Greg Stamer: Rolls, Revolution, and the Rise of Qajaq USA

Check out our "GREENLAND IS A QAJAQ NATION!" t-shirts and other merch at the DUBCAST SHOP at Fourthwall.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Dubside sits down face-to-face with Greg Stamer, founder and former president of Qajaq USA, for a wide-ranging conversation about the rise of traditional Greenland kayaking in the United States. Greg recalls the early days of the Delmarva Paddlers Retreat, Maligiaq Padilla’s influential 1998 visit, competing in Greenland without even knowing the complete list of rolls, and the lively debates that shaped Qajaq USA.

The conversation ventures well beyond organizational history. Greg recounts his record-setting expeditions around Iceland and Newfoundland, his fourteen 300-mile WaterTribe races, and the lessons he has learned from Greenland, wing, and single-bladed paddles. He also explains why retirement has led him not to the couch, but to open-water swimming and underwater hockey—and shares the remarkable story of a historic kayak frame built for John Heath in 1959 that may finally return home to Greenland.

It’s an episode about paddling history, cultural respect, adventure, aging, and a lifelong determination to remain “out there” on the water.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

[DUBSIDE]
Well, here we are. It is the 5th of May, Cinco de Mayo in some calendars. And I'm here with Greg Stamer.

[GREG] 
Happy to be here. 

[DUBSIDE]
And I've mentioned you many, many times on the Dubcast. And actually, you were interviewed way, probably the first year of the Dubcast, by Andrew over the phone, was that?

[GREG] 
Quite a few years, yeah. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Yeah. And we finally get the face-to-face thing.

So, you've been the, you have a long, colorful history in traditional paddling. And so, you started, you started paddling sometime, you must have picked up a Greenland paddle sometime?

[GREG]
Yeah, I started with this big, 8-foot-long Euroblade with a hard, 90-degree feather. And I was looking through Sea Kayaker magazine, and I actually saw a Betsy Bay paddle. And if you saw the paddle I had at the time, this thing had a blade this big.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[GREG]
It had squared off ends, and the Greenland paddle looked like something that was meant to be in the water. So, I started with the Betsy Bay and went from there.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. All right. So, some of this may have been in the first interview you did. So, if people want to go back and listen to that. But I want to jump to a couple of selected parts of your history. You were around in the early days, this would be the early ‘90s or so, trying to spread the word.

[GREG] 
Late ‘80s. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So, tell me, do you recall your first time at Delmarva?

[GREG]
I do. And at that time, Delmarva, right now, Delmarva is known as a Greenland event. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Yeah, all Greenland.

[GREG] 
This was not. This was a kayaking event. Nigel Foster was there, you know, teaching blended strokes with a spoon paddle.

[DUBSIDE] 
So, Nigel Foster was at Delmarva. 

[GREG] 
And he was the last Euro-inspired teacher before it became all Greenland. And I couldn't tell you the year. Must have been ’80.

[DUBSIDE]
It became all Greenland in 2001. Which is actually after Maligiaq had come and demonstrated.

So, he came in 1998, first time. I know these dates just because I remember that stuff. I wasn't there in 1998.

So, before, you had been there several years before Maligiaq came the first time. So, having been there that first time in 1998 when Maligiaq came, those of us who weren't there, which is most of the people active now, just think of it as this awesome mythical time when the Maligiaq came to Delmarva. Since you were actually there in person, what do you remember?

[GREG]
It was an exciting time because prior to that, we had Greenland-like paddles. And we were just trying to figure out how to use them. And for example, we put all of our fingers on the paddle shaft.

[DUBSIDE] 
That's right. 

[GREG] 
And then, you know, people like Maligiaq came.

[DUBSIDE]
So, here's the blade and here's, rather than doing like we do now, you're over here.

[GREG] 
Yeah. Because you would think fingers go on a paddle shaft. And, you know, when you do that, the blades are perpendicular.

That's right. But you just only put your thumb and forefinger on the shaft and the rest of the blade tilts.

[DUBSIDE]
That's what we're doing now.

[GREG]
Yeah. And this stuff was all new. This came from Maligiaq coming.

And, you know, we were doing some things. I mean, if we left a trail of blood on the deck from wearing out your knuckles, that was considered low angle. But, you know, something that shows you how people are.

When Maligiaq came and started paddling, it was different than what a lot of people thought it should be. And so, I overheard people saying, “Hey, you see this Maligiaq kid? His rules are awesome, but he's got horrible Greenland technique!”

You know, and I thought that was pretty funny because it just shows you how we get invested in these ideas. And once you're invested, it's hard to think outside of that.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, what was the standard of rolling back then? Like forward hand rolls? Was anybody doing a forward hand roll?

[GREG] 
Yeah.

For me, the Greenland revolution, if you want to call it that, started when John Heath came out with a video called “Greenlanders at Kodiak”. And that was in 1980 something.

And it featured a kayaker by the name of John Peterson, who was rolling.

[DUBSIDE]
The early Nuuk John Peterson.

[GREG]
Yeah. And he was rolling Greenland skin-on-frame kayak in a swimming pool in Kodiak.

And it was the first time the world had, outside of Greenland, had seen this. So, a lot of us scattered through the country had that video and then started working through the maneuvers. So, by the time Maligiaq came, like, you know, there are already people doing forward rolls and even balance braces and, you know, it had really...

[DUBSIDE]
An elbow roll? Anybody at Delmarva?

[GREG]
I don't know if anybody had gotten an elbow roll at that time. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Okay. How about under the sculling?

[GREG] 
I believe that. Yeah. 

I think, you know, there are paddlers like Steve Burkhardt and others. We were all, like, working these things, but we weren't in communication because... And every time we'd get together, it'd be like at a Delmarva and that's when, “Hey, look at this and look at that!”

So, it was a very exciting time to be involved with it.

[DUBSIDE]
Now, I would guess that a tuilik in those days was rarely seen or ever seen? Or did Maligiaq bring the first one that you saw?

[GREG]
Well, Maligiaq showed up with a real sealskin kayak and I think he even had a sealskin tuilik. 

[DUBSIDE] 
I believe he did. 

[GREG] 
And I'm trying to remember when the tuilik hit the scene, but as soon as Brooks started making them, everybody had one.

I don't remember the year, actually, because it might have preceded that, because Brooks was making that for the Greenlanders already. So, I'd have to go back and check. I think they were there very early on.

[DUBSIDE]
In 2001, I think Cindy Cole, her Mill Pond Paddler store was distributing, selling the Brooks ones. And I bought one then, but it was, there were a handful, you know, half a dozen there you could see at Delmarva, but it wasn't nearly as prevalent as you see now at all these events.

[GREG]
Yeah, well, my kayak, my Anas Acuta, I got in 1990, and by then I had a Brooks tuilik and I had the video, the rolls, and I was already working on this. And it, you know, it really felt like you're on the spear of something big, and it was. And it was a really exciting time.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. So, you went to the Greenland competition the first year in 2000.

[GREG]
I did. And normally, I, you know, I wasn't competing at stuff back then, so that was kind of a stretch for me, but Maligiaq...

[DUBSIDE]
Wait, wait, wait, say that again. You weren't...

[GREG]
Well, I wasn't doing... 

[DUBSIDE] 
You weren't, like, training hard for, like, a...

[GREG] 
I was training in the rolls, but to say, “Hell, come to our country and compete,” wasn't something that, like, “YEAH!”, you know. 

And actually, I did it because Maligiaq came, and then Kalerach Bech came. 

[DUBSIDE] 
To Delmarva.

[GREG] 
To Delmarva. And Kalerach Bech, then, was the president of Qaannat Kattuffiat, which is the Greenland Kayak Association, or it really means the club of the kayaks, kind of.

And he said, you know, “Hey, we're going to open up this championship to everybody. Are you coming?”

And, of course, you had to say yes, right?

