Canoe of Destruction

There were two eagle sightings, two different kinds of woodpeckers, and multiple unidentified bird calls and unintended mallard-scarings. Winter canoeing can be a quiet sort of adventure, good for unexpected birding– except, perhaps, when there is ice-chopping required. It takes a certain kind of person – or really, a certain kind of attitude – to want to launch a canoe in the middle of winter. It’s something in between a desire for adventure, willingness to don many layers of clothing, and curiosity. Plenty of people float the river in the summer and fall, but who does it in the snow? When my friend Peter suggested this idea two years ago, I thought he was a little bit bonkers – but I went along for the ride, and I have to admit, I’m hooked. The river is peaceful in the snow, and has a character distinct from its summer form. And there’s something about enjoying an activity that makes people go “huh?” that makes me feel a little bit hard core.

Whether or not my friends Rosa and Nick were as skeptical as I was that first year, I’m glad they came along for the ride – and not only because the journey hinged on Nick’s father’s radical three-person canoe. I like people who are up for a little adventure, and, like the crew in Kalamazoo, I felt totally confident in our abilities to take care of each other in case of mishap.

Getting the canoe from Lake DuBay was a small adventure in itself – mostly because the canoe was about as long as my car. But my ratchet straps did their duty, and it drove like a breeze despite its comical look. Between the canoe haul and our previous scouting of the Plover River to determine its winter navigability, we had used up half of northern Wisconsin’s daily winter light allotment, and planned to rendezvous at Rosa and Nick’s the next morning.

We dropped a car at Iverson Park, and piled into the canoe-loaded Camry to put in underneath the footbridge at Jordan Park. Both Rosa and I had canoed this stretch of river in warmer months, and anticipated a number of obstacles in the form of brush, branches, and trunks across the river. Conveniently, Nick’s three-person canoe came complete with a set of oars. We figured if we became frustrated with endless portages due to ice or debris, we would just turn ourselves around on the meandering current and row and paddle ourselves back where we came from.

 The oars were not used for retreat, but they did do their fair share of ice-chopping. There’s a certain point after which you don’t want to turn back. Where the river bent round sharp curves, the edge ice reached out and kissed the center of the river. We plowed through with out giant canoe, and where that wasn’t enough, paddles and oars were engaged in voracious ice-slamming. Eventually, thanks mostly to Nick’s persistence, the “Northwest Passage” of the Plover was achieved.

Edge ice makes it tricky to pull over, but we found a spot – after a bit more ice-chopping- to extract our canoe, and feasted on pita bread, popcorn, and cheese. Scouting the coming ice, we decided on a portage, and slid our canoe, sled-like, over snow and branches to a place where the water was open and clear.

Finishing it’s frigid voyage at Iverson Park – victoriously, having arrived before dark with no wet or frozen passengers – the Canoe of Destruction re-claimed its seat of honor on my ever-faithful Camry roof, and headed home.

For the canoers – happy enough that the “Fun Til Death” canoeing mantra had erred on the side of “fun” on this adventure – warm beverages, a good tuck-in, and a peaceful winter night’s rest were in order.

Northern Reflections

Snow has at long last graced the landscape here in north-central Wisconsin, and the world is transformed. The laying down of this blanket uncovers far more than it covers, and reveals more than it disguises. Animals that slunk about in the early days of winter now leave evidence of their every terrestrial move. Recognizing tracks is not my specialty, but I do follow them on occasion. There is something comforting – and mystical – about traveling the path of a deer or a hare or a coyote. I trust a good deer path. The other day, on a woodland ramble, I traced a ledge carved into the side of the hill behind Minister Lake. This sliver of a footpath would have been all but imperceptible to my eyes without the thin line of hoof prints unwinding the puzzle between trees, brush, and snow. Smack-dab in the middle of the path, the deer seemed to lie down, or rustle around for something. An area of snow matted down, partially decayed leaves unearthed, I wondered if this is where my deer had spent the night. Or had it merely found a meal beneath the snow?

The previous evening, returning to my house with handfuls of laundry, the sounds of the world ceased to sound. For a moment, all I possessed was vision, and my vision took me into another world. The deer came unexpected, catching my attention with a bounding jump that seemed to require no energy at all. Its movement was so seemingly effortless, and the light just so – the sun had already set and the world was journeying into a deep wintery dusk – that I was drawn not only out of my own mind, but nearly out of my own body. The first deer made another leap through the falling snow, drawing my attention to its runner up, who moved with the same graceful enchantment as the first. There were three in all, and I watched them until they were gone from sight – bounding their way into the fading colors of the wood. I have almost never seen a single deer. Their tracks run in curves and parallels – deer, it seems, like the company of friends, but are no copycats.

