Bill Dunlap, who originally acquired the canoe from the production, stands under the Deliverance canoe in Wander North Georgia’s store. | Feature photo: Courtesy Wander North Georgia
Cue the song “Dueling Banjos” and get ready to paddle harder because a canoe from the film Deliverance has been found.
The last surviving wood-canvas canoe from Deliverance is discovered
Bill Dunlap, who originally acquired the canoe from the production, stands under the Deliverance canoe in Wander North Georgia’s store. | Feature photo: Courtesy Wander North Georgia
In the Oscar-nominated 1972 film Deliverance, four friends—two of which are played by Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds—canoe down a fictional Georgia river before it’s dammed. The group faces a number of challenges, including some fierce whitewater that ends up splintering Voight’s wood-canvas canoe after he takes it backward down a rapid and gets hung up on a rock. Fun fact: the special effects crew sawed the canoe almost in half from gunwale to gunwale to make the damage more dramatic.
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Warner Bros. had approximately a dozen identical Old Town 16’ Guides shipped to the filming location in Georgia, knowing they’d be destroying several in the iconic rapids sequence filmed in the Tallulah Gorge. The rest of the canoe scenes were filmed on the Chattooga River.
Two of the canoes wrecked in filming were cobbled together for inclusion in Burt Reynolds’ museum collection. The reconstructed canoe was missing both seats and a few feet in the middle and was later sold at auction. It was speculated that all the other canoes were either destroyed during filming or lost over time… until now.
Bill Dunlap, who was one of the founding members of the Georgia Canoeing Association in the mid-1960s, was loaned to the movie crew from his job at Georgia Power to coordinate water flow through the Tallulah Gorge. He also helped with location scouting. When production wrapped, Dunlap was offered the aluminum canoe Reynolds had paddled or an Old Town Guide that was never used in filming. He picked the Guide.
Dunlap had the canoe hanging from his living room rafters when Mark Holloway, who looked after the Dunlaps’ houses, took note of it. Dunlap gifted the canoe to Holloway, who is also an avid paddler, in August 2020. Old Town confirmed the serial number on Holloway’s canoe and sent him a copy of the build order showing delivery to Warner Bros. in Georgia in 1971.
While paddling, hiking or climbing in the area, you can see the distinctive geological formation now known as Deliverance Rock on the Chattooga River, or visit Wander North Georgia’s Clayton, Georgia store to see Holloway’s legendary 51-year-old piece of cinematic memorabilia in person. Just be careful not to catch Deliverance Syndrome—a term coined by locals to describe poorly prepared paddlers seeking to conquer the famous river. Nineteen people drowned on the Chattooga within three years of the film’s release.
This article was first published in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
Bill Dunlap, who originally acquired the canoe from the production, stands under the Deliverance canoe in Wander North Georgia’s store. | Feature photo: Courtesy Wander North Georgia
What’s next you ask, two blades? Probably. | Feature photo: Courtesy Level Six // Five2Nine
Last time I went paddleboarding I saw a curious thing. I walked past the usual waterside coterie of folks diligently pumping up their paddleboards. That was not unusual. I’m used to envious looks from people when they see a board that comes with the air already inside it.
Next, I encountered someone paddling their board while seated. That was also not unusual. I have seen so many people not standing on standup paddleboards that I already thought these watercrafts should have been named differently.
No, what was unusual was this person was seated on a lawn chair. On a lawn chair on their paddleboard. And propelling himself with a kayak paddle.
Trendsetters: Why the future of standup paddleboarding is sitting down
At first, I was horrified. “That is no longer a SUP,” I thought. But then I reconsidered and realized what I was witnessing was evolution putting the lie to our cognitive bias that assumed standup paddleboarding was a good idea in the first place.
From the standards of SUP paddling, this guy looked patently ridiculous. He was breaking every rule. But from a practical perspective, his choice was hard to argue. We modern Western Darwinists can be forgiven for buying into the notion that standing up to paddle might somehow be superior—more advanced, as it were, on paddling’s evolutionary continuum. But we now know that evolution is not a continuum. It’s a tree with branches, many of which are dead-ends—like the one soon to be occupied by SUPs.
