Northwest Indiana Paddling Association

Thanks again so much for helping to make the Northwest Indiana Paddling Association a huge success so far. Right now, we are well over 200 paddlers strong, and new members are always welcome. We look forward to meeting & hearing from you.

The NWIPA Blueways Stewardship Committee now has it’s own page on this site. There you will find information about current projects, download guideline and volunteer documents, and the all-important ‘Wish List’ of the tools and supplies Gina and her team of volunteers desperately need to clean up our streams.
Click here for The Blueways Stewardship Page

The inaugural Sea Kayak Tour of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, a National Trails Day event, was a great success in spite of the rain! It marks the first ever sea kayak tour exclusively of the southern Lake Michigan Water Trail within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  This event comes one year after of the highly successful Burnham-to-Marquette Water Trail Expedition that dedicated the Lake Michigan Water Trail from Chicago IL to Michigan City IN.  Along with way, paddlers learned about the history and ecology of the region at educational programs at some of the region’s most beautiful lakefront natural areas.

I wanted to thank everyone who participated in or volunteered to help at the Dunes Tour yesterday. I especially wanted to thank the National Park Service, Luke Brennan & Laura, the Indiana Dunes State Park, the Gary Parks Dept. & the Michigan City Parks Dept. for helping to make the event great. It started out pretty rainy, but ended up being a great day on the lake. There are not many times when Lake Michigan is perfectly flat & you get the wind at your back. I had a great time paddling with everyone. It looked like a lot of people were taking some fantastic photos. If you would not mind sharing them, please feel free to upload them to the NWIPA photo album viewable on our website. To do so, please go to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nwipa09/DunesTour2010# & upload your photos. Thank you again so much! - Dan Plath NWIPA President

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Over 50 paddlers in 44 kayaks and canoes came out to enjoy a paddle up the east branch of the Little Calumet River. Starting out at the Portage Lakefront Park, paddlers saw first hand the potential that exists for a first class waterway right in the heart of northwest Indiana. Carefully working their way through the busy boat traffic from Portage Marina, and past decaying remnants of old boat docks, they soon found themselves under the quiet of a thick canopy of trees. Birds, wildlife, and lush greenery along the river banks hinted at the promise of opening up the full length of this waterway for paddlers.

But much work is needed to make this happen as the paddlers were soon stopped by thick log jams. With the great turnout for this event we demonstrated it will be worth the effort as many people will visit this waterway to see the rich scenery.

Many thanks to the volunteers from the National Park Service and NWIPA that made this event possible.

Check out some photos from the event here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nwipa09/LittleCalumetTour2010#