In April 2011, the International Canoe Federation chose the Nantahala River Gorge as the site of the 2013 World Freestyle Kayaking Championships. Tucked away in western North Carolina, this whitewater epicenter has played host to slalom and wildwater competitions for years, but 2013 will be the first time in over 20 years the community has hosted an international event of these proportions.

The dam-controlled Nantahala won the honors of hosting the 2013 Worlds because of its guaranteed water releases, which allow organizers, not the river, to dictate the event’s timing. When high water brought additional cfs to the 2011 Worlds in Plattling, Germany, paddling was delayed. Nantahala organizers looked to avoid similar disruptions.

Because of the venue’s susceptibility to rock shifting and washout, it was decided that the feature, already a favorite of the locals, needed some work.

Andrew Holcombe, Nantahala local and Dagger Kayaks team manager, was one of the first to speak up for the event, “The construction of a permanent play spot on the Nantahala River has the potential to turn the area into a great freestyle destination.”

When construction began on the Nantahala last November, many river purists cringed at the sight of backhoes in the water, wing dams, sand bags and diverted river channels. Avid local boater and river guide, Bill Baxter, was chosen as contractor for the project and assured onlookers that, despite appearances, proper measures were taken. Due to water management and permits from a multitude of federal agencies, Baxter was given less than 30 days to work his magic.

“Being an old kayaker and a builder who respects nature myself, I can understand why there has been some negative feedback on messing with the river,” says Baxter. “This is natural, but my job is to see that the end product will look like it’s always been there and be a huge boost to freestyle kayaking. I might even try surfing it.”

The grand opening of the Freestyle Wave was held in December 2011, but the finished product remains a work in progress. There have already been two tweaks to the feature and a third is scheduled for this spring. While the engineering continues on the wave itself, the community is working to create an event worthy of international status by September 2013.

“Whitewater recreation is not only an important part of the local economy,” says event coordinator Zuzana Vanha. “It is important to much of the community on a more personal level.”

According to Joe Jacobi, CEO of USA Canoe/Kayak, the governing body for whitewater sports in America, everyone stands to gain from the main event.

“Bringing the freestyle championships to the Gorge is a double opportunity,” he says. “The event could revitalize the Nantahala Gorge, the country’s cradle of whitewater competition; and at the same time, it could raise the profile of whitewater freestyle for North American audiences.”

This story originally appeared on page 19 of the Early Summer 2012 issue of Rapid magazine. Read the entire issue here.

My favorite book was recently adapted into a movie. But don’t bother seeing it, the Hollywood hacks butchered an iconic river book into a predictable love story—the wrong kind of love story, as in, not love of rivers.

David James Duncan’s 1984 classic The River Why was handed to me by a guide from another rafting company on the scout above Cataract Canyon’s Number 5 rapid. The worn pages spoke to me as they had to the many guides who’d read it before.

A quick look at the book makes you think it is about fishing, but it’s not. It’s about rivers, coming of age and looking for the meaning of life. Yes, there is some fishing, but don’t let that get in the way. Gus Orviston, the main character, hermits up in a remote Oregon valley to sort out his life, and one day, hiking high above his adopted fishing stream, he sees the river’s course scrawled across the valley. To his surprise, in a sort of cursive river writing, he plainly sees the river’s path spells the word “why”.

River guiding is a form of purgatory. It is somewhere between inferno and paradise; suffering and enlightening. In return for spending time in beautiful places, pulled by the current, one gets long days and responsibility disproportionate to the pay, a lack of everyday conveniences, and having to deal with clients. From my experience, these folks fall into a 10:1:1 ratio. For every 10 somewhat anonymous nice clients, there is one individual that is totally amazing and one total pain in the ass.

The trying trips are when this ratio is weighted on the back end. The strange trips are when the ratio is 0:5:5 and there are only five people in the raft.

I had such a trip in the Green River’s Canyon of Lodore. My boat included a 250-pound, heavily medicated manic depressive firefighter; a young woman just released from six months in the hospital on suicide watch; a 60-year-old woman with 20 percent vision; the female owner of a Charleston strip club; and the manager of an army boot factory inGeorgia. One fell asleep in the raft several times a day, one couldn’t be trusted to go beyond eyesight and one didn’t have any eyesight. The strip club owner was exceptionally coarse and the last was exactly as you’d expect of an army boot factory manager. They were a rag tag breakfast club, individually annoying and exceedingly exhausting.

At the time, pure suffering; in retrospect, enlightening. Taken as a group, I wouldn’t have traded them for anything. It turned on its head what I thought river guiding was all about.

