Ambassadors of traditional inspired kayaking: Peter Gengler - by Jannie Heegaard
Introduction
Here comes our second portrait of inspiring Greenland paddling with stick people from around the world. This one person we have been looking very much forward to share with you. His name is Peter Gengler an amateur film maker and Greenland paddling enthusiast who never travels anywhere without at least a couple of GoPros, a fat-bike, a drone, honey from his bee hives- (he’s also a bee keeper!), miscellaneous art projects, his Hennessy hammock (he is a big fan of hammock tents), his big heart and a very distinct laughter. It’ very contagious and so is his ever positive good spirit. He is one of the most loving and giving people we’ve ever met. We also met him at Delmarva Paddlers Retreat (seems that’s the place to meet people we interview). He lives in Massachusetts in what looks like a really nice place, but we aren’t really sure since we mostly saw it from above from a drone’s perspective but from there it looked really lovely. He is also very committed to sustainability and is a business partner in the Rhode Island Farm Incubator, 92 acre working vegetable farm with the mission of launching more small farm enterprises.
We would like to do an interview with Peter because of all of the above and also because we truly believe the world deserves to know more about him and the videos he makes. They are very unique and creative and funny and “AWESOME” and we are huge fans. He puts so much work into these. He has a Vimeo account we highly recommend you visit. But for now we will ask him a few questions mostly on Greenland paddles, kayaking and moviemaking. We hope this interview can inspire other people and kayakers around the world. Last he is a board member for Greenland kayaking event north of New York, the Hudson River Greenland Festival that runs in June we have not yet been there but it’s looks amazing!
How did you stumble upon your first Greenland paddle and why did you ‘stick’ to it?
I started kayaking around 1992 having purchased 2 identical second hand plastic kayaks ~ 8’ x 30” ~ I’d refer to them as pregnant guppies, pretty much the kind of kayaks that many people get their first introduction with. They wet my appetite for a more serious kayak. For my 40th birthday I got my first sea kayak. A 15’ plastic Dager Vesper. Soon I was trying to roll and found I was one of those students that took a LONG time to get it ~ 3+ years with a euro blade. That experience committed me to try to develop easier ways to teach rolling ~ I started to meet other paddlers on the water and one summer a friend handed me a short Greenland paddle (some would call a “storm paddle”) and before I knew it we had covered a number of miles. “I got buy one of these”, said I. Don Betts, “well you really can’t buy one, you’ve got to make one, and most people … well it takes 3 or 4 to get it right”. At the time I was just getting to know Don who would vacation on this little island in Narragansett Bay (Rhode Island, USA). I’d only see Don in the summer, as he lived in New York the rest of the year. Well, because of that “short paddle” within nine months I had made 4 paddles and bought and built a tortured plywood kit kayak. I had caught the virus, the kayak disease had taken hold. I should mention too that around when I met Don, he’d built something like 8 to 10 kayaks, pretty much all unique and his own design. All hard-chine hulls. He was and is still a very innovative kayak and amateur boat designer, he later would push me to go to the Delmarva Paddler’s Retreat where he had taught paddle making and kayak design.
Who or what has had the biggest impact on your journey into Greenland paddling?
Don Betts and the kayaks that he built. Then he introduced me to Bart Hauthaway. Bart, then in his seventies had been an Olympic paddler in the sixties and spent much of his life as a canoe & kayak designer for Old Town.
He won several national championships in canoe sailing, and convinced Old Town Canoe to manufacture variations of the Adirondack pack canoe he developed. Short, open-topped and paddled with a double paddle, Hauthaway's pack canoes started the movement towards the open-cockpit recreational kayaks growing today's industry. He designed molded fiberglass hulls, experimenting in shapes and sizes with competition in mind. He had come up with a technique of using aircraft Dacron for quickly decking the hulls so his yard was full of kayaks and canoe experimental molds. By the way, the chemistry of that heat tape changed years ago and it doesn't to the job it did 15 years ago, and I have found nothing to replace it. He was a classic, old time New Englander with strong opinions. Over time I’m honored to say he became a good friend.
My second & third kayak builds were fiberglass hulls from Bart that I decked out. Then I started designing my own hulls starting first with a hard-chine 14’ hull that Don had designed and lengthen it to 16’. All the hulls I’ve designed and built since, have been adjustments and modifications on that first full size pattern of Don’s. It's amazing to see the effect of adding a 1/18" to a hull panel can effect everything on how a hull performs. Such a cool process! Here’s a short film on my last kayak build ~ an example of small adjustments to effect hull shapes and performance ~YAK 12.
Why do you feel it’s important to keep the Greenlandic traditions alive?
