if I get into trouble, and I can text messages indicating my status.

Given the 6- to 8-mile fetch and 20-25 knot winds from the southeast, I anticipated chaotic (from the lake’s irregular bathymetry) 3- to 5-foot waves coming into the north shore, and that’s exactly what I encountered where Berthold Bay enters the main lake. The plan was to journey 4 miles south across the lake so that I could get some protection on the south shore from the big waves and wind.

Attempting a southeast course beating directly into the waves, the boat heaved and shook pretty violently. I changed course to south-southwest to quarter into the heavy seas. The sea state gradually became smaller as I made my way south across the lake and the fetch gradually reduced. The boat speed plus heavy winds created severe wind noise to the point of auditory pain. Earplugs would have been really helpful. Once I got to the south side, I radioed the Vondrachek’s (who had left several hours earlier) to check their position; they were about an hour from the Pick City marina near the dam, hence about 8 miles east of me at that time.

The Zodiac can do 40 knots in a flat calm, but as the sea state grows, I have to reduce speed. For a sailboat, this is reversed. They get faster as the wind speed and waves pick up. I proceeded west to east about 100-200 yards out from the south shore, starting from roughly Expansion Bay, traveling at 10 knots. It was much easier going than on the south shore. Waves were small, but the high wind made the cruise uncomfortable since the Zodiac cockpit is open and exposed. A helmet and earplugs would easily solve this problem.

I met up with the Vondrachek’s in their boat Czechmate II, and as they were turning into the marina, I took a some video, chatted with them, then headed off to Ft. Stevenson.

Czechmate II cruising towards Lake Sakakawea State Park.

I surfed some 3-foot waves coming into Garrison Bay, then headed to the dock. While docking I kept my stern into the wind and drifted onto the edge of the dock, catching the stern cleat on the end cleat of the dock. This makes it easy to catch the dock, and then I can push the bow onto the dock with the engine. I then walked the boat onto the trailer using the bow and stern lines, kind of like lining a canoe. There were no problems trailering, and I headed home.

Conclusions

This trip reminded me it’s important to get out there even if it’s just a 1.5 day trip. I had a great golden hour photo shoot, much better than I expected, and learned quite a bit about shooting photos with my drone and Sony A7III. Both cameras were still pretty new to me. I also took good GoPro footage while cruising to the rendezvous with the sailors, and back to Ft. Stevenson. And as always it’s great to connect with my Sakakawea sailors friends.

Camping in the North Dakota Badlands via Boat

Lake Sakakawea Boating Trip Log, June 12-14, 2020

In this post I describe a 3-day, 2-night trip in the North Dakota badlands via Lake Sakakawea. I traveled by RIB (rigid inflatable boat) to the camp site. In a previous post I provided more background on Lake Sakakawea; feel free to read it if you want to understand the context of this trip. This article in the New York Times provides excellent descriptions of the lake and its shoreline.

Day 1: June 12

My plan was to cruise in my 22-foot RIB, a Zodiac 650, to a remote, scenic bay I call “O’Keefe Bay” on Lake Sakakawea and stay two nights. I put the boat in at Indian Hills Resort in Good Bear Bay. The Zodiac has a rigid bottom, an inflatable U-shaped collar around this bottom, plus two 70 horsepower Yamaha outboard engines yielding a maximum boat speed of 40 mph.

The prep work for this trip seemed excessive, two hours on Thursday, three hours on Friday so I started late again. I arrived at Indian Hills resort from my lake home near Coleharbor around 1600 but did not head out onto the lake until 1730, arrived at O’Keefe Bay at 1900. On the 14-mile trip from Indian Hills to O’Keefe Bay the winds were from southeast, on my back, around 15 mph. I cruised along on the south shore. There was a golden glow off the high cliffs to port. Wind from the south east at 130° so easy cruising with it at my back. The sun was gorgeous, I was cruising directly towards it and felt like I was chasing it.

North Dakota Badlands via Boat — South Shore of Lake Sakakawea near Bear Creek Bay.

It took 1.5 hours to set up camp and secure the boat. I used the Danforth anchor for the bow and the two grappling anchors plus chain and rode for the port and starboard side anchors. My Eureka tent was set up quickly. I really love the hard work to set up camp and the exhaustion it creates, but I’m getting muscle cramps from dehydration. So I need to stay hydrated and I need more training strength and stretching to continue with these rigorous trips.

North Dakota Badlands — Camp at O’Keefe Bay.

It’s hard to decompress on such short trips but they’re still awesome. My goal is finding beauty on each trip and record and share it. I’m surprised how nervous I still am when I start out, but my confidence is building each trip. Sakakawea is a big lake and there is almost no settlement on the shoreline, especially where I was going. When I first got out on the lake, no one else was on the water in the large, open portion of the lake where the Little Missouri Arm meets the bend as the river turns towards the east, and it was a bit spooky. I was not feeling strong, but that changed on the second day.

I set up camp in the same exact spot the last time I was at O’Keefe Bay over Labor Day weekend in 2019. The logs I had left last year were still there. I’m certain almost no one hikes or stays here because this bay is surrounded by very steep, rough, high hills. I’ve also never seen signs of cattle here, whereas cattle are quite common to see on Sakakawea’s shoreline. Thus O’Keefe Bay provides solitude except for the occasional curious fishing boat that stops by briefly for the view. On the second day I realized where I set up my tent is exposed to potentially falling rocks from the cliffs above me, so next time I’ll place my camp on the hill pointing into the bay that is not exposed to falling mud or rocks.

