areallygoodarchitect

Prologue

Dreamers

The paddle rests across my lap, it is made of cherrywood, very light. I can paddle all day and did. I chose the otter tail design from the rack at Trailhead in Ottawa, it looked a bit Seminole. The flat of the blade rests on shore, the wood of the tail burred up from grabbing igneous shield. I am ready in the bow, my perch, the posture is casual but still technically a brace. The River is pushy here and the canoe wants to bump against the rock shelf.
Not a choice site to launch or spend the night, it never is, that is just the way he rolls,
to paddle as long as we can, as far as we can, and make the plane on time.
The canoe lurches, I slide off the caned seat of carved ash, down to my knees, my legs pressed against the canoe to centre my gravity. Some of me is now cantilevered, leaning over the paddle, more force to hold us trim as he heaves ‘the Bastard’ into place.
We don’t have all the ultra-light stuff to do this and the gear in this unwieldly pack must weigh more than one hundred pounds. Inside the doubled-up garbage bag liner sealed with a twist tie is everything important, what will keep us warm at night.
If there is not enough warmth, we will die.

I can still see my breath and puff out some shapes while I wait for him to board and move us away from the rock. Sometimes it’s a command to me: “Okay, draw us out”.
Other times just a push by him, one leg trailing, beginning his day with a soggy sock and wet footwear. An hour ago, we could not see through the white fog all around us, now the mist unfurls above the black water. We never leave early into the murk, too dangerous.
We must see where we are going, to read every nuance of what shows up on the surface of moving water and then try to guess what is happening below. Ahead, something underwater is causing a disturbance and the river has begun to dance.
The steam has burned off the river and the morning sun splits the light into riffles over the clatter. The glints sparkle and hurt my eyes, the sound getting louder.
My paddle is back across my lap, I don’t have to do anything. His paddle, also an otter tail but in heavy maple is the rudder now at the stern, lining us up into the swift. Shallows by the sound, a sloping drop in the riverbed. What waits around the bend?

This is the way it is, always wondering what lies ahead. Maps only make note of the big events, geological obstacles to be portaged- the cliffs of waterfalls, technical galleries of boulder gardens, sudden faults in the crust- ledges that span the width of the river. Names like ‘Ledge-o-matic’ on the Waterfound in Northern Saskatchewan come to mind. These elevational drops are navigable through chutes if you stand up and scout for the downstream V’s. Best to stop on shore before the event and scout the opportunity of safe passage for a loaded canoe. Then there are the souse holes, phenomena of aeriated pits of bubbles. They be the venus flytraps of rivers, capturing hapless humans. We have seen them marked enroute, too many times, usually with a wooden cross. Whatever the river was doing when the maps were cast or wherever the river was moving through last year, or the year before, the course has surely changed. Rivers are dynamic forces of destruction tearing up the landscape. Shorelines are ripped away felling trees along the banks into “shit shows” of streamers and strainers. New channels slash through the weakness. Sand and gravel are excavated and bulldozed into aprons that will clog everything and stop your boat dead. There you sit immobile, balancing stupidly on top of the scree.
Rivers do and go where they want to be.

I know my fear at the beginning of each day. I push it away, there is much to do. Are we adrenalin junkies? not really, but maybe he is, Man-the-hunter. Modern man is able to get his fix using those innate but untested skills of getting through something like this. The paychecks keep us stable in the construct of our society, but this is different, he needs to do this and I go with him. Behind me, I trust him implicitly and know he knows what he is doing. The power of his paddle in the stern, the immediacy of the math in his head that will steer us away in the last second from a floundering mess, the river littered with our floating and sinking belongings, the broken spine of our boat, in the middle of nowhere, his medicine pack lost.
It is not going to happen, it never did.
I helped, up at my perch, putting everything I had into a desperate draw stroke as he screamed DRAW!DRAW!DRAW! There is no time for intellectual debate in the undulating uncertainty of this sensory circus. Roaring, rushing, splashing, hissing. The under current trying to nail you to the wall. Glooping echos mock the cliffs. No time to think, just react.
Ancient Instincts brought to the fore, learned again.

The aesthetics of this kind of experience, to live on the edge of make a mistake and then what, dependant on the strength of your body and what’s in your mind; skill and knowledge at full capacity, luck of course, still defies reason; What for?
Mostly it was about imagination, two dreamers standing in the darkness, naked, looking up at the insanity of all the stars in this Universe. This is where we wanted to be, under the dome of heaven in the middle of almost nowhere. We had it all to ourselves.

Rita E. Komendant
January 13, 2022
Thunder Bay

He brought me on all these Rivers. I had to write them down. I hope you enjoyed the trips with us in your comfy chair or on your pillow at night. He is gone now. The ending quietly in darkness. I was only able to see him for a few hours as Covid shut the doors to me and his wonderful dog, Kaya. The kidney worked very well, with the help of all the drugs for twenty one years. “Too many insults to his health” said the professionals. His time was up. Unplugged from the machines, the rest of us stand around. Useless. He whispers: “Is the truck close by? is Kaya with me? I have to get better,
I have to get out of here.”

The Athabasca River 1983

11:30 am. I am on shore ready to film.

My legs wobble on the uneven terrain of the stony shoreline. Nerves of anticipation.
We have borrowed the ‘Old Town’ from our Dutch friends. The ABS white water boat.
It has been stored in our garage. They are in Fort McMurray now. The Tar Sands Project.
The plastic canoe even a brighter yellow in the dazzle of noonday sun.
He has chosen to run the Athabasca where it careens around a tight right turn after churning beside the Ice Field’s Parkway south of Jasper, near Wapiti Campground.
At this corner, the river throws up a continuous line of rollers in a boulder garden.
Huge rocks tossed about willy nilly. Some you cannot see, as the white froth disguises the mass of the obstacles. How much boat can be cleared.
We shall soon see.

Here he comes, setting his line. Cool as a cucumber, sunglasses, bare head.

Sitting so straight in the centre of the craft, perfect trim.
Spray from the huge waves kicks up all along the boat.
The wide black blade held with authority, his long strong reach. The whirr of my camera. Swashbuckling freedom.
He is so beautiful.