Reckless Abandon

“Adventure is the very basic core of man’s living spirit.”

-Christopher McCandless

Adventure is an aspect of life that is as important as air and water. It is the root of creating new experiences and stories. It can be found in many forms: to be out of the ordinary, out of the comfort zone, for honor, for thrill- but in all forms, adventure ends with the same two things- a revelation and something to share.

Early last spring or even closer to the end of winter, spring was a far cry from the frozen, snowy times, my best friends and I took a couple of canoes down the barely unfrozen Kawishiwi river outside of Ely. The 2010-11 winter was a long, snowy, cold one- but the lure of open water was inescapable. We strapped our alumacrafts to our cars and headed straight for the river as fast as we could to try and beat the rain. We trudged our canoes through melting snow to the river bank and launched the best we could without getting our feet wet. From the get go there were challenges: rocks, rapids, and ice to be specific. We faced them all with laughs and smiles. We probably made it three quarters of a mile down river before we hit solid ice, but even then we raced to see how far we could break into it. Then the rain came- and all of us, except for one was prepared for it-but let me tell you, I have never seen that girl have so much fun and so much strength before that day. We paddled back, dragged the canoes over the snow back to the parking lot, ran the rapids a few more times, then went home cold, wet, and excitedly exhausted. I’ve heard countless stories of the “Good Ole’ Days!” Back when kids actually played and explored outside. Every time I’ve later asked myself, “Why don’t I have stories like that? Why can’t those days be today? Why did those good days end?” Ever since-I’ve made that a priority in all my ventures- to truly cherish and fully live up the experience. 

Since I began school in Ely and found a love of paddling, I’d always wanted to paddle a remote northern river. And so a few weeks later, once more snow had melted and more rain had fell, my friend Zach and I went to paddle the beautiful Stony River.  This river is the epitome of a paddler’s dream: interesting water and terrain, periods of rapids and slow deep pools-even a mostly frozen lake-and it’s a good length to take up a day with. However, we underestimated water levels just a bit. The rapids were running high and fast, but not enough so to totally buffer some of the larger boulders. It took split second decisions and maneuvering to avoid disaster, and we did all right for the first five to six miles but eventually, due mostly to over confidence, we came to a ledge fall in the river and had our sixteen foot canoe get stuck right in the middle of the hull. The bow dove into the bottom pool and the stern was lifted up and twisted by the current and we were literally dumped into a ten to fifteen foot deep pool. The scary thing was, it went really slow- we tried leaning, humping, bracing until finally the current had swiveled us enough where we simply toppled over into the freezing black water. It was a powerless feeling, a feeling similar to something to perhaps shell shock, disorientation, numbness. I finally heard Zach yelling from behind me,

“Evan! Help! Grab the canoe, get to shore!”

 I swam and grabbed the bow of the boat which was now totally full of water and we sluggishly towed it to the nearest shore, stripped of our wet clothes and as quickly as possible dug out the dry clothes, it was one of the closest experiences I had to hypothermia I’ve ever encountered. It seemed like no matter how hard you tried, you were quickly solidifying into a frozen sculpture. But, I found the importance of trust and teamwork then, as we motivated each other to keep moving, to empty out the boat and keep going to get warm. We did.

Around the next bend though we heard the river gurgling beyond, and we just didn’t yet have the strength or warmth to try to face another uncertain rapid. We busted our seventy pound canoe through face height black alder (once you let go of them, they hit like a bull whip right around your eyes) for the longest fifty yards of my life, we hauled the canoe over a beaver damn and down their slide and back into the water. We passed through beautiful small lakes and chased a few loons, limbo-ed under at atv bridge and went a good distance before Zach made a startling observation, “There’s lots of houses now, we must be getting close to more rapids."  Rounding the next bend, there was a long stretch of rapids that appeared to be manageable so we aimed down the middle and did our best to hold course. But as we came into the heart of it, the bow hit a rock and jutted to a stop, the current caught the stern and scraped us along the bottom as we swung and tipped again. We grabbed onto the canoe and tried our best to keep our legs pointed downstream (easier said than done.) At the end of the rapids, it emptied into a circular pool and then turned to the left into another large rapid-one we could not get sucked into. We quickly swam the canoe across the pool onto some rocks and dumped the water out, took our wet clothes off and rang them out, and stayed there for a moment checking for major injuries and losses. We were both scraped and bruised but not badly hurt, and Zach had lost his boots and one of the portage pads had been ripped off from the yoke of the canoe. “Now what?” we asked. There was no way we had the strength or warmth to paddle our way out and we didn’t know how much farther we had to go, but we knew it couldn’t have been too far since there were so many cabins. 

We jumped back into the boat and paddled like hell across the current to the other bank. We abandoned the canoe on the shore and started the long trek back, which was even longer for Zach as he walked through snow and gravel in his soaking wool socks. I cannot even begin to express the joy felt when his car came into view- I also don’t think I’ve ever ran so fast in my life. We jumped into his car, cranked the heat and raced home to return later to get the boat.

What’s the moral of the story here? I don’t really know…if there is one except to be prepared and always go with a buddy, I’d say it would be to never underestimate an experience and to be prepared for a larger adventure than anticipated. When I’m old, I’ll tell my children and grandchildren this story and laugh just as hard as I do now when I think of that day.  Everyday should be lived as a good ole’ day- no exceptions.