Chris Raab: The Instructor's Reward

Dubside sits down with Chris Rabb of Tuktu Paddles at the 2026 Traditional Qajaqers of the South event in Florida. They talk Greenland paddles, ACA instruction, Adirondack trips, expedition food, wildlife encounters, celebrity backstage stories, and the deeper rewards of teaching. The episode closes with Chris’s moving story of certifying a young inner-city paddler who discovered, perhaps for the first time, that he was capable of something extraordinary.

Tuktu Paddles: Custom Hand Made Paddles 

Transcript

[DUBSIDE]
Welcome to the Dubcast with Dubside. This episode has some kayaking information as well as some things of general interest to those of you who aren't quite as fanatical about kayaking as some of us. I'm talking to Chris Rabb, the man behind Tuktu Paddles and a kayak instructor.

For many, many years I first met Chris when I first got into Greenland Paddles. We go back quite a ways. We talk about his job as a lighting director and my work as a sound man and our interaction with some named celebrities.

He talks about the Adirondack Lakes in upstate New York, some of his bucket list places to go as he approaches retirement, making paddles commercially, the cost of lumber, the Euro paddle-Greenland paddle debate, some new ideas in expedition food, a wolf, a moose, and a bear story. Well, that's three separate stories. 

And then finally, we have a story I once told back in episode number nine, but I told it second hand. Now we're going to hear it from the source. And that is when Chris gave an instructor certification and an inner city homeboy came to take the class. 

This runs in the neighborhood of 45 minutes.

[CHRIS]
Hey there, Dubside.

[DUBSIDE]
Hey, how's it going? 

[CHRIS]
All right. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So I am at the Traditional Qajaqers of the South event in 2026.

And I finally gotten in person somebody I've talked about many times on the podcast, Mr. Chris Rabb. 

[CHRIS] 
Hey there. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Hey, we go back quite a ways, don't we?

[CHRIS]
We do. I was thinking about it the other day. My gosh, like somebody asked me today, “When did you first start looking at Greenland paddles?”

And I said, “Well, you know what? It was actually in a class with Dubside.”

We were both taking a ACA course together and the instructor was a big on Greenland paddles. It just flourished from there.

[DUBSIDE]
And then we, so you, you were in New Jersey. Are you still in New Jersey?

[CHRIS]
I am.

[DUBSIDE]
Oh yeah. Okay. Same house? You've had a couple of houses. 

[CHRIS] 
Well, we've probably moved since, uh, since that, since those days anyway. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Yeah. Yeah. But, um, and I remember probably the most fun I ever had surfing was when we, when we went, it was just you and me, I think at like the, what's that? The Hereford or what?

One of those inlets.

[CHRIS]
Oh, either Corsons or Hereford.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

One of those.

[CHRIS]
Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
And the waves are just beautiful. It was like a, like a shallow shoal way out there.

[CHRIS]
Well, sometimes you just get a ride there that is, you know, it goes a mile or so long, you know.
[DUBSIDE]
That was the day for it.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. Well, we've had a good time there. That's for sure.

[DUBSIDE]
So, so we, we both took instructor certification together and then I did the whole Greenland thing. So you, so you got, you were an ACA instructor trainer and you were doing courses for many, many years, right?

[CHRIS]
Yeah. For almost 20 something years, almost 25 years.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. So you probably had a couple of hundred people certified?

[CHRIS]
Oh yeah, at least. At one point I was doing about 15 certification classes a year. So I don't know what that ends up to over 20 years, but…

[DUBSIDE] 
It accumulates. 

[CHRIS] 
It does. It does. And, uh, as you imagine, and you imagine it runs, it's, it's, it brings you to everybody, every sort of place and person and people with different goals.

[DUBSIDE]
And so you were, you were doing that full time, the kayaking and you were making your Tuktu paddles. You are the man behind Tuktu paddles. 

[CHRIS] 
Yeah. So I was a kayak bum for a long time. Sure.

[DUBSIDE]
Before that you, you were doing lighting, lighting director.

[CHRIS] 
LDing shows, lighting director for, uh, live performances, mostly in the mid Atlantic region, but you know, all kinds of stuff. 

[DUBSIDE] 
But in like in the casinos, Atlantic city and things?

[CHRIS]
Casinos, and sometimes on the road with other, other venues.

