Last summer I was part of a group of kayakers and raft guides who attempted to balance a mutual addiction to whitewater paddling with the management of a twoacre market garden. Whitewater Organics was created from our combined experiences on berry farms, sheep farms and in greenhouses.

We tilled a plot not far from the river with the intention of infusing our raft guide salaries with free, fresh produce and registered at local farmers’ markets, hoping to sell a portion of our yield.

It started off so well. After an intense spring planting, we had filled two acres with produce. Our vehicles were littered with a mix of paddling gear and farm tools—paddles and pitchforks spooned in our trunks. Garden sessions ended with the farm team heading to the river, where I washed layers of dirt off my feet before climbing into my boat and picked soil out from under my nails in the eddy. It was a summer of contrasts; time spent immersed in brown earth and white water.

As summer ramped up and work on the river increased, it became harder to get to the patch after work. Hot, sunny afternoons begged to be spent on the cool river, not a dusty garden patch…

This article appeared in Rapid, Summer/Fall 2013. Download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read the rest here.

Believe it or not, there was a time before cam straps.

While they’re now used by 99 percent of paddlers to secure their boats to vehicles, they were brought into the river world from the multi-day raft guiding world. Their popularity effectively killed a prominent and meaningful tradition known only to older raft guides.

Cam strap manufacturer Ancra was granted a patent on its now ubiquitous buckle in 1972, but it was another 15 years before the buckles became small enough and cheap enough to be used by river guides. Before that, raft guides rigged with two-inch tubular climbing webbing—one end was girth hitched to a D-ring, while the running end threaded through the frame, dry bags and coolers. The webbing was soaked in the river overnight so it would stretch when cranked down with a trucker’s hitch, and when it dried it would shrink and tighten the load into bombproof rigging (even today, some big water guides opt for webbing on the biggest days). Guides’ hands were always cracked and raw from pulling on wet, silty webbing. Even worse, when it was time to de-rig at camp each night, the knots were locked in place. Every guide carried pliers—channel locks from the hardware store, nothing fancy—to unstick tight webbing knots.

Angled head or straight was a matter of preference and an eternal fireside debate. The pliers also found use on gritty air valves, Dutch oven cooking and repairing tent zippers. Every guide wore them in a holster on a belt…

This article originally appeared in Rapid, Summer/Fall 2013. To read the rest of this article, download our free iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch App or Android App or read it here.