So, if I, if he had asked me that, I would have thought about it, probably.

[DUBSIDE]
Qajaq USA had its inception, but it wasn't, it didn't really exist as an organization at that time.

[GREG]
It was an idea in my head, but it didn't exist at that time. And I had floated to him, Kalerach, when he was in Delmarva about, well, you know, there's Qajaq Nuuk, Qajaq Sisimiut, there's a qajaq club in every city in Greenland, and that helps them organize to compete. And there was, well, there was Qajaq Copenhagen, which was the only club outside of Greenland.

And I asked him what he thought of a Qajaq USA. And he thought it was great. His main worry was, well, qajaq Q-A-J-A-Q, would Americans know what that means?

And would they know how to pronounce it? And, you know, he just thought, well, would people know what this is all about? 

And I said, “Well, we will show them what it's about.”

[DUBSIDE]
At the Greenland competition, how was that?

[GREG]
Well, at the Greenland competition, it was just Harvey Golden. I met him for the first time, you know. 

[DUBSIDE] 
There at the competition?

[GREG] 
I met him in Greenland for the very first time. We had, we corresponded with emails. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So he had never been to Delmarva?

[GREG] 
I don't think so. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Wow. 

[GREG] 
 So he had built a kayak, and then he took it apart, cut it into pieces, shipped to Greenland, reassembled it.

I think he said the Greenlanders are kind of skeptical that, you know, he had this bag of parts, but he had it done in like three days. And I don't know if the camera can show it up there, but it's actually, this is the 1892 Greenland kayak, the type that he competed in, not the actual kayak. He made that for me later.

[DUBSIDE] 
But it's a replica of an 1892 kayak. 

[GREG] 
Yes. And that was his favorite kayak. And I had already known Cindy, so I saw Cindy there. And there happened to be an American that was just touring in Greenland, Mark Seidenberg.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[GREG]
That's his last name.

[DUBSIDE]
From Philadelphia.

[GREG]
And he just kind of said, “Oh, can I join in? I can do a roll.”.

[DUBSIDE]
So I guess he was in Greenland as a tourist and then saw this competition. 

[GREG] 
Yeah, I guess he was doing a tour. And so he was there.

[DUBSIDE] 
I'm making a mental note of that. I'm going to attempt to track him, that guy down. If I can find him, we will interview him for a podcast episode.

He has some interesting insights. But yeah. All right.

[GREG]
Yeah. So that was the team. And Harvey, we didn't see very much.

Harvey was busy in the museum. He was surveying everything he could. So Cindy and I were practicing.

Kampe, who is the chief competition judge, said, “OK, guys, let's see what you can do.” 

And that was kind of stressful because, believe it or not, we didn't know what rolls to do because, you know…

[DUBSIDE] 
This Greenland list of the rolls, you had no idea…

[GREG]
 …had not been published. 

And John Heath was working with the Greenlanders to publish that. But they were even though that the competition was open to the world, there were some Greenlanders that were reluctant to give that away.

[DUBSIDE]
And they just had information.

[GREG]
Well, yes. You know, there's a long history of cultural appropriation.

And so it's like this is ours and we're not sure we want to share it.

But but it was shared. And so imagine this was like the ultimate test, right? You're going to do, you know, the rolling competition.

And it's not just rolling. It's ropes and racing. But you didn't know which rolls were even going to be included.

And you didn't know exactly how to do them, because all you've done is like I would watch the video and I would sketch the starting position and then the ending position. And then you figure something fluid has to happen in between that. Right?

So when Kampe was watching us, a few of the rolls like the crossarm roll, I think Cindy and I were levering it off our body instead of the deck. And, you know, a couple of days before the competition. And here's this judge saying, “Naamik! No! No points!”

And, you know, I was like, “Shit, what do we got to do?”

And then Kampe worked with us and said, you know, “Here, here, here.”

And so we got a lot of it done.

There are still a few we didn't get points for because, you know, you know, things like vertical sculling roll, you can't see what he's doing down there. So I think I was just going over and horizontal and bringing it up.

“Naamik. You want to try again?”

 So it was a big learning thing, which was both exciting and pretty stressful at the same time because you're competing and you wanted to do well. But, you know, but eventually I just said, just enjoy it and just try not to get too stressed out.

And, you know, as much as anybody, the competition, you never really know what's going on, right? Times are fluid.

Things happen when they happen. And sometimes an event is moved. And if somebody forgets to tell you, you know, Cindy and I were in a restaurant or a shop and said, “Isn't that our age group? And aren't they getting in their kayaks?”

And, you know, we were told nothing to the schedule for the day because of weather, but they ended up putting a race in. You know, we just happened to run down there.

And I think I competed once in like my street clothes with the, you know, under the dry suits. 

[DUBSIDE] 
That doesn't surprise me at all.

So tell me about the inception of Qajaq USA. So after 2000, you're back in the U.S. and you went again in 2002 and somewhere in there.

[GREG]
That happened before. It was, I was at the championship and Kalerach Bech, he remembered I had talked to him about this idea of a Qajaq USA. And he said, “Would you mind speaking to the board?”

Because the board, one of  the functions of the competition is all the people come and they have a meeting. And I, you know, met with everybody there and I explained it was translated and they were overwhelmingly receptive. And so they voted and said, you know, they asked me though, first, you know, what was the intent?

And I said, the intent was that we would keep Greenland as the center of Greenland kayaking. We had, I was trying to reassure them that it wouldn't be appropriated. And it's like, you know, you want to be a Greenland kayaker, you have to take our certification and our plan.

And there was some history about that for misunderstandings. There was an organization that created a, they called it a Greenland endorsement. And this happened just before the competition.

And it created a stir in Greenland because they misunderstood that this certification said you were as good or better than a Greenland paddler. And, you know, and John Heath talked to them, I talked to them and said, “No, it's just to say, it's trying to give you the skills to teach these skills.”

But misunderstandings like that are what fueled this about, well, I don't know if we want to give out the rolls, but, you know, I said, the object was, you know, we would want to bring Greenlanders in and learn directly from them, keep Greenland as a center.

And then back then I thought it was all going to be about the competition. I said, we're going to feel the team, you know, thought it'd be cool to have the team jackets and come every year. And I'm sure you'll get to it, but we're now realizing that now, like what, 26 or something years later.

[DUBSIDE] 
Yeah. 

[GREG] 
Yeah. And they met and then they said, yes.

So the idea of Qajaq USA was approved. The website went online. I already had a prototype website that I was just putting Greenland stuff on, Greenland inspired kayaking.

And then it became the Qajaq USA website built from there.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I recall back then there was the competition committee or whatever it was, but the Greenland model being each little town's villages has their own qajaq club and these qajaq clubs field the team that comes to the competition. It's all sort of built around the competition.

And we, that model just kind of didn't take in the U.S. Like we just, we just don't quite do it that way.

[GREG]
Well, it's a different model anyway, because instead of “Qajaq city”, Qajaq Nuuk, it's Qajaq USA, it's a whole country. And some people said, “Well, why did you do that? You're limiting your influence by making Qajaq USA.”

I said, “Well, that's deliberate. First of all, we're not speaking for the Greenlanders.”

And if we're going to have a competition, we're not going to have a Qajaq Philadelphia and a Qajaq Orlando, right? So I thought at best, if we could do a Qajaq USA and you know, I was gung-ho into the competition because that's what I was doing.

I was doing all the rolls and practicing hard, but the rolls were, you know, and that aspect was kind of slow to develop. So it took a long time to get enough people to where you could really have a viable team. And actually, I know there's been small competitions here and there across America and you know, elsewhere in Norway, but it's only now for whatever reason that's achieving critical mass.

[DUBSIDE]
The idea of the Greenland idea, you know, each village has a team and they compete and then winning team applied here would be each town would have a qajaq club and then we'd have regional competitions and then there would be a national competition and the national team would go to Greenland, which is maybe sort of a structure for that, at least on paper in Greenland. But it never came out that way. The way it's sort of naturally involved here is, it's not the villages, it's the events.