[DUBSIDE]
So my favorite story from that era—you probably got lots of them, but—it was some, I think it was somebody like, I think it was Tony Bennett was doing the show.

Tell me your Tony Bennett story.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. So, uh, at the time when automated lighting was just coming onto the scene.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. So the lights would move themselves, but you had to program.

[CHRIS]
You had to program them. Right. And not everybody was up to speed on the programming part of them. And so, Tony Bennett came into town and his, the guy who was traveling with him was didn't know how to program the console and they lost the programming like three hours before the show. And so I got a call and they said, “Hey, can you come in?"

[DUBSIDE]
And so it wasn't even your, you weren't originally going to be there.

[CHRIS]
I wasn't even going to be there. So I got a call and it was like, “Hey, can you come in and help them try to salvage the show reprogram.”

 So I get there a couple of hours before the doors open.

And, uh, you know, fortunately he had a, a video of the show. So we have the video on a monitor and we're watching it.

[DUBSIDE]
You're trying to figure out the program what's on it.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. Or at least put, do something to make the show work. And so we're frantically trying to put this thing together and we're in the light booth and I hear the door open.

[DUBSIDE]
And so, as I recall, you were extremely frustrated, right?

[CHRIS]
I wouldn't say I was frustrated, but I was busy.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay. Okay. It was hectic.


[CHRIS]
Hectic. That would be the best word for it. And I'm sitting there with his LD and I hear the door open behind us. I didn't even look up cause we were just, and the door opens and a minute later it closes and about 20 minutes goes by and the door opens again.

And this unmistakable voice says, “Guys, you were working so hard. I just appreciate it so much.” 

And I turn around and there's Tony Bennett with an arm load of sandwiches and coffee.

And he's like, “This is for you guys.”

And I’m like…

[DUBSIDE]
That's awesome.

[CHRIS]
Yeah, this is okay. That was a good, that's a good one.

[DUBSIDE]
As a sound engineer, you know, the, the, the top guys, the real top guys know that all the people it takes to make their show work are essential. And if they diss somebody or insult somebody, they'll get paid back for it big time. So the ones, the ones where the wannabes adopt this attitude, like I'm going to be trying, those are really obnoxious types who get, they don't last very long.

[CHRIS]
No, they don't. And I don't know if that's because they insult people or not, but it seems like the seasoned pro is really the most personable. So shockingly, the most personable also.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Well, the one I always remember is the nightclub I was, I worked at in Philadelphia for many years. The end of the night, the club clears out and the artists may still be in the dressing room.

So I may often go into the hotel. You never even see them. But one guy, he comes out from the dressing room on the other side of the stage, walks across the dance floor, stops, turns, walks over to my side of the stage.

I was doing the monitors. I did the monitors for the show and thanks me for, for, you know, doing the monitors and you appreciate my work. George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic.

[CHRIS]
Nice.

[DUBSIDE]
I'll never forget it. Like that's a righteous dude.

[CHRIS]
That is the way that it goes. Another person who was like that was a Dolly Parton. 

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. She, uh, I did her show a number of times and she would do this thing where, uh, you know, they'd go off and then everybody's clapping for an encore and the band would vamp.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
And it would be this like ridiculously—the audience must've wondered what's going on because she would walk off the stage and you know, they would just play for like 10 minutes. But what she was doing was walking around backstage to every spotlight operator, sound guy, lighting guy, and giving him a bottle of champagne and a little tip and saying thank you. And I was like, wow.

[DUBSIDE]
And you know, the next time she comes through, she will get every 110% of every crew member.

[CHRIS]
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

[DUBSIDE]
That's the way to do it. Very cool.

[CHRIS] 
She was great. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So when going back to kayaking, I recall, I think twice I went up there with you, but you had the Adirondack lakes figured out. We did some beautiful trips up there.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. That's a great place to paddle.

[DUBSIDE]
Absolutely.

[CHRIS]
And camp.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
And, uh, you know, that's, uh, it's one of my favorite kind of short term getaways.

[DUBSIDE]
I mean, so when we, that was, that was what, 20 years ago or more. So you've been up there since have things changed? Like…

[CHRIS]
Oh yeah. Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
So what's different now?

[CHRIS]
Well, there's, it's just like everything. It's, uh, more people.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
And, and in response to that, uh, you know, the, uh, parks management people are a little more, uh, restrictive. They're a little more formal, a little more present.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
Uh, so I mean, in that way, it's, uh, it's closed in a little bit on people, but it's still a great place to go as a paddler, very accessible for anyone who wants to kind of get out in a pretty environment.

