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.

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

An Early Spring Overnight Canoe Trip on the St. Croix River

St Croix River Canoe Trip Log, May 10-11, 2020

The St. Croix River is a National Wild and Scenic River on the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. It’s 169 miles in length and has historic significance in the fur trade as it was the highway that connected Lake Superior to the Mississippi. Its undeveloped, tree-lined shores are surrounded by state forests and parks. It’s a laid-back river with a few rapids thrown in. As a result, St. Croix a world-class river for canoeing and kayaking. It has numerous campsites, good fishing, and abundant wildlife along its shores.

I have canoed this river several times every year since 2005. In 2020, I was able to sneak 3 trips in. It’s a convenient, one-hour drive from my home to Grantsburg, where my outfitter is based. On these trips the outfitter takes me to canoe landings 10 to 20 miles upriver where I begin my travel downstream.

Day 1, May 10, 2020

I drove to Grantsburg to meet Jerry, who runs Wild River Outfitters with his wife Marilyn. Instead of the longer 30-river-mile Thayer to Highway 70 bridge trip, I decided to do just the run from Norway Point to Hwy 70, about 15 miles. This trip includes some easy Class 1 Rapids.

I would have preferred taking 3 days and 2 nights for the full trip but even just the overnight was worth it given the short drive from St Michael.

I put in at the Norway Point landing late at 5pm. The river was higher than normal, high enough that Jerry said I could take the Kettle River Slough, a shallow side channel that is impassable during low water. I chose not to take this route because I wanted to get to the campsite at the end of the Slough faster, and the alternate river left stretch is scenic, with endless white pines and gentle, undulating rapids. The campsite at the end of the confluence of the Kettle and St Croix Rivers was my goal for the first night. In the first hour of the trip I saw a beautiful immature bald eagle and a nesting osprey nesting near Nelson’s Landing, about 3 miles downriver from Norway Point. Turkey Vultures were lazily circling in the sky. The wind rose and fell, up to almost 15 knots, then dropping to calm again. But it was generally steady from the northwest at about 10 to 12 knots. The sky was cloudy, the temperature around 50 F.

My canoe paddle strokes were less rusty than on the previous weekend’s trip on the Kettle River. I kept the GoPro Camera clamped to front of boat, and took footage with both phone and voice control. I plan to turn on the linear (non fish eye) camera mode on more often. Also based on the high glare due to reflections of the water on this trip, I decided to purchase ND filters for cinematic views, and a polarizing filter to handle glare on the water. Another lesson: check the settings before every shot as the settings I used during the trip were not ideal. I know all this sounds obvious but I am hoping readers can learn from my mistakes.

On the first night night I targeted the South Point Camp, where the Kettle River Slough meets the St. Croix River. I have camped here many times in the past, with family and friends including with my son Andrew.

After a routine 8 mile paddle I came into camp at about 7:30pm and quickly got set up. Started a fire with an Esbit solid fuel cube. Did not cook, ate cheese and peanuts plus Federalist Lodi Zinfandel. Temperatures in camp dropped quickly after dark, to around 40 degrees, and I put on all my wool clothing and a goose down parka. I used the parka and a heavy sweater to cover my thin sleeping bag to stay warm that night. I do not like the narrow inflatable bed and plan to upgrade. Once it got dark I headed to bed. A bird made an odd call, a short buzz, on a regular 10 second or so cadence. It seemed to move around a lot. Otherwise an uneventful, rather cold night, with temps down to the mid 20s. I got up in the middle of the night to pee and saw that the sky had cleared and there was almost a full moon. Unlike previous solo trips, I had no fear of being alone. Bronze Age Mindset.

Day 2, May 11, 2020
The next morning, I slept in, until after 8am. The bright sun warmed my tent. A beautiful but chilly morning in camp.

I spent the morning and early afternoon reading, writing, and just soaking in the beauty of this magical spot, its wide, generous view of the rushing river, multiple islands and shorelines and big southern exposure, almost like a lake.

