Greenland Forum

This forum is provided courtesy of Qajaq USA to promote open discussion of "Greenland-style" and other "traditional" kayaking topics. We welcome discussions pertaining to all arctic kayak types (Greenland, Aleut, and all others), narrow blade paddling technique, including rolling, bracing and rescue techniques, kayak and paddle building, topics pertaining to culture and history, Qaannat Kattuffiat, Qajaq USA, instruction, local Greenland-style paddling events, the Greenland National Kayaking Championships and similar topics. Also feel free to share information of related topics, such as Inuit rope gymnastics and making/using Inuit hunting tools (harpoon throwing anyone?). Discussion of other paddling disciplines is certainly not taboo, especially if contrasted with Greenland kayaking topics. This includes discussions of certification and the use of Greenland paddles in programs offered by the ACA, BCU and others.

Notice and Legal Disclaimer
The administrators of Qajaq USA reserve the right to remove commercial, offensive, and other postings, in accordance with our judgment. The opinions and views expressed on this forum do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of the officers and members of Qajaq USA. Qajaq USA is not responsible for damages or losses caused from following advice posted to this forum. As with all aspects of kayaking, common sense goes a long way.

Please do not post commercial messages and Classified Ads

This forum is for open discussion and sharing of knowledge. Folks who sell a product or service to the kayaking community are very welcome to participate here as long as you do not use this forum to directly advertise your products and services.
All commercial posts (posts selling or promoting a product/service) must be placed on the Greenland Commercial & Events Forum, not here.
All classified adds (e.g. "want adds" looking to buy a kayak, looking to sell a kayak, etc) must be placed on the Greenland Commercial & Events Forum, not here.
Discussing product brands and services on this forum is encouraged (e.g. talk and opinions of different kayak brands and models, paddles, etc).
Commercial posters may answer questions about their products/services that are posted by others, if this is done with a minimum of hype and without attacking competitor's products.
Commercial posters are encouraged to list their company affiliation. It is also fine to provide your company URL with your signature. However please don't use the special "Optional Link URL" and "Optional Image URL" fields (PIC and LINK fields) for this purpose. These fields should directly relate to the subject matter being discussed, not for promotional images or links.
If you are announcing an informal get-together or a general purpose sea kayaking symposium (not a private class by a single instructor, certification, etc), of interest to traditional kayakers, please feel free to do so on this forum. Please place schedules, pricing and other information on the Greenland Commercial & Events Forum.
If you are not sure if your post is appropriate to be posted to this forum, please contact the administration staff at webmaster@qajaqusa.org.
Decorum
Please use your real name when you post rather than hiding behind an alias. If you have something to say then think it through carefully and let the world know who you are. Anonymous postings lack accountability and sometimes lead to a higher "noise level" and heated exchanges.
Please be courteous to your fellow posters, and remember that your words will be archived and available for inspection for many years. Although tempers are bound to flare in any hotly debated discussion, please do your best to maintain civility. If you are angry or upset, a good rule of thumb is to wait until morning to post; you may see things in a different light.
The forum contains a very efficient search feature. Prior to posting, please check to ensure that your question has not already been recently answered. If you find prior discussion of your topic, but you still have questions, please don't hesitate to post a new message.
When you respond to a message, the text from the previous poster is copied to the beginning of your message. Please edit text so that only pertinent information is presented. As a courtesy, you may wish to indicate where you have removed lines by [SNIP].
When you place information in the"Optional Link URL" and "Optional Image URL" fields, a "PIC" and "LINK" indicator will show on the main message index. Therefore, please populate these fields only with information that directly relates to the topic of your posting.
Profiles - Please tell us about yourself!

Consider adding an optional profile to say a few words about yourself.

You can create and access your profile via the options in the navigation bar at the top and bottom of the screen. This is an opportunity to indicate your interests, skills and geographic location, so that interested individuals can contact you. Getting local paddlers connected and encouraging local grassroots' involvement is a major goal of Qajaq USA.

Please note that your email address is not displayed on the forum. By creating a profile you will have access to the "blind email" feature. This allows forum members to send mail without ever seeing the addresses. Your profile also ensures that no one else will post using your name. Should you "lose" your profile password, you can recover it via the [Forgot your Password?] link on the navigation bar.

