Stoked for What is to Come!

         Hey everybody! This week has been pretty sweet for me. There are many reasons for this but I have just been in an amazing mood. I was incredibly sad to have to say goodbye to someone I had become best friends with over the last 6 weeks but sadly that is what happens sometimes. It all started on Saturday. I woke up feeling so alive and ready to do anything! After a morning on Cornerwave I had succeeded in making a lot of progress in my playboating in just one day. I was able to stick flashbacks, my first clean blunt and got a lot of pistol flip attempts in and was getting very close at the end of the day. The week has continued on to show even more progress. As Garb has been getting greener I have been able to bring my panams much further past vertical and they are becoming fairly consistent. I would love to be able to go home having figured out clean blunts and airscrews although I know it will take a lot of work. At this point I realize that I will have to put in 110% effort to achieve my goals because I will not get anywhere if I try to do the bare minimum. Hopefully things go really well over the next two weeks and I’m super excited for Comp Friday today!

*Late Post* Enter Session 2

Enter session 2. Super excited to have a new set of keeners here for another 3 weeks although I do really miss the friends I made last session. One thing I wanted to talk about in keeners is relationships. Don’t worry, not the ones you think. I want to talk about relationships in terms of friendships made here in the program. I find that all of these blogs are all about what we did this week or how the day went but I think It would be nice for all you readers out there to get into the psychological aspect of keeners not just the physical aspect.

To begin, I have been in keeners since the summer of 2010 when I first started kayaking. Since that point I have improved immensely in not only my kayaking but in my overall personality and social well being. I came to the program as a chubby 13 year-old kid who didn’t do much in terms of physical activity. Looking back I can see how much I have changed and it makes me realize that it is not only the program that has changed me, it is the people in the program. The people that I met 3 years ago in my first weeks of keeners have become some of my greatest friends, as well as most of my best friends in the following years. What people look past most of the time are the bonds you create living with these people for 1, 2, 3, 6 or even 9 weeks.

I have already been here 3 weeks and I feel like I have made a couple of friends that I would like to hopefully hang out with for the rest of my life. It is so awesome how this community of tightly knit people changes you. I truly believe that if it weren’t for the fact that the people here weren’t so awesome I don’t think I would be a kayaker, not the one I am now at least.

My best advice would be to come to keeners with the expectations that you are going to meet some people that will change you permanently. I can say this for not only people in past years but even one or two people I have met this year as well already. I think that this is such an awesome part of the sport and the keener program because I haven’t met people like this anywhere else in my lifetime. I am pretty proud of who I have become as a result of meeting these amazing people and I am looking forward to where else they take me!  

With that being said I hope you feel like this program will be sick for you if you’re a kid wanting to improve yourself both on and off the water. To anyone else I hope this post says something else about the program you didn’t already know. Thanks for reading!! 

-Edward

Introduction to Stakeout!

Above: One of my airscrew attempts on the Ruins
Left: one of my surfs on Gladiator during the XL




Below: Nouria Newman and I both running Coliseum for the first time at such a high water level