Eventually, I made my own way in the woods above Minister Lake. I had never wandered this far around its edge before, and I happened upon a cluster of small white pines. They were dwarfed by almost every surrounding tree - short enough that I had to stoop low to clear the outer branches upon entering this sacred space. The stillness was unrivaled. I was surprised – and not surprised – at the boisterousness of my own movements. As soon as I stopped – nothing. One could never hope to win a game of hide and seek with an animal of the forest. The spaces between the pines were just right for hiding me, though. I felt as if I was in an open and airy home. At a clearing in the midst of that enchanted place, I looked up to the sky and said: thank-you.

Then, I plodded home happy, in all my noisy glory.

Mental Floss

Running and I have had a long affair. It began grudgingly in middle school, when my father kicked me out of the house to run around the block, which was about half a mile. I barely made it round. In the 8th grade, for reasons unknown, I joined the cross country team. I wore Winnie-the-Pooh boxer shorts and an oversized t-shirt, and don't remember too much about the season, except for our Wednesday runs to McDonalds, where I spent 68 cents on ice-cream and then somehow ran the mile and a half back to school, and the "epic" five-miler at the end of the season. I ran real slow. I had no goal or ambition with the sport, never came close to winning a race, and was scared off by the cult-ish high-schoolers the next fall. Instead, I played in the marching band - which, at our school, counted as a gym credit. My senior year, we had a brass coach that whipped us into shape with in-step "breathing blocks," where twenty or more of us ran in time to the click-click-click of a wood block and breathed in for four counts, out for four - in for four counts, out for eight - in for four counts, out for twenty, pushing every ounce of air out of our lungs in hopes of building that muscle stronger. In the winter, I ran laps around the hallways with the softball team - twenty seven times around the school, the centripetal force of ourselves whipping us around each corner, past lockers and pictures of state champion teams. The point was never the running, although I don't remember minding the repetition. Funny, the things that stick with you.

The summer after graduation, I worked on my uncle's dairy farm milking cows. Up at 6am, down to the barn, back at 10 for food - and maybe a nap, which was a new concept to me - milk again in the evening, stay up late laughing and watching movies. In the middle of the day, I would run. One day in July, I came back to the house red in the face. My aunt and uncle took one look at my ridiculously flushed 18 year old face and said that I might want to reconsider my choice to run at noon in the hottest part of the summer. Looking back, I think I ran that summer because one of my upcoming classes for my first semester in college was Wellness, and I knew I would have to run. And run I did. The professor, also the track coach, ran a running class. I remember feeling a lot of freedom as we pounded the streets of Holland, Michigan on our thrice-weekly route. I remember feeling good, despite the required heart-rate monitor strapped around my chest. Now, I don't claim to be any sort of super-star runner, but I will claim a certain amount of perfectionism entwined in my personality - positively spun as a dogged work ethic - and my lack of slacking off seemed to impress the professor/coach, who cajoled me several times to join the track team in the spring.

I did. It was one of those decisions that, for better or worse, changes your life. Up until that spring, I had dabbled in running, but after that semester, like it or not, I became a runner. Again, I was no star, and never claimed to be -- but keeping up with a troop of my peers who had been dedicated competing runners for years was a marked accomplishment for me. I still remember very clearly the first day of practice. It was mid-January, a sunny day with some melting snow. I wore warm-up pants, a cotton t-shirt, a long-sleeve cotton shirt, and a cotton sweatshirt, with gloves and a hat. The coach, who was about 6 foot 2 and thin as a rail, said that we would just go out for "an easy five miles." My eyeballs about popped out of my head as I tried to keep it cool. Five miles, as you might recall, was my capstone run of my only bout with cross country - over five years ago. I hadn't run even close to five miles since then. Halfway around the route, I was sweating through my many layers of cotton, panting and wondering if I could make it to the end. One group of girls had zoomed by long ago. But there was one who hung back, just a little, and kept telling me I could make it. So began my adventure with track.

I hated the meets. I hated getting dressed up in the skimpy little outfit they gave us with my white, white legs and gaudy white running shoes, and lining up on that bare-as-bones track with everyone watching. I hated having to run fast under pressure, and the nervous anticipation that preceded it. As I said, I was no star. In fact, I came in dead last in every single race except one. That one race - the one where I finished SECOND to last - was my shining moment, and the one time I dipped under the 6 minute mile mark. I am no speedster. But the encouragement I got from my teammates was substantial. I was never made to feel as if I was dragging anyone down, and in fact, think I surprised a few folks. At our first meet, an indoor race in February, I was told that I would be a part of a relay. "Alright," I said, "but you'll have to give me a quick lesson on passing the baton first." I think that was when they realized that I was really a rookie. "You've NEVER passed a baton before?" Well, I didn't drop it.