If you wish to display an Avatar image with your posts, then save your profile image to the Qajaq USA server (click on the Choose File button). Please see more information under Avatar below.

ViewingPreferences

The forum defaults to a threaded presentation but offers a wide variety of views. To change your viewing preferences, click on the [My Preferences] link on the navigation bar. Tip - if you don't like to click on each post to read it, then you may wish to set the display style to "Guestbook".

Suggestions:

Tetra-WebBBS default settings: Select Threaded List, Single Message and Mixed Order.
UBB or similar theme: Select Compressed List, Guestbook and UBB Order.
WWWBoard theme: Select Threaded List, Single Message and Newest First.
Paddling.net (or similar) style: Select Compressed List (for Compact View) or Threaded List (for Extended view), Guestbook and Oldest First.

Searching the Forum

Please note that there are two search options on the navigation bar. Enter your search terms in the ForumSearch field at the top of the screen, or for more options, press [Search] on the light blue navigation bar. This allows you to search the Active forum (the last 10,000 messages or so). If you would like to search the Active forum AND all the archives, use the [Archives Search] option in the blue navigation button.

Daily Forum email Digest

To receive a daily email digest of each day's forum activity, subscribe (or unsubscribe) to this service via the [(Un)Subscribe] link on the navigation bar. This is a convenient way to keep up with forum postings without having to visit the forum directly. Please note that you cannot reply to the email digest to post a message on the forum. You must visit the forum online to post messages. If you have a profile you can use the blind email feature to securely contact a forum participant by email (no email addresses visible).

Avatar

To enable your avatar you must have a forum profile. If you don't already have one, click on the [My Profile] link at the top of the forum.
For your image to show as an Avatar you must load the image to the Qajaq USA server. To do this, click on the "Choose File" button and then select an image file from your computer. You will need to edit your image to be 105KB or less in size. Once your profile is saved, your avatar will appear. In addition to avatars, having a profile allows you to use the blind email feature on the forum (email feature that keeps the email addresses private).

Including Pictures in your post

To include pictures in your post, you must first upload your image on the web and then provide the image address (URL) into the " Optional Image URL:" field. The URL of the image must have an extension of .jpg or .gif. Files that end with other extensions will not display.

Contact your ISP/email provider to obtain information on how to upload images to the web. If your ISP doesn't provide you with webspace then you can use a free image hosting service. An image service (such as Webshots) will provide software and instructions to enable you to upload your pictures. Please note that the free services can be frustrating, and they sometimes try to deter accessing an image via its URL.

You need the URL of the image itself. As an example, if you use Webshots, you can determine the URL by displaying the image in Webshots, click on "link to it", picking the photo size tab e.g. "500", and then copying the URL from the "direct link to image". Paste that URL in to the " Optional Image URL:" field of the forum, when you post.

If the image is in your own webspace, to find the URL using Windows, display your uploaded image in your browser. Move your mouse cursor over the image and press the right mouse button. A menu will display. For Internet Explorer, Select Properties (left click on Properties). For Firefox select View Image. The image URL (Location) will be displayed.

To ensure that you did everything properly, prior to posting your message on the Forum, press the "Preview Message" button to verify that you picture appears correctly. NOTE: the URL supplied by some free image hosting services is only temporary. Your photo may appear on the forum for only a limited amount of time.

Need Help?

If you encounter troubles, please create a trouble ticket using the [Trouble Ticket] link on the navigation bar, and provide as much detail as you can. This is preferable to sending the webmaster a plain email as the system includes diagnostic information with your ticket.

Problems with sections of your text being removed
The forum does not permit you to enter raw HTML in your text, to prevent abuses and for security reasons. Please note that if you enter HTML or anything that looks like HTML, the offending text and all text that follows it is stripped by the software. If you find that long sections of your posting are gone when you preview or post, the likely culprit is that you have included a greater-than (">") or less-than ("<") character (HTML tag delimiters) in your posting. Assuming that you caught this in preview, edit and try again. You can use your browser's "back" button to go back and edit the post. Instead of using HTML to format the text in your posting please refer to the format codes described below.

Subject Prefixes and Suffixes

NEW: New Message Posted
Message contains a picture (PIC)
Message contains a link
No Message (NM). The body of the message contains no text.
Thank you for participating and we hope that you enjoy this forum!
If you have comments or suggestions for improvements, please contact us at webmaster@qajaqusa.org.