Many things, first, stepping out of your own shoes to attempt to relate to a different culture. The age of a craft involved making kayaks as life food supporting tools. Having the opportunity to meet and make friends world wide through sharing a common interest & passion.
What is the most important thing people who have not yet made friends with the Greenland paddle should know?
How supportive and embracing a community of people is ~ Having the oppertunity to meet people from all over the world who shares this unique passion. People like John Petersen and Maligiaq Padilla and others and staying in touch with their lives through social media, it honestly warm my heart. It makes the world smaller and I think THAT is a good thing :)!
Do you have any reflections upon sustainability and life in general that you feel are important to share?
When you take up a hobby of being on the water like fishing, sailing, kayaking, swimming, the person automatically becomes an environmentalist. They may not even know it at first but their attitudes about waste, policy and political advocacy change. It is wonderious thing to observe.
Where did your latest paddling experience take you?
I’m actually a pretty low key paddler, I most enjoy exploring local waters, observing the water, wild life and silence. I also salt water fly fish from my kayaks ~ trust me it's quite a thrill to hook into a 40 stripe bass or blue fish with a fly rod from a low volume Greenland kayak.
Do you have any reflections upon how you hope the movies you make contributes to keeping the Greenland traditions alive?
Ha, I haven’t thought about this for years ~ At 2014 Delmarva, on the last night when the event is winding down I’m talking with a guy who came all the way from California to take a week long kayak building class with Brain Schulz. That week had ended the day before with six? people with new SOFs. We’re just chatting, and the night before we’d had a little film festival for entertainment with prizes and all for fellow kayakers to present films to a receptive audience. So we’re talking films sitting with our laptops side by side. He says, he had a lot of trouble sleeping so sometimes he’ll get up in the middle of the night and look for “kayak porn”. So we’re looking up some of our favorite films and talking and I show him my 2nd film (see next question). He jumps off the couch and says ~ that film is why i’m here!! I never considered building my own kayak until i saw this ~ So, do I think short films effect change in people’s lives. You bet I do.
What’s next?
I haven't a clue. Be open to what falls in front of me. Many times in my life things have appeared before me and they have led me down very unexpected paths. Twelve years ago a fellow mountain biking friend had just been given one of the first GoPro’s and he wasn’t really interested in it and sold it to me cheep. Within a month I’d made my first short film (having never made a film before). 2nd film I made was a piece on paddling in a nice spot which I found myself showing at 2010 Delmarva Paddler’s Retreat. 6th film was on mountain biking with my dog, that one ended up at a MTB-king film festival and won “peoples choice” award in a room of 300 friends and strangers. And I’m still making films. Never saw it coming. So my attitude is to do all I can to be open to what appears before me ~
Feel free to share anything we haven’t thought to ask you by now…
I find teaching rolling to be one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. There is trust, fear, knowledge, touch, all involved in the process. There is nothing like getting a person to their first roll Friends that who influenced my rolling teaching kit of tools include (in time order) Ray Farnam, Bart Hauthaway, Will Bigalow, Turner Wilson, Marcel Rodriguez, Cheri Perry, Will Bigalow, Dubside, Greg Stamer, Alison Sigethy, Will Bigalow* amongst others. I met Anders, at Delmarva in 2015, then a few years later I 2017 Jannie also attended. One of the most joyous weeks of my life was helping them with a SOF build at Delmarva in 2019 and making a film of that week (I got to help _ people build and I didn’t take another kayak home!). The film evolved into a pretend Reality TV show after a mid week night out with draft beers (and late arriving food) to an idea that produced this ~ it still cracks me up. You can watch it here.
I guess lastly I’d like to say that the support of the Greenland Kayak community of my playing with films has really changed my life. Eleven years ago I showed a little film at Delmarva and the positive feedback I got sent me off on a path I really enjoy. I’ve discovered that many people like to shot but few like to edit. I discovered I really like to build a story and like to edit from a pretty random pile of footage. So at kayaking events like Delmarva I’ve developed a film making model where many people shoot, we share all the footage, and in some cases make short films all from the same library of footage. 2019 HRGF it was 13 cinematographers, so many eyes seeing things in different ways to combine to tell a story about 3 days (HRGF movie) So turning back to Anders & Jannie, about how they feel about me ~ I feel the same way about them, their passion, the way they teach their craft and the amount of love they radiate within the Greenland kayak community.
Cheers Peter - we can't wait to see you next time :)! And thank you so MUCH for sharing your story with us and for us to share it on the Kajakkspesialisten blog and others social media.
*Quote Peter; Yes repeating Will Bigalow is intentional ;)!
