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Canoeing in the Kaszuby region of Poland

The Brda, Wda, Zbrzyca, and Chocina rivers

The Kaszuby people of northwestern Poland inhabit a wild region of sandy soil of low fertility broken up by numerous glacial valleys and lakes.  Three main rivers, the Drawa, Brda and Wda flow in a southerly direction away from coastal hills until eventually joining the mighty Vistula to turn back north to enter the Baltic sea at Gdansk.

Rivers are a public right of way in Poland.  So long as you can get access from the bank you will not be troubled by landowners objecting to you paddling through their land. 

iGreens paddled parts of the Brda and Wda as well as two small tributaries of the Brda, the Zbrzyca, and Chocina rivers in the summer of 2004.   Here we give the first English language itinerary for all four rivers available on the Internet. 

How to get there.

We crossed from Harwich to Hook of Holland and drove via Berlin.  Using the Harwich to Hamburg ferry would reduce the driving distance by about 400 miles and taking the ferry to Sweden and then crossing the Baltic direct to Gdansk would leave only about 100 miles of driving outside England. 

Hiring canoes and guides

Poles love canoeing and there are plenty of people hiring out canoes, guides and equipment.  We hired ours from www.Kajaki.pl based in Gdansk.

Our guide was Lech Augustynski.  Click here for his site.

We’ve not paddled all of these rivers.   What follows is based on the bits I've paddled supplemented by a rough translation of two Polish language guidebooks “Brda i Zbryca” and “Wda z doptywami”, both by Zbigniew Galinski.   The former is published by dla! Aktywnych A Pascal ISBN 83-7304-212-1.  The latter is published by Wydawnictwo PTTK “KRAJ” Sp. Z o.o and has the ISBN no. 83-7005-457-9

Here are the river itineraries.  Email me with errors, updates, and supplementary information.  All contributions will be acknowledged.

Brda,

Zbrzyca,

Chocina

Wda,

And here are some thoughts on Poland, the Poles and Gdansk

Jozef Chetmowski - Kashubian folk artist 

Jim Thornton 25 Sept 2004

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Last modified: September 26, 2006