Many white wildflowers, Trillium, were coming up. I photographed them, and various parts of the rapids and the river with both the GoPro and my Sony A7III. A gorgeous bright day. I was approached by two shy deer who, after letting me take pictures for a few minutes, fled into the woods. Since this was a Monday, there was much less ATV noise from the nearby state park than the weekend before. Fabulous. That morning I did not cook, other than boiled water for coffee. Who knew fasting and hard spring travel go together. Tree swallows swarmed above my camp and the river all day, feasting on some bugs I never identified, but they must have been there because something was fueling their swarming energy. Saw eagles, ducks, mergansers, turkey vultures and more. Animals, like people, love spring.

Broke camp around 3pm and headed downriver. This time I tucked my behind in the rail behind my seat, and kept my back slightly curled, and my abs and gluts tight and this helped immensely with preventing back pain. It’s interesting how we have to relearn the basics every season for a lot of things, including canoeing.

I had two GoPro’s for filming and took quite a few shots. My plan was to fly the drone but to my surprise there were a lot of people on the river and the wind was a little high so the drone stayed grounded. GoPro settings: I found if I use the GoPro color settings, the results are pretty good. Dramatic but good. One camera was misconfigured and used 16:9 for the camera aspect ratio; the other camera had the ISO and color settings wrong. And both cameras needed polarizing and ND filters.

Otherwise the 7 mile paddle from camp to the takeout at the Highway 70 bridge was an idyll; cool, nice breeze on my back, the river just right in terms of flow. In a few places the wind veered and came upriver, briefly slowing me down, but the bright sun and quiet river made for a lovely spring trip. Pulled out at Hwy 70 and got back to St Michael on a routine return trip.

First Kettle and St. Croix River Overnight Canoeing Trip with My New Boat

Dates: May 2-3, 2020
Summary: A short, solo overnight canoe trip on the Kettle River in west central Minnesota.

Background: The Kettle River is a small, beautiful, near wilderness river that flows for about 70 miles from central Minnesota to the border with Wisconsin. I chose a stretch with both flat water and some rapids with outstanding camp sites available along the whole route.

May 2, 2020
I started the trip where the Kettle River crosses the Highway 48 bridge at roughly 2pm. Strong wind from NW at 20 to 25mph, a nice tail wind. Clear sky and 3/4 moon. Sunset was at 8:30pm so lights out by roughly 9pm, so plenty of time to cover the first 18 miles (I hoped).

I covered the exact trip described in the excellent book “Paddling Minnesota” [Trip 69] except I paddled into the St. Croix River and went all the way to Hwy 70.

The first 7 miles were bottomland forest. Strong NW wind at my back plus the fast current from moderately high water moved me along at 4+ knots. Saw a few other parties camping/fishing on the river, they had arrived via small motorboats the dropped in at a boat landing. No rapids in first 7 miles.

While paddling, I considered the best spot for the first night’s camp. Since this was the first canoe trip of 2020, my strokes were really rusty and I was sore and tired after only a few hours. I need more conditioning before the season starts. After a short stop to hydrate (and lose my camp chair when I forgot to repack it in the canoe), and another stop at the Big Eddy put in, I was able to get a picture of a map of the rest of trip on the Kettle River. (I’m such a pro I had forgotten my maps at home).

The time was roughly 6pm. Since I had another three hours of light I decided to go ahead and paddle through the 7 miles of rapids, keeping an eye out for possible campsites. Three were available, the last being Two Rivers, where the Kettle River enters the Kettle River slough, a side branch of the St. Croix River.

To make a long story short, I got through the 7 mile stretch of rapids with no problems, stopping only at Maple River and Big Eddy to scout rapids and check maps. The ledge at Big Eddy required some maneuvering and back ferrying and I was rusty both on boat positioning and ferrying. A couple of near misses were the result. I had done this stretch during the MCA training two years before.

With the wind and higher current through this stretch, I was sometimes going as fast as 7 to 8 knots. My Navionics maps were very helpful in checking position and speed. Saw quite a few people on the St. Croix, river left, the state park side. River right was the Chengwatana State Forest, saw no one on that side.

