Many times as a child I cursed his back, and my own short
legs, as he walked away from me across some raging torrent.
He had seemingly forgotten, or had become oblivious to,
my struggle to keep up with him. His only thought was
to see the other side, or to find out what was just beyond
the next rise. He yearned for his feet to touch rocks
that had known only the caress of the wind, the rain,
and the glaciers of long ago, and for his eyes to behold
undiscovered country.
As I grew older, I spent many a happy summer working
for my father who was a guide-outfitter in the Skeena
Mountains. My job title was aptly given as “packer,”
a job that required, as my dad put it, “a strong
back and a weak mind,” and consisted chiefly of
carrying heavy things for rich people. I was imminently
qualified.
Now I am often fondly haunted by memories of those days,
those ghosts of my former selves. Today, for instance,
I recall a struggle between a man and a river on a golden
day when the world was young and fresh, and my father
was still the toughest man I knew.
The weather in the mountains had been bad and the old
man soon tired of us sitting around base camp; he decided
to send us off to the “Land of Monster Goats.”
I was skeptical. I had found myself fruitlessly searching
for this mythical place on more than one previous occasion,
and had learned that quests for goat-grail were usually
preceded by long stretches of bad weather and too many
whiners in camp.
Oddly enough, I had also noticed that Ungulate Eldorado
always lay just beyond the most impenetrable of natural
barriers. Sometimes it was located beyond a certain glacier,
or over a peak that could only be reached by scaling a
steep and slippery canyon wall. Once it had been located
just beyond a mountain pass, the slopes of which were
covered entirely by verdant, but prickly, devil’s
club. This time, it was just across the Ningunsaw River.
My father’s cunning plan for crossing over consisted
of jumping into a rubber raft, shoving off into the current
and “paddling like Hell.” He had tried this
approach once before, years ago, with a brand new Zodiac
raft. This vessel, along with the personal possessions
of the occupants (who were all fortunate enough to make
it safely to shore), has never been found. This incident,
rather than becoming a cautionary tale, only served to
fuel the fire of my father’s desire to cross the
river. It had become personal. The only thing he had learned
from the last attempt was not to use an expensive raft.
I’m not sure who manufactured the boat that was
to facilitate our crossing this time, but I suspect the
company also made those kiddy wading pools. Our boat looked
like a giant hemorrhoid cushion; I only call it a “boat”
for lack of a better word.
For our crossing point, the old man had chosen a narrow
“bottle-neck” in the river. It was perhaps
only thirty feet wide, but the current boiling through
there seemed pretty daunting to me. We all stood staring
silently at the raging torrent. I could feel my stomach
knotting and unknotting.
“Dad, are you sure this thing is safe?”
I wasn’t too proud to admit I was scared.
“Sure. Sure. It ain’t very wide. Whaddya
think, Winston?
Winston, one of the hunters, had been in the U.S. Special
Forces during the Vietnam War. Although he had never actually
made it to Vietnam, he talked down to the rest of us as
though he had. He looked terrified, but said nothing.
“Everybody got hip waders?” asked the old
man.
Gerry already had his on.
“Yup.” I was as ready as I could be. “They’re
some attractive, too.”
Winston had no hip waders—a mortal sin in my father’s
book. In fact, I don’t think he was ever truly comfortable
unless his feet were swaddled in rubber.
“Here,” said Dad, opening the wooden box
in the back of the truck. “I’ve got an extra
pair you can use, but they’re new, so don’t
wreck ‘em.”
“I thought you were supposed to be an outfitter,”
Winston snapped. “You’re supposed to ‘outfit’
me.” He took the boots, though, and sat down on
the tailgate to put them on.
“You brought your own underwear, didn’t
you?” was my father’s only response.
After we had unloaded the raft and brought it to the
river’s edge, we gathered around the old guy to
get our final instructions. We had to lean in to hear
him over the roar of the water. It felt like a team huddle
during a football game: We were about to make our first
offensive play against Mother Nature. Unfortunately, she
had a pretty wicked defense.
“Okay, Gerry, you get in front of the raft and
hold the rope. When we get close enough, jump to the other
side and pull us ashore. Mike, you shove us off, then
stay by the truck and use the radio-phone to call for
help. Hopefully our bodies won’t be too far downstream
by the time the helicopter gets here from Dease. He winked
at me, and then turned to Winston and Kenny.
