🛶 All about kayaks and canoes | Outdoorsy Newsletter

The first time I got in a kayak, I was excited. And scared.

I was visiting my best friend in New York City in July who had the idea to kayak on the Hudson River. I was afraid, but moving the paddle across my body felt like second nature. The water relaxed me, and it turned out to be a truly memorable experience. Suffice it to say, I’m looking for any opportunity to kayak again.

Thankfully, we’re lucky to have plenty of waterways to choose from when it comes to recreational boating activities in the Philadelphia area. It’s a cherished local pastime, from the Lenni Lenape who once navigated the Lenape Sipu (now the Delaware River) and the Ganshowahanna (now the Schuylkill), to modern-day voyagers paddling on Burlington Island’s former amusement park site.

So hop in! We’re scoping out the best kayak and canoe tours around. Afterwards, we’ll visit farmlands to see how some millennial farmers get creative with their products and on social media to propel a business that struggles to attract younger generations. (Fun fact: Pennsylvania leads the nation in the percentage of farmers under the age of 35.)

📮 What’s your must-see watersport spot? Email me back and tell me about your experience for a chance to be featured in this newsletter.

☀️ Your weekend weather outlook: Friday is your best bet for a dry adventure. Otherwise, expect cloudy and rainy conditions. Temps will peak in the low 90s on Sunday.

— Paola Pérez (outdoorsy@inquirer.com)

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History literally flows through the city of Philadelphia and surrounding areas by way of the Delaware — the longest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi — and the Schuylkill. And we get to flow right with it.

There are 12 small boating companies offering canoe and kayak tours across the city that you should know about.

📍 The locations: Outside of the city, some wade into West Chester (along the Brandywine River), Bucks County (through Neshaminy Creek), and New Jersey’s Pine Barrens.

🛶 The gear: No equipment? No problem. These companies offer a variety of rentals, like singles or two-seaters.

🌊 The challenge: All skill levels are welcome. These boating trips are on flat water, offering easy kayaking and canoeing trips for everyone.

💵 The cost: There are free options, while others start as low as $20 and offer additional costs for special routes and private camping (or for those equipment rentals).

Excited for this excursion? Take your pick from the full list of tours we recommend you try this season.

🎤 Now we’re passing the microphone to Jason Nark. You’ll always find his work here.

All across America, in the wheat fields, hog pens, and milking barns, aging farmers often repeat a sad lament.

Younger generations, they often say, don’t want to be farmers. The work is too hard, the margins too thin.

Thousands of generational farms have shuttered and sold in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in recent decades. Other farmers, or their children, cling to untended acres for years, hoping for the day a couple like Joe Kalucki and Kelly O’Neill come knocking with unfounded optimism and products unfamiliar to most old-school farmers. Like a “pleasure oil” made of sunflower oil and an assortment of herbs.

“It’s lube,” Kalucki said recently at Timberline Farms, their business in Hammonton, near the Pinelands. “I guess I don’t know another farm that sells lube.” — Jason Nark

You read that right. Timberline is known for its U-Pick sunflower fields, its goat milk soap ... and its lube. It’s all in Nark’s full feature story. Discover how these young farmers are bridging the generational gap in American farming.

If the trees in Wissahickon Valley Park could talk, what would they tell us about its roots? I like to imagine they’d probably mention the essential establishment of the park in 1867 as a way to protect a source of Philadelphia’s drinking water.

A group called the Friends of the Wissahickon has protected that beloved green space in Northwest Philly for over 100 years. Before officially forming in 1924, the group has successfully protested an early 20th-century proposal for a road for cars through Wissahickon Valley Park, and helped rebuild after an ice storm damaged trees. Today, the nonprofit still counts on neighbors and users to fight erosion, overuse, invasive species, and climate change.

Go deeper into the history of the park and its devoted group as they celebrates its 100th anniversary this season.

Here’s reader (and angler) Brian Lennen sharing his appreciation for fishing:

I grew up fishing in Philadelphia and I also love its history. We have a unique opportunity here to combine both when fishing Pennypack Creek in the shadows of the King’s Highway Bridge on Frankford Avenue. First erected in 1697, the bridge has several deep holes under it that hold lots of panfish, trout in the spring after a good storm, and even a lost blue claw crab or two in times of drought (yup, one hot August day we managed to net one and proudly brought our catch home on the Frankford Avenue trolley to our unbelieving parents). I’m in my 40′s now, but I was fortunate to fish it many times in my youth with my best friends and I hope other kids are experiencing the Tom Sawyer life there so they too can tell their kids about fishing underneath our country’s oldest bridge.

Memories to last a lifetime! Cool history lesson, too.

📮 Give us a review of your outdoors experience for a chance to be featured in this newsletter by emailing me back.

There won’t be an Outdoorsy newsletter next week in observation of the Fourth of July holiday, but we’ve got you covered with the best places to see firework displays in the Philly region. I’ll also be celebrating my birthday — fingers crossed I’m on a kayak to mark the occasion.

Gear up for our next adventure. I’ll see you again soon!

“What a desolate place would be a world without a flower.” —Clara Lucas Balfour

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