During 2 hours traveling I missed two campsites on river left; from the Navionics map I knew I should be close to Two Rivers camp, and sure enough, reached it around 8:15pm.

After unpacking gear, stowing the canoe, getting a bite to eat and some wine to relax with, I spent 30 minutes taking golden hour photos. I then got the tent set up and watched the first of the stars come out. Mars and Venus raced across the sky. Turkeys, rails, coyotes, and other animool frens greeted me with their voices. Finally fell asleep. Unlike my previous solo trips, that night I had no worries or fears. My animool frens would look out for me.

Day 2: May 3, 2020Spent the morning in camp taking photographs. The White Pines at river’s edge were stately, desperately resisting the river’s attempts to undercut and destroy them. Lots of signs of high water recently, with grass and branches from waterflow stuck in bottom land and trees. Did not cook dinner the previous night or make breakfast, stuck with cold food. Frankly just wasn’t that hungry, probably from adrenaline and stress. Very sore. No fire on day 1 or 2. Windy and cold, but sunny. This time of year the days are already very long (almost 15 hours) but it’s still chilly most mornings.

Finally set out at noon, with another 14 miles to go. Got the GoPro out for pics and filming. After 1st mile encountered the ledge and steep rapids as the Kettle joins the St. Croix. Stayed river right which worked well, but when I followed a channel to the right, I had to stop and scout. Lining upriver was not an option due to a large tree trunk blocking the way, so I found a route through the channel while scouting and was able to easily pass through. The rapids-running rust in my system was getting washed away.

The rest of the trip was easy paddling with the high current and a North wind that was again right on my back. Saw many fisherman along the way, most said fishing was slow. Sunny skies. Cool, but not cold. Weather was perfect. Most campsites on this stretch were used, but not the one at the confluence of the St. Croix and Kettle.

Stopped at the ssland a couple miles north of Hwy 70 bridge (across from Sandrocks Cliffes) for lunch. A sweet memory as this was the last place I swam together with Duke, my 13-year-old lab who passed away the previous fall.

A plane was flying oddly low over the park on the Wisconsin side. Canoed pass a group of red winged blackbirds who all in unison raged a me for getting too close, apparently. Water too cold for swimming.

Made it to Hwy 70 bridge, pulled out the canoe and gear, and the trip home was routine.

Light Expeditions, Lake Superior Style

Part 3 of 3

In Part 1 of this 3 part series, I introduced light expeditions, journeys accessible to anyone willing to develop the necessary strength, courage, and mastery. A light expedition is a short, performable (in personal cost, preparation time and duration) journey with a purpose that leverages and develops the righ t skills and confidence while building self-understanding. It also affords opportunities to discover secrets and achieve firsts.

In part 3 of 3, I’ll provide several light expedition examples.

A Personal First: A Week-Long, 120 mile Long Canoe Trip in the Quetico

Cherokee Creek, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Photo by Matthew O’Keefe

My first light expedition was a week-long canoe trip in the Quetico as a teenager with 4 other Scouts and an adult leader. The Quetico is a large wilderness park in Canada that lies on the Minnesota border, adjacent to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). Together these two parks comprise 2.27 million acres. With no development allowed and highly restricted access and use, you can paddle and hike for days without seeing a single person outside your group. Six of us traveled 120 miles in canoes, nearly 20 miles a day, a brutal pace. The purpose of this trip was to put enough miles behind us that we would be alone and could experience the North American wilderness pre-settlement, and we succeeded: we saw only one other group of paddlers other than the days we left and returned.

And that was the last big trip I did for the next 22 years, as I built a career, a company and raised a family. I completely put aside this part of me, the need to explore the unknown and to push my physical limits. A divorce and the loss of my youngest cousin in a freak accident reminded me that my time on earth was limited, and that living life fully with my true friends and family required big changes. At the time it wasn’t exactly clear to me why what I now call light expeditions were so appealing and fulfilling, but they were.

