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“Addictions can be very, very bad but addiction itself is not bad.
It’s a case of what you’re addicted to.
You better live each day like it’s your last, ‘cos one day you’re going to be right”.
Ray Charles.
Link tip a friend
In the summer of 2010, an international team of seven white-water paddlers will attempt three first descents of steep rivers that run along the volcanic spine of Siberia's wild Kamchatka Peninsula, in an effort to raise awareness of the complex relationships between the place, its people and its fisheries.
As part of the project, the team will generate an online educational platform, film an adventure documentary, collect valuable scientific data for researchers, create print media pieces and organize a speaking tour.
A reasonable question to ask is why are the guys embarking on this, so here it is ……..
The Kamchatka Peninsula in Eastern Siberia is one of the last truly wild places on earth and is where between one sixth and one fourth of all salmon spawn, a place with some of the largest brown bear populations in the world, a place with no dams, no massive extractive resource operations, with less than one person per square kilometre and only one major highway on the 600-mile long peninsula.
It’s a place that is largely unexplored, a place that is worth protecting and a place that needs attention now, as Kamchatka’s rivers and salmon populations are threatened by an alarming increase in poaching for caviar, industrial land use designations and the lack of effective exploration and research.
Working with biologists, conservation groups and local Russians, the expedition aims to contribute to establishing the critical data, curriculum and exposure needed to protect these river drainages and the salmon that depend on them.
Kayaks will be the method that takes the team directly to the salmon species in need of study; allows them to interact with and document indigenous people and caviar poachers and ultimately experience wild and remote white-water never before paddled. The team’s adventure will go well beyond salmon and class 5 white-water and they’ll have to contend with the Russian government and mafia, enormous grizzly bears, sketchy Soviet-era helicopters, miles of hiking and cultural barriers that will all test the team’s ability to complete the project. And kayaks are also the least intrusive, most intimate and often the only way to explore many sections of these wild rivers.
So there you have it, keep an eye on what the guys are up to here; it’s an active site with plenty going on there, so check to see what their progress is.