There's SSTIKS, there's HRGF, there's Delmarva.

[GREG]
So yeah, in the Greenland model, it was everything organized around the competition. And here in the States, we had our events. And so we had this big competition committee for years.

And so what we tried to do is, how can we have either a full competition or watered down version of the competition at the events? And we never came up with a satisfactory answer. I mean, we debated, we argued.

And then some people said, well, we can create just a separate thing regionally where it's just the competition. And there wasn't enough people that really said, “Yeah, let's do that.”
 It's like, no, let's do the competition, I mean, the event, and maybe you can show a few things. But it just did not gel.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I know that trying to reproduce the Greenland model, first of all, theirs takes a week to do. And in this country, if it's going to be a week, you're going to get nearly as many people, not nearly as many people as a weekend thing. We fit into the weekend time frame.

[GREG]
But what was exciting, Kalerach Bech said, “Well, you're Qajaq USA. You're now officially a part of the Greenland Qajaq Association. He said, so let's have the competition in the United States.”

The whole Greenland competition in the United States. And I said, “OK, that's interesting.”

And we're talking, said, “Well, it'd have to be someplace north, be easier for transportation for it to be on the East Coast.”

And so he said, “Maine. Maine would be a great place.”

So I said, “Well, yeah. But would you be able to get everybody here?”

And he said, “Well, I'll see what I can do.”

But it never happened.

But that was exciting, too.

[DUBSIDE]
Wasn't there a concern…because you said, well, you can't bring the sealskin stuff across the border.

[GREG]
Yeah, there was a thing about the sealskin. He said, “Well, maybe, you know, that could be bridged.”

But it just kind of stalled.

There was a lot of complexity there. And the thing about the Greenland championship, it's not the Olympics, right? It’s a gathering.

There's families, there's children. It's a community thing, you know, and people seeing each other. So if you had brought it here, only a select number would have been able to come and it would have taken away in some ways from what it is because, you know, so it's all about participating.

You know, it's a family function with kayaking in there, you know, to keep it interesting, really.

[DUBSIDE]
It makes me think of if they were to ever to have it in East Greenland. Now, there's this East Greenland team in the last six or seven years. Yeah, it almost be that the transportation issues may be even more expensive to get everybody to East Greenland.

And then the facilities and infrastructure there would be taxed even further by the whole group of people coming to some little…

[GREG]
And people may not realize that East and West Greenland, it's like, you know, you can't just hop a bus and get there.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. It costs more to get from West Greenland to East Greenland than it does to West Greenland to Copenhagen.

[GREG]
Yeah, exactly.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Well, tell me about the early years of Qajaq USA. You were the president and there was various strong opinions and controversy and arguments about things. What were some of the obstacles you had to sort through? You did a very able, very, very apt job of keeping everything…

[GREG]
Well, first of all, trying to manage kayakers is like herding cats. 

[DUBSIDE] 
To use an overused analogy. 

[GREG] 
Yeah. And Greenland kayakers maybe even more so, because a lot of the early people in the Greenland style kayaking were doing it because they're going against the mainstream. They're a little rebellious.

[DUBSIDE]
They were renegades to begin with.

[GREG]
Yeah. And, you know, you couldn't really say anything specific. You can't say, “Here's how to paddle.”

I mean, so it had to be non-dogmatic. So everybody's free to express ideas. So, you know, it was this very loose thing. And if anything, I was like the border collie just trying to run over here. Okay. Got it over here.

[DUBSIDE]
Tell me this. How is it that you became the president? Did you just step up and nobody else was, there were no challenges for the task?

[GREG]
Well, I don't know if anybody saw the need. I mean, for me, the issue was what I stated, where we had kind of learned there were these regional techniques starting in the U.S., which is perfectly natural because in Greenland, there's regional techniques, every village. But everybody— not everybody—but there was some friction that, well, this is the way to do it, the way our region is doing it.

And none of this was from input with the Greenlanders. So to me, it was obvious for this to grow and, and keep Greenland as a center, we had to become part of their organization. So there needed to be a Qajaq USA and, you know, nobody else was pushing for this.

So I pushed it and created it. And there was some, you know, it caused some relationship problems.

[DUBSIDE]
Thanks for taking that initiative. 25 years later, we appreciate that.

[GREG]
Yeah. Yeah. I remember my wife at the time was saying, “You know, do you really want to take this on? This is going to cause relationship issues.”

And if you notice, I said “wife at the time”, so it did create, I'm not going to say that it caused the breakup, but it's a lot of work and it's a lot of dedication and you really have to focus and just spend hours on this. And, uh, but you know, but in the end it was worth it.

And I'm glad to see it's still continuing.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, one of the big controversies that I remember going through was this whole non-commercial commercial things, you know, whether, whether you at, at the events, people actually selling things, hawking their wares versus the idea that we're not going to do any kind of marketing or…

[GREG]
There's a few pieces of that. And the first… I might ruffle some feathers, but let's say I was invited to teach at some BCU events back in the day because Greenland paddling was becoming more prevalent and they needed, okay, let's have somebody to teach this. Cause what do we do with these people? And at my first BCU event, for instance, I was told you can teach what you want to teach, but, uh, we advise, please don't teach extending the paddle.

I said, “Okay, why?”

“Well, because you know, if you need to brace, you're not going to have time to extend it and then brace.” 

I said “Okay, but you don't do that. You extend as you brace.”

And he says, “No, but please humor me. Don't do it.”

And I said, “Well, so then how can you teach cocking your wrist, you know, for a feather blade and bracing?


[DUBSIDE] 
And get the angle, right.


[GREG] 
And there's a bit of anger and say, “That's completely different.”
And I said, “No, actually it's not.”

But I taught it, you know, so that was an example.

So we became very much non, we tried to be as non-dogmatic as possible, but Greenland kayaking was kind of…

[DUBSIDE] 
I can see the, the, the BCU idea that you, your hands are here and you don't move them here. And for them to tell you, you know, bring you to teach Greenlandic, but, but you have to keep the hands here on the Greenland paddle.

[GREG]
But people were invested in this. They've spent money to get your stars and so forth. And now these people are showing up with this paddle, like, you know, you know, imagine them say, I don't have, I don't know what to do with this.

And so it caused some issues. And I think things have changed a lot in a lot of major organizations. They're not, it used to be, this is the proper way to hold a paddle. This is a proper way to paddle. And you really can't do that with a Greenland paddle. So it started from, okay, first of all, we're trying to be as non-dogmatic, but that creates problems because, and we ran into a problem with that.

Not too many years ago, we had a roller that could roll with one hand, but did not know how to recover, for example, somebody who needed help up.


[DUBSIDE] 
A student.

[GREG] 
A student where they're in deep enough water that your feet didn't touch bottom. And so, you know, there are some benefits, very real benefits to star system certification.

It's like, I'm sure that you've done this, you know, that, you know, that, you know, that. And in this model we do, which is more of a mentorship and pay it forward, it's possible to have some really big gaps, you know, and assumptions. So that has been addressed over time.

Like in a lot of events, there's mentor training and, you know, you know, we still have the problem of you might have somebody who can roll very well, but they roll so well, they really don't wet exit very well. And so those are the challenges. 

[DUBSIDE] 
When it comes time to teach a wet exit, they're, they're a little unaware.

[GREG] 
So there's advantages and disadvantages of having a really laid out roadmap or boom, you have a star, you have a pin versus more of an organic thing where, you know, you assume people as they grow in skills grow with everything, but we've learned there can be some big gaps and that's the challenge. But so with that came a reluctance to embrace a lot of commercial things because we didn't want commercial paddle makers, for example, you know, say buy this paddle, buy that paddle. So it became non-dogmatic and non-commercial.