Anegada, British Virgin Islands. Photo by Matthew O’Keefe

I took up whitewater canoeing, sailing, and light backpacking with friends and family because I enjoyed them. Gradually I began to realize what Sir Wilfred Thesiger had said (quoted in Part 1of this series) was the key:

I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert peoples… It is not the goal but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worthwhile the journey.

Our true nature is to seek out ways to test our strength, courage, and mastery and to achieve some recognition (honor) for that. We’re never really satisfied until we’re suffering through a journey towards a goal, perhaps to be the first to achieve something or to reveal some secret, but more often just to find peace through the effort.

Here are a few other light expeditions to give you a better sense for the concept.

A First: Diving the Edmund Fitzgerald via SCUBA

The Fitzgerald is the best known Great Lakes shipwreck, going down during a horrific storm on November 19, 1975 with all 29 men. Their bodies are still entombed in the ship. The storm that sank the Fitzgerald was one of the worst gales ever recorded on the lake, with mountainous seas reaching 40+ feet. The wreck was studied first via remote cameras mounted on submersibles, and more recently by submarines manned by people.

In 1995, two expert divers drove a truck from Florida to Lake Superior. They were the first to dive the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald via SCUBA, taking only 6 minutes to reach the wreck at 530 feet, and 3 hours to return. They only had 15 minutes on the bottom.

Terence Tysall and fellow diver Mike Zee (a former student of Tysall’s) were not foolhardy thrill seekers. Tysall had performed more than 8,000 dives for the Navy, NASA, NOAA and other organizations. Yet, given their extreme skill levels in SCUBA diving plus experience and the simple logistics (they simply chartered a boat to take them to the wreck site for the one day they had a weather window), they were able to make the dive strictly with their own personal resources. The Fitzgerald dive was not only the deepest SCUBA dive ever in the Great Lakes, it was the deepest such dive to any wreck.

From a recent article on the expedition:

The two picked a date, arranged a team and drove a small pickup truck from Florida to Michigan, taking turns sleeping on the oxygen tanks in the truck bed. When they arrived in the Upper Peninsula, the weather gave them a window of one morning when the water was millpond calm for the expedition.

On the lake bed, the pair saw a hull towering above them, illuminated by heavy-duty lights they’d dropped on a camera line. The lights gave them about 60 feet of visibility on the bow area and of the iron ore scattered around the bottom. They floated up the hull side, past the words “Edmund Fitzgerald,” to the pilothouse.

“In an era when people can experience so many things virtually, Tysall said he considers diving a way to maintain a physical connection with history. “The Fitzgerald was another step in that for me,” he said. “I think it was important for us to be there.”

Looking for a Secret: Remote Surf on Lake Superior

Lake Superior is home to hundreds of shipwrecks that testify to the lake’s potential for destruction. It’s southwest coast near Grand Marais, Michigan is popular with surfers. The sheer number of ships sunk there led to that area being called “the Shipwreck Coast”.

Superior is also one of the few freshwater lakes on the planet that generates ocean-sized surf. Surfing requires water big enough to allow swells to develop, which means winds blowing over hundreds of miles of open water. The topography (bathymetry) of the lake floor must also be conducive to forming waves that peel rather than closing out all at once. Stony Point is a popular surfing destination for the lake, yet surfing there began only two decades ago.

Superior’s frigid waters require that surfers wear the thickest wetsuits possible because the best surfing happens in the coldest months, fall through spring. Rocky shores demand solid skills to avoid injury.

Stoney Point is close to Duluth, a medium-sized port town with an accessible airport. However, there is a lot of isolated shoreline in Lake Superior with high potential for surfable waves, yet these are usually so remote and inaccessible they have never been surfed. The problem is exacerbated by the sporadic nature of swells in an inland lake and the fog, high winds, and big seas that often accompany swell-generating weather. To understand these challenges while scouting for solid surf locations, a light expedition was needed.

Ryan Patin preparing to surf Isle Royale’s south shore. Photo by Matthew O’Keefe.

