- Equivalent to Paddle Canada’s Moving Water Canoe Skills Advanced Tandem course
- Equivalent to the RCABC’s Advanced Tandem Moving Water Canoeing course and parts of the RCABC’s Tandem Playboating Course
Tuition $395 per person + GST
2023 Advanced Course Dates: July 1-2, 2023
Who takes this course?
This course is designed for paddlers who:
- enjoy the challenge of creating efficiency and precision in their paddling.
- are looking for safe ways to ‘play’ in whitewater.
- enjoy taking on a leadership role in a paddling group.
- want to increase their competency as a rescue boat.
- just want more practice and to build more confidence in larger waves and more powerful eddies.
- are looking to make paddling the harder stuff seem easier!
Course Overview
Ever wonder how some people can make that move in one or two paddle strokes, and you need to work your butt off to make it happen? Our advanced whitewater courses will unlock the river’s secrets and your boat’s technology to soar effortlessly across currents and into that hard-to-catch eddy pool. Eliminate needless ‘friction’ strokes as well as the friction between you and your paddling partner to make river paddling feel like a dance between paddlers, your boat, and the river.
In addition to polishing up paddle strokes, carving turns, and communication with your partner, we’ll also take the time to study currents and features more carefully so that we’re really working with the river. We’ll be running more complex rapids, but also exploring the many different ways to run them, so that even an easy rapid can become an advanced challenge. We’ll also work on more dynamic rescue skills and setting safety for the other paddlers in your group. Small class sizes and a high instructor to student ratio allows each paddler to really hone in on the precision of their technique and solidify skills. Getting video feedback in the evenings is an added bonus to this course.
These 2-day whitewater canoeing courses held in southern BC are an exciting way to increase your confidence in grade 3 whitewater or if you intend to lead others on extended river canoeing trips.
Strokes: blending strokes, bracing, timing, modifying stroke cadence and pitch.
Manoeuvers (in class 2 and 3): jet ferry, surfing (front, side, back), arcing turns, front ferry, back ferry, eddy turns (C-turns, S-turns), executing a chosen line through a rapid, paddling a swamped canoe.
Safety skills: setting safety for a rapid, self and companion rescue in class 2-3, assessing risk.
Theory: leadership considerations, assessing a new paddling group, ‘reading the river’, communication, building literacy with the international river classification system.
By the end of this course you will:
- know how to turn a canoe without making paddle strokes – or Jedi mind control!
- be able to navigate class 2 water confidently with your paddle partner
- be able to scout a river section and recognize when your group ought to portage (vs. run) a rapid.
- know how to spot river features and how to use them to your advantage.
- understand how rivers shape the landscape.
Prerequisites
As this is a demanding course, it is important that participants are prepared with the required skills and a good level of fitness so everyone can get the most out of the weekend.
Prior to attending this course each participant:
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- has attended a Level 2 tandem river canoeing course (or equivalent), AND has spent severa
l subsequent days of paddling in class 2 sections of rivers. - knows how to carve an eddy turn using the MITH acronym in fast current and across dynamic eddy-lines – in both bow and stern positions.
- is proficient backferrying in class 2 – in the bow position.
- has practiced rescuing others as well as practiced many self-rescues and swam through easy rapids – or taken a Level 1 (and/or level 2) River Rescue course for canoeists.
- is 18 years of age or older.
- has above average swimming skills (in rivers).
- has attended a Level 2 tandem river canoeing course (or equivalent), AND has spent severa
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2023 Advanced Course Dates: July 1-2, 2023
Be sure to turn your player to 1080 HD to experience the crystal clear waters of the Shuswap River!