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MOUNTAINLIFEBLUEMOUNTAINS
SUMMER2016
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Crashing through the rapids on the Lower
Madawaska, our bow smashes through the
standing wave, the aerated water dumping into
our boat. We keep her perpendicular to the
next curlingmonster and crash through that
one too. We collect a bit more water with each
consecutive roller. By the time we reach the end
of the wave train we’re knee-deep in water and
the boat feels more like a playground spring
horse than a canoe. Pulling into the nearest
eddy, we brace with everything we have, but are
soon upside down and swimming. The sudden
shock of cold water runs through our bodies.
Our friends chase our submerged boat while we
swim for shore.
Scrambling onto the rocks, we’re laughing but
cold. We high-five and joke that even though
we flipped, we technically made it through the
rapids. So it still counts. My bowman, Doug,
who is well over 65, is grinning ear to ear for
the first time in days. His eyes are alive. And
that’s when I see it: Doug is a river person too.
Just before this trip a much older and wiser
paddler toldme that “we, as human beings, are
not just a part of nature, we are nature.”
I’ve pondered this statement over the last few
days and I realize that reconnecting with nature
is what makes river trips so special. Spending
days immersed in the fluidity of moving water
helps me feel the physical movement of nature.
This multi-day meander downstream, with the
flow always moving us forward, ceaselessly
pushing, helps me tune into the rhythm of it.
There’s something inexplicable about a river; it
is the pulse of the season, the mountain and
the world itself.
I never knew I was a river person. Not until
this trip. I know I am now. Even if I can just
hear the sound of a river at night, I’m a better
person; flowing water crashing through a stony
bed of rocks is a blissful sound. A river trip is
the surest way I’ve found to hit the spiritual,
physical andmental reset buttons.
But being a river person isn’t some claim to
superiority, or a membership to an exclusive
club. Because the two things on earth that are
guaranteed tomesmerize, that can send us into
a blissful trance, are fire and water. Anyone
can stare into glowing embers for hours on
end: the Bay Street trader, the vapid actor, or
the screen-obsessed child. Fire is life and it
demands our attention. A river is the same: the
roar of crashing water, the hypnotic pulse of
water flowing over rock, the visual swirling of
whitewater and eddy lines.
If the river has taught me anything, it is that we
are all river people.
We simply need to step in a boat, point the
bow into the current and let the river guide us
downstream.
A river trip is thesurestway to
hit thespiritual, physical and
mental reset buttons.
RIVERPEOPLE
words & photo :: Colin Field