What’s next you ask, two blades? Probably. | Feature photo: Courtesy Level Six // Five2Nine
He just might be onto something…
The sit-on-top-paddleboard (SOTP) could become paddling’s next evolutionary leap forward. Think about it. Lawn Chair Man had ingeniously found a way around all the inherent shortcomings of SUP paddling, of which I can tell you there are many.
Sitting on a lawn chair would normally make paddling a SUP rather difficult. But he had solved the problem by replacing his SUP paddle with a double-bladed one, which allowed him to paddle quite powerfully and in a perfectly straight line, despite the crosswind he faced that day, without the awkwardness of changing sides—or trying to do a J-stroke, which is ineffective on a SUP and a faux pas besides. The kayak paddle was obviously a sensible adaptation to the seated position, which itself was a sensible adaptation to the inherent instability of standing up on a SUP in the chop created by said crosswind. Pure genius.
Plus, he was saving himself the peccadillo of holding a SUP paddle backward, the likelihood of which, based on my field observations, would have been about 80 percent. The bent shaft paddle—if I were a SUP manufacturer I would print a graphic on every board with a picture of the correct way to hold one of these things. On second thought, I would never have made bent shafts in the first place. The consequences of unleashing such a complex device onto the paddling public are just too great. Yes, I know the long lever of the SUP shaft magnifies the inefficiency of a straight blade and makes the SUP stroke particularly needful of the bent shaft’s advantages. But not if you hold it backward, my friend. And not if you are already on your knees.
The human mind has certain cognitive or perceptual errors baked-in, one of which is the tendency to pick up a bent shaft paddle and assume it works like a scoop, and to hold it backward. Spread out over the course of SUP history—factoring in the sum total of all those wrong strokes—the bent shaft likely works out to be a net disadvantage. And when you consider all the first-timers who ended up scooping water behind them and concluding, “This sport is too difficult,” I argue the sport would have grown even more popular had there been no wrong way to hold the paddle, whatever the efficiency cost.
My brilliant friend in the lawn chair may have been one of those people. He probably got his new board, took a few strokes on one side with his paddle held backward, spun in a circle and then fell headfirst into the water. “Enough of this nonsense,” he then thought, and started down the road of practical adaptations. And you could tell he was a practical guy, because he didn’t go for an inflatable paddleboard either. “How is this supposed to be relaxing if I have to blow it up first, and then deflate it to take it home, and then blow it up again to dry it out, and then deflate it again to store it?” he probably concluded. And I’m inclined to agree. Inflatables: a surefire way to spend more time pumping than paddling. Brought to you by the makers of the bent shaft paddle.
You can’t fight gravity
As I said before, the whole “stand up” moniker was probably a mistake to begin with. Because on a SUP, even if you are on your feet, you are not in fact supposed to be standing. Athletic Crouch Paddleboard probably didn’t have the same ring to it. But look how any expert SUP surfer holds a sort of half-squat. If their body could talk it would be saying, “If I had a lawn chair mounted on this thing, I’d park my butt right here.”
And that’s how you see them on a Sunday afternoon, drifting about lazily with their heads held high and their paddles facing the wrong way and their PFDs strapped to the deck.
Beginners don’t get this. They hear the words “stand up” and they take it verbatim. They go out and presume they’re supposed to be completely upright. And that’s how you see them on a Sunday afternoon, drifting about lazily with their heads held high and their paddles facing the wrong way and their PFDs strapped to the deck—because isn’t that what those bungies are for? [Public Service Announcement: The bungies are not for holding your PFD, you are. May we recommend a waist belt or highback PFD for greater comfort while seated.] They’re going exactly nowhere, but looking damned stylish in their swimsuits while doing it… until an offshore breeze picks up.
As all things in the universe tend toward entropy and collapse, so too the days of the SUP are limited. Greater forces are propelling it to return to its sit-down paddling roots. You can’t fight gravity and, like Lawn Chair Man, eventually everyone figures out the lower you go, the more stable you are. And there is nothing more stable than sitting down. Kayakers knew this all along of course, but they have to deal with their own shortcomings—a proclivity to fill with water and an uncomfortable sitting position.