David James Duncan is such a writer that the reader is pretty sure The River Why is his life story (that is, until one reads his novel The Brothers K and thinks that, too, must be his life story). It is funny and intimate, the type of narrative that makes you feel like you are inside the story. Gus thinks that this river that spells “why” is taunting him to find the meaning of life, until he slowly realizes it is not asking, but telling him, Why. “This,” writes Duncan, with what I imagine to be a wide sweep of the arms to include the river and all it touches, “all of this, is why.”

The challenges of rafting moderate whitewater seemed pretty inconsequential compared to the life histories of the cards in my raft. I was mature enough to realize that guiding was not all about me; until then, however, I did believe it was all about the rapids, the challenge, the hash marks on the map. But a blind lady giggling with surprise as we crashed waves, a suicidal girl finding the courage to try guiding the raft through an easy rapid, a strip club owner asking if it’s okay to say the Lord’s Prayer at sunrise… For these folks, it wasn’t about the rapids, but about the river, the current of life, carrying them downstream.

My 0:5:5 made me realize that this, all of this, is why.

This story originally appeared on page 18 of the Early Summer 2012 issue of Rapid magazine. Read the entire issue here.

If there seems to be more room in eddies lately, it may be because there are fewer hulking open boats taking up space.

Across the board, sales of OC1s are down, leaving some in the industry worrying that a cultural shift from canoes to kayaks is underway.

“We’ve dropped 70 percent in sales of open boats over the last 10 years,” says Chris Hipgrave, director of retail sales at Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) in North Carolina.

Kelly McDowell, owner of The Complete Paddler in Toronto, shows a similar ledger.

“There was a big drop in open boat sales two years ago, and it’s been slow ever since,” says McDowell.

Things look bleak on the supply side of the market. Dagger got out of the open boat market six years ago. Bell Canoe Works picked up Dagger’s popular Ocoee mold, adding to its slate of three hulls, but has recently stopped making canoes while the company looks for a new owner. Since announcing business woes in 2010, Evergreen Canoes—makers of the beloved Starburst—has also ceased production. That leaves Esquif, Mad River Canoe, Mohawk Canoes and now Wenonah to supply an OC1 market of questionable strength.

Jacques Chasse, owner of Esquif, says even with the exodus of canoe makers, supply exceeds demand.

“We have three or four models ready to develop, there’s just not enough market to justify new boats each year,” he says.

McDowell observes that those buying open boats tend not to be new to the sport, but older paddlers upgrading or replacing boats. Darren Bush, owner of Rutagbaga outdoor store and organizer of Wisconsin’s Canoecopia trade show, sees the same thing and is worried the issue might be generational.

“Twenty years ago, we used to sell four canoes for every kayak. Now it’s the opposite. And those who are buying canoes are 40- or 50-year-olds,” says Bush.

Bush says that most people buying open boats are coming across from learning to canoe in tandem models. “There are no beginner paddlers who come in and say, ‘I want to get into OC’. Thank you Red Bull,” says Bush, remarking that the kayak industry does a better job of portraying the sport as part of a racy lifestyle.

On that point, too, McDowell agrees. “Open boat videos are kind of boring compared to kayaking,” he concedes, a fact that might contribute to why The Complete Paddler is selling more whitewater kayaks even as canoes drop off.

Challenging this staid image, the recently released Canoe Movie 2: Uncharted Waters features talented young open boaters, pulse-quickening drops and exotic locations. But while filmmakers play catch up, the pro-kayaking trend is mirrored at Nantahala where Hipgrave reports last year NOC sold the most kayaks in its 40-year history.

Hipgrave says one of the main reasons for the dramatic shift in sales in the southeast is the feeder effect of hundreds of summer camps.

“Twenty years ago, all the camps were teaching kids whitewater in canoes. Now, except for a few hardcore canoe camps, they are all doing kayaking programs,” says Hipgrave, who points to the shorter learning curve and lower costs of kayaking.

Meanwhile, Claudia Kerckhoff-Van Wijk at Madawaska Kanu Centre in Ontario says their canoe program showed a steady growth compared to kayaking over the last 15 years, except for the past three years when canoeing held steady as kayaking demand increased. She says one of the ways they keep their canoeing component strong is to offer family weeks through the summer. Because of their versatility, canoes hold obvious benefits for paddling families.

Expanding on that family theme might be Esquif’s next move.

“If you start canoeing instead of kayaking, you will stick with it,” says Chasse of the effect of luring solo paddlers into open hulls while they are young.

Chasse says he could have an inexpensive whitewater boat for children aged seven to 10 years old on the water as early as next year. Of course, given the wreckage around him, he can be forgiven for spending time on shore scouting a line.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” says Chasse. “I just have to convince myself it’s the way to go.”

This story originally appeared on page 16 of the Early Summer 2012 issue of Rapid magazine. Read the entire issue here.