Hunter S. Thompson died this month at age 67. He shot himself with a handgun in the kitchen of his Colorado home. It was no secret he had a thing for guns.

Until the follow-up radio talk shows I didn’t know much about him. I’d heard his name and recognized the titles of his Fear and Loathing books, but that’s about all. I would have been more in touch if I’d been looking for free love and questioning the establishment in the early 1970s, but at the time I was still chewing on my fists, not shaking them in the air.

Journalists and hippies considered Hunter S. Thompson to be a brilliant political and social writer. The rest of the world considered him to be a complete whack job. He followed Nixon on the campaign trail, rode with the Hells Angels and once wrote, “I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone… but they’ve always worked for me.”

Another thing that worked for him was his unique writing style, something called “gonzo journalism”—a new way of reporting the story with a strong author’s voice and a focus on the mood of the event, even if that meant taking some liberties with facts and objectivity.

Almost every talk show host wrapped up by suggesting Thompson was one of the most important American writers of the 20th century.

Sad, I thought, that I’m a writer and journalist who lived in the 20th century and here’s this larger-than-life outlaw cult figure that I know nothing about.

A friend stopped by while I was reading up on Hunter S. He thought I’d want to know that Heinz Poenn had suffered a heart attack.

“That’s too bad, is he all right?” I asked before admitting that I didn’t know who we were talking about.

Heinz Poenn taught himself to paddle in a Klepper folding kayak and started slalom racing in 1958. In 1972, the same year Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas raced to cult status, Poenn raced for Canada at the Olympics in Munich, Germany. Later he became a driving force behind the building of the Minden Whitewater Preserve so he and others would have a place to train. Poenn went on to coach both the provincial and national slalom teams.

Sad, I thought that I’m a writer and paddler who lived in the 20th century and here’s this pioneer of the whitewater community that I know nothing about.

At a new adventure sports complex and whitewater course in Maryland they’ve proposed creating a Whitewater Hall of Fame and Adventure Sports Museum to “honor those individuals who have made significant accomplishments in and contributions to whitewater paddling sports.”

I like the idea of a Hall of Fame to clarify and remember significant accomplishments. But, I worry that a hall of fame would be too stuffy. I think that our whitewater history is better written with a shot of the late Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo style—because like politics, whitewater’s deepest truths are found on the eddylines between fact and fiction. 

I’ll tell some more when I come home. Wonderful news! I have yet to be homesick! 

We journey down to James Bay again, pulling our three canoes, one paddle stroke at a time, for the 300 kilometres to Moosonee. We travel the seldom-used North French River, catching the last of a wet summer’s high water and then watching the river ebb, day by day, as its life drains away under us. So few whitewater canoeists travel this river because the North French is what the local outfitters call “water critical”. Sandwiched tightly between the Little Abitibi and the Wakwayowkastic rivers, the narrowness of its watershed normally allows canoe travel only just after the snow melts.

There are no signs of anyone having come this way for years, nothing recognizable as a campsite, never a blaze or an axe-cut branch, all the portages are hidden, unused, behind a wall of trees. In a region laced with so many canoeing classics, why explore such a questionable river? Our group of aging paddlers decided long ago never to paddle a river twice and the North French was the only blue line draining into James Bay from the south we hadn’t travelled.

But I’m too aware of my fears. My imagination, such a friend at my writing desk, makes leaves falling outside my tent sound like charging moose and turns riffles in the distance into boat-devouring cataracts. Minor missteps nag at me: I broke my stove cleaning it; I left my sharpening stone at the last campsite; the wind came up on me as I crossed some open water. My anxiety is drowning the confidence that normally allows me to guide others down such rivers. Can I really rely soley on myself?

I hadn’t expected to have to answer this question, and it’s getting the best of me. With thunder booming and rain pelting the fly, I don’t want to face another day on the river with both the wind and whispers of self-doubt filling my ears.

I asked Gilles if we were any- where near a road or escape route. His lips tightened and he shook his head. There was only one real option. About four kilo- metres downstream was a small bridge where he hoped we could still exit from the river on the right shore. We would have to risk it and run the river down to the bridge, praying that nobody capsized.