[DUBSIDE]
But in those lakes up there, it's still pretty much wilderness. You don't have houses and things, right?

[CHRIS]
Well, a lot of the lakes have houses on them, but you can still find places to get away from it, particularly if you're willing to do a portage here or there. And, uh, you know, it's, uh, it's still a great destination and there's still lots of fun trips.

But, uh, you know, now that I'm approaching retirement, I'm finding that I have more time to go other places in the country. So that's been my goal lately.

[DUBSIDE]
So what are some other favorite destinations?

[CHRIS]
Uh, well, I'm on a quest to knock stuff off my bucket list. Last year we went to Isle Royale and visited all the Pictured Rocks and all of the national parks up that way. And so, you know, just making the rounds, doing those kinds of things, go out to Utah and do some paddling this year.

So, uh, got suggestions. I'm open to them. We'll go do it.

[DUBSIDE]
Greenland's always my thing, which is easier to get to now if you can fly straight there. 

Um, so, so let me, let me hear about the paddle making thing.

Like I've, I've known other, some guys making paddles for a living and some people, they do it for a while and then they, it's just wears them out. And I know that like cedar dust is toxic. And so you seem to have wetted all that.

Tell me about it.

[CHRIS]
Well, it is, uh, you know, it can become something that feels like an allergen. Uh, and of course breathing any kind of dust isn't good for you. But, uh, you know, I don't do as many as I once did.

I've tried to, uh, I've tried to, what I tell people is you can only make so many solid cedar paddles before you lose your mind. So I'm trying to, trying to move towards making some that are a little bit more interesting designs and things like that.

[DUBSIDE]
And, uh, you know, the other paddle makers I've talked to told me about how hard it is to get good wood nowadays.

[CHRIS]
So we're here at TRAQS this weekend and I'm doing the paddle making as you know. And, uh, yeah, I ended up at six different lumber yards trying to just seven blanks. And, uh, yeah, it was a challenge and, uh, and the prices through the roof, you know?

Uh, so yeah, it's becoming hard to find the quality and, and the price has really gone, skyrocketed too.

[DUBSIDE]
As far as like income goes, that was never really a major income source, was it?

[CHRIS]
Uh, no, I mean, to be honest with you…

[DUBSIDE] 
Anything in kayak is not going to be a major income source!

[CHRIS] 
No, it was never a big income source. 

[DUBSIDE] 
But your, your instruction was…

[CHRIS] 
Instruction did more for, for supporting that.

And, uh, but, but, you know, I kind of looked at the, uh, paddle making as the money that paid for my kayaking habit. You know? So when I wanted a new piece of gear, I would make a few paddles and, you know, try to try to work it that way so that I was earning my new toys.

[DUBSIDE]
But I mean, the amount of work it takes to make a paddle, is it, are you, is that like more or less minimum wage?

[CHRIS]
Probably. Probably.

[DUBSIDE] 
It's a labor of love.

[CHRIS]
It also depends how you approach it. I mean, if you, uh, you know, if you approach it like an assembly line and make a bunch at once then you can make much more money in a shorter period of time, but that's also a lot less interesting.

So it becomes, it becomes more like work.

[DUBSIDE]
Your thing, if I can say that, you did a lot of lamination stuff. Really nice.

[CHRIS]
And that's what I'm moving towards now. Some, uh, some interesting lamination stuff that I haven't seen people do before. And so that's what I'm kind of gravitating towards.

And some of them are just aesthetic, but some of them are structural things that'll make a paddle lighter or stronger and, and also look kind of interesting. So, uh, yeah, that's the direction I'm kind of going with.

[DUBSIDE]
Nowadays, a typical laminated paddle is going to cost how much?

[CHRIS]
That's a good question. And, you know, I would say that's, uh, that seems to be changing on a, on a month to month basis based on…

[DUBSIDE] 
The price of wood goes up, but sometimes it goes down as well? Right?

[CHRIS]
Typically it just goes up, but sometimes, you know, you might find a deal on something or, uh, you know, occasionally a deal will present itself, but generally the price just keeps going up. And, uh, and, uh, you know, the, the, the cost to make it outside the lumber is just pretty much the same, but the lumber has gone up significantly. So it's hard to put a, put a number on that.