As much as I hated the competition, I loved the practices. I don't think the back of my legs stopped being sore all semester, but I loved the rhythm of every long run, and the camaraderie that came between the group of girls I was finally able to keep up with. I got to know the streets of Holland better than I ever would have in a car, and my leg muscles better than I would have merely climbing the steps of the library - of which I also did plenty.

I never ran track again, but the love of running has never left. The farthest I ran in college was 8.5 miles, the summer after track - just because. Running has taken plenty of hits when I have been busy and stressed - factors that have come into play far too often in my life, if you ask me - but it is always there, faithfully awaiting my return, when I decide to come back to it. Besides the occasional side stitch, it never begrudges my absence, and always returns faithfully back into my life when I return to it.

I have gone through years of unremembered tennis shoes, but the rhythm is always the same. One foot in front of the other, breathe in, breathe out, stretch, repeat. Some say it is like meditation. It is mental floss, strengthening my brain as it strengthens my legs. Moving forward. Exploring the lay of the land. There is no better way to keep yourself in the present moment than to demand your of your mind to stay there with your body. At this, running excels.

In Vanuatu, I had to stick to jumping rope. But running was there for me still when I came home, almost as if I'd never left. In 2011, I spent the winter training solo for the Kalamazoo marathon, a distance I swore was ridiculous and would never run. I loved it.

But the marathon wasn't the capstone. I haven't gone down, or up, from that point. Only forward. In the book "Born to Run," one of the characters, Caballo Blanco, tells the narrator that running is about thinking "easy, light, smooth, and fast." And when you have got the first three, he says, you don't even have to think about the forth, because it's already there. I've been thinking about that this week as I run, especially when the wind and hills pick up. The rhythm keeps me going, and makes me feel light and free and alive. Clears my brain and raises my confidence.

So when people look at me as if I'm a little bonkers for going out in below-freezing temps for a little job, I think I'd be bonkers not to go. There's nothing in this world that makes me come home to myself more than running. And if I find something, I suspect I'll do that in any weather as well.

Fun Til Death Winter Canoeing 2011

It's my perspective and my interpretation - other folks may have experienced it differently...but here it is. FTD!
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She dug her half-paddle into the edge of the ice pack and groaned as her tired muscles strained against the current, willing her red kayak to budge. The bow of her boat was tied to the stern of a kayak similar to her own that had held her husband half an hour earlier. The nose of the yellow kayak poked up at the ice’s edge, the current sucking at the rest of the overturned boat, hidden under the covered river. She rocked her boat back and forth trying to break off some of the frozen river, trying to win a few more inches to maneuver. “Ice coming on the right!” came Peter’s voice from 50 feet upstream, where he sat with a nervous calm, on the ready in case his friend went under. Jenny turned her head to see a new ice flow float downstream from where her friends were moored against the bank. The new ice landed three feet to her right, pushing the yellow kayak completely out of sight.

Peter and I had left the rest of the group – six in all, including Tyler, Jenny’s husband, who was now in half of Jenny’s dry clothes marching in place on the side of the river -- to come help Marshall, who had been trying to help Jenny. “Really, Jenny,” I said, because I was starting to get nervous – “I will help buy you a new kayak if you just leave it. Please.”

“It’s time to get off this river, Jenny,” Peter said.
“I know,” Jenny said with a sigh, “I’m coming.”
“Has she untied the kayak yet?” I whispered to Marshall.
“Not yet,” he said. I looked at Peter and Marshall. They looked tense, forcing calm onto their faces. “I knew yelling would do no good at that point,” Marshall said later.

The day had begun with celebrations and circle. With over half the group having worked as outdoor facilitators of adventure activities together, this seemed a natural formation to start the day.

Photo credit: Hether Frayer

Safety precautions: a PFD for everyone, two first aid kits, a random collection of extra non-cotton clothing in dry bags, and one rule – no one gets wet.
Non-safety precautions: beer and ice.

“Fun ‘til death!” someone called, as we slid canoes and kayaks over the foot-deep snow that blanketed the woods after last weeks blizzard-of-the-year. There were ten of us altogether, and our battle cry rang aloud along the edge of the Kalamazoo River as we chopped through ice and mud, convincing our crafts to water.

The beginning of Fun ‘til Death dated a year previous, to this very spot on the Kalamazoo. It was created by Jay as a joke to ease my mind about winter canoeing, which I had never done before –and probably never would have if Peter, a former white-water rafting guide, hadn’t suggested it. “If we don’t die from drowning,” they joked, “it will be from hypothermia, and if not from hypothermia, then surely from the PCB’s and dioxins in the river…fun til death!” Jay shook his paddle above his head with both hands and made his anarchist, forever-young face. We finished our nine-mile section of the river in just three hours, with no incidents other than the boys being uncertain about me peeing over the side of the canoe. Jay even made “Fun ‘til Death” stickers, and adopted the saying as a personal mantra.