And we had a forum, which I think was very influential. In fact, I was in France teaching at the Brittany event, you know, I taught there…

[DUBSIDE] 
Just recently, a few weeks ago, 

[GREG]
…and I was in Spain two years earlier. And a lot of them attributed Qajaq USA and that forum to getting, that was their start. There were all these active discussions. And I think it, that was one of our best things that happened with Qajaq USA, you know, really strong discussions, you know, and that was before Facebook and, and all of this stuff.

[DUBSIDE]
My thinking on that, I thought it was the non-commercial thing before there was Qajaq USA and before Delmarva was a Greenland event. The way I hear it, it was called Delmarva's Paddlers, Delmarva's, Delmarva Paddlers Retreat.

The “retreat” idea was that we're getting away from those commercial events where the salesman in your face trying to get you to spend money. This is just a relaxed version where if you want to try somebody else's kayak, you can ask them, but they're not going to hit you up with price tags and brochures and all that. That's the retreat part.

So as that continued, you know, an event gets bigger, naturally the merchants want to come, you know, here's some customers. And, and anytime somebody came with like some brochures, a little table or something like that, that was shut down to, no, we don't, this, we don't do that here.

[GREG]
It's hard to draw the right line. So I think we were a bit overzealous on some of it, but yeah, normal symposium at the time was you had a vendor's area and a lot of people, sellers and signs and banners, and, you know, over here was the kayaking stuff. And so, and that wasn't so much Qajaq USA and what you're talking about, that was Delmarva Retreat, which Cindy Cole was then.

[DUBSIDE]
But that, that didn't influence Qajaq USA?

[GREG]
It was a somewhat, it was a symbiotic relationship.

But even our forum was commercial, non-commercial. If you want to sell a paddle, you can't, you can't try to sell stuff on the same forum where people are talking about techniques. So it was another one where you could go and, and do all that, if you will.

And for better, for worse, I don't know if people like that or not, but just didn't want it, you know, didn't want the influence to be, you know, buying and selling, you know, it should be, okay, what questions do you have about all this and the culture? And it was just, you know, a good way to segregate it, in my opinion. It, it was pretty painful because there was no way for me to just, I was the forum administrator, I was the website admin.

And so if a post came on where somebody's selling his paddles, I couldn't just hit a button and move it. The software wasn't that sophisticated. So I would have to manually go over there, create a post and type it all in, copy his picture, paste, copy it.

And it, you know, 20 minutes, okay, you know, so that wasn't very convenient for me either, but still think it was the right thing at the time. All right.

[DUBSIDE]
Were there any other major fires you put out that come to mind?

[GREG]
Well, there are several major blow-ups.

[DUBSIDE] 
Some we probably don't need to go into. 

[GREG] 
Exactly, but it's a small community and, you know, there were some growing pains and I think it's to be expected, you know, for any small organization.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I remember another one was the people getting paid, you know, like doing it professionally. You know, you're going to want to take money and there's going to be that commercial aspect to it. And there was a big flare-up there about, you know, no, this has to be strictly, you know, no money at all being taken.

And you had very, very sage words saying, you know, in any endeavor, it gets to a point where there's a demand for things and you look at skiing and there's professional ski instructors and nobody's getting bent out of shape over that.

[GREG]
Yeah, that was a tough one because, again, we had some very, very strong opinions. But, for example, some of the best instructors that were into this, they were making their living now doing this. And, you know, so you could say, well, you need to come and teach for free.

Well, they were losing the money between the time they could have been doing instruction. And whenever you teach, you know, students lose nose pegs, gear gets broken. So, you know, there was a difficulty over, okay, how can we bring in people and give them some money?

But then the other people, well, I'm not getting money. So it was kind of a Pandora's Box. And that's another difficulty you get when you're trying to be strictly non-commercial and pay it forward.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, Ed Zachowski, who took over from you, didn't take over, was asked to please fill in as the second president of Qajaq USA. And I remember he was on the board before that. And Ed's the top level administrator.

I believe they got him as president, maybe, you know, mostly because they knew he could get things done. And he was so intimidated, like, “I don't have skills, I don't have a background.”

I said, “We don't care.”

And so he was, before he was even president, he was very good at, like, getting feedback. And, you know, you do surveys and exit surveys and, you know, get people's opinion about what could go better. And I remember he'd put out one of his little survey, however, to maybe it was the board members or just other people.

And one of his questions would be, “How can Qajaq USA grow and increase the membership?” 

And he told me, he wouldn't tell me who it was. I have guesses as to who it was.

Somebody said, “Qajaq USA should not try to get any more members!”

Qajaq USA, you know, there were that an exclusive thing that nobody knows about was their appeal for Qajaq USA. And they didn't want it to get anywhere near the mainstream because that would ruin it for them.

And so, you know, Ed had to take that into account. It certainly wasn't the predominant opinion, but you got to remember that some people, you know, they have different views.

[GREG]
Yeah, my view of it was I was uncomfortable with the look that this was a cult, right? You had people dressed in these black tuiliks. That was kind of, from an outsider's perspective, that was odd.

And these paddles are different. And then, okay, we're using these words that people aren't aware of it. And, you know, I had a discussion with some mainstream guy that he said, “Oh, so it's like a reenactment thing.You, you know, you go and you reenact being seal catchers and stuff.”

[DUBSIDE]
Like Civil War reenactors.

[GREG]
Yeah. And I said, “No, that's not it at all.”

And so that was a perception.

Some of the people that, you know, have really invested in wing paddles and say Euro paddles said, “Well, you know, this is like you're camping and you decided to use a stone axe instead of my nice titanium axe.”

I said, “No. At least that's not how we feel about it.”

But those were attitudes. And, you know, I tried to explain that person. I said, “You know, my first Euro was this, this incredibly large thing with just this squared off. And the Greenland paddle is so much better design from a design standpoint.”

“Oh, well, this paddle had computer aided design.” 

I said, "Actually, I know about that paddle. And I've talked to the guy, he cut the top one, put it to the other.”

It's just a lot of our paddles are trial and error, even wing paddles, Right?

So this thing, even back when I had that horrible blocky eight foot long paddle, that was the argument. Well, this was designed with modern technology. And to me, it was a club, but other people wouldn't feel that way.

But those were the perceptions that it was a cult, a reenactment thing that we were just, you know, abandoning technology. And just for the sake of it, using this “primitive”, that would be their terms, gear. 

And yet, you know, you see somebody sculling with a Greenland paddle. It's effortless. There's no water or you're floating. 

At the time, and still somewhat today, take a, take a spoon. And there's, it's just, let's beat the water into submission. There's water flying everywhere. All right.

You look and tell me which is the most elegant. So I'm just giving you this from my viewpoint. I'm, you know, there's, you know, and there were, there are people that challenged it.

Like Leon was very good. So may said, well, I'm going to try to do all those roles with the Euro. And he did quite a few.

So a lot of it wasn’t…

[DUBSIDE]
Him and I did the rolling demonstration at the West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium. Him with his Euro and me with the Greenland paddle.

[GREG] 
Yeah. And I think that's great. 

[DUBSIDE] 
He, I remember him doing, he did one. He says, “Now they say you have to keep your head down last. I'm going to show you.
That's not true.”

And he would do a roll with a heavy brace just to show that with weird technique you could get by with. 

[GREG]
You can. And we were looking at old Sea Kayakers last night, looking for something. And we found this video that I told you that was the beginning, “Greenlanders at Kodiak” and it was reviewed in Sea Kayaker magazine.

And the quote was, “It is illogical that these techniques work.”

And, you know, I remember reading that at the time and I was like, what does logic have to do with a roll? You don't, you know. So that shows you just the difference.

[DUBSIDE]
It's like, like the bumblebee can't fly. Theoretically, scientifically proven.

[GREG]
Exactly.

[DUBSIDE]
But the bumblebee doesn't know that. So it goes ahead and flies anyway.