[DUBSIDE]
Right. Somebody I was talking to said they stopped doing paddle making workshops altogether. They had some little business going. They just stopped because the price of lumber just put them out of business.

[CHRIS]
Well, and that's, I felt bad for Ed on this one because, uh, it had been a while since I'd purchased lumber. And when I went out, you know, it was, yeah, it was quite a, quite a price tag.

[DUBSIDE]
Right. Yeah.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. So, but, uh, with that said, everybody seems to enjoy it and just make it a nice paddle.

[DUBSIDE]
And this weekend you had what, six, seven people, seven people making paddles. Right.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. Cool.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. So I want to hear, we have, we have people setting up in the background here, but ambient noise. Your instruction, certifying people for, to be kayak instructors. You've had hundreds of people that you went through this.

[CHRIS] 
Oh yeah.

Lots of, lots of programs. I was a trainer in different disciplines. And so I was doing certifications and stand up paddleboard and canoe and sea kayak.

And so, uh, you know, between them, I was seeing people every weekend doing certification classes through the season. And, uh, yeah, I mean, that was, I wouldn't change a thing. That was really a great experience.

I mean, the things you, as you know, you, as much as you give is as much as you get back from people. And, uh, I certainly, uh, and I'm humbled by the amount that people gave back too.

[DUBSIDE]
So you took on the stand up paddleboard certification as well. Was that just a demand decision? People wanted it or some of us purists were kind of offended by this new thing, but we had to come around eventually because it didn't go away.

[CHRIS]
Right. Well, you know, it's, uh, also just, just personal curiosity. I mean, what I found through, what I found through, uh, through being a canoe instructor and a kayak instructor and an SUP instructor is that, uh, all these different disciplines, you know, they're really just one. We’re really just telling one story, but that story has different, uh, aspects.

And sometimes that's, we view that as different disciplines, but the things you learn from SUP, uh, carry over to kayaking. You know, you start, you start hearing people saying things. It's like, wow, I just never thought about that.

You know, I never thought about trim in this way, trim of the boat or board in that case, in this way. And you kind of take that back and it just all, uh, synergistically just makes your toolbox bigger as an instructor.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I remember in the, in those earlier days, it got fairly contentious between like Euro blades and Greenland blade. And you seem to have a very sane attitude about like that. Like you guys are arguing about nothing here.

It's all the same thing.

[CHRIS]
Well, it is all the same thing. I mean, it's just, uh, it's, and it's all the same thing—that's really what I'm saying across disciplines too.

It's really all the same thing. Uh, there are, you know, when you're learning to use a Greenland paddle, as opposed to a Euro blade paddle, 90% of it is the same and there's 10% of it, which is different. And if you, you know, approach that in a healthy way, that's those differences are cool.

And many times those differences can carry over either to a different discipline or to the other type of blade. If you try it out, you know, and so, uh, you know, for example, uh, you know, one of the things I took from using a wing paddle was that both with the Greenland paddle and a Euro blade paddle, if you do a forward stroke in a way that allows it to climb forward, almost like sculling forward in your forward stroke, you can achieve close to that same forward lift that you get out of a, out of a, uh, a wing paddle.

[DUBSIDE]
With a Greenland paddle.

[CHRIS] 
With a Greenland paddle or with a, and so, you know, if you kind of view them more the same than different, there's all kinds of things you can carry across lines. But yeah, I know there was some contentious… contention back then, but you know, life's too short.

[DUBSIDE]
Life is definitely too short.

People like to argue, you know 

[CHRIS] 
I've always thought that it was like saying, you know, it's the difference between the sky is saying the sky is blue and no, it isn't. There's no clouds in the sky. Okay.

[DUBSIDE]
And you were a regular at the Charleston East Coast canoe contest for many years. We did some courses together, I think.

[CHRIS]
I think we did.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
That was a fun event. I was sorry to see it go. Although in talking to those guys, I understand that, uh, you know, that just didn't, uh, crowds weren't returning or at least the same, the numbers just weren’t there.

[DUBSIDE]
One of my podcasts was called The Rise and Fall of the East Coast Canoe Company. My take on, that event, they set the standard back in the day.

[CHRIS] 
They really did. 

[DUBSIDE] 
They were the top of the heap.