“Winston, here’s your paddle. You sit by
Kenny in the middle, and when we hit the current, you
guys paddle like Hell. That’s all. Just PADDLE.”
He was almost shouting over the thunder of the water before
them. “I’ll just sit in the back and yell.”
So my father christened his barge, which we had decided
to call the H.M.S. Ramses, with a few final drags of his
cigarette while the boys loaded up the equipment. Gerry
had a camera case as big as his head strapped to his thigh.
“I just bought this lens,” he said. “Sure
hope I get a chance to break it in.”
Winston put his .300 Winchester magnum on the seat beside
him. It was a lovely rifle.
“Well,” said Gerry, “this is it.”
It was all over so very quickly. As soon as I shoved
them out into the raging torrent, the current immediately
grabbed the yellow rubber raft and carried it swiftly
downstream. I could see the raft’s occupants bouncing
up and down as their frail vessel squelched into submerged
rocks. I ran after the quickly disappearing boat.
Kenny was paddling madly. Water sprayed all around him.
Gerry, the rope coiled in one hand, was preparing for
a mighty leap to the opposite bank. Dad, a smoke dangling
from the corner of his mouth was, true to his word, yelling.
He was also smacking Winston on the back of the head.
Winston, for his part, had dropped his paddle and was
screaming, “We’re all gonna die!”
Now a good raft, like a Zodiac or an Achilles—even
a kiddy pool, for that matter—has a rigid bottom.
The Ramses, however, was not a good raft. Less than half
way across the Ningunsaw, the bottom fell out of her.
I saw all four bobbing heads disappear from view, and
I heard Winston’s scream cut short. Moments later,
three heads popped up.
Kenny was clinging to the left side of the raft. Gerry
had one leg over the bow, and was trying to crawl up onto
it. He still held the dripping rope in his hand. The old
man was holding onto Winston, who had gone completely
limp, and was trying to pull him up. “Hold onto
the side,” I could hear him yelling.
“We’re all gonna die,” was the only
response. At least I knew Winston wasn’t dead yet.
I kind of panicked and shouted out, “Do you need
any help?”
What a ridiculous question. I have never seen four people
in more desperate need of help. I was debating whether
I should call for air support when Gerry made it up onto
the bow. Kenny was also perched on the side of the raft
and was trying to paddle. Gerry stood, balanced precariously
for a fleeting moment, and then leapt for the opposite
bank. Unfortunately, his hip waders were so full of water
that he only flew three feet. He hit the water with a
splash and an expletive, the rope went taught, and he
was being towed downstream after the quickly accelerating
raft—a pretty good anchor impersonation, if nothing
else.
It was then that the raft disappeared from my view.
I scrambled through the dense brush beside the Ningunsaw,
terrified thoughts rushing through my mind like the chaotic
rush of the water beside me.
Then I saw them. Fortunately, the raft had hit a snag
that was sticking out into the river. As I approached,
all four of them were sitting beside the boat and looking
rather sheepish. Dad still had a soggy cigarette in the
corner of his mouth. Gerry was pouring water out of his
camera. Winston, with only one boot on, was shaking visibly.
“I. . .I think my leg is broken,” he stammered.
“Winston!” My father’s voice was harsh.
“Where’s my other hip wader?”
Kenny, who had flow helicopters in Vietnam, and who
had borne all in silence, looked up at me and smiled.
My father laughed out loud and clapped me on the shoulder.
“Next time, son. Next time we’ll see what’s
on the other side.”
Recently, as I watched my father’s heart making
erratic rivers of its own on the monitors at St. Paul’s
Hospital, I remembered this incident and smiled. I knew
then that my father was not there in that place of indignant
machinery; he was discovering another river more beautiful
than human eyes have beheld, and I, still with faltering
steps, follow.
Some day my sons will follow me to a place I know atop
a windy mountain where several rivers—small rivulets,
really—converge and descend into the earth. There
we will scatter his ashes, and they will be interred in
darkness awhile as his tiny stream mingles with others
deep in the land he loved until, all together, they shall
burst forth into the light of some mysterious river.
