Portage.

How is it that I can travel 2,000 miles from my home river to Vernal, Utah, be on a river I’ve never paddled before, with complete strangers, and hear our guide Charlie—a man 19 years younger than myself—reply “Fluffy Bun­ny” when a high-tech worker from San Francisco asks the name of the next big rapid? Sorry Charlie, that’s my line. Or at least I thought it was.

I’d joined a commercial rafting trip on the Green River’s Gates of Lodore. I was there to write and film a story for Rapid and Rapid Media TV (Easy Green, Spring 2012). I’d never paddled in the Southwest but I could have given the safety talk verbatim, jokes included. It was the same guide talk I’d given clients a hundred times when I was Char­lie’s age. It was the same talk cameraman Dan Caldwell gave on the Kicking Horse and Illecillewaet rivers in British Columbia. How does this happen?

Throughout the Southwest, a hunch-backed, longhaired, flute-playing figure is painted or carved into boulders and rock walls. Kokopelli is per­haps the most famous of all ancient rock art; you’ve probably seen him on T-shirts and bumper stickers. Legend says that in his sack he carries seeds and songs from town to town. He is credited with the spread of agricultural technology, teaching villagers how to plant and grow corn. Kokopelli was also believed to be a fertility god, prankster, healer and storyteller. He could have been a raft guide and paddler.

Like Kokopelli, when we travel to rivers, we bring the changing of winter to spring. We bring the melting of snow and the rain. We play jokes. We help and heal those sick with smog and congestion. Some say Kokopelli was capable of detaching his penis and sending it down the river to have his way with the innocent young maidens who were bathing in the stream. I don’t know about that, but raft guides have been the source of many hu­man conceptions—we won’t mention names. And wrapped inside our large duffels among our paddles, helmets and gear, we bring our own stories and traditions from river cultures far away.

Long before paddlers were friends on Facebook, we had our ways of sharing information and passing on traditions. We had guidebooks and adventure stories. We had club newsletters, journals and magazines. We had bars, take-outs and tailgates. And we had teachers, instructors and mentors.

Long-time raft guides like Rapid columnist Jeff Jackson bounced back and forth between guiding in the Ottawa Valley and working for NOLS on rivers in the Southwest. Jeff was trained by the best river managers and now, in a senior leadership and mentoring role, he passes all of what he has learned down to the next generation—the third generation.

Get a few dozen or so dirtbag guides like Jeff with international airfares and, sure as Kokopelli’s hunched back, there will be guides on the Sun Kosi, Zambezi and Pacuare telling their guests as they approach the big rapids, “This one’s called Fluffy Bunny.”

Scott MacGregor is the founder and publisher of Rapid.

This editorial originally appeared in Rapid, Early Summer 2012. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read the rest here.

It seemed a moot point to the accused. I take the act of stealing red Lifesavers out of my candy stash very seriously. I toss these sugary rings in my mouth at every 1,000-metre mark along a portage—a personal act of rich reward and the only thing that seemed to get me to the other side of the particularly grueling, blackfly-infested trails we trudged along on that trip. He claimed I was being overly dramatic when I threatened to never travel with him again. He gave me an evil smirk and took my last one. I haven’t tripped with him since.

What gets each canoeist to the other side of a portage varies. Some, like me, treat themselves to high-grading their candy bags. Others go into a dreamscape of good first dates, movies worth seeing a second time and dirty tricks to play on their bosses. Some paddlers simply think of things happening back at home—like traffic jams and the Greek economic crisis—to give them reasons why the pain of the portage isn’t so bad.

Many of us hum or, if we know the words, sing monotonous show tunes or the last song we heard on the radio driving to the put-in. The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) is a favourite. So are Dancing Queen by ABBA, Cat Stevens’, Cat’s in the Cradle and John Denver’s Poems, Prayers and Promises.

I remember a 27-day solo trip when I couldn’t get Aqua’s Barbie Girl out of my head. Imagine I’m a Barbie girl in a Barbie world / Life in plastic, it’s fantastic / You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere / Imagination, life is your creation every step of every portage. It was a long month.

Where the portage is located on the trip changes the carrot I dangle from my deck plate.

In the beginning, I daydream of monster walleye, picturesque campsites and the peaceful solitude I know I’ll find deeper into the interior. Near the end of the trip, it’s the thought of a cold beer and roadside junk food that makes me dance (albeit a slow waltz) my 60-pound canoe barrel across to the other side.

Ultimately, what gets most of us to the other side—no matter when and where—is the fact that the portage, nasty or not, is the only thing that protects the places we’re portaging to.

I almost guarantee that he or she who suffers the most, will be rewarded the most. A two-Lifesaver portage with steep inclines and a squishy spruce bog will give you complete solace. There will be no crowds at the end.

If you do stumble across another canoeist—ideally not as you are belting out Come on, Barbie, let’s go party, ah ah ah, yeah from beneath your Rob Roy—be assured she’ll be just as in love with the pain and pleasure of portaging as you are.

Discover more great adventure stories in Canoeroots and Family Camping’s Late Summer 2010 issue. To read it, download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.