[CHRIS]
I loved it, and it was an, for me anyway, it was a great opportunity to meet the other people in the industry from all over the place. You know, I just, we were just talking about being at, up at Isle Royale last year, right? And so I'm standing there waiting to take the ferry over with my couple of friends, and we have a couple of Romanies sitting on the dock, and we're waiting for the ferry, and I see this guy loading his Romanies out, and he turns around, it's Michael Gray, who we know from, from who we met in South Carolina.

So yeah, it was just a, brought the small world together.

[DUBSIDE]
I was on a plane coming back from Greenland once. Michael Gray got in line.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. He gets around. He does get around.

[DUBSIDE]
We used to go out to, because you had the whole Jersey Shore figured out there, and we would paddle out to various places. So you still get out to paddle for fun enough?

[CHRIS]
Well, yeah, I mean, a couple of years ago, you know, I started to really scale back the instruction, and you know, when we first met, and my goal in becoming an ACA instructor was, I had been doing lots of expedition trips for a few years before that, some stuff in Canada, and you know, all over the place, and my, I was doing it with a group that was actually starting to age out of the sports, you know, and I was like, man, I gotta build a group of friends that I can continue to do this with, and so I kind of went into instructing with this thought that, you know, I teach people, so I'm gonna meet people or help people develop in a way that we can do expedition trips together. Well, like, just like with paddle making, it spiraled out of control.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
And here we are 25 years later with every weekend filled with something, you know, a course or something, and so the past couple of years, I've been trying to go back to that with doing the, you know, scaling back the instruction and trying to ramp up the expedition side of things, and I'm really enjoying that.

[DUBSIDE]
Do you still have that turquoise Romany that you got used to?

[CHRIS]
I do not.

[DUBSIDE]
You do not? What happened to that? 

[CHRIS] 
Well, I loved it to near death.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah? I'll bet.

[CHRIS]
And then I sold it to Bob Myron in Maine. Who took, who was working in a boatyard part-time at the time, he took it over there and painted it yellow.

[DUBSIDE]
All right.

[CHRIS]
And from there, I'm not sure what happened to it.

[DUBSIDE]
So what do you paddle now?

[CHRIS]
I do have a Romany, and I have an Explorer and a Delphin. My fleet has been, I've been paring my fleet down because there were a lot of boats that I was using for instruction, which I just don't use anymore. I had some skin on frames and some other stuff, which I just was not using anymore, so I've donated a couple to Qajaq USA and some of the other boats.

Yeah, so that's my kayak fleet now, is a Romany, an Explorer, and a Delphin for the rough water.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, well, the Romany, you say what you want about it, it has endured the test of time.

[CHRIS]
It sure has.

[DUBSIDE]
That combination of features, like you just can't beat it.

[CHRIS]
Yeah, it's just a little, it's just that Swiss Army knife of boats. And yeah, I just love it. And for expeditioning, the Explorer has just got that little bit extra space that, particularly if you're leading the trip and you know you're gonna have, so there's gonna be stuff you didn't anticipate carrying that goes into your boat.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, as I recall, you are quite the gourmet on the expeditions. Like, you're whipping out a Dutch oven.

[CHRIS]
Let me tell you, so I…The past couple of years, so yes, there's two sort of, in my mind, there's two sort of schools of thought on back country eating.

And one of them I would call the kind of Knowles method, which is where you are cooking a lot of stuff from scratch almost, you know? So you're doing a Dutch oven, you're doing whatever. And then there's the kind of minimalist thing where you're doing dried foods and so forth.

And you know, when we do like an Adirondack trip where we can pack heavy and we're not going real far, yeah, we can do that kind of stuff. The bigger cooks and that's a lot of fun. But for these longer expeditions, you know, you really need to go with dry foods.

And so I don't know if you've tried them or not, but they can run the gambit from, you know, I won't diss anything.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I've been told, I mean, they cost more naturally because of that reason, but no matter how good they taste, after eight or nine weeks, nothing tastes all that great.

[CHRIS]
No, exactly, and so, but also, they're mostly salt and carbohydrate, you know? If you look, lots of salt and carbohydrate. And particularly as you get older, I'm not metabolizing carbohydrate as well, right?

So I don't wanna really rely on that. I want something that's a little fresher. So I started to delve into this and I'm working on actually some short videos now to put out on kind of an alternative way to make your own dried foods.