I only broke one paddle trying to chop through the edge ice. A cheer rose from the crowd waiting to launch as our boat – the heftiest of them all – bumped and glided into the frigid waters. Next followed Peter and Steve, and Paulie and Carrie in canoes, Hether, Jenny, and Tyler in their kayaks, and finally Marshall in his solo boat.

The atmosphere among us was jovial as we paddled and floated along, rafting together often to share snacks and drinks. This year I felt confidant and prepared, with a bucket full of dry clothes, first aid kit, and PFD – I even took off a layer because I was warmer than expected. Hether took pictures as we enjoyed each other’s company and the satisfaction of getting outside on a winters day. Feeling comfortable doing something that others might deem “crazy “also gave me a distinct feeling of satisfaction. I smiled in thanks of such delightful, adventurous friends.

Everything was foreboding an easy, light-hearted trip. Even the “River is closed” signs that had spurred on our semi-rebellious repartee the year before had been taken down. Round-the-raft snacks included hot pumpkin soup and a mix of jazzed-up almonds that came with the too-easy-to-tease name “naughty nuts.” We toasted with Blue Moon Winter Ale and a shared bottle of Jaegermeister, feeling comfortable on the water.

Photo credit: Hether Frayer

A little over an hour into our paddle, Ben and I were just about to pass Hether, who was turned around in her kayak, joking with Paulie and Carrie about whether she would or would not pull over to pee. She threw her head back in laughter at Paulie’s faux-serious humor at their non-peeing “pact” that she was about to break, and the next thing we knew, Hether was in the water.

It had happened so fast, that we barely had had time to see her kayak bump against a log and dump her in to the frigid current. My mind registered simultaneous emergency response mode and disbelief. Getting wet was the one thing to absolutely avoid on this trip – and Hether, knowledgeable, responsible, hard-core outdoorswoman Hether, had done just that.

Before these thoughts even registered as more than feelings of shock, Ben and I were paddling toward her. Our group converged like a spiraling flock of birds to Hether, who, perhaps with motherly instincts, was already reassuring us: “Don’t worry, you guys. I have clothes on that should insulate when wet!”

Despite her non-cotton testimony, our group remained in emergency response mode. Peter and Steve got there first, and, although Hether could stand up in the 4-foot-deep water into which she had fallen, pulled her into their canoe and paddled her to shore. Following Peter’s lead, Ben and I went in pursuit of the overturned blue kayak, now half full of river water. We salvaged what we could, tossing wet gloves and paddle into our canoe, and quickly deciding that the now dioxin-soaked raspberry chocolate bar that Hether had been about to share a few minutes earlier just wasn’t going to make it.

On shore, Jenny was ready with dry clothes. Ben and I, unwilling to risk tipping our own boat in attempt to empty the swamped kayak, passed it through the throng of boats huddled side-by-side to the bank, where it could be turned over. I looked up in hopes of seeing a warm, dry Hether – and saw a bright red moon hovering over the snow. Nope – not ready yet. Not wanting to feel disrespectful, I tried to keep my eyes down, knowing that Jenny could take care of things, although I was interested in following the rescue, and concerned about Hether.

The next time I looked up, Hether was dressed from head to toe in many layers of borrowed fleece and, as she was accustomed to do, smiling. “I think she popped out of the water with that smile on her face,” Peter teased. Hether smiled brighter, and thanked everyone enthusiastically.

Jenny had Hether doing squats on the river bank. “Hey, let’s get paddling,” Paulie said. Paulie is a big, bald-headed, blonde-bearded man who, if you fail to recognize his ever-dependable humor, might come off as offensive. We decided that Hether should get into a canoe, and I offered ours. Ben was getting out to pee, so I suggested he take the kayak, to avoid any more shifting around on the raft of boats stacked at the shoreline. As Hether climbed in, Paulie handed her hot tea from his Thermos and a Snickers bar – “to warm you from the inside,” he said.

We shoved off, all somewhat sobered by the experience – except perhaps for Peter’s girlfriend’s boss, Steve, the least experienced paddler and least familiar among the group, who, we later noticed, chose to sooth his nerves with an increased amount of alcohol.

Paulie continued to check in on Hether every few minutes, who, despite the fact that she was wearing only the outer layer of her boots – the insulated liners having got wet in the river – reported that she was is great spirits and even a touch warmer than she had been before she fell in. My heart had slowed to its normal pace, and I began to enjoy paddling and chatting with Hether.

Then, we hit ice pack.
A small bend in the river had caused the water to slow and freeze over, leaving a soggy tundra from bank to bank. Marshall got there first and skidded across the pack with his light solo canoe toward shore. The rest of us were not as confident. Getting onto the ice with a canoe was tricky – and we weren’t willing to risk any more tipped boats. With Marshall’s coaching, we approached the edge ice one by one at right angles, to avoid pushing up the side of the canoe.

