ORCKA - Kayak Tripping Instructor 1

What It Authorises

This is the certification the Ontario Recreational Canoeing and Kayaking Association issues for the instruction and administration of its flatwater and Kayak Tripping Level 1 programs. Where the coastal stream is built around skill development, the tripping stream is built around getting groups out, keeping them safe, and bringing them back.

Once certified, you can direct, instruct, and certify:

• ORCKA Safe Kayaking
• Kayaking Concepts (Flatwater)
• Flatwater Kayaking A and B
• Kayak Tripping Level 1
• Camp Kayaking Instructor, at Ontario Camping Association camps

You can also assist on Flatwater Kayaking Instructor courses and on Kayak Tripping Instructor 1 courses.

The Trip Is the Course

This is not five days of drills with a night out bolted on the end. ORCKA requires a minimum three night trip inside the course, because tripping instruction cannot be assessed any other way.

Route planning, packing, campsite selection, food and water, weather calls, group pace, and the decisions that follow when the plan stops working: none of it is testable in a day. You will be teaching and being observed while living the thing you are teaching.

Conditions

Kayak Tripping Level 2 conditions: winds to around 15 knots, waves ideally 0.8 metres and not exceeding 1.2, breaking near shore or obstructions, less frequent landings, and up to about 3 km from shore. Loaded boats, which changes how everything handles.

For paddlers who think in Paddle Canada terms, that maps to class 1 water. We state both because candidates arrive from both systems and the numbers matter more than the label.

If You Have the Mileage but Not the Paperwork

Most recreational trippers have never kept a formal log. Guides do, because their employers make them. Everyone else has a decade of trips and no record of any of them, and that should not be what stops you.

We accept a written attestation in place of a formal logbook. It is not a formality and it is not a lower bar. It asks for the same experience, set out so it can be read and discussed.

How You Are Assessed

The log gets you onto the course. The assessment decides the certificate.

Continuous observation throughout, across safety, care of equipment, group dynamics, and leadership. A written test of about an hour, with 80 percent required to pass. Three teaching demonstrations, at least two on the water, with at least one drawn from the Kayak Tripping Level 1 skills area. Three written lesson plans submitted to the Course Director.

Every test item is graded Pass, Weak, or Needs Major Improvement. To certify you need a Pass in every item, or all but one, which may be Weak. Candidates who do not meet the standard receive a Letter of Attendance, and that outcome exists for a reason: this certificate lets you certify other people, and we will not sign it because someone paddles well.

One retest is available to every candidate, up to twelve months from the course, covering only the items you did not clear.

Our Standards

Two things on this page go beyond what ORCKA requires, and we would rather label them than let you assume.

• The attestation format and the follow-up conversation are ours. ORCKA requires the experience; how it is evidenced is left to the Course Director.
• Accepting Paddle Canada Level 2 Skills as an equivalent certification is our reading of the discretion the manual gives the Course Director. We are harmonising the two systems' water classifications and are discussing it with ORCKA.

Everything else on this page is the ORCKA standard as written.

What Is Included

• Five days of instruction and assessment, directed by a Kayak Tripping Instructor Trainer
• A minimum of two instructors on the course, as ORCKA requires
• The multi night trip, including group camping fees and permits
• Your place on the course group site for nights on shore
• Online learning dashboard, open from the moment you register and yours to keep
• Assessment and certification against the ORCKA standard, including one retest within twelve months

Not included

• ORCKA membership and certification fees, paid directly to ORCKA
• Personal paddling and camping kit. Valley sea kayaks and drysuits can be rented, towlines cannot
• Food. You plan and pack your own, which is part of the assessment
• Travel to and from the Saugeen Peninsula

Equipment

Bring gear that fits you and that you already trip in. You will be demonstrating with it, teaching from it, and living out of it for several nights.

• Sea kayak with at least two sealed bulkheads and a closed cockpit, able to carry a full trip load
• Drysuit or immersion clothing appropriate to May on the Saugeen
• PFD and spray deck that you paddle in regularly
• Towline with a one-handed quick release. Bring your own, we do not rent these
• Spare paddle, pump, whistle, knife and a 15 metre buoyant heaving line
• Compass, charts, and repair kit, and whatever else you actually use to plan
• Full tripping kit: tent, sleeping system, stove, cookset, dry bags, and food for the trip

Who It Is For

Paddlers with real tripping mileage who want to pass it on. Camp and school outdoor education staff running multi day kayak trips. Guides and trip leaders who have been doing the work for years and want the credential that matches it. Anyone building toward Kayak Tripping Instructor 2.

Good to Know

• Your online dashboard opens as soon as you register, and the pre-course reading is expected before you arrive.
• The trip runs in weather. Wind and rain are part of the assessment, not a reason to stand down. We only stop for lightning or genuine safety risk.
• Evenings on trip are working time. Lesson planning and debriefs happen at camp.
• Route and campsites are chosen to suit the group and the forecast, and may change during the course. That flexibility is part of the learning.
• Certification is issued by ORCKA. Membership and certification fees are paid to them directly and are separate from the course fee.

Questions