And so what I realized was that when you buy these freeze-dried meals, you know, it has all the ingredients, whatever, vegetables and the flavorings and all this kind of thing, and typically they're in a sauce of some kind, right?

[DUBSIDE]
Okay.

[CHRIS]
And so when you add boiling water to it, the water immediately gets absorbed by the thing that's gonna be the most porous, which is probably whatever is making up the sauce of the gravy, because it's powdered.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay.

[CHRIS]
Where other things, like if you have broccoli in there, you know, freeze-dried broccoli, it's gonna take longer to rehydrate, right? And so if you make them yourself, then you can use dehydrated vegetables and hydrate them separately, and then add your other ingredients after the meats or vegetables have rehydrated alone.

[DUBSIDE]
All right.

[CHRIS]
And you end up with a much more palatable and healthy meal, which doesn't, which might, your boredom might not strike until two weeks, instead of a week or whatever.

[DUBSIDE]
So do you have like a YouTube channel?

[CHRIS]
Working on putting that together now. With that, with something about foods and, you know, other outdoor skills.

[DUBSIDE]
You got a name for it yet? Because I can put a link on it.

[CHRIS]
I'll tell you when I do, but I do not, I don't yet.

[DUBSIDE]
Let me know.

[CHRIS]
I'm waiting until I have about a dozen videos to put up. And so maybe I'm halfway there now.

[DUBSIDE]
Cool. So I understand you don't do the kayaking for income. Well, if you're retired now, you don't do anything, but you weren't doing all the instruction full time.

[CHRIS]
Yeah, I haven't, I'm not retired. I'm still working.

[DUBSIDE]
Oh, you're still, okay. I talked to too many people here. I can't keep it straight.

[CHRIS]
Retirement's on the horizon. We'll see how long, maybe another year, could be another three, could be next month. I'm ready.

[DUBSIDE]
But you went back to some of your lighting experience.

[CHRIS]
Yeah, so I work as an integrator now. We do projects like lighting bridges and museum displays and, you know, things like that.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I haven't paddled in Philadelphia for, what has it been, 20 years now or something? But as a professional lighting guy, what do you think of the lighting job they did on the Ben Franklin Bridge? The colors that come up underneath and switch back and forth?

[CHRIS]
It's pretty cool.

[DUBSIDE]
I don't know if they've updated that since then, but it was pretty cool at the time.

[CHRIS]
It's pretty cool, yeah. I mean, they just keep getting better and better. So keep looking at bridges. You'll see more new stuff coming out all the time. I like it.

[DUBSIDE]
So what's on your bucket list that you really, you haven't hit yet that you really are looking for?

[CHRIS]
Oh, well. Well, you know, I haven't, this year we'll be going out to Utah and paddling the Green River, maybe part of the Colorado River into, and then into Lake Powell, which is just a great desert trip. So we're gonna tour that area for a couple of weeks.

So that's on the short-term bucket list. I’d like to get up to Alaska and do some paddling. Really have to do a little more research on that one. But I know there's some great, I don't know if you've met Cliff Jacobson?

[DUBSIDE]
I don’t know.

[CHRIS]
He's a Canadian, he's written lots of books. Canadian guide, but he's got lots of experience with Canadian rivers. And so he's a great resource for maybe navigating where to go.

And so you're looking at some of his things. Part of my bucket list is to try to hit all the national parks. And if I can, and hit them.

[DUBSIDE]
How many are there?

[CHRIS]
Well, if you're just counting the parks, there's 50 or 60 something. But they have, of course, the National Park Service manages monuments.

[DUBSIDE]
So it's just not paddle them all, because some of them don't have any paddling, but just to go to.

[CHRIS]
But the paddling ones are at the top of the list.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, all right.

[CHRIS]
So that's my first goal, is to figure out how many of these national parks can be paddled.

[DUBSIDE]
All right.

[CHRIS]
I kind of scouted the Missouri River in the North and South Dakota this past fall. And if you haven't been up there, it's a pretty spectacular area for wildlife. But there's possibility of maybe doing a paddling trip on the rivers up there.

Not as a, it's not a big water thing, but it's certainly a pretty landscape thing.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
So those are a couple on the short-term list.

[DUBSIDE]
All right. I once had an idea of doing 50 states in, not 50, in a year, all 50 states with a folding kayak, you know, the buses and trains to the water or something like that. You have to map it all out and figure out the, I don't know if I'll ever do that.