               Hey, my name is Edward Muggridge, I have been kayaking since the summer of 2010 and I am 16 years old. During the fall of 2012 I felt as though I was in isolation from anything to do with kayaking. It was awful. Day after day of dreaming about mini bus and high water runs down the Ottawa. It came to a point where I realized that this dream was within my reach. I had already been talking about a possible weeklong trip over March break staying with my two Ottawa River local friends Quinton and Kalem Kennedy. Early in November I was informed that mini bus had magically appeared and after 2 days I decided to make a mad dash to the river to surf this massive wave! After spending a weekend at various levels of minibus I had officially fallen in love with the sport. I found myself a minimum wage job in my neighbourhood stocking shelves at the market. This was my way of funding a trip in the spring. After 5 long months of working 26 hours every week I finally managed to purchase all of my own gear including my drysuit, boat and camera equipment. The late spring was making it tough to wait for but before you know it I was given the unimaginable opportunity or taking part in the famous big water adventures on the Ottawa River. I was given the amazing opportunity to take part in these adventures by the Grady family who were kind enough to let me live with them for 2 weeks in April and 1 week in May for the Ottawa XL competition. This spring really changed the way I look at whitewater. I have never paddled in water with snow on the banks or chunks of ice the size of a house flowing down the river with you. It adds an entirely new aspect to the sport and causes you to be cautious, something that many of us can often forget about when we become so comfortable with paddling our home rivers. During this spring I was given the chance to do a lot of things. Kalob Grady and I believe we were the first to paddle the main channel in 2013 and also I was given the chance to be the first to surf mini bus in 2013 by Ben Marr, Pat Camblin, Joel Kowalski and Keegan Grady. It was so cool being able to hang out with all of these and be a part of stakeout. In those first two weeks in April I learned more than I thought I ever could have in such a small time frame. Three weeks passed and I was back on the bus to the valley to go kayaking for the Ottawa XL. That entire week I got to spend time at the ruins with Cooper Lemkay and Kalob Grady. The Ruins is one of the most amazing places I have ever been to not only because of the wave itself but because of the scenery around it. At the end of that week it was time for the Ottawa XL. The first part of the competition was the big wave freestyle event. The event was held on Gladiator in the middle of the Coliseum rapid on the Ottawa River. I had always seen this wave as something I would hopefully surf in my lifetime seeing as it is such a massive step up to anything I have ever dreamed of. A large group of us ran the river the day before the competition because we heard gladiator was in. most of us had never surfed it and none of us had ever surfed it at such a high level. It was so exciting yet so terrifying at the same time. That day I ferried out 5 times, I got too scared the first 3 times purposely missed the wave but then as I grew a little more courage I found it harder than I thought to actually get out to the proper spot. Sitting at the top of the eddy had to be quite possibly the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever experienced in my life. The longer you waited in line, (yes, there was a lineup for Gladiator) the more nervous you became. There were definitely times where Hunter Katich and I would argue over who should go first because neither of us were too keen on dropping in. During the day of the XL I managed to catch the wave for the first time after trying very hard to get out to it. I had a really long surf on my second ride and was way too scared to throw any tricks. Overall this spring was what I would consider to be the best spring of my life and I am sure there are many more to come. I am incredibly excited to be moving to the valley at the end of January so that I will be able to paddle every day next spring. Thanks for reading!

Pushing Limits

Dropping into Phils for a Handsurf. Its a good warm up for
Centre Slot

This tuesday was probably one of the most challenging days I have ever had paddling. I owe a huge thanks to Joel Kowalski for that day because I pushed my limits beyond what I had expected to in one day. On Tuesday I tried running lines I have never run on the Ottawa, some of which made me question my abilities slightly. It may not sound like much to most after seeing huge descents of drops and rapids, but for me, it was a big step up in my boating. I have  been pushing myself by running rapids backwards through challenging lines and surfing things that keep pushing my limits. This week I threw a wave wheel in to centre slot, a rapid below coliseum, and I had a massive beatdown and swam  after 1-2 minutes. May not seem like much but that was the toughest surf I have ever had and I got beat down pretty badly. After just this week i have eliminated almost 100% of my fear on the ottawa and and i hope to progress my skills by paddling other high volume rivers in future years.

Garb, definitely one of my favourite waves

Zack, Kalem and I watching the other Keeners get beatdown at Phils Hole. 

This weekend a Tim, ABQ, and I took an early morning paddle down to Garb on the Lorne. We woke up at around 5:30 and were gone by 6:00. We ended up paddling for 4 1/2 hours and the others got to surf Garb for the first time. I threw my first actual blunt of the year over Nick, which was hilarious and felt pretty amazing. Sadly I did not stick it but I am very happy that this week I have been able to throw quite a few air blunts that have been totally vert but i have only stuck one of them so far. Whenever I throw them I just come down on my stern and eat it so hopefully I will be able to adjust my technique so that I will be able to stick them.

Edward Returns to the Ottawa!

The Beautiful Ottawa River.. Right outside Keenerville

I am finally back here on the Ottawa river, which has become my favourite place in the world. Starting up my third year it has gotten to the point where I am no longer the newest kid around. All of the original keeners that I spent my first year with have moved on to work at Wilderness Tours. The start of this year so far has been pretty amazing. In this past week I have pushed myself more than ever before. In just the past 4 days I have almost gotten blunts on Pushbutton, they are much harder to get than on Garb, which is unfortunately not at its prime. Today, I also surfed two holes that I have never surfed before, Satlers and Centre Slot, which was a great learning experience. I think I used this Bigwater Beatdown Thursday to its full potential and desensitized myself to some of the few things that worried me in the past. I have 6 weeks left, lets see where that can take me!