Paddling Schools & Instruction
Updated:Paddling is enjoyed on many types of water and in many types of boats.
The NH AMC Paddlers offer a wide range of courses to help you learn to enjoy the many aspects of paddling, such as quiet water, touring, whitewater, sea kayaking, and wilderness expeditions. (Almost all our courses are free or a slight change to cover our costs.)
Our courses focus on you having fun paddling, being safe, learning techniques, and making friends. Our teaching ranges from informal tips on a trip all the way to a fully organized school over many days.
QUIET WATER
Our Wednesday night paddles and numerous other flatwater trips run throughout the paddling season. These trips provide new and experienced paddlers a chance to enjoy beautiful places and to meet our leaders and other paddlers. On most of these trips, our leaders will help you try several boats through our inexpensive boat rental program and give new paddlers instruction. Our quiet water guide points out some of the beautiful places our members think are especially nice. For announcements of these trips, click on Join Us to get on our weekly email distribution list.
TOURING
Touring trips generally run rivers and lakes. They have the attitude that we’ll take what the river hands out and deal with it. Here, you also get to see beautiful places while at the same time “getting someplace.” Because there is never a requirement to run anything you don’t want to run, there may be portaging or lining down. These are taught as part of our courses. The anchor of our touring program is the Touring Instruction Course, which can be followed by our safety courses and additional skill-building courses that are included in our River Skills Building Courses. We welcome all paddlers on our trips.
WHITEWATER
For those that want excitement, our whitewater program is a comprehensive, supportive, and safe way to get introduced to whitewater. The anchor course for our whitewater program is our Whitewater School each spring. As a follow on to that we have a complete set of River Skills Building Courses.
SEA KAYAKING
For those that want to enjoy the beauty of our estuaries, bays, and coastline along with wildlife viewing, our sea kayaking program will help you get started in a supportive and friendly manner. Our SEA KAYAKING SCHOOL is a comprehensive weekend of instruction and good times. We also offer additional safety and rolling clinics as part of our SEA KAYAKING CURRICULUM. Through these programs and participating in our trips, you will make friends and improve your skills.
WILDERNESS EXPEDITIONS
We have a large number of canoeists that have extensive wilderness expedition experience ranging from the arctic to the subtropics. From that experience, we have developed the Wilderness Expedition Curriculum for canoeists. As part of this, we offer the Wilderness Canoe Expedition Planning, Equipping, and Provisioning Course in the winter. We offer shorter wilderness trips as part of our scheduled program. Once you get to meet our leaders, perhaps you will get invited on one of those “trips of a lifetime” expeditions.
SAFETY & LEADERSHIP
We offer a full range of safety, rescue, and first aid courses as part of each of our programs. We also have a leadership program that we encourage all paddlers to take. Each of these programs is open to everyone and can be taken individually.
INDIVIDUAL COURSES
Each of our courses can be taken individually. The purpose of outlining a curriculum is to show the paddler all the skills offered and to guide the way towards being an excellent paddler. Some of the skills are not actually paddling such as poling and canoe sailing. Some are safety oriented such as rescue and first aid. Some are leadership-oriented so that you can help us all enjoy more paddling and arrange your own trips.