This Week in Small Craft: September 14th, 2026
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The USDA is moving to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule, and Outdoor Alliance is asking paddlers and other recreationists to weigh in. The rule limits new road construction and large-scale logging across millions of acres of national forest. Outdoor Alliance says nearly 1,000 miles of whitewater sit within the affected roadless areas and that the Roadless Rule has protected popular backcountry recreation across 45 million acres of Forest Service lands and water quality in the rivers we love to boat in since 2001.
This is a big one for people who use public land and water. The public comment deadline has been extended to October 6.
Paddling Magazine’s Scott MacGregor asks a good question: Has whitewater spent so much time trying to look safe and accessible that it forgot to look fun? His argument is that skiing does not recruit new skiers with photos of awkward turns on the bunny hill, yet whitewater increasingly markets itself with calm eddies, smiles, and paddle high-fives. Maybe scary is part of the sales pitch. Big. Fun. Scary. Hard to argue with that.
Chesapeake Light Craft and world renown kayak builder Nick Schade have a useful trick for stitch-and-glue boat builders: super glue. More specifically, cyanoacrylate glue can be used to tack puzzle joints and hull panels together before fiberglass and epoxy make everything permanent. Hit it with accelerator and it cures almost immediately. Align first. Glue second. Learn why, according to CLC super glue is turning up in every boatbuilder's toolbox.
Protect Our Rivers has a busy few weeks ahead in Colorado. There’s a Clear Creek cleanup in Denver on September 17, a South Platte cleanup and happy hour September 22, and a National Public Lands Day project on the Colorado River near Kremmling September 26. They’re also hosting the Rally for Rivers Film Festival at Down River Equipment in Wheat Ridge on October 16. Pick up trash. Watch river films. Feel temporarily better about humanity.
American Whitewater’s 2025 Impact Report is worth a scroll. The organization finished the year with more than 7,300 members, 66 affiliate clubs, and 5,000 volunteer hours. Boaters sent more than 15,000 letters opposing public-land sales. AW helped protect 9.2 miles of the Nolichucky Gorge from riverbed mining, purchased land along the Lower Big Sandy, worked on boat and fish passage on Colorado’s Poudre River, and helped improve access at seven sites on the Tuolumne and Klamath.
The Bolton Landing No-Octane Regatta returns to Lake George, NY on September 26 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Period boats powered by oar, paddle, and sail gather at Rogers Park for races, demonstrations, exhibitions, and general messing about in boats. It is free to attend and participate. No motors. No fumes. No one bragging about horsepower.
And finally, a short video titled It’s Not Snowmelt. It’s Paperwork. (And It’s Saving Our Rivers.) from the Colorado Water Trust gets at one of the less romantic truths of river conservation. Healthy rivers need snow, rain, and functioning watersheds. They also need people willing to sit through hearings, file comments, negotiate agreements, and do all the boring administrative stuff that keeps water in them.