[GREG]
So when Greenland kayaking came into this mix, it was really an outside thing. And it, you know, it created a stir and I don't know, I didn't mind being in something that was kind of rebellious either. But, you know, as you get into it, like I, I race long distance races with a wing paddle and it feels the same to me as my Greenland paddle.

I use almost the same technique. There's little differences on canting the blade and all that, but, you know, fundamentals are fundamentals. There's differences, but, you know, a lot of people say, “Well, if I do that Greenland paddling, it's going to ruin my, my wing stroke.”

No, it won't. You'll learn something. You'll be a better paddler for it.

So in the end, there's a lot more commonalities to all of us paddlers and differences. But for a while, the differences were…

[DUBSIDE]
Let's hear from you about what you're doing these days. We don't see you that much at these symposiums. You were just at the TRAQS event just this past weekend.

[GREG]
Yeah, I still do a lot of symposiums, but I haven't done as many Qajaq USA events as I had. So, you know, I've never stopped doing symposiums, but as of last year, I'm retired, which is the greatest thing there is. And so you do what you want to do, right?

[DUBSIDE]
You've been doing these, these marathon race things. What do you call them? The Florida, Florida Challenge?

[GREG]
This is Water Tribe is an organization that is to promote….

[DUBSIDE] 
What are the details on those kinds of races?

[GREG]
Well, they're, they're big race is a 300 mile race, and it goes from Tampa to Key Largo. 

[DUBSIDE] 
You've been doing this like for 10 years or what?

[GREG] 
Over 14. Actually the, uh, the guy who created it, Steve Isaac.He actually took a Greenland class for me, a private class years and years ago. He's the one who, who founded this, but I had some friends doing it and they said, “Greg, you got to try this out.” 

And it's, I was working, you know, until last year. And it's, it's hard to get a week away. In fact, for a number of years …

[DUBSIDE] 
It takes you a week of time to do that 300 miles?

[GREG] 
Takes about four days. If you're really pushing it.

[DUBSIDE] 
But do you sleep at night?

[GREG] 
You do. You do.

I'll get into some of the parts of it, but what attracted me to it was, well, basically let me backtrack a little bit more. 

I took a sabbatical from my job without my employer's consent to go around Iceland. I did that with Freya Hoffmeister.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. I was going to get into that.

[GREG] 
But it leads into this and we can go back there.

[DUBSIDE]
But Newfoundland was before that or after that?

[GREG]
A year later went around Newfoundland solo. But my employers said, “No.” 

I said, “I want to take a month off.”

They said, “No.”

In fact, my boss said, “Why would we put you in a managerial position of authority if you're going to leave?”

I said, “Well, I'm not leaving. I'm coming back.”

And I said, and another answer is “For the sanity of your employees.”

He wouldn't give it to me. And I said, “Well, I'm going anyway.”

And he said, “Well, you may not have a job when you come back.”

And it turns out I did have a job when I came back. 

But anyway, these long, I always long to do these long trips, not a one week or two week trip, but you know, Iceland took something like 41 days and Newfoundland took 39 or 40. I don't even remember, but you know, you couldn't do that in a normal two week vacation. So I came back and my job was offered to me again. And it was kind of funny story.

I was working at the local outfitter selling kayaks and life was good, right. I was…

[DUBSIDE]
As an interim job?

[GREG]
Well, it wasn't an interim job. It was my job. Although I'd gone from making a software engineer salary to work in minimum wage, that was an adjustment. And I had to have two roommates in this house to make ends meet, but hey, life was good. I was on the water and all that. And then my employer called and said, “Hey, you know, we'd really like to have you back.”

[DUBSIDE]
You'd play with the big job.

[GREG]
Yeah. And I'm thinking, yeah, fat chance. And they said, “How could we make it worth your, you know, worth it to you?”

And I threw out a figure that was twice as much as making before. And it was a figure that I knew they'd say no to. And they said yes, without hesitation, I'm saying, “Shit, I should have asked for like a lot, lot more!”

And, the thing is it worked because I had, I was, I was feeling like I was trapped in this job. I wanted to go do this stuff. And I wrote a Sea Kayaker article. And in that, maybe it's dramatic. I felt like a, like a coyote that had got caught in a trap. And do I gnaw my leg off and leave a mess and get free? Or do I just stay there and wither away? 

And that's really how I felt. And there was a lot going on. Then my father had died. There's midlife stuff. That's when this divorce happened. There was a, it was a big earthquake and stuff. 

And, so when I went back to work, it was good. Now I could separate kayaking from work and I was actually making some money. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be retired now, actually. So there was some good to come out of it and I could segment, but I was back to two weeks of vacation. 

So the thing is this Water Tribe race, it takes about a week, a week is the maximum. And I did it for the first time. And it gave me that same feeling that I got on, you know, being around Iceland for three weeks or more. So I, you know, in a matter of a week, I had the same feeling.

And I, I always say you have the feeling of being “out there”. And I don't know if that translates. I mean, you feel remote after a day or two, you're not seeing any other kayakers.

You're seeing the sun go down on water. You're seeing the moon rise on water. You're seeing all these stars, you're navigating by stars, sea turtles popping up, dolphins coming, dolphins coming up and looking at you for a while.

Like, wow, that was neat. 

And just stuff that doesn't happen when you're sitting at your cubicle, right? And so to me, that was getting back to real life and I could feel it.

And it only took a week and said, “Man, this is good!”

In fact, other people who, who understand what I'm talking about should look into this kind of stuff because it's a week. So I could manage that with my corporate vacation.

And I did my first one and I actually won my division, which was surprising because I hadn't paddled through a lot of this stuff. But, but I didn't, I've, I just finished my 14th one this year. 

And it's different now. I'm 66 now. So before I could go through the night on one or two nights, meaning you don't sleep at all to get back to your question, but now I have to sleep.

[DUBSIDE]
So you’re saying, paddling past 24 hours straight?

[GREG]
You just keep going. You just keep going. And Bobby Johnson, the guy who's setting the records now, that's what he's doing.

But whether it's mental or not, you know, you say age is not a number, but I don't see any 120 year old people out here doing this, right? So age is a thing that eventually you have to reckon with.

And for me, I have to respect my body a little more. I have to, well, I get three hours sleep a night on the race. Still not a lot, but I can function with that.

So, you know, but yeah, my goal is to keep doing that until I can't because, you know, as you get older, I'm actually trying to resistance train more, you know, you're trying to slow, you know, aging is trying to bleed muscle away and other things. You gotta, you know, you fight against that. You have to, you don't seek comfort.

And so this race is a way to do that. And if I have anything now that I'm retired, it's an urgency. Like I'm 66. Well, in 10 years, like when you're 30 to 40, that's a change. But, you know, from 66 to 76, okay, well, will l be alive then? And actually that's what you should question at any age of life, but we don't.

And will I be able to do some of this then? Okay. And 76, well at 86? I don't know, maybe I can push some of this stuff past 70, but I'll do it as long as I can, because what I'm afraid of, once you start stopping, oh my God, that's a Freya a phrase, isn't it?

Once you start stopping things, then ultimately you end up on the couch, click, click, click, click, you know, and then you start to get old because you're losing, then you really start losing your muscle mass and bone mass. And so keep, keep out there. So for me, that was a long-winded answer saying, for me, that was Water Tribe because it let me do that while I was working, you know.

[DUBSIDE] 
And you use a wing paddle for that? 

[GREG] 
I've used a Greenland and a wing. Actually, 

[DUBSIDE] 
Say that again. “I've used a Greenland, wing”, like it's no big deal, one or the other kind of thing. 

[GREG]
It isn't. It's a paddle, right?

[DUBSIDE] 
That's very cool. Yeah. 

[GREG] 
Well, figure at some point I herniated my back. And in fact, I herniated a disc in my back and I was training for the, for another Greenland. And I was doing hundreds and hundreds of hand rolls and I'm not very flexible.

