In that 1970’s Sesame Street skit, I remember the jingle but not the point. Was I just to notice that one kid was playing soccer while the other three base ball, or was I supposed to respect the kid who was stepping out of the crowd and doing his own thing?

Under many circumstances, doing your own thing is quite admirable. Paddling without a helmet and PFD, however, isn’t one of them. Or at least that’s more or less the consensus of the paddlers weighing in on a thread on Boatwerks’ Boater Board Internet forum.

A group of high-profile, 20-something hotshots are surfing Bus Eater on the Ottawa River—site of the 2007 World Freestyle kayaking Championships— without helmets and PFDs.

One of them feels this is a real-risk versus perceived-risk issue, arguing that the deep wave (albeit one that can beat you down like the Hart Foundation), warm water, pool below and safety in numbers are enough: “We’ve been boating this wave for a long time, we know what we are doing and we aren’t putting ourselves or others in danger…this isn’t a big deal.”

Based on six pages of debate and 4,000 paddlers following along, this is a big deal to a great number of paddlers. The threads of responses weave in and out of “It’s a free world, man” and “What are you thinking you irresponsible ass.”

With 89 paddlers contributing opinions (and the usual stupid comments) I was surprised that no one asked the most obvious question:

Why wouldn’t you wear a PFD and helmet?

I’m a pretty good driver. Been at it 21 years now, six of which I was a professional truck driver hauling petroleum to gas stations. I still put on over 60k each year travelling to rivers and events. Accident free, knock on wood. I wouldn’t think of jumping in my pickup without putting on my seatbelt. First of all it’s the law everywhere in north America, except new Hampshire, where their license plate also reads “Live Free or Die.” Secondly, I don’t even notice it; a seatbelt doesn’t hinder my driving experience, nor is it cool not to wear it. Most importantly, if I do go into the rhubarb, however unlikely that might be, I know that I’m better off with it on than without. I feel the same way about my helmet and PFD.

In skiing and skateboarding helmets are progressively being accepted as a good idea and becoming part of the uniform worn by kids in the parks and by the pros. Paddling, in this way, is far ahead of other adventure sports.

Show me one whitewater kayaker who wasn’t handed a PFD and helmet before he climbed into a boat. Never in a welcome-to-whitewater chat has an instructor said, “Here’s the essential safety equipment—a helmet and PFD— that we will always wear in and around whitewater, or at least until you’re really good and surfing one of the largest waves in the world.”

Life jackets and helmets are already part of our uniform and have been since before Sesame Street. Now it’s time for these kids to play our game. 

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Rapid Magazine.

No waterfall drop is more revered than Tao Berman’s 1999 descent of Banff National Park’s Upper Johnston Falls. It was the first to approach the 100-foot mark and undoubtedly the most recognizable event in extreme kayaking, breaking the previous record by 20 feet and still standing as the highest falls run without swimming. The event was witnessed by 100 sightseers and several camera crews and was almost immediately broadcast across the world. Even without most of the fanfare, imitation is still the highest form of flattery, and for Canmore, Alberta’s Logan Grayling, it may also be a 98.4-foot steppingstone to something higher.

Nineteen-year-old Grayling was a Grade 6 student who had never paddled when Berman set the world waterfall record just 25 minutes from his house. John- ston Falls was a common school class trip.

“I didn’t even know what whitewater kayaking was at the time. I had seen the falls dozens of times, but had no idea anyone had gone over it or even what that meant,”

Grayling said. “I do now.”

Since Grayling began paddling the big stuff a little more than two years ago, he’s been hiking into the park, trading in math quizzes for real life calculations. He says as his skills improved, so did his confidence that this tourist attraction could be “knocked off” so that a new, younger generation of paddlers could emerge as leaders.

“Since [Berman’s drop] no one has been able to step up and run it, and let me tell you, it’s huge and f-ing intimidating. But I wanted to do this for myself, to prove to myself I could; to show that people can still push the limits of the sport and see what comes next,” Grayling said.

With only a couple of cameramen and about half the spectators of Berman’s drop, Grayling ran Johnston Falls on June 13. He estimates the flow was about two feet higher at the top and only a foot higher in the basin than in 1999. So technically, this could be some sort of new record, though he admits it is difficult to prove. The only hitch to the descent was that Grayling grazed his cheek on a jutting rock about 75 feet down, the very same rock that broke Berman’s paddle eight years earlier.

Most importantly for Grayling is what’s next.

“Now I know what my body can handle, we’re moving on. I’ve got a couple of spots that I can’t tell you about that are waaaay higher than Ed’s,” he said, referring to Ed Lucero’s 2003, 105.6-foot record drop of Alexandra Falls, NWT, which he swam. “Hopefully this September we’ll have a new record to talk about.”  

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Rapid Magazine.

You’d think an Australian cop would be better prepared to deal with peer pressure. However, while on location this spring for their upcoming film We’re Going There Anyway, the Skippy Film crew convinced Jackson kayak’s down-under paddler Jez Blanchard to hurtle himself in his Rocker well more than 50 metres (164 feet) into oblivion for some truly sick bigdrop footage.

Simply known as Jez, the Sydney riot squad officer is a four-time national champion, multi-time OC1 World Cup finalist and creator of the Jackson kayak Camp Instructional Tour. After a quick phone call to the operators of AJ Hacket Bungy, who immediately went about setting up safety and erecting a ramp for a little added vertical spice, he was whisked off to North Queensland.

