Siska June 2025 Newsletter

Introduction
Upcoming SISKA Events
Upcoming NON-Siska Events
Siska June/July/August General Meeting Agenda
New Monthly Meeting Location
Kayakfest 2025 - June 7th - Only ONE week away!
Membership Survey
Off Water Update: Clinics, Courses and Tours
Save the Date for Another Classic September Event
BestCoast Outfitters Kayak Store: Big Announcement - June 1st - Tonight!
These Blue Dog Kayaks Must Go
Cabbage Island Closure UPDATE
4 Family Weekends at The Broken Islands Lodge
Why VHF Radio?
Tips From The Trips
Camp Cookery
Safety Item
BC Marine Trails News
SISKA’s Kayak Skills Course Partners

Introduction

Thanks to those members who contributed photos and materials. After enjoying a SISKA event or paddle, please consider sending a short (100-150 words) summary article; for more information, contact one of us, newsletter@siska.ca . If you would like to start a regular column, please let us know!

Jane Jacek (SISKA president) and Tony Playfair (editor)

Convenient Links

PS: SISKA on Facebook

PPS: Siska’s Youtube Channel

PPPS: Siska’s Newsletter Archive - Mailchimp or Siska Newsletters Website

PPPPS: Rocky Point Demolition Blasting Notices

Upcoming SISKA Events

Upcoming NON-Siska Events

by Jane Jacek

Click images for information

Ocean Week
Victoria Calendar of Events

Pacifica Paddle OCEAN WEEK
June 2–8, 2025

Join us for ocean cleanup events in partnership with Trash Panda Brigade. As paddlers, we must protect what we love… so we’re doing our part to cleanup shorelines that are best accessed by paddling. The Trash Pandas are a group of Paddle Canada Instructors and friends who incorporate shoreline and ocean clean into their paddling adventures on a regular basis. Stay tuned for upcoming events you can join! If you want to follow the action, look up Trash Panda Brigade on Facebook and Instagram.

Kayaking the Great Bear Sea Presentation - Susan Conrad - June 3rd

Editor Note - This event is sold out online if you click the “Register Info” link below and try to register. Whether there are spots available for walk-ins is unknown.

Hello from across the pond!

I’m an expedition paddler living in NW Washington State, and in collaboration with Pacific Wild, I’m giving a free slideshow presentation in the Victoria area on June 3rd. It’s in conjunction with World Ocean Week and focuses on my journey through the Great Bear Rainforest (as part of a bigger Inside Passage expedition to Sitka, Alaska).

Also, here on my Facebook page if sharing that way is easier.

Susan’s Homepage

Siska June/July/August General Meeting Agenda

by Fred Pishalski

No meetings until September 24th! See you on the water!

New Monthly Meeting Location

by Jane Jacek

The executive is pleased to announce we have found a new location for our monthly meeting.

The location is the Unitarian Universalist Community of Victoria, formerly known as First Unitarian Church of Victoria. Address: 5575 West Saanich Road Victoria, BC

Our first meeting, at this new location, will be Wednesday September 24th.

Map

Kayakfest 2025 - June 7th - Only ONE week away!

by Rod Stiebel

KayakFest 2025 is happening Saturday June 7, at Cadboro Gyro park. We hope you can join us, and tell all your non SISKA friends and family, it is free for all to join in. Bring a lunch, bring some questions, have some fun!

More Info

Membership Survey

by Ginny Flood

Thanks to the 130 members who completed the Membership Survey. The responses are greatly appreciated with many thoughtful comments and suggestions for what’s working well and where improvements can be made. The next steps will be for the Executive to review the results and present them at the SISKA September meeting. We look forward to sharing the results.

Konrad Sechley & Ginny Flood

Off Water Update: Clinics, Courses and Tours

by Rod Stiebel

DAKINI TIDAL WILDS SEAWEED TOUR, Back by Popular Demand

There is still a few spots left for this tour!

While out paddling, do you ever wonder about all the different seaweeds that are below? Here is your opportunity to learn more! Amanda Swinimer, BSc Marine Biology, and author of The Science and Spirit of Seaweed, and The Science and Superpowers of Seaweed, a Guide for Kids, will show you the way.

A 90 minute tour of a beach near Ogden Point in James Bay will be your classroom. You will learn all about the amazing seaweeds that grow in the Salish Sea, being able to identify them, their edibility, including nutritional and health properties. Culinary tips as well as spa use will be explored. Ecology and sustainability will also be part of the discussion. Included will be a tasting of a variety of local, wild harvested seaweeds.

Amanda has agreed to offer this tour on Sunday June 15, at 10:30AM until noon, the best time for low tide exploration at this location. The cost is $70.00 per person. A minimum of 4 members are needed for this event to proceed. This is a “Rain or Shine” event.

Seaweed tour for Siska. Wild-Crafted seaweed from the Pacific NW.