We turned upstream and hiked back to the campsite.

The group was sitting around the fire tucking into Moroccan omelettes and looking very relaxed—few understood the gravity of the situation. Apart from Gilles, a second guide named Christian and myself, everyone was from Quebec’s tourism agency. They were here to see a part of the province they spent their work days promoting but none had been expecting to grapple with serious whitewater. Gilles ate his breakfast calmly before calling the group together for a briefing, explaining the situation and spelling out the plan.

We would load the canoes by floating them up into the woods and then re-launch them carefully so they stayed close to the river’s edge. All gear would be securely bound inside. Once the whole group was on the water, we would make our way down the left shore in single file, leaving plenty of space between each canoe in case one got caught in a bush or an overhanging branch.

Amidst it all, we tried to maintain a modicum of humour to keep everyone calm. The last thing we needed was to scare everyone out of their wits. After all, this was supposed to be fun.

Gilles led off and one-by-one the rest of the team followed ducky style. We negotiated the tricky left-hand bend, hugging the shoreline to stay in the weakest part of the current yet were careful not to run into any of the abundant strainers. All well and good, except that in order to get off the river, we had to cross over to the right bank before we reached the bridge—a dangerous endeavour.

Gilles carefully entered the main current on a diagonal and the other canoes followed. We crossed the centre of the river, crashing through some substantial waves. Taken one at a time they were manageable, but this wasn’t the place to take anything for granted. Though most of my nervous energy was spent worrying how the other canoes were faring, I was more than a little concerned for myself.

This sounds like a simple plan. But there is a variable involved, or should I say 123,000 variables. Our research told us the best bet for seeing the herd cross the Firth was during the first week of July—even though there was no way to know exactly when or where this might happen. We had given ourselves 160 kilometres of river and 18 days to work with. So far, our trip has involved more waiting, watching and strategizing about our position than paddling.

The Otter’s tundra tires had touched down at the Margaret Lake put-in on June 28th. While we herded our mound of gear from the plane into raft and kayak-sized piles, a welcoming committee buzzed fiercely around us. After ten minutes the bugs had chased us to a breezy ridge above camp. As irritating as the onslaught was, we couldn’t very well begrudge the bugs their role in the nat- ural cycle. They did, after all, play a lead role in the phenomenon we had come to see.

One reason the caribou travel en masse is to lessen the threat from mosquitoes and warble flies. Warble flies lay their eggs on caribou hair, usually the legs. When the maggots hatch, they burrow under the skin and cut breathing holes. A single caribou can host up to 2,000 maggots, all eating away at the poor weakened beast. These pestilential insect hordes drive the caribou into large herds and chase them from one ridge to another in search of bug-dispelling breezes.

Below us the river, a shiny sliver thread, wove north- ward through the immense open arctic to the Firth Delta. At home in our new surroundings, the rafters, Kevin and Lynn, lounged on the ridge like Zen masters, that is, Zen masters with DEET-soaked veils of netting attached to their hats. Their years of living in Alaska made them comfortable and serene. Being arctic neophytes, Jack and Franz were less serene than excited. Though the grey beards poking through their bug nets suggested rightly that they were both seasoned kayakers, they were awestruck by the vastness of the landscape. Math professor Franz perched on a limestone crag and stared at the panorama in front of us as if he might be able to quantify its vastness. 

If we’re not being pushed by the elements, we try to push ourselves. I try to get wet at least once during every paddle. We’ve practiced everything from wrestling with flooded hatches in tidal channels to taking part in rescue operations with the local coast guard auxiliaries.

These paddles weren’t officially sanctioned by the club. I had never thought to ask for them to be included in the club program and now I see that if I had asked, the answer would have been no.

The club official explained that members were not being advised to join me paddling because I have no accredita- tion—and therefore no credibility. You see, I’m a level zero— a zero star—I’m a scout with no badges on my PFD.

This is not to say that I take learning lightly. After all, I had just dropped $400 on the symposium. I’ve also attended lots of seminars, rescue clinics, stroke improvement lessons, towing clinics and so on. I’ve been taught by one of the top instructors on the West Coast. My mentors are some of the most respected members of my club.