Ten miles off the tarmac approaching Winnipeg I peered from my tiny emergency exit window at country roads, schools and farms bordering the winding Red River. It seemed we’d been gliding forever, sinking ever so slowly from the grey, overcast sky.
Close enough to the ground to recognize kids playing tag at recess, in the cockpit our pilot takes an elbow to the shoulder from a nervous copilot. Snapping out of it he rolls the yoke to the right, dipping the wing of the silver pterodactyl. Passengers’ sleeping heads jerk back on their flabby necks. Now on line, the pilot levels, flares, chirps the wheels down still slightly sideways on the cold runway and finishes his otherwise perfect flight.
In the realm of air travel and the pilot’s career this offline approach will go completely unnoticed, but some jackass two rows back couldn’t help from commenting: “What kind of pilot can’t hit Winnipeg? Christ, you can line it up from Michigan!”
First of all, there’s a place for arrogant loudmouths like this guy—First Class—but it seems his company didn’t think as much of him as he does. Secondly, I thought, this guy doesn’t paddle. If he did paddle he’d know the mesmerizing feeling of floating above your line, the stillness of flatwater and how big the world feels around you. He’d know about the lack of urgency floating in the dark, felty water before it accelerates into a glassy tongue.Like our pilot he’d know how his sense of speed is dulled by the lack of perspective. He’d also know how a winter of five months of snow-covered landscape can slow the metabolic rate, cover paddling gear in dust, and make a game of checkers last until it is almost too late.
Luckily the Earth spins on a slightly drunken axis, and around this time of year the sun pours more light and heat on the north side of the equator. Snow melts, birds chirp, rivers flood and jackasses rake the sand in their horseshoe pits.We know spring is coming.You can even see it coming from Michigan.Yet we need to roll our yokes and make some last minute seasonal adjustments before our rubber hits the tarmac and we make the pilgrimage from our snowy winter caves to our river lives.
Replace the gasket on your drytop, carve out some foam from your hip pads, revarnish the blade of your tripping paddle—where are my pogies?—and fibreglass the crack in your slalom boat. The long cold flight I call winter is over. Wake up and paddle.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of Rapid Magazine.
