About Brian Day
Nice hat. Gales of November Rendezvous, Speckled Trout Bay, Ontario 1996.
Brian started paddling back in 1991 when he was working at an outdoor store called Life Tools in Green Bay, Wisconsin. At the time, Green Bay had a group of dedicated sea kayakers who paddled in nearby Door County and occasionally made the trek up to Speckled Trout Bay to sit in a wall tent with a wood stove and think about paddling on Lake Superior (this was the heyday of the mythical Gales of November Rendezvous, started by Stan Chladek). Green Bay was a great place to learn to paddle. There was outstanding open water kayaking close by on Lake Michigan, and a local whitewater river less than an hour away. The paddling community was close and vibrant, but Brian knew he had to move on. The time had come to expand his kayaking horizons. So he moved to Madison–-a city which has neither sea kayaking nor whitewater boating.
Madison does have some lakes though, and during his exile from big water, Brian spent his time paddling around in circles on these lakes, hoping that the wind would blow–-really hard.
Desperation for big water paddling drove Brian first to do a month-long expedition in the Aleutian Islands with Stan, and later to travel over to Wales for some paddling sessions at Nigel Dennis’ kayak centre. It was in this period that he had his first fateful meeting with Kelly Blades.
During much of this time, Brian was working at a kayak store called Rutabaga. Later he worked as a sales rep for some great outdoor companies. Gas was cheap and the money came in sacks. He started making trips to the Southeast and the UP for whitewater boating. Life was all sunshine and daisies. Then the bottom fell out.
Not really.
Actually, Brian went off to work a summer at the Voyageur Outward Bound School, where he tortured kids with aluminum canoes. Then he spent six months sailing on a replica square-rigger on the West Coast (where he learned that pirates aren’t funny). When Brian returned to Wisconsin, he managed to write a few articles for Sea Kayaker magazine, but it remains to see if they have been read by anyone other than his mother.
Grand Marais Symposium, 2007. Note that the funny hat has been replaced by a total absence of hair. (No Pyranha sponges were harmed in the making of this photo).
These days, Brian does a bit of kayak coaching and flies the flag for P&H sea kayaks as a team paddler. He still isn’t quite sure how he got on the same roster as Bryan Smith, although he suspects that it may be because he has just been around so long.
Brian is currently attempting to better himself by earning a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin. When he’s done with that, he might move to a place that has some kayaking…
UPDATE–In June of 2009 I will be moving down to Asheville, NC to take a positon with Pyranha US. I will be on the road and in the office doing sales, marketing and PR for P&H Sea Kayaks, Venture Kayaks and Feel Free Kayaks. And I’ll be living a half hour from the Green River. Looks like I will have a chance to get some paddling in after all. Hope to see you on the water.