I met two Lake Superior surfers, Ryan Patin and Stefan Ronchetti (we all work for the same software company) who’ve surfed Lake Superior for years, almost since the beginning. They were passionate about finding new surfing locations on the lake, and had already executed several driving trips (light expeditions actually) to surf remote parts of the north shore of Superior in Minnesota. They were excited about the potential for surfing Isle Royale, an island 20 nautical miles offshore in the northern part of Lake Superior. The bathymetry looked very promising in the southeast portion of the island, which was also exposed to hundreds of mile of fetch (stretches of open water over which the wind can blow) from the southeast and southwest.

Matthew O’Keefe and Ryan Patin (left), Windigo, Michigan

Ryan and I traveled to Isle Royale, a national park, in July 2018 to scout potential surf locations. Over the course of three days were able to circle the island in my Zodiac 650 RIB (Rigid Inflatable Boat), mapping and photographing dozens of sites with solid potential. We also practiced getting a surfer in and out of the boat safely, and operating the Zodiac in the shallow reefs where surfable waves happen. Ryan even did a little surfing in a dying swell on our first full day on the island. Since this trip was in the summer, the weather was ideal for testing the logistics and scouting potential sites, but not ideal for surfing, which happens in the colder months.

This light expedition combined my boating and camping experience plus navigation skills, with Ryan’s surfing expertise and talent. Based on this trip, we are considering another trip in October or April timed to coincide with strong surfing potential based on Lake Superior weather forecasts and wave models. We will be able to refine the logistics and safety planning along with focusing on the potential surf sites with the most potential. Perhaps we will be able to find a huge wave where no one else has.

At Beaver Island, Isle Royale National Park.

The links below point to all three essays in this series on light expeditions.

Part 1: The Power of Light Expeditions

Part 2: The Best Skills to Master for Light Expeditions

Part 3: Light Expeditions, Lake Superior Style

The Best Skills to Master for Light Expeditions

Part 2 of 3.

In Part 1 of this 3 part series, I introduced light expeditions, journeys accessible to anyone willing to develop the necessary strength, courage, and mastery. A light expedition is a short, performable (in personal cost, preparation time and duration) journey with a purpose that leverages and develops masculine skills and confidence while building self-understanding. It also affords opportunities to discover secrets and achieve firsts.

What kind of journey’s make you better at being a man from the perspective of Jack Donovan’s male virtues?

And what journeys and skills have good masculine aesthetics and appearance, can be recorded and inspire creative works, and provide the chance to socialize with family, friends, and interesting women?

From my perspective, the pro-masculine skills to master for light expeditions should answer the following questions affirmatively.

(0) Are there low-overhead, low-cost ways of participating almost anywhere? This allows you to practice the skill regularly.

And can you start out with a one-time experience (e.g., bucket list checkoff) and then incrementally grow it to a hobby, from a hobby to proficiency, and from proficiency to mastery?

(1) Does the skill allow practicing to scale, so that practicing on a small scale applies at a large scale as well? Can you experience the skill at both small and large scales?

For example, sailing a dinghy (i.e., a small personal sailboat like the Laser show in this photo) is low-cost and easy to learn; can be done on almost any body of water, large or small; and yet it significantly improves your understanding of winds and waves. Racing dinghy’s also increases your understanding of race tactics for all types of boats and race courses.

(2) Are there upper limits to mastery, and who can reach them? Are there deeply experienced masters of the skill willing to teach you and are they readily available?

Skills to Master for Light Expeditions — Canoeing the Seal River during a forest fire. Photo: Hap Wilson.

(3) Can you get killed doing it if you don’t have a minimum level of mastery? This seriously reinforces the need for strength and courage.

(4) Can you test your courage with the skill by pushing beyond the limits of your current mastery to achieve more mastery, in ways that are prudent and not reckless? By doing so can you accrue honor in some form?

(5) Can the skill take you to remote places that few others get to see regularly? This is key to having unique explorations, and to finding secrets. It also likely means it requires some courage to make the journey there.

Master for Light Expeditions — Outer Island, Lake Superior. Photo by Matthew O’Keefe

(6) Does the skill easily allow you to bring others — friends, family, attractive woman, LTRs, etc. — to see places few others get to see, on explorations that excite the imagination?