Portaging in the snow was easier than I expected. I found it much like pulling a giant aluminum sled. In fact, trickier than pulling the canoe along, was walking through the snow ourselves. Last week’s blizzard-of-the-year had left 15” tall drifts, and the best we could manage was to post-hole our way to the end of the ice pack.

Several hundred yards downstream marked our re-entry. Paulie and Carrie stood on the shore, and Tyler in the small inlet where we were putting in to help each boat with this awkward angled put-in. The maneuvering it took to place each boat and push off through the shallows left significant space between each entry. Tyler and Ben pushed off in their kayaks, and Hether and I followed in our canoe, pausing to make sure Paulie and Carrie would be able to put their boat on the water. I plunged my paddle into the water and pulled it into a J stroke. Ben was about 200 yards ahead of us, and the rest of the group still further downstream. I looked down to watch my paddle glide through the water again, leaving behind a wake of tiny bubbles. “Help! Haaalp!” came the half-yell, half-moan from ahead of us. I looked up again to see the river, and an empty blue kayak.

Ben was in the water, flopping around like an over-dressed fish.
My heart lurched as my arms went into full-forward motion. It was a tense but lucid moment; time rolled forward in a crawl, and my every thought and action appeared in minute detail. “Swim! Swim, honey, we’re coming!” was all I could think to do or say as we power-stroked downstream. Really, there was nothing else to do but get there, and fast. Ben could not touch bottom. For a fleeting moment I felt my heart in a life where Ben was suddenly not there – a moment of heavy emptiness made me shudder, and know beyond any doubt how much I loved this person.

I saw Ben splashing forward, reaching for the edge of the ice that clung to the shore. The ice broke under his weight. He tried again, and again the ice crunched beneath him. My arms strained against the weight of the water, pulling to get us there faster. As we approached, Ben tried the ice again, this time spanning his long arms and legs out spread-eagle fashion, body flopping up onto the ice like a walrus inching it’s way onto a rock. Our canoe slid over the edge ice just as Ben made it to land and flopped himself into the snow.

I scrabbled up onto shore – it was slick, even in boots – punching a hole through the ice closest to the edge as I went – as the others pulling up behind us reminded me to slow down, before I got wet, too. I grabbed Ben’s hand and urged him out of the snow into a standing position. “S-s-s-so c-c-cold,” he shivered.

Trying to hurry while still keeping my voice and movements calm, I began striping off layers as fast as I could. Each piece of clothing must has been five times its normal weight, and glued to the layer beneath with dripping, icy water.

Off came hat, PFD, giant wool sweater, two layers of long underwear, cotton tee-shirt – not a great wardrobe decision on this day – plus four layers on the bottom, including snow pants, two pairs of socks and boots. Hether had grabbed a sleeping pad from the canoe for Ben to stand on, and Marshall had thrown his entire dry-bag up onto shore – an entire set of dry, non-cotton clothes. I spoke to Ben as each layer came off, telling him exactly what we were doing, reassuring him that he would be taken care of, and soon be warm again.

Fleece jacket on top and head covered with a Norseman-style hat, one wet layer remained. “Honey,” I explained, “we are going to have to take your underwear off, too. They are soaked.”

“Yes, yes we will,” Ben agreed, his compliance logical and almost child-like. Almost as if to reassure me that his brain hadn’t been frozen into the past by the icy water, Ben turned to the congregation of canoes that had gathered at the shore to lend their assistance, and, with a half-smile, called “Don’t judge me, people – it’s cold out!” Off came the undies and on went Marshall’s fleece pants and wool socks. I took Ben’s hands and did what Jenny had done with Hether, squatting up and down on the side of the river with him like a winterized Jane Fonda.

“It’s time to get paddling,” Paulie said again, this time more urgently than the last. “That’s what’s going to keep you warm.”

A quick group decision was made – not astonishingly, with full consensus almost immediately – that no one else would be getting into that damned blue kayak. We towed that cursed craft behind one of the canoes. Ben got into the stern seat of the aluminum canoe with Hether and I, while Paulie pulled out yet another Snicker’s bar and hot tea. “I brought these along in case I went in,” he said, “I never imagined having to use them for two people.”

I sat backward in the duffer seat with Ben’s numb left foot against my stomach. I felt useful and relieved, and ready to be off this river. I wasn’t sure we had enough clothes among us to redress someone else. “But,” I thought, “the blue kayak is off duty, and we are nearly to Plainwell, on top of being hyper-aware of the reality and danger of falling in. The chances of that actually happening are minimal.”

It did.