Rocks and debris from collapse of portion of the cliff face. O’Keefe Bay, Lake Sakakawea.

While checking the tent, I found extra tent guidelines to secure all parts of the tent. Noticed I can stake in the bottom of the tent as well, at the doors. Did not cook dinner, too exhausted and not hungry. Noticed this the whole trip, exhaustion and heat reduced my appetite. I also noticed I can go a full day, or even two days, eating very little while doing a massive amount of work. I assume this is good.

Looking towards the southwest from O’Keefe Bay into the Little Missouri Arm of Lake Sakakawea.

Day two: June 13, 2020

On day two I rose at 0700, spent an hour on golden hour photography and then did some video sequences.

I thought about my mindset when I’ve encountered Badlands before, being too logical and material, trying to use science to understand everything and put it in a box. Instead the right way is to not overthink it. Assume it was created this way for reasons I don’t really need to know, but I need to appreciate the beauty, like appreciating art in an impressionistic way. Just exist in it and flow into it.

The elusive “blue bird” that was really an Indigo Bunting.

At the end of the day I made the following notes: was very windy all day, excellent morning readings on the historical problems of modernity. Reviewed books on Kindle. Saw a bluebird that seemed incredibly out of place in this brown and yellow badlands hellscape. The bird lived in the cliff, disappeared before I got a good photo (I did get a not-so-great photo, see above).

Evolution can’t tell me why that bird is here, or why it’s blue, or frankly much of anything else. Later I learned it was probably an Indigo Bunting. My camp gear, including the tent, did well in the high winds that came up on this day. The shore anchoring rig for the Zodiac also worked well. The rig includes a Danforth bow anchor forward and rode plus chain from both the port and starboard stern cleats to shore. This keeps the boat perpendicular to shore so that the engines are in the deepest water possible while keeping the boat secure.

Day 3: June 14th

I woke up after a windy night during which the tent held up quite well. But the tent was noisy as it was jostled by the wind. I can see the advantage of a tunnel tent for the tundra here, where it’s more compact and less exposed to the wind. Having the tarp is essential for rain protection and comfort around camp if I switch to a tunnel tent.

Short video tour of O’Keefe Bay.

The SE wind was shaped by the surrounding hills so that it was bent and came around from the north when it hit my campsite. Interesting how the wind speed rose and fell. Woke up around 1900. Slow start, made coffee eventually, then read. Around 9am packed up and prepared for the return trip. Checked weather by VHF radio, winds from SE through the afternoon then from south later in the day, potential rain/storms throughout the day. It turned out to be fairly accurate; no storms but light rain, then later in the afternoon the sun finally came up.

Little Missouri Arm west shore in background.

During this trip I was shocked at how inaccurate the Navionics tool is, and I encountered several large submerged islands that were not marked anywhere on the Navionics map. I wonder if there is a “chart datum” setting for the lake level. It needs one.

On the return trip I passed through the Little Missouri Arm out onto the main lake, stayed on the south coast of the lake to get some protection from the strong (20 knot) SE wind, but as it was more easterly than southerly, there was a 2-3 foot chop on the big lake. I stopped in a couple bays to explore, including one that likely has a sand beach as it was surrounded by sandstone cliffs. I recorded this spot on the Navionics app.

North Dakota Badlands Trip — Beautiful bay on south shoreline *with a promising sand beach.*

On the trip east I drove at low speeds to keep the boat under control, for comfort, and to lower fuel use. I also shot video and took photos.

I discovered a Cove just across the lake from Good Bear Bay, where Indian Hills resort is located, that has exactly the same kind of beach as those found on Lake Superior . Basically a gradual change from coarse sand to pebbles to small rocks, then larger rocks, all layered vertically. It turns out this bay has a northwest exposure with a long 15+ mile fetch, so the prevailing northwest winds create consistent, fairly large wave action. There is a beach filled with this gravel and rock that’s 4 to 5 feet high. It’s amazing how similar it is to the beaches on Lake Superior. I believe there should be holding ground for anchoring, although it’s only tenable for east or south east winds. However if the winds shift, you can re-anchor in adjacent waters which have protection from north, northwest, and west winds.

Camping in the North Dakota Badlands — A Lake-Superior-type cove shoreline found on Lake Sakakawea.

I tried to swim on this beach but the main lake water was too cold for me. After lunch and a couple of hours exploring this beach, I headed across the lake and into Good Bear Bay and Indian Hill Resort, pulled out my boat and gear, and was able to get home uneventfully.

Observations

The iPhone’s small size, convenience, versatility (multiple lens), and automation makes its camera especially useful on expeditions. Of course it cannot take long-range zoom photos of wildlife, and can’t handle corner cases (like very low light or high dynamic range) that my Sony can, but I get many photos that would otherwise not happen.
With a deeper knowledge of the lake (it’s history, geology, and people) I could tell its story better. I’m going to work on that.
Once again, I am surprised at how much solitude you can achieve with an outdoor skills stack that combines multiple skills, including camping, boating, navigation and weather.