(7) Are the aesthics of the skill good and is your expedition worth recording, either in photos, film, paintings or drawings?

(8) Are new technologies continually changing the sport keeping things interesting, requiring more mastery, offering more chances to push your current mastery envelope and the state-of-the-art to gain honor via accomplishing firsts and finding secrets?

What skills emphasize the masculine and male virtues and provide the richest experiences? With these questions in mind, I’ll make my case.

Some Good Skills for Light Expeditions

Sailing: In sailing, more strength and more stamina translates directly to better performance: trimming sails, grinding winches, heaving anchor, and overnight watches all can be performed better with more pure muscular strength and stamina.

Moving heavy boats (or small ones) in big seas requires experience (mastery) and a calm demeanor (courage). As your mastery increases, you can push the envelope on the size of waves and wind your willing to sail in, but new, tougher conditions almost always require increased courage to overcome the sailor’s initial nerves when facing the new situation.

Sailboat Riva completing the Pacific Cup Race, 2010.

New, challenging conditions can happen suddenly (wind gusts, storms, lightning, etc.) and must be faced and mastered. Honor can be won in sailing via achievements in competitive races, either inshore or offshore, and by completing long, difficult voyages against your current level of skill. As your mastery increases, your courage and strength become important as you push the level of difficulty.

Whitewater canoeing and rafting: Strength, courage, and mastery all play a role in successful whitewater canoeing and rafting. Mastery is required to plan properly based on your current skill level across a spectrum of required tasks: logistics, routing, navigation, paddling technique and form, reading and running rapids (or not), lining, packing, camp-craft etc. Depending on the area, you may need to contend with bears (black, polar, or grizzly) or other aggressive wildlife.

Attean Lake, Maine. Photo by Matthew O’Keefe.

Canoeing scales up and down quite well, as experience gained on local waters, even flat water, translates directly to trip expertise. Finding whitewater can be tougher than finding flat water, depending on where you live, but modern air travel and support from canoe and raft outfitters on the best rivers can easily overcome this.

Surfing: Strength, courage and mastery are all critical in surfing, for safety reasons and to be able to push the envelope on the size of waves you can surf. The skill scales up quite well, and the search for the perfect wave or to be the first to surf some remote, beautiful, undiscovered location with huge waves (a form of secret) is intoxicating.

The best Master Skills to for Light Expeditions — Stony Point, Lake Superior. Photo: Surfing Magazine.

In addition, taking family and friends to the beach always gets a positive response, and there is no question surfers are thought of as masculine by many women. Surfing aesthetics are excellent, and it can be practiced with friends and family nearby.

Hunting: Hunting is an ancient sport and one that early men performed in small groups. It requires all 4 masculine virtues, and provides intense socialization with other men. In some cultures, deer hunting is something the whole family does together. It’s rather mysterious but the male bonding the comes from a joint, successful hunt is primordial and seems to tap into something deep in the male soul. Fishing has similar characteristics. Hunting and fishing are also excellent ancillary skills for light expeditions, even if they are not the end purpose of the trip.

Motorcycles: Motorcycles have great masculine aesthetics, are associated with small gangs of men, and are legendary for the variety and depth of the journeys one can achieve with them. Given the dangers to bikers on the open road, it requires and signals a base level of courage to even ride them.

You might think that my emphasis on aesthetics is superfluous, and yet… we are entering a golden age for gifted amateurs to record and artistically express what they have accomplished on light expeditions. Incredibly cheap yet sophisticated digital cameras like GoPro’s, combined with cheap film editing tools like iMovie and Final Cut Pro allow literally anyone to beautifully record their light expedition.

Although this list is not complete, these four skills are excellent for developing masculine traits and performing light expeditions. I hope this essay has you thinking about other potential skills that could be leveraged for light expeditions. The links below point to all three essays in this series on light expeditions.

Part 1: The Power of Light Expeditions

Part 2: The Best Skills to Master for Light Expeditions

Part 3: Light Expeditions, Lake Superior Style