“AA-ER – ELL – IN!!” came the muffled shouts from upstream. The river had opened up for several hundred yards in this area, where we had just begun to see farmhouses on the outskirts of Plainwell. Tyler and Jenny had stayed behind the group to pee on the side of the river.

“WHAT!?” I shouted into the wind.
“AA-LER – ELL – IN!” was the slightly more audible reply. I looked at Peter and Paulie’s canoes, then at Ben and Hether. “I think she said, ‘Tyler fell in’,” I said almost quizzically, as if I couldn’t quite believe my own words. But I knew it couldn’t be anything else.

About-face went our boats, and upstream we went. For as much water as we seemed to be pushing back, our progressed seemed remarkably slow. When we had gone about a hundred yards, we could see Jenny hopping around in her robin’s egg blue long john’s, trading clothes with Tyler, who was standing stocking-footed in Jenny’s yoga pants. If the situation had been less dire, we all would have broke out laughing. We scrambled together as many clothes as we could, got Tyler in a canoe – his yellow kayak haven been swamped and carried downstream – and paddled ourselves to the best take-out spot we could locate in the vicinity.

The question about what to do floated around in the air. We swatted at it with shocked fists, while Tyler marched in place in his stocking feet on a mat on the side of the river. While a few of us threw scraps of ideas into a pot, Marshall took off without warning to scout the river ahead. Jenny followed in pursuit of the yellow kayak.

We could see a farmhouse in the distance on our side of the river. We wondered if it might be better to abandon the canoes and walk out. “We could come and get them later,” Carrie suggested, “no one would be out here.”

I agreed. “I don’t think we should put back onto this river – especially the three people who have already fallen in. We don’t have any more dry clothes.”

“But Plainwell is not more than half a mile from here,” someone else said. “Let’s just finish and get out at the take out. Besides, how are we going to get through these marshy woods with three people who don’t have full boots on?”

Meanwhile, Steve, the oldest among us and the only one who had continued to take in alcohol after Ben’s flip, climbed out of his canoe and was immediately delivered flat on his back to the slick ice on the bank. He laughed, got up, and fell again immediately. He laughed harder. “Steve,” said Carrie, “Steve, don’t get back up. Just crawl. Crawl over here where it’s not so icy.”

Peter, now alone in his canoe, said that he was going after Jenny. “Peter, please…we don’t even have a plan yet,” someone said.

But he was insistent, shifting things around in his boat to get ready for the solo paddle. Rafting guide or not, as we were – with three river dunkings, one hour of remaining daylight, and without plan or enough dry shoes - I didn’t think solo canoeing was a smart idea, even for an experienced paddler. I threw in my last slice of opinion before beating Peter at his own stubbornness.

“I’m coming with you,” I said, as I stepped into the front seat and fished for the paddle behind me. I waved to Ben, Carrie, Paulie, Tyler, Hether, and Steve, hoping they wouldn’t decide to get back on the river.

The paddle downstream was tricky. The current sped up in some places and eddied harshly in others, and required us to navigate the branches of a half-downed tree before ending abruptly in ice pack, where Jenny was wrestling the kayak.
I followed Peter’s directions from the stern, with the goal of keeping our communication as straightforward as possible. I was more than a little afraid. This was beyond my paddling experience, and I was more than happy to let Peter take the lead. “How’s it going?!” Peter yelled down to Jenny and Marshall, who had just returned from his scouting expedition. “Hmphr jser drk!” was the unintelligible response.

“Paddle forward on your left…ok, now draw twice on your right…ok, take a break,” Peter directed.

We had just spun a one-eighty. “Peter?” I said, casting my doubt at this situation.
“We’re going to hit the opening in the branches backwards,” he said. “That way, if anything goes wrong, all we have to do is paddle forward to get out.”

Peter angled us toward the widest spot among the branches, hoping for nothing beneath the surface. The tree hung down like slender fingers sweeping the black water. As the tip of the canoe approached, Peter gave the command to forward stroke. “Let’s try to get a better angle on this guy,” he said.

This time, we slipped through the opening in the branches and turned ourselves around, slowing against the current and pulling over to the steep, grassy bank just upstream from Jenny. Marshall, who was on shore, helped me clamber up the steep bank.
My jeans – a horrible outer-layer choice that morning – had gotten damp during Ben’s clothes changing, and I had removed then at our last stop, which left me marching in place in my double long underwear and boots on the thick snow. When Jenny did not yield to our petitions to abandon the kayak, we hobbled and gobbled into positions we hoped would help her dislodge it as quickly as possible.

The first thing on all of our minds was Jenny falling in – or rather, not falling in. The second thing was beating the sun, which was currently setting pink and orange behind the farms to our west. Peter played safety guard in the canoe – at the ready to go after anyone in the water. Marshall leaned over the bank – a straight three foot drop to the water – stretching in reach of the rope on Jenny’s kayak. I held on to Marshall, to keep him from falling forward face-first in his concurrent goodwill and exhaustion.

