Essays
On the Oxtongue River | July 27, 2006
This is what it's like to be pitched in a river.
We reached shore just above the rapids, and Dad sent me to scout them. My brother, Eric, had navigated them successfully the year before, while standing up in the canoe, he told me. The water level was higher this year, and I counted four rapids of any circumstance, but we had just run some rapids only a bit smaller, so we felt on top of our game. I volunteered to try the rapids in a solo canoe.
When my canoe nosed into a rock perpendicular to the rapids and right at their origin, I knew things were going to be bad. The current sucked the craft sideways and over end, not top down but bottom up and forward, and as the canoe’s upstream side filled with water I pitched into the river behind the canoe.
I rolled with the canoe only once as we picked up speed. Underwater, sunlight turns from yellow to brown, and my lifejacket buoyed me to the surface downstream of the first major rapid and the canoe. A snapping, cracking sound told me the rocks I had somehow missed impaled the fiberglass hull. Unfortunately, I was able to confirm this with my eyes, because I was now pointed backwards, approaching the three remaining rapids headfirst.
It is said that if you ever find yourself in a river’s current you must point your feet downstream so as to save your cranium a drown-worthy concussion. This is wasted air, because your first instinct in a powerful river is to see where the hell you’re going and to keep an eye on wherever that may be, a task not easily done headfirst. No, everyone who has ever fought a current knows that orientation is vital, and this knowledge is reflex.
The current buffeted me downstream ever-faster, and before I knew it I was underwater again, this time at the second drop of the four. I fought to turn myself so as to meet the oncoming rocks with my feet rather than my head, but the power of the water was far too strong. I could only hope to miss as many rocks as luck would let me. Somewhere underwater my left knee connected with a boulder, and the brown light suddenly flashed bright white.
My kicks must have amounted to something, because when I breathed the air again I was floating quickly sideways. I would not get another chance like this, so I swiveled my body until my feet led the way downstream. Immediately, my sandals connected with sharp and slippery rock, and I was grateful. But the river was not done with me yet, and pulled me over the third rapid, taking my right sandal.
My sandal! Now that my left leg was a bit maimed, I needed that sandal to avoid major injuries, so I stopped fighting the current and threw my body into its forces. I lunged once and laced my fingers around the strap, momentarily ignoring the final, oncoming rapid to slip it back on my foot. I had time only to turn myself to the rapid when my feet hit granite and guided me over the rocks.
Now that I was through the major rapids, I turned my mind to getting out of the river. My knee bled and my body ached. I kicked onto a passing rock and held on as all the rains I had ever cursed pried at my fingers. Moss teased my grip as I steadied myself, amazed I had both sandals and no head injuries. My knee, however, had a gash a couple centimeters square and nicely deep from which flesh hung and blood oozed. Dad jumped in the river a bit downstream as I called my status to my party: a bit bruised, but alright.
The canoe did not fare so well as I on the rapids. Several holes in the body seeped water, and it was sinking as it approached me. I caught it on the rock that caught me, and played tug-of-war with the water for possession of the craft. I won, but briefly, as the current perched the canoe on my rock. I tipped most of the water out, but I didn’t have the strength to haul the boat ashore. My wound needed dressing, so Dad dealt with the canoe while I left the river to disinfected my injury.
My family and friends were glad to see me out of the river and mostly unharmed. Someone retrieved my paddle, whose existence I had forgotten during my first plunge. Dad brought the now-unserviceable canoe to shore, where we strapped it across the remaining two canoes and redistributed the weight.
Hours later we would come to another rapid that Dad identified as the one Eric was able to run while standing. But in that moment, glad to have survived the intensity of the rapids and the rocks, I stood recovering on the shore, and a bee stung my right ankle.
Damage done to the canoe.
I can't believe we paddled nine hours like this.
These aren't the rapids I went down, but they are on the Oxtongue River.