[CHRIS]
Ambitious.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, I would have to do a major, GoFundMe on that to pay for it all. What's the coolest wildlife you've ever seen?

[CHRIS]
Oh, I don't, well, I had an experience last year at Isle Royale with wolves.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah?

[CHRIS]
And that was pretty cool. Where they were feet away, kind of just looking at you. Okay, we'll go the other way. But it started, it actually started at night. I was in my tent.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[CHRIS]
And I woke up to the sound of breathing next to my head, like outside the tent. Just this breathe, this heavy breathing.

[DUBSIDE]
That would freak me out.

[CHRIS]
And I was like, but, but you know, I don't, have you ever heard a really big animal breathe? You hear the cavity size of their lungs almost. It was almost like a- 

[DUBSIDE] 
I don't know if it's as big as whales breathing, but…

[CHRIS] 
Well, that kind of idea where you hear like, wow, there's a lot of air moving in there.

That kind of sound. And I could hear that right next to my head, outside the tent. And I was like, what in the world is that?

You know? So it turned out that, you know, the wolves kept walking through the campsite with, you know, which was, which was amazing.

[DUBSIDE]
I remember that time we were up in the Adirondack lakes and you went out paddling in one direction. I went out paddling in another direction. We had our radios on.

And then my radio clicks on and you whisper like, ”Dubside, I got a bear.”

I was trying to paddle over there. You were telling me where you were, but by the time I got there, the bear was gone.

That's some cool stuff.

[CHRIS]
Yeah. I had an experience with a moose once in Maine. It was,
you ever had that feeling? What's like, I was actually on my way somewhere else, but I had like five or six hours before I had to meet somebody and I was in coming back from Canada and going through Northern Maine. So I stopped in a state park and I just asked the, the person that the parks entrance station, is there somewhere I can go where I might see moose?

And they're like, go right up here to this pond. There's a good chance of seeing moose there. So I'm walking through the woods by myself out to this pond.

And I know you've had this feeling where you just get a little creeped out because you feel like somebody's watching you.

[DUBSIDE]
Feeling the eyes on your back.

[CHRIS]
And so I'm walking along and I'm coming up to this thicket and the thickets maybe like 10 or 12 feet away. And the moose just walks out across the trail. You know, he's like, you know, how tall they are, monstrous.

I was like, ah, okay. 

[DUBSIDE]
Excuse me!

[CHRIS] 
I was just going the other way. That was cool. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Well, I think we can wrap this up.

[CHRIS] 
I have one for the Adirondacks if you want to add it in. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Yeah. 

[CHRIS] 
So years ago, when on a backpacking trip in the Adirondacks, we were up in the high peaks area and it was raining out.

And so we said, let's stay in one of these lean-tos, you know? So it was obviously well-used lean-to. So it's the middle of the night, it's pitch black outside.

And we're asleep and I was there with my brother and another friend and we're asleep and I'm in the middle of the night and my brother says, “Stop kicking me.”

And I'm like, “What?”

I wake up. He’s like, “Stop kicking me.” 

And then I feel my feet like whack. My foot gets… 

[DUBSIDE]
Like through the tent?

[CHRIS] 
We weren’t in a tent.

[DUBSIDE]
Oh, in a lean-to. In a lean-to.

[CHRIS]
We're in a lean-to. So I feel my feet get moved and I'm like, you know, pushed aside pretty powerfully. I'm like, what the hell?

And my brother turns on the light and there's a bear trying to push us out of the way so he can smell something on the floorboards of the... We're like, oh, okay. That was close enough.

[DUBSIDE]
That sounds like a good horror movie kind of thing. Stop kicking me would be the line.

[CHRIS]
Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Wow. So I want to hear the story about you giving instruction, certification.

You know the story I'm talking about.

[CHRIS]
Yeah, yeah. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Tell me that story. 

[CHRIS] 
So, yeah.

So years ago, as I got a call from a group, it was a…

[DUBSIDE] 
Let me see if I can reduce our ambient noise.

Can you just move around the corner? Yeah, just, yeah, that's all right. All right. I gotta get a nice clean recording of this. I love this story. All right, go ahead.

[CHRIS]
So years ago, I gave a certification course.

[DUBSIDE]
So you've been doing these many, many, you know, standard certification.
 
[CHRIS]
Yep, standard certification.