Jenny agreed to leave the kayak if it was not out in the next five minutes. Having made that concession, she gave one last burst of energy into her half paddle. Having made roughly four feet of progress toward shore, she stretched her paddle out far enough for Marshall to grab. Marshall and I pulled Jenny, Jenny pulled the kayak, and a second later, the ice gave birth to that long bulk of yellow plastic.

We pulled Jenny onto shore, followed by Peter and all of the boats. After a brief moment of celebration and hopes of walking out, we realized we were on an island.
Peter got on the phone with the other group – they were ok, had walked out to a nearby farm and were waiting for Jillian – Peter’s girlfriend – to pick them up. Next on the call list was Jillian, who was worried. “I called 9-1-1 for you guys,” she said, “the police man wants you to call him back so he can get a GPS reading on your location.”
Peter’s eyes got wide. “You called 9-1-1!?” he bursted into the phone, “fucking 9-1-1?? Don’t call them back, please – we don’t need a $10,000 helicopter rescue. We’re not lost. We’re getting off the river, but we’ll be ok. Please, just don’t call them back.” He sighed and hung up the phone. “I need to apologize,” he said, and called her back.

We could see the dam up ahead, which we knew was close to the take-out, and began searching for the safest place to put in along the other side of the island in order to get there. Marshall looked white in the face. “Marshall, are you alright?” I asked.

“I’ll be fine,” he said.
We helped each other get boats into the water and paddled to the other side of the river – a trip that took less than 30 seconds. We got onto land again and began dragging our canoes across the snow, over the dam, and into the woods. Peter led the way, and I followed. Mid-stride, Marshall looked faint, paused, and sat squarely onto the bow of his canoe. Again I asked if he was alright, and again he told me he was fine – he had needed his inhaler before, but had gotten it out, and soon it would take effect. After cresting the hill that marked the dam, I noticed that Marshall and Jenny were not behind me. I ran back to find Jenny putting a sweater inside of her boots – the liners of which were now on someone else’s feet – and Marshall helping her. I breathed a sigh of relief that neither of them was passed out on the snow. Jenny dug in her bag and got out two carrots and an apple. That carrot tasted like the richest, most incredible food I had ever eaten. It was a burst of energy.

In the last trace of daylight, we found a spot past the dam where we could fit through an opening in the edge ice with our boats. As we glided along slowly in light from the rising moon and ever more frequent houses along the river, we began to reflect on the day’s happenings.

At the originally planned take-out, we met Jillian and the rest of the group.
The next day, five of us snow shoed through the farm field to retrieve the rest of the boats. The “naughty nuts” were still there, in their ziplock baggie, and we ate them.

“Do you think this will ruin winter canoeing and Fun Til Death?” I wondered aloud to Peter. “I’m not sure if I’ll come back to this river in the winter again,” I said, as we were putting the boats in the water to paddle our way back to the pick-up spot in Plainwell.

“No, I’ll be back,” Peter said, and I thought for a moment.
Through this Fun Til Death experience that had slid closer to death than many of us had anticipated, I had already taken some valuable lessons. There is certainly no more acute way to learn the importance of anticipating the unanticipated, and of holding respect for the power of Mother Nature high in one’s mind, than to come face to face with a situation in which the waning of these could hold dire consequences.

This experience was also a clear window to the power of a group of people willing and able to support of one another. Even in our worst moments, the confidence that I felt in this group’s willingness and aptitude to help each other did not wane; coming out here had let me see their true characters, and their true characters were good.
Fun Til Death is not “reckless abandon til death” -- neither is it “try something but don’t go back if you are scared til death.” Fun Til Death lives on.

Palo Duro Canyon

March 5th, 2010

Little did I know, the Grand Canyon of Texas lies just outside the town of Amarillo. The best word to describe this geologic feature is surprising. As you know – assuming you read the previous post – the Texas panhandle looks something like this:



One mile later, we were looking down on this:



Need I say more?
Ok, I will say more: Wow.


Katy and I hiking around in the canyon.


Katy holds up a tree.

At the visitor's center, we learned a few interesting things about the canyon. Most importantly, we found an answer to our chief question: how did this canyon get here? We learned that, as we had suspected, it was a product of years of gradual wearing-away by a river - the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River, to be exact. The canyon was made of layers of rock - the colors so distinctive it has me wishing I had studied more geology...I forgot their names already - the lowest layers were over 200 million years old, while the topmost layers were "only" 2 to 5 million years old. Katy and I pondered what the Native Americans and later the white settlers must have thought, stumbling upon this cavern of red and white rocks in the middle of the flat grasslands. I suppose it could have been anything from "Beautiful!" to "ah, shade at last" to "Buffalo!" to "Now how are we going to get the wagon around THIS?"


