Nigel Foster & Patrick Smith
A Michigan Lesson from Sea & Land Masters

Recently my sales agency hosted a sales training camp for our dealers in the Pinckney area. While we usually do in-store clinics for staff members to update them on our outdoor products, nothing beats getting outside and using the gear. So invitations were sent to outdoor shops in the Great Lakes area to come out and camp with us and leave the distractions of phones, faxes and, yes, you treasured customers behind and focus on sharpening our knowledge of what we sell. Rather than have me and my associates deliver the message, we invited two special guests to share what they knew with the dealers.

Nigel Foster, the British sea kayak instructor, author and equipment designer was gracious enough to accept our invitation. Only days back from Japan, Patrick Smith, the founder and designer of MOUNTAINSMITH packs, was also kind enough to take time out from his busy schedule to come out and work with us. What follows are observations of two very unique, creative and influential men. Nigel Foster has paddled solo in Greenland and all over northern Europe in conditions best rated as "severe". He has the frost bitten fingers to prove it. At forty-seven, he has the weathered looks of a high altitude climber but the graceful, limber motions of a martial arts expert. To watch him paddle a narrow, 18-foot long sea kayak is something you'll never forget. His sense of balance is such that he can stand up and paddle these kind of craft where many cannot even sit in one without falling over! Nigel is an instructors' instructor. They don't come more authentic and his five books are sold the world over. He's spent 16 hours in his kayak paddling in fog so thick he had to navigate by sound. But he seems just as happy in a small pond looking for fish or turtles as he wanders the shoreline. Nigel is in great demand at sea kayak symposiums in this country as well as in his native Britain. His boat designs are regarded as proven expedition kayaks and the waiting list to buy one is long.

Patrick Smith started his own pack company because he just couldn't find packs that carried comfortably as a guide and ski patrolman in the Colorado mountains. So twenty-two years ago he started sewing packs in his garage. The word got out and before he knew it MOUNTAINSMITH was born along with numerous international patents and trademarks. Many pack companies either blatantly copy his designs or pay a quiet royalty to use his clever thoughts on eliminating pain while shouldering a load. Outside ran an article on Patrick stating that he spent 150 days each year out on the trail testing product. I asked him if this was true and he said "Partially, I'm actually not on a trail much anymore. Too crowded. Prefer to find my own routes." Smith is a deep thinker and often returns back to a point of conversation everyone else abandend ten minutes ago. At 56, he telemark skis and finds way-back country hunting trips to be the most inspirational. He's not a retro gear guy but by God, each piece of gear better be very light weight and have all the frills eliminated before it gets his attention.

Both Nigel and Patrick are icons in the outdoor industry. At trade shows, neither of them can get around unnoticed and it takes awhile for them to complete a trip down the aisles as everyone wants a word with them. I had observed them both at The Outdoor Retailer Show, and both were subdued and quiet in that environment. It was the people around them that became energized and animated. So it was with a great deal of nervousness that I offered to pick them up at Metro airport and bring them back to my house to spend the night before heading out for the dealer camp. I fretted over what to feed them and whether they were allergic to cats and how the time zone changes would affect them. But most of all, how well we would communicate over the evening and morning before the event? After all, Nigel is an ocean going man and Patrick a true man of the mountains. How would they relate to each other? Each was an explorer from different disciplines. Would it be like getting a Navy man and an Army guy together on leave with broken noses and black eyes the result? As it turned out I received a pretty intense education on group dynamics with a lesson or two thrown in about how explorers handle things in the field.

Lesson #1
World travelers pack very, very light! Oddly enough, Nigel and Patrick's planes landed within ten minutes of each other on a hectic, "spring break fiasco" night at Detroit Metro. The place was a zoo with families returning from Florida and college kids from Mexico and everyone totally stressed out and laden with luggage. I had put a luggage case on the roof of the Jeep to ensure that I could handle the guys' gear. I double parked in the "Hell's Canyon" zone at Northwest and stood out front while the hordes rushed past so I could help with my guests baggage. With a cart at the ready I met Patrick first as he casually strolled out of the terminal with a small duffel in his hand and a small day pack on his back. "How much more gear you have inside?" I asked after shaking his hand. "Oh this is it right here," he said. I could hardly believe this since he not only packed his personal gear, but a twelve person teepee with a small heater! I sent Patrick to watch the Jeep so it wouldn't be towed while I searched for Nigel. He was serenely waiting at baggage claim with a slender case over his shoulder containing his paddle and small guitar. Northwest was doing their best to vex the travelers by refusing to acknowledge which gate had what flights' luggage. Nigel seemed unconcerned and eventually his small duffel came out and we headed for the Jeep where Patrick was sitting calmly while horns blared and tempers flared all around.