[DUBSIDE]
ACA, Certificate for Kayak Instructor.

[CHRIS]
Yep, Level II Kayak Instructor.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay.

[CHRIS]
For a group out of New York City. And this group was like a community organization where they did outreach to inner city kids to get them out on their local waterways. And the group was looking to get their leaders certified as well as some of the kids in the group to be instructors, you know, peer instructors.

So, you know, we held this at the ACA camp, which is in Harriman State Park in New York, and they came up to the camp. And I had, you know, set materials out beforehand about the course and things they should study. And so when we get to the site, it's two of their, two kids and two adults and a few other folks who were just signed up for the course.

And we're doing our introductions and sitting at a picnic table outside when one of the young guys looks across the parking lot and he sees somebody from a rival gang. And he's like ready to, you know, he thinks he's being ambushed or something. We just see something's gonna happen.

And, you know, and I'm like, wow, okay. So that's where we're starting here. And so one of the adult leaders says, hey, he's just here like you just, you know, talks him down and we move on.

Well, what I noticed then is that this young guy, he's got a backpack and he's tough. And he's, you know, I said, okay, so pull out this handout or whatever. We're gonna talk about that and then we'll get started with our day.

So I see that he's got a backpack and he opens the backpack. And in the backpack, he's got a binder with everything that I sent to him organized in the binder, but he doesn't want anybody to see.

[DUBSIDE]
His homeboys to see.

[CHRIS]
He doesn't want his homeboys to see that he's, you know, and so, okay, you know, so we go about our day and we go about the weekend and this guy is, you know, he's got his barriers up. And he's- 

[DUBSIDE] 
His barriers up? 

[CHRIS] 
His barriers are up, meaning that he's tough.

And he's not sure that he can trust the process or that he's gonna get a fair deal or that, you know, he's just, you can just tell his, there's some work to be done there to win him over, you know, but he's interested and that's what it takes, right? So we get out there and it's a four day course and over the course of the weekend, he just does great. I mean, he's just eating it up and performing like any young athletic kid who's eager.

You know, he's just, you show him something, he's just nailing it.

[DUBSIDE]
Like on the water and in the classroom?

[CHRIS]
Both, yeah. I mean, like, you know, a little bit of feedback on his teaching process the first time around and he comes back the next time, bang, he's got it. You know, he's like, he's studying this stuff.

And I'm like, this is fantastic. So we get to the end of the course and, you know, I always ask people, you know, “How was the course for you?”

And we get to talking to this guy,”How's the course for you?”

And he's very, I can see he's got his arms crossed. He's very defensive. He's like, “Whatever, man. You know, I just came out here to do my thing, you know, and I got stuff out of it, you know, whatever.”

I'm like, “Okay, well, how do you think you did?" 

He's like, “I don't know, you know, did the best I could.”

All right. I said, “Well, I hope you won't be disappointed, but congratulations, you're an ACA instructor.”

And the kid, he kind of looks at me and I see tears streaming down his eyes and he's trying to hide his face.

And he says, “No one has ever told me I could do anything.” 

I was like, it still brings tears to my eyes now, man. I'm like, this is why I do this. You know?

He just, he just, yeah, that was an amazing weekend. That's for sure. And I don't know what he does now, but I hope he's still out there helping his peers. You know? It was just amazing.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, if I was a real investigative journalist, I would track that guy down and find out what he would do today. Yeah, that would be very interesting.

That's an amazing story. Yeah.

[CHRIS]
Yeah, he's good. But there's, you know, and there's always a million stories. I'm sure you have them too. People that visiting and people you meet along the way are what makes it.

[DUBSIDE]
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. All right.

Well, thank you so much for being on the Dubcast with Dubside.

[CHRIS]
Well, thanks for talking with me. It's great to see you.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, great to see you too.

And there you have Chris Rabb, interviewed May of 2026 at the TRAQS, the Traditional Qajaqers of the South event in Florida. We'll put a link to Tuktu Paddles. And by the time this airs, maybe he'll have his expedition food videos ready and we can put a link to that. 

If you want to hear my original version of the homeboy story, that's about 27 minutes into episode number nine. And listening back to that now, I see there's one little piece of wisdom from Chris I'd forgotten about.

He says that if you're using a bandsaw, the whole trick is to finish the job with as many fingers as when you started the job. 

Thank you for listening to the Dubcast with Dubside