Optical illusion.

The Texas Panhandle

March 3rd, 2010

Up early at the hostel in Austin for a run on the hike and bike trail. I love feeling my body move fluidly over the ground, love feeling every inch of my muscles and bones, how I breathe in oxygen and it feeds every cell of me.

My first use of Craig’s list turned out to be a success – I found a woman who was selling the exact camera charger I needed, after losing her camera. I am hooked – what an incredible thing, this medium that connects strangers in a giant used-goods trade, instead of going to the store and buying new. Sometimes I feel as if we have enough stuff in this country that if we just shuffled it around properly, hardly anyone would really need to buy new things. Of course, stores would go out of business and our economy would lie in shambles of its shambles…but I like to let the non-commercial idealist in me run free sometimes before coming back to realism...

Before I left the Austin, I sat out on a dock on the river with a view of the city skyline with cars racing to and fro over a bridge in the distance, and soaked in the sun and the atmosphere. Chatting with Paula in Chicago, I really got a sense of place – of how far away Austin seems from the Midwest, and how different. I took a moment to appreciate the vastness of this country.


A lone Michigander with bike in tow treks across Texas...

The drive north to the Texas panhandle showed me the true Texan countryside – subtle rolling hills covered in brown grasses and often pastures of cattle, sheep – and in one instance, cattle mixed with sheep – goats, and alpacas. Fields so vast and endless that the trees that dotted them with splotches of green looked like bushes. At a gas station in a small town, I saw a man wearing a cowboy hat, jeans, and boots – with actual spurs on the heels. “Now, I am in Texas,” I thought, as I tried not to stare.



As the sun set and I crunched on the Fritos and spinach dip that I had chosen over the gas station “deli” full of mystery meat, I passed the second wind power field I have encountered in this state. Hundreds of giant windmills were silhouetted against the glowing orange sky, each with a blinking red light. Al together, they welcomed me like friends in the night, and twinkled like so many Christmas lights. Here in Texas, oil refineries – with their city-like incandescent glow at night and years-old sludge by day – share the land with wind power, and although it is indeed a large space to share, I imagine the struggle between old and new, the cries of tradition and big money and the known, marching forward even as these wings whooshing in the winds of the night ease their way into the cracks of America’s energy stronghold. As I drive closer, windmills tower over me as giants in the night sky; I wonder if this struggle is as real or as dramatic as I imagine it – if these two powers do indeed live in peaceful coexistence, or if the mere distance has kept them biding their time, each waiting for better times to come, striving always for power…pun intended.

Arrived at Katy’s house in Amarillo after my drive through the Texas panhandle. She makes me laugh just like the ol’ Vanuatu days – are they really that old already? -- as does her cat who is fond of curling up to sleep in the bathroom sink.

"If Texas can secede from the US, can Austin secede from Texas?"

I didn't buy that postcard at the Austin tourist shop, but I thought the catchphrase was worthy of further publication. I left Port Aransas yesterday after three lovely nights on my grandparents comfy couch, and headed north, taking the more-scenic-than-1-37 route along Hwy 181 North. The sides of the road was covered in places with craggly cactii, growing in spiky circles in every direction. You surely don't see that in Michigan. Across the flat, brown plains that seemed - and did - stretch for miles were cattle ranches with cows of every shape and color. I even saw a pasture in which cows and sheep grazed together. Not exactly the lion laying down with the lamb, but you get the idea.

I checked in at the Hostel on S. Lakeshore Blvd - and if you're ever in Austin, I recommend it - and headed out on my bike along Lady Bird Lake..."which is actually a river, not a lake - don't be fooled," the lady at the hostel informed me. There is a hike-and-bike trail that runs both sides of this river all the way through the city, and on this sunny afternoon it was covered with runners with ipods and walkers with babies and dogs and bikers and me. I reveled in the freedom of movement my bike gave me throughout the city. As I lay in the sun on a dock by the river, I closed my eyes just to soak it all in by the feel of it. When I opened them, I found a brave and curious squirrel staring me right in the face. I've never been so close to a squirrel. I loved watching all the different people and being completely annonymous for a day. I wandered up and down Congress street and around the Texas state capitol building. I celebrated finally having a full-time job by chatting with the Greenpeace women on the corner of 6th street and actually signing up - instead of just thinking about it like I've done a thousand times before and then deciding I don't have quite enough money yet. I found cheap tzatziki - cucumber yogurt dip...don't worry I can't say the name either -- during happy hour at a greek restaraunt. Austin, TX does seem to be a horse of a different color in this state, and I would surely come back. Until then, it's on to Amarillo. Pictures soon - I lost my camera battery charger, but think I found what I need on craig's list...