And so I have always had trouble with tight hamstrings. So the forward leaning stuff was always my hardest because I was really having to force it because, somebody like you and Cheri, you can like put your nose on the foredeck. With me, it's not very easy.

And so I was stretching, doing yoga, but all the forward leaning stuff for me put a lot of pressure on my lower back because ideally you want to hinge with a flat back. And if you don't have the flexibility, what happens is you round into a C, which is, and, you know, try to cheat. Well, my head's down there!

Well, you know, you, you don't have a flat back. And I think trying to force that caused me to have that herniated disc, you know, so I got into more in the strokes and other stuff because, you know, I was at Delmarvas before where, you know, you're learning the two finger roll on the right side, but nobody was teaching any kind of strokes, right?

And the thinking was, “Well, we know how to paddle, right? Everybody knows how to paddle.”

So I said, “Well, paddling is actually the most difficult thing to do right. It’s more difficult really than a straight jacket roll.”

And you get better or you should get better year after year. You never learn it all.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah.

[GREG]
So I got into strokes. So to teach strokes, how can you say that this paddle, the Greenland paddle, how can you really sing its praises without really being a master of a wing and a spoon? You can't.

And a canoe paddle. And, you know, I was talking about the BCU earlier and I don't want to ruffle feathers. I mean, BCU now does open canoeing.

They've expanded because everything you learn from one discipline, you can apply to the other. And now I really don't feel much difference.  Put a wing in my hand. I do a stroke, put the Greenland paddle in my hand.

Yeah. I'm translating things, but the core movement is the same. And so for me, yeah, you learn them both.

So people say, “Well, why do you use a wing?”

In fact, there are people said, “Are you a traitor?” I mean, “You're a trader of the cause! What, have you gone over the dark side? We’ve lost Stamer, man!””

[DUBSIDE]
I've stood on a stand up paddle board. And so, “I’m telling Maligiaq!”

Telling him what, you know?

[GREG]
So here's the thing. And maybe, you know, the word. When I was in Greenland and a seal hunter was explaining kayaks and paddles, he said in Greenland, the kayak and the paddle or a matched pair. In fact, if you make a new kayak, you might make a new paddle.

And somebody explained, there's a word in Greenland that translates to “dancing partners”, meaning these things are made for each other. 

Whereas it's different. Like, all right, I go out and buy my 230 cm wing or Werner and all right, what kayak do I want?

You know, in Greenland, your kayak really has to be fitted to you better than that. And your kayak has to be fitted to you better than that.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah. Sorry. I don't know the word.

[GREG]
Yeah. All right. Well, yeah.

And where I'm going with that is I have a, I have an 18X, which is a very fast kayak. Epic 18X. It's fast.

[DUBSIDE]
Not a Greenland kayak design at all.

[GREG]
Not a Greenland kayak. Plumb, bow, surf ski inspired. It's got a rudder on it. You know, first kayak I ever had with a rudder. 

But using my Greenland paddle with it, it felt horrible. Because, you know, to me, a Greenland paddle feels great when you've got a small, you know, low foredeck, low seating.

You can easily get that whole blade in the water. You know, you're not making a Q-tip with it. 

And suddenly I'm perched in this thing that the seat's raised. And that's so you get more leverage in the racing thing. The deck is high for a Greenland kayak. And it's 24 inches wide. It's not a narrow kayak. Waterline, waterline, it's very narrow, but the beam. And Greenland paddle just didn't feel good to me. And I even made some with longer looms and longer blades.

And that was acceptable. In fact, Roy Martin made me a really nice carbon paddle that I still use that had an adjustable loom. So I could adjust the loom to find, because, all right, how do, you know, how can I find a place where this paddle feels good?

And the wing paddle actually just felt better with that kayak. So to me, you know, you can't take, I can't take my Greenland paddle and then go to Dick's Sporting Goods and get this fishing thing. And then it just ain't gonna work, right?

So there are some things that work better with other things, and I'll just leave it at that. But so I found I was a little faster with the wing for this race. Didn't like the wing as much, and I still don't, in that you can't blend strokes.

You know, to me, and there'll be people that strongly disagree, to me the wing is like a one-trick pony. I get a little more speed, and by a little more I'm talking maybe two tenths, you know, but that's pretty big if you're going 24 hours a day for several days. So, but I've never capsized on that race yet.

So, you know, I'm sure if something happened, there'd probably be a point where I'd say, man, I wish I had my Greenland paddle, because I can roll fine with a wing, but I can't just sit there and scull with it, you know, I'm not as natural with it, and that's not to blame the paddle. A lot of this is what you choose to become an expert with. So I've put a lot more hours into the Greenland paddle.

So with the wing, I don't feel as secure. If I really ended up in the water with this boat, you know, at three in the morning when you're exhausted, at that point I'm sure I'd wish well, if I had a Greenland paddle, I have no doubt I could come up no matter what.

With the wing, it's, to me, it's not as solid, but that's me.

[DUBSIDE]
This Florida tribe, what's it called again? 

[GREG] 
Water Tribe. 

[DUBSIDE] 
You used the 18X?

[GREG]
But, you know, there was, I'm trying to remember last names, I'll just say there was a competitor named Wayne Mosquito Magnet, I'll leave his last name anonymous, you know him. And he used a Nigel Foster Silhouette, which had a really low deck, and he was using his Greenland paddle, he's in crunch strokes, and, you know, he beat me some years. So, you know, you see Greenland paddles.

But with this current setup I have, like I do surf ski racing now, you know, wing work works a lot better. So I'd say people, you know, that's, you're not married to your equipment, go out and, you know, learn all of it, go canoeing. 

Bobby Johnson, who I mentioned, he brings a single blade, and he uses that because, in his 18X kayak, because, all right, this is a complete change of pace, he feels he doesn't get as wet, he sometimes switches to that after midnight, and might not go as fast, but, you know, the goal, well, his tribe name is “Just Keep Paddling.”

And the goal of this is, a lot of it is just keep moving, just keep the kayak moving. And so you'll see single blades, you'll see Greenland paddles, you'll see wings, and so next year I think I will get a nice bent shaft and figure out how tall it needs to be to work in the kayak and use that. Plus, it's much lighter than carrying another spare, so I'm all about lightweight, light is fast, so, you know, that'll save weight as well.

So that'll be the next thing I try. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So tell me about Newfoundland. 

[GREG]
Well, Newfoundland was interesting because it was a solo trip, and I'm somewhat introverted, I don't talk a whole lot, so to me that was great.

I don't think I've ever been lonely in my life, I've been bored a lot, and I've heard the definition, a bore is somebody who steals your solitude and gives you nothing in return. So I was just fine paddling solo. 

And in Iceland, I was in a relationship, and the relationship was fraying and coming apart.

So one reason Freya and I set the record around Iceland was we were arguing, and we were trying to beat the other one. I mean, we weren't working cooperatively at all. I mean, if you have sense, if you're cooperating, you will draft, you know, and keep swapping, you can go a lot faster, something racing that'll teach you.

That didn't happen, because the whole goal at an hour, we would stop, this is Freya and I in Iceland, at each hour break, we would stop and rest for five minutes, eat. And the goal was to be in front of the other one when that alarm went off.

[DUBSIDE]
Each person was trying to be in front of the other one after that hour.

[GREG]
Yeah, so very mature, I know. But hey, you know, it helps set the record, because we were not saying, “Man, look at the northwest fjords, isn't that gorgeous? “

It's like, “Damn it, I'm going to get in front of her before, I got five minutes.”

So it worked for that, right? But Newfoundland was solo, and that fit my temperament better. I mean, I've heard somebody...

[DUBSIDE]
Were you necessarily trying to set a record to get around, or you're just having a good time?

[GREG]
I wanted to go fast, and if I set a record, good. So I was pretty sure I could set the record. And you know, you get slack for that, like, “Oh, well, you just raced around and didn't see anything.”