Lesson # 2
Explorers need to "connect the dots". Off we went. In introducing them to each other, I found that they had no idea who the other was. "Oh oh," I thought. I'd better carry the conversation for a while and break the ice. Forty five minutes later, I still hadn't gotten a word in edgewise. Nigel had mentioned Iceland and that was all it took. Patrick was intently interested to hear about the topography and logistics of getting there. They talked about Nova Scotia and Baffin Island and then other far flung places on the globe. Minute locations of tiny settlements were discussed and somehow the eating of a fly larva that lives in the flesh of caribou was debated. Raw or cooked? Suddenly Patrick turned to me and demanded a complete assessment of exactly where we were in relation to the airport and where we were headed for the night. His fierce desire to fix his bearings would return again and again over the next several days. Distances, topography and proximity to landmarks were noted. I pointed out the compass on the overhead in the Jeep and he quickly dismissed it as a "gadget".

Lesson #3
Explorers are above all, curious fellows. The lads were hungry and thirsty so the Jackson brewery was elected to remedy this. Both guys know their beer!! They grilled the waitress and sampled a few before settling on some dark versions and then resumed discussing "lost planet" places they knew. But never once was paddling or backpacking ever really brought up! For all an observer could tell, these guys were bush pilots! Once we got to my place, Patrick and Nigel met my daughter and her boyfriend, and I left them all chatting away on the couch about music and schools and what did the kid's want to do in life while I headed for bed.

Both these guys like strong coffee. I mean real strong coffee. The next morning I made what I thought was paint peeler brew and they never even flinched. After breakfast I was loading the van with gear and they noticed my recumbent bicycle. In a matter of minutes they were riding it all over the yard and grinning like loonies. Patrick began to show his analytical side by wanting to know gear ratios, tire pressures and how you could go off road with one.

Lesson # 4
Live your field of expertise, instead of studying it, and nothing can faze you. We reached the campsite and Patrick assailed me with more demands for exact bearings. Was he planning on hiking back to Metro? Nigel on the other hand watched the world go by out the window and focused on the plant life that was in full bloom. Once we reached the campsite, Patrick was immediately in full set up mode and erected his awesome teepee. Nigel opportunistically took an offer to stay in our travel trailer headquarters and was drinking a frozen Margarita within minutes. I was running around like a madman directing camp set up, greeting dealers and getting 22 kayaks and canoes off loaded. When I trudged back to camp I found the two explorers had made new friends and were knocking back a few beers. Neither one was the least bit jumpy or nervous about the clinics they would be conducting. From their vantage point anyone who wanted to play "stump the expert" was hard pressed to gain anything. Both Patrick and Nigel freely admit that there is a whole lot of well designed gear out there for all of us but it's what we do with it that really matters to them. And it was clear at camp that if you were a hiker or paddler, you were quite welcome inside their "personal space".

Over the next two days the two veteran explorers would meet over sixty people, endure rain, wind and sun, share meals with neophytes and debate merits (or lack of) of my camp cooking. I had worried that they would be bored witless in such an environment; surrounded by admitted wannabes. But both Nigel and Patrick had a super keen interest in the other campers. Each of them painstakingly repeated their clinic material and were among the last to turn in each night. Like kids at Christmas, they simply didn't want to miss anything. While everyone else talked about the weather, neither Nigel or Patrick seemed at all concerned about it and when the sun finally broke out, they were already in fine spirits, the rest of us had to play catch up.

Lesson #5
Touch your world . . . tour! It's uncanny how each of these guys has taken on the attributes of the element they make their living from. Nigel is very fluid and takes what comes his way much like the oceans he paddles. He told a story of landing in Salt Lake for the biggest outdoor show in the world. His hotel bookings had been mishandled and there simply wasn't a room to be found and he knew no one to call. So he curled up on a park bench in front of a police precinct and went to sleep. Patrick is a very measured man in the way he speaks and in the way he carries himself. You get the feeling he is in no hurry to get his words out, just like he is in no hurry to get up the trail or break camp. Here is a man that tries to live off the land when and where he can. An avid hunter, he is also a stringent environmentalist. You can see each of the countless steps he has taken has had meaning for him. It's amusing to me that while Patrick and Nigel make their living designing, testing and ultimately selling equipment, neither is a gear head. They see what they do as only a means to get outdoors and stay outdoors. In Patrick's words, "Anything I ever sewed up for gear toting was really on a personal level so that I could get to the backcountry as comfortably as possible. The fact that other people wanted one of my packs was affirming only when I saw them on the trail. I get no pleasure from seeing them hang on the store displays." Nigel sums up his career, "Growing up in England I had this compelling fascination with water be it a brook, a lake or the Mother ocean herself. In paddling around the world in my kayaks, I'm never very far from that early feeling of absolute freedom I felt so many years ago." Let us all hope that there are more Nigels and Patricks out there to help us all keep perspective on our outdoor pursuits.