Kayaking
This is why Benny Marr will be your new favourite kayaker
Long-haired, carefree and one of the best in the business at surfing waves – what’s not to love about super-cool kayaker Benny Marr? We got the lowdown on what makes him tick.
Benny Marr has placed himself firmly at the top of the list of super-cool kayakers in recent years and he’s just hit up some of the biggest surf spots on the Ottawa River, filming a new short film on big wave surfing. Check it out in the player above.
The laidback Canadian dude, who lives wherever he lays his paddle and moves wherever the white water takes him, is not only super cool, he’s also one of the best kayak surfers on the planet.
In a boat since the age of two, he’s paddled everything from the Stikine Canyon to the Zambezi River, but loves nothing more than a day trip ‘front surfing’ on the biggest waves he can find.
You live on the road – what are your favourite places to stop for a kayak?
Yeah, I don’t actually have a home, I just move around to wherever the water levels are best. I stay in amazing places like White Salmon in Washington, Squamish in BC, Quebec.
I sleep in a tent or a hammock and I have little stash closets all over the place where I pick stuff up from when I need it. Not being tied to a geographic location is just the best. I love places with high volume white water.
What’s your favourite kind of kayaking?
I just love big, big white water, man. Creek boat, multi days, great, but I’d trade it for just one day of high-volume rapids. I just want to hammer out that stuff and right now I’m still pretty comfortable taking on big risks.
Ben Marr stylishly takes on Punchbowl
© John Webster/Red Bull Illume
Can you tell us your favourite freestyle moves?
There’s a trick called the bread and butter, which is dynamic and fast and you can be really aggressive; then there’s a trick you can really work with on your style called the air screw – a bit like a kick flip in skateboarding.
So I love the air screw combo to bread and butter, that’s the trick I’ve tried to hit the most. I think it’s the most cool looking and stylish. I’ve done it quite a few times, but never quite nailed the one I see in my head yet.
I also really love front surfing. You get good at front surfing when you stop doing tricks or when it hurts. And all the things I bring to trying to do a trick better I bring to trying to do front surfing better.
I love the sensation, trying to change things, get more air, do it faster or tighter. And I really love doing it on big waves because it’s easier to do big tricks, but also easier to get out of control. I like to try to walk that line.
What makes kayaking your favourite sport?
I’ve been kayaking since forever and it’s what I’m best at, so it’s what I want to geek out on and get better at. I can also do it almost anywhere, so it gives me a reason to look on Google Earth for cool places to go.
Ben Marr kayaks for Tait Trautman
© Tait Trautman/ Red Bull Illume
There’s something super refreshing about being in a body of water that's moving dynamically. I love reading water, feeling the rapids. Every rapid’s unique, every river’s unique, they all move differently.
What are your top three expedition paddles?
I was on a first descent on the Congo River back in 2011 with Steve Fisher and Rush Sturges. At one point the pair of them got sucked into two opposite-rotating whirlpools simultaneously, it was really neat.
Giant whirlpools on the Congo river – scary!
© Greg von Doersten/Red Bull Content Pool
Then there was a really gnarly first descent in Papua New Guinea with Ben Stookesberry, Chris Korbulic and Pedro Leiva. It was great white water but tough access, with a seven-day portage and a 60ft [18.2m] rappel in our boats.
I also did a trip with those three on a river in north-eastern Quebec and Labrador which got sketchy because our food caches got messed up, so we ended up almost running out of food.
What about your top three one-day trips?
Man, the top one would be the Stikine. It’s just a beautiful river with lots of committing Class V canyons and a lot of history surrounding it. I’ve spent a lot time up there trying to get as much time in that canyon as I can.
An incredible view over the Stikine
© Eric Parker/Red Bull Content Pool
Then the Zambezi, top to bottom of the main section. It’s about 55km, starts just below Victoria Falls and goes though amazing canyons with cool white water and crocodiles and hippos. It’s too, too good.
Third, the Futaleufú in Chile. It’s beautiful blue water, so clean you can drink it and the rapids are so cool and so big. And just like the other two, it has a really remote feeling.
What was your worst wipeout?
It was on Chutes-de-Sainte-Ursule, a very tall waterfall in Quebec, two summers ago. I wasn’t spending much time in my creek boat at the time, so I wasn’t tuned in and I hadn’t noticed the water level had dropped.
I got spun and I thought ‘this sucks, but I’ve got it’ but then I went through a wall of water and hit a rock really hard, flipped upside down through the air and got stuck in a hole, pinned against the rocks.
Chutes-de-Sainte-Ursule in Quebec
© Marc-André Brazeau
I had to swim from my kayak, went pretty deep and it took a while to pop out. But I wasn’t nearly through the gradient yet and I had to swim over a 70ft [21.3m] waterfall. It took a lot of mental clarity to stay calm.
It was a mega crash-and-burn, a bit of an event, but all good, I made it through. I’m kinda considering if I would step up to that one again. It's a big risk, but I think I could potentially do it.
So, what hooked you into kayaking first of all?
I started flat-water canoe trips with my dad when I was two and first sat in a kayak aged nine. I remember feeling really exposed when I wasn’t with my dad, but it also felt independent and I wanted more.
Benny's dad got him out on the water at a young age
© Benny Marr
Eventually I got a (split tail whitewater surf) boat called a Necky Orbit Fish, with help from Wild Rock Outfitters, and I had my mind set on a wave on the Ottawa River called Corner Wave.
I got that boat and just committed to paddling that wave, not playing in the smaller holes, just doing it again and again. It's really athletic, involved, super physical and I progressed more that summer than any other.
All season adventurer
© Benny Marr/GoPro
That was a really big moment in my life. I’ll never forget it. Surfing in that boat, it just showed me that with the right boat and a fun wave, this was something I absolutely loved doing.
What’s the latest video about?
It’s a super-cool freestyle kayaking film on my home river, the Ottawa River. It’s where a lot of the best big waves in the world are, so we just spent a few days finding the coolest waves we could play on.
In the next year, what’s your biggest kayaking ambition?
I’ve been creating these whitewater kayaking and yoga retreats, trying to combine the two, take people on the river and boost their progression and also show them that yoga and good eating really help.
Benny Marr stoked on the river
© Benny Marr/GoPro
I’d like to try the front flip on one of my favourite and most suitable waves called Gladiator on the Ottawa River; It’s going to be great to go back to a wave we call Dream Wave with my friend Dane Jackson because I know he’s got some cool tricks up his sleeve.
What are your hopes for the future?
To kayak forever, man. That’s my aim. I’ve paddled some really hard white water with people in their 50s and that would be a pretty good goal for me, to be able to do this when I’m 50 and then look forward from there.