Dakini Tidal Wilds

Save the Date for Another Classic September Event

by Jane Jacek

Saturday September 27, 2025

Cadboro Bay/ Gyro Park 9am - 3pm (rain or shine)

9am-12pm

Gear Swap: Looking to buy or sell kayak gear and/or a kayak? This is the event for you!
Kayak Chat: visit with your peers, share your summer kayak stories, ask seasoned paddlers your kayak questions.

Coffee, tea and goodies will be supplied

12pm-1pm

Bring your own Lunch

1pm-3pm

Light Paddle Cadboro Bay Tour

BestCoast Outfitters Kayak Store: Big Announcement - June 1st - Tonight!

by Jane Jacek

BestCoast Outfitters

A professional kayak store by paddlers, for paddlers.

BestCoast Outfitters is beyond excited to finally share OUR BIG ANNOUNCEMENT with you! Please join us for an ONLINE WEBINAR on JUNE 1ST at 7 PM, where you’ll be the first to hear what’s coming. While we can’t spill all the details just yet, we promise it’s something you, your family, and friends will love. Also, everyone who attends will receive special gifts from us!

For attendance, please send us an email to: sales@bestcoastoutfitters.com

Warm regards,
Ali Torabidavan
Marketing Manager
+1 250-590-4625
commassist@bestcoastoutfitters.com
https://www.bestcoastoutfitters.com
865 Yates St, Victoria BC V8W 1M1

These Blue Dog Kayaks Must Go

by Jane Jacek

Email retail@bluedogkayaking.com

Cabbage Island Closure UPDATE

by Dave Chater

As of April 15, 2025, Parks Canada has closed camping and day-use on Cabbage Island, within the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, due to environmental and cultural concerns. The pit toilet and boater’s mooring buoys will remain. Please respect all on-site signage. Cabbage Island is a critical safe refuge for kayakers in the south Gulf Islands, particularly for those attempting to traverse around East Point on the southern end of Saturna Island. The area around East Point and adjacent Boiling Reef can be very treacherous with substantial tidal races and exposure to significant winds. Cabbage Island is also a key link in the BC Marine Trails system in the south Gulf Islands.

SISKA has written to Parks Canada to express our dismay and concern with the recent and sudden closure of Cabbage Island. We have also highlighted our concern for the continued closure of camping at the Beaumont park site (south Pender Island), also within the national park reserve. The larger concern is a potential pattern being shown by Parks Canada of closing park sites due to a variety of park management issues. The BC Marine Trails Association also shares this concern as there has also been some recent closures in the Broken Islands within Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Could Portland Island, Rum Island or D’Arcy Island be next?

In our letter to Parks Canada, we requested a commitment for stakeholder and public input prior to finalizing a decision on the potential permanent closures of camping at the Cabbage Island and Beaumont park sites. We also requested a meeting with Parks Canada to discuss our concerns and look for opportunities to collaborate with First Nations, local communities and BC Marine Trails on maintaining and enhancing kayak camping and day use activities at these sites and throughout the national park reserve.

As a result of our letter, Parks Canada has offered to meet with SISKA representatives to discuss our concerns with the closure of kayak camping in park sites in the national park reserve. We are hopeful that we can find a collaborative way to resolve this issue and will also be coordinating our input to Parks Canada with the BC Marine Trails.

4 Family Weekends at The Broken Islands Lodge

by Jane Jacek

Booking Link

Why VHF Radio?

by Gary Jacek

On the wish list from our SISKA trip leaders is more participants with VHF credentials and hardware.

Quite often we have a participant who gets caught in the moment and paddles away from the group. Equipped with a VHF radio, they are easily recalled. Or a trip leader may send a radio-equipped paddler to chase the wayward paddler down.

VHF is also your lifeline to Coast Guard when things turn bad.

Communication is the key to safer SISKA trips.

The radio course is not difficult. A good, uncomplicated radio likely cost less than your favourite paddle.

If you want to join Team VHF, ask about the VHF Radio course.

Tips From The Trips

by Debbie Leach

Toss the Floss! Take biodegradable floss picks instead to avoid dealing with messy tangles of used floss.

Camp Cookery

by Lynn Baier

CHILI LIME PEANUT NOODLES

I don’t think it gets much easier than this recipe from Fresh Off the Grid

Safety Item

by Alison Keighan

Photo by Arteum.ro on Unsplash

Reading the Clouds

As responsible paddlers, we regularly consult our favourite weather apps and websites (Environment Canada, Windy, Predict Wind, Big Wave Dave, Ocean Connect, etc.) before we head out on the water. But, if you’re like me, you sometimes neglect to take advantage of an important source of real time, local information - the state of the sky. I recently encountered a good article on the BoatU.S. website about how paying attention to the clouds can inform our decisions.

How to read clouds