Rigged into a full-body harness, then strapped into his kayak, Jez was placed several metres higher than the usual 50-metre-high bungee platform. At the very top of the tower the ramp had been added, allowing him to reach 200 kilometres per hour as he launched into rarified air.

“I wasn’t feeling too bad considering I knew what was about to take place,” says Jez.

“A jump like this is fine at the start as all you can see is the horizon line of the roof, however, as soon as I got to the edge I realized how ridiculous this was.

The ground is a very solid thing, and when it comes towards you at terminal velocity you do tend to get a little freaked out.”

He went into an uncontrolled spin, but kept paddling, “partly because it’s a normal reaction to being in a boat and partly because the film crew thought it would look sweet.”

With the recoil at the bottom, Jez scuffed up his shoulders on the harness and says he felt an uncomfortable squeeze in his manhood, but the bow of the boat successfully kissed the surface of the pool below and he even added a little slap of his paddle before bouncing back up.

“It is the ultimate park and huck,” Jez said. “But if you’re ever asked to kayak bungee, it’s like drugs, just say ‘no’.”

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Rapid Magazine.

It’s a seemingly simple move when done correctly: launch from behind the oars at a run with your coiled bow line and a sand stake; leap to the beach with your raft still in the current; drive the stake into the ground and tie it off like a rodeo calf roper. When done just right, the rope stretches taut and pendulums the raft up onto the sand bar coming to rest where no eddy exists. Miss the timing of the jump, carry too little bow line, or tangle the calf roper loop and the loaded raft keeps on trucking, dragging the boatman down the sandbar on the end of the bow line, heading into the very rapid he intended to scout.

This time the boatman nailed it. She buried the stake with authority and had the rope wrapped and tied in seconds—long before the line came taut. She watched with quiet satisfaction as her raft swung up on the beach, just like it was supposed to. We were above Triplet Falls on the Green River in the desert southwest, the water running high, with her deftly herding passengers off her rig and onto the scout trail. She wasn’t messing around–I was impressed. There was something familiar about this young dynamo of a trip leader. As the last boat on her trip skidded onto the beach and easily tied to her stake, I asked another guide “Is that a young Brown in your lead boat?” He nodded and smiled admirably.

This sense of home, belonging, and ownership will do more for our rivers than anything else in the world. Take care of our rivers.

It was well over 10 years ago when I first landed in Vernal, Utah, to guide the canyon rivers. Vernal was the birthplace of western river running 75 years earlier, but is now all oil drilling and ranching. I had been in town only a couple of days when a rumbly, full-size Ford F350 pickup truck rolled up in a cloud of dust. Out dropped a small, serious-looking man—worn western boots, Wranglers, handlebar mustache and a cowboy hat as big as the grill of his truck. He’d heard there was a Canadian in town. I ran for cover.

Turns out that Cowboy Al loved hockey. He’d come looking for the Canadian kid to come and watch the playoffs with him. It was 1995, New Jersey was playing Detroit.

Al Brown is a legend. He ran rivers for decades in the early days and ended up a dude rancher. In the wintertime he flooded his horse arena and hosted a kids’ hockey league, turning his tack shed into the dressing room, using equipment donated from his wealthy eastern seaboard clients (at the time you couldn’t buy ice skates in Utah).

Cowboy Al was a serious hockey fan in the middle of a hockey desert. As the puck dropped, we became fast friends, meeting in his living room for the playoffs every second night. On off days we’d take shots in his hay barn, blasting pucks at his plywood goalie, Al in his boots and Wranglers, me in sandals and river shorts. While I was on the river he would tape the games and have an edited highlight reel waiting for me when I got back.

Watching hockey at the Brown’s house was serious business too. No one was allowed to talk during play, his three young kids’ eyes glued to the tube. When the game stopped for commercials chaos would erupt with kids brawling and crawling all over each other, shrieking and laughing. When the puck dropped again… silence.

Something I learned from spending my summers on the rivers and at the Brown ranch was Al’s deep love for where he lived. He’d spent most of his life on the Green River, in the canyon of Lodore and Split Mountain, his ranch now on its banks and within view of the take-out. His family was firmly planted, and it was a joy to be invited in.

Named after the canyon where she now guides boats, young Lodore Brown was the trip leader up the trail scouting with her group—the one who nailed the sand stake and the same kid who years earlier pretended to drop her gloves and pull my jersey over my head during breaks in the hockey game.

As she returned her clients to her boat, I introduced myself in the way river guides do—an old-timer nodding and exchanging first names with the new generation, as she focused on her run and getting her rig in order. I didn’t mention watching hockey at her house or taking shots with her dad.

I had just returned to the Green after a long absence and my brief, chance encounter with Lodore made my summer. The sand anchor she so deftly buried and the skill and authority with which she drove it in were symbols of her family history and connection with the place. It is more than “being at home” on the river, this river is her home. I could see it in the depth and clarity of her eyes as she looked over her shoulder at the rapid’s entry in the midst of our brief introduction.

I wish this for all people who travel rivers; I wish them the true feeling of home and connection with a place. The ability to nail a stake into the river bank and know “this is my river.” This sense of home, belonging, and ownership will do more for our rivers than anything else in the world. Take care of our rivers. 

This article first appeared in the Fall 2007 issue of Rapid Magazine.