I say, “Okay, yeah, I was going four and a half miles an hour instead of three and a half, so I missed it. It just went by in a blur, right?”

But it's true that I did headland to headland.

So, you know, another trip would be great to do is go into every bay and explore every day. But that's another trip. But for some reason, you know, you get people putting their value judgments on you like, “Oh, you didn't see anything.”

I said, “Well, I saw what I want to see and did what I want to do. I said, why don't you go there and, you know, if you have a month, two months, you know, tell me about that would be great. I would still love to do that trip.”

In Newfoundland, no matter where I went, there's always, I'd land on shore and there's somebody walking down with his hands in his pockets and said, you know, “Hey, welcome by!” you know, and then before you know it, I wasn't intending it to happen. Often you get invited in and tell a story. And I felt like literally, they give you the shirt off their back.

Some people say, “So you're kind of taking advantage of them.”

Then I said, “No, that wasn't the intent.”

And in fact, if I didn't want the feeling that sometimes I just paddle past a village and just camp out in the wild somewhere, but it got to be wherever I camped, even if it wasn't by a village, I'd find bottles, glass bottles of moose.

It's like stew meat, you know, how you cube meat and bottles of that, glass jars of it. 



[DUBSIDE] 
Edible? 

[GREG] 
Edible. Oh, yeah. And at first somebody gave it to me. I said, “Oh, no, that's glass. I don't have much room in the kayak. It’s going to break.”

And he said, ah, you know, he wouldn't take no for an answer.

And so one night it's like, okay, do I want to eat this freeze dried—because that's what I was living on until it ran out— or this moose? I said, okay.

And the moose was like the best tasting. 

[DUBSIDE] 
It's moose meat. 

[GREG] 
Yeah. It's cubes of mousse meat, big cubes. 

[DUBSIDE] 
And put in…. but it doesn't go bad?

[GREG]
Well, it's been like canned.

[DUBSIDE]
It's like canned. Like a can of tuna or something.

[GREG]
Yeah. But this is a glass jar, sealed and really, really good stuff. In fact, I still have one bottle. I wouldn't eat it now. That was in 2007, but I couldn't get rid of it. So I still have one that I saved. 
But Newfoundland was beautiful. That was a great experience.

Newfoundland, you're always paddling with whales and dolphins, and you recognize whales, like there was one that was wheezing, and so when he, you know, his blowhole, and you could, you could hear this thing, and you could…

[DUBSIDE] 
So you could identify it by the sound.

[GREG] 
Yeah. And there's something that I haven't seen anywhere else, is that the dolphins would like line up, imagine like a scrimmage line, where you had a bunch of dolphins, like on a 10-yard line, well they'd all jump together at the same time, so they're all lined up, and then, you know, they were all coordinated, I've never seen that, like here in Florida, you'll see a dolphin jump, or a dolphin jump, or a dolphin might even twirl, but I've never seen this like lineup of them, and it's probably some kind of fishing technique, somebody told me, but it's pretty amazing, and when they hit, it was like this thunder, so you paddle along, and kind of get in a daze, like sometimes you're in fog, and you just hear this BAM, and BAM, and yeah, but the toughest thing on those trips was, I was trying to set a record, so if you look at Iceland, or Newfoundland, it's kind of like that, and so it's all headland, to headland, to headland, and that's kind of challenging, because headland is where the wind energy, and wave energy, everything is focused, so you get the... 

[DUBSIDE] 
Some of these are like hours, or how long across?

[GREG] 
I think my longest was 80 miles, and several 50 mile crossings, and so you know, once you leave the side of land, often you're fogged in. 
[DUBSIDE]
So you're just paddling on a compass course? 

[GREG] 
I would use a GPS, so I have a compass, for the longest time, before the fog came in, I'd do a compass coordinate, but you know, I'm not ashamed to use a GPS, the point of me of navigation, is to know where I am, at all times, and I'm trying, if you're trying to set a record, it's like, okay, I will trust this thing, you know.

And you know, there's once around Iceland, where there was a fog bank, Freya didn't like GPSs originally, because the view at the time was, no, that, you know, if you're a real, you know, kayaker, and real seaman, you have your, you have your compass, you do everything, but we were, we were going around Iceland, and there was this dark shape, and you know, Freya and I are not paddling there, we're doing our, our, well she's paddling way to the left, and I'm looking at the GPS, and the coast is over here, and so finally, you know, I had to come over to her, at the end, because I'm saying, hey, it's, and I said, “Look, you're going off course, the coast is over here.”

And you know, she said something like, “What do you think that is, Greg? Think that's Greenland I'm heading to?”

I said, “I don't know what that is, but I'm telling you, the coast is over here.”

And she relented, and sure enough, so I know that she's carrying a GPS, there's certain things, I mean, it's just a safety thing, so I think you'd need to rely on your, you have to know map and compass, but I'm not ashamed to say, yeah, I'm gonna have a GPS.

But anyway, we were talking about these long crossings, so yeah, you're at, you're out for hours and hours, and you better check the weather, if the weather were to get bad, it can be a situation, and so what you don't realize is, out of sight of land, you don't really see any indication that you're moving, so you can be going four and a half miles an hour, five miles, six miles an hour, but it just feels like time is suspended, and sometimes there'd be a puffin, or some other bird come by, and you can gauge your speed. 

So you know, people think long crossing sounds kind of glamorous, it's not. It’s um…

[DUBSIDE] 
It’s pretty boring.

[GREG]
Yeah, it's pretty boring. Except you have this wall, in this case, you had whales and other stuff, but then when the fog comes in, you're robbed of all color, and then, you know, then you're just, you're paddling.

[DUBSIDE]
I guess you talked about your plans for the future, just stave off the incapacity from old age as long as possible, and keep on going

[GREG]
Yeah, bring in some new things, I don't know if I should mention this here, so I started a new sport called underwater hockey, 

[DUBSIDE] 
That's right, tell us about that.

[GREG] 
And it's a real thing

[DUBSIDE] 
You didn't start the sport, you started playing,…

[GREG] 
I started playing the sport. So first of all, long crossings, you're there by yourself, it's not the worst thing to happen, right, especially if you like being yourself, but I decided, you know, I really need to do a team sport, and I was looking for something different, and I'm gonna ruffle more feathers here, because my buddies all said, "Man, you got to play pickleball, in fact, they won't give you Social Security until you start playing pickleball.”

[DUBSIDE] 
That was something different about 15 years ago, but not anymore.

[GREG] 
So anyway, everybody in the neighborhood plays pickleball, so that would be the smart thing, I'd actually get to know my neighbors better, but no, I have to pick something, something not mainstream, really out there, so I do this open water swim, there's a guy in town named Lucky, and he opens up his house, he has a, he lives on a lake, and you can do one kilometer swim.

And I started doing that, and I love doing that too, that was another thing, like, okay, what can I do other than kayaking, just to be able to cross train, and the people there, you know, we swim through the winter, it gets pretty cold, so we're all in the hot tub, small hot tubs, and “Hey, you need to come check out underwater hockey.”

It's like, “Underwater what?”

And they explained it, I think I probably had this half smirk on my face, and so “You got, you have to try it.”

So “Well, yeah, I'll think about it”, which you know what that usually means, and actually though, did think about it.

I’d hear, you know, these guys would come in the hot tub next week, and they'd have bruises and stuff, and “Oh yeah, I'll get slammed here.”

And I don't know why I found that to be interesting, but I was thinking, you know, it wouldn't kill me to do a team sport, like I used to play softball and baseball back in the day, but kayaking to me has been a very individual solo thing, so even these races where there's a big group, you know, the multi-day races, you don't even see a soul after a day or two.

So I figure, all right, it wouldn't kill me, and maybe this is the best team sport for me, because you can't talk underwater, right, so, but anyway, it's in a swimming pool, you have six people on each side, you don't have scuba tanks, it's just mask, fin, and snorkel, and you have this three-pound little puck. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So this is, there's no skates, and there's no long hockey sticks, so tell us how this works. 

[GREG]
Well, hockey is just an unfortunate byproduct, the British are the ones who came up with it, and they called it “octopush”, because there were eight people, and you push this thing, now you have a small curved stick, and you can actually wing this thing.

[DUBSIDE] 
So the puck is weighted, and it sinks to the bottom. 

[GREG] 
It's three pounds of lead.

[DUBSIDE] 
So it's like you're playing on the bottom of the pool.

[GREG] 
All the action is on the bottom, so you go up, get one or the three breaths, go down, and you only drop for about 10 seconds or so, but you try to get the puck, move the puck, advance the puck, score a goal, pass it, and then you got to go out. I mean, obviously, you can't stay too long, and nobody can, there can't be any hogs on the team that hog all the action, because, you know, no one can stay down that long. So, well, Lucky, who does this swim, he plays with his son, and it's nice that, you know…

[DUBSIDE]
You got a snorkel and a mask on, so you only have to float up to the surface, and then blow the snorkel out, and you can breathe, and then you come back down. You don't have to bring your mouth out. 

[GREG] 
Right. And I mean, I've done free diving before, where you dive down into deep holes and stay down for a long time, and this, I find, is actually more challenging, because you're only down for 10 seconds, but it's continuous. You're down 10 seconds, go up, one, two, three, breaths, down 10 seconds, and there gets to be a point where you're, you know, you really just want to stay on the surface. 

[DUBSIDE] 
And if you stay up to take a lot of breath, you're not down there playing for your team.

[GREG] 
Yeah, yeah, I've been there, and they, yeah, you're down there saying, I should have been there. Oh, yeah, I would have had that. 

[DUBSIDE] 
You're on the surface looking down underneath, and realizing where you should have been.

[GREG] 
Yeah, and then sometimes, if there's enough people doing that, there'll be some guy, once a goal's scored, you go to your respective ends of the pool. It's like, “You know, I could have used some help down there, saw a lot of guys just breathing.”

And the term they use is “eating bonbons on the surface”, meaning just, you know, yeah. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So how long is a game?

[GREG] 
An actual game is 30 minutes, I mean, a competition. 

[DUBSIDE] 
Is it straight, is there a halftime? 

[GREG] 
There's a half, well, you switch at halftime and get a couple minutes, and then we practice for an hour, but…

[DUBSIDE] 
So a game, a typical score is what? 

[GREG]  
Three to two, I mean. 

[DUBSIDE] 
So it's like soccer goals, kind of, okay. Not like basketball, where you have…

[GREG]
Yeah, but I mean, that's been a fun diversion. I feel like it helps me with, I mean, I like anything in the water.

In fact, I got into kayaking because I was doing snorkeling and swimming, and, you know, kayaking was just another way to be one with water, if you will. 

But yeah, for my Minnesota friends, I'll be going up to Minnesota in July, that's where the U.S. Championships are, so. 

[DUBSIDE] 
For underwater hockey?

[GREG] 
For underwater hockey, yeah. So that'll be interesting. Not that I'm an A player, but, you know, that's where everybody will congregate, so that'll be fun.

You know, but all this is connected, and the water is the connection, and, you know, I was thinking, you know, when you were doing your yoga, I don't know if you want to give your thing about, you know, “the water is your friend.” 

[DUBSIDE] 
That's my thing. 

[GREG] 
That kind of resonated with me, yeah.

[DUBSIDE] 
I mentioned that during yoga sessions often, and it's been on my podcast, by the way. So people don't have to rewind:

The water is your friend. If you love your friend, respect your friend, understand your friend, and protect your friend, your friend the water will never harm you. 

[GREG] 
Yeah, and there's a lot of truth to that.

I mean, if you love kayaking, you shouldn't be leaving trash. You should be active in, like, cleanups, and, you know, every bit helps.

But, yeah, I can't see that I'll ever get tired of kayaking. In fact, I have the second kayak that I ever owned. First one was a big Chinook, and I gave that one away. So the Anas Acuta I have in there is from 1990, and for years and years, that was my only kayak, but now if you go out there, I think I've got 10 kayaks out there, surf kayaks, surf skis. I mean, it's all good. 

[DUBSIDE] 
You had John Heath's kayak frame for years and years and years, built for John Heath in 1959, and it's hopefully going to make its way back to Greenland this summer of 2026.

[GREG] 
It's in Maine now. You can't see, well, you see the kayak frame here.

This kayak frame, it was made by Emanuele Korneliusen, hung on the other side, and it hung there for, since 1995 or something, a very long time, and this frame was almost destroyed because this was made for John Heath, and there were two people that Korneliusen made kayaks for. One was John Heath, and this is where my memory's failing me. Ken Taylor was the other, and so they were twin kayaks.

John Heath's was bigger because it was made to his measurements, and obviously Ken's was made for his. Well, of those two kayaks, Ken Taylor's kayak, you know, Ken was in Scotland. Ken went back, and that kayak generated all this interest, and Ken had all the hunting implements, and his kayak was skinned.

John Heath's kayak was never skinned. 

[DUBSIDE]
And that was like, there wasn't time to put the skin on? 

[GREG]
There was a shortage of seals, so he had a seal-skinned kayak, and so, but Ken was demonstrating harpoons, rolling, and all this stuff.

Ken's kayak, via Duncan Winning and others, got copied in various forms. It became the Anas Acuta. 

[DUBSIDE]
The design was, yeah.

[GREG]
And at Delmarva one year, we actually had the frame and, you know, the Anas Acuta, and we had pictures of them from a tower, and you could see, see the resemblance. 

The frame for John Heath, John kept it in his garage until he passed away, and then his wife, Jessie, really didn't consider it old, because, all right, well, it was made in, what, 1959, and to her, it was just some kayak he had gotten, and this thing was shipped, you know, it was shipped from Greenland in a crate, and so to her, it was like, okay, it's, you know, it's not like a historical, ancient kayak, so she was actually in the process of giving it to a local kayak club, and I'm sure that they would have just destroyed it. But somehow, and I don't know if Harvey talked to her, or something happened, so he said, “Oh no, you can't do that. This is actually more valuable than you realize.”

And she offered it to Harvey. I think Harvey was just being kind to me. He said, no, why don't, why don't you offer it to Greg, because he'll take care of it.

So she called me and offered it to me, and yeah, I drove up there and got it, and it was a frame, it was a harpoon throwing board, and again, that thing sat up there for years. I did take it to Delmarva once.

I very carefully, lightly wrapped it with Saran wrap. Weather was good, wasn't gonna rain on it, and yeah, let people see it.

In fact, don't remember if Ken Taylor saw it, the original, this frame or not, but why don't you go into the next part about Korneliusen daughter, and so forth. 

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, she came to Delmarva. There's a whole podcast episode about that. I could just link to that. But yeah, there's a whole story there. So we're hoping to get it back to Greenland this summer, and return it to where it came from.

[GREG]
Yeah, without going into too much detail, I drove it to Maine, and we were looking to have it shipped, and in the past, when we've shipped kayaks to Greenland, there's around $4,000, but our quote was four to five times that. So it wasn't, it just wasn't realistic, and we don't still know…

[DUBSIDE]
You drove up to Maine a few years ago?

[GREG]
Two years. So we're looking into alternatives, and again, there's been some resistance between the parties involved to do like a GoFundMe, but we'll get this kayak to Greenland, and I look forward to being there. In fact, it'd be great to be there when this thing gets in that museum.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, if it's there, when we're there at the competition in July, I'll try to get a good picture of it for you.

[GREG]
All right, you do that. But the important thing isn't me seeing it there, it's for it to get there.That's where it belongs.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, thank you for being on the Dubcast with Dubside, Greg. Always a pleasure to see you and hang out in your living room.