SUP paddlers, the time has come to buy yourselves a lawn chair and kayak paddle. Then you can set off—in a perfectly straight line!—into the future of paddlesport.
This article was first published in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
What’s next you ask, two blades? Probably. | Feature photo: Courtesy Level Six // Five2Nine
Despite its remoteness, the Thelon is one of the easiest rivers of the north to paddle. And the views are some of the best. | Feature photo: Maria Stern
Eight of us stood on the beach at the banks of the Thelon River and watched the floatplane buzz over us. I smiled, knowing our pilots were choosing to give us a dramatic flyover for one more rush of excitement.
Gradually, the roar of the engines got farther away and the plane got smaller until it disappeared below the horizon. Then there we were, all spaced apart and silent, standing in that moment as a group of more-or-less strangers on a white, sandy outcrop at the edge of stilling waters.
I’d agreed to go on this trip without ever setting foot in a canoe. I had some experience kayaking on lakes in the Okanagan, but I knew that was hardly going to be a good comparison for a two-week trip down a tundra river.
Before now, I’d never seen the Northwest Territories’ famously beautiful Barrenlands. I knew nothing about this northern river. But when Jackpine Paddle asked me to join a canoe trip on the Upper Thelon River and document my experience, I knew I couldn’t say no to the once in a lifetime opportunity.
Through the Barrenlands: 14 days on the Upper Thelon River
Before the trip, I hadn’t read Alex Hall’s Discovering Eden: A Lifetime of Paddling Arctic Rivers. Our trip would follow one of the many routes he paddled during his three decades guiding, and his invaluable notes were passed down to Jackpine to build the foundation of our trip.
The Thelon River flows through a soft sandstone belt on the Canadian Shield. Fed by large tundra lakes, it forms a smooth and evenly graded course through the soft rock. Despite its remoteness, the Thelon is one of the easiest tundra rivers to paddle, with a steady current, few rapids and no portages.
Despite its remoteness, the Thelon is one of the easiest rivers of the north to paddle. And the views are some of the best. | Feature photo: Maria Stern
On travel days, we aimed to be on the water by 10:30 a.m., paddle until we took a break for lunch, and be off of the water around 3 p.m. We had 14 days to travel roughly 200 kilometers. It was a time frame with a wide margin of wiggle room for layover days in case we came across places we wanted to stay longer, needed rest or experienced bad weather.
The cast of characters comes together
Coming as a pair on this trip were Stuart and Ken, old canoeing buddies from Saskatchewan. Stuart said a trip on the Thelon had been something he’d dreamed of for a long time. Ken could contribute to any conversation or crossword prompt on topics from Broadway to geology.
Kim lived in Yellowknife, but had lived all around the world before the Northwest Territories. She enjoyed trips like these because sometimes Yellowknife was too noisy for her. Kim hit the ground running on day one, and was the first person to attempt a swim in the water.
Louise had come from Vancouver Island but her family previously lived in Aklavik. This was her first paddling trip as well, but she was far from fearful and had no shortage of stories to tell, from swimming after a runaway boat to motorcycling across the country with her newborn.
Sharing my canoe was Keith, a videographer who lived in Yellowknife. We worked together to race ahead of the other canoes and then drift while he got footage of the other canoes passing by. Together we made up what we referred to as The Media Boat. Last summer, Keith spent three months canoeing across the Northwest Territories with his family.
Weighing up to 700 pounds, you wouldn’t want a herd of musk ox to get between you and camp. | Photo: Keith Robertson
Our guides were Wendy and Colin. Each day, they started work the earliest and ended the latest. What really came across was their unadulterated anticipation for paddling such a renowned river. Even as professionals, the Upper Thelon was a crown jewel and just as alluring to them as it was to the rest of us.
Building our canoes was our first group exercise. There were some initially skeptical remarks about sturdiness, but the effort that went into constructing them was proof they would be solid structures. Expertise and personalities were coming through and we thankfully bonded over the hard work and collective purpose—a good sign for things to come.
On an after dinner hike, I found Kim standing at the edge of the water. She had spotted small dark shapes on the ridge of a distant hill. From so far away, any features were impossible to discern, and the only indication they were more than rocks or shadows was when the distances between them changed. The rocks and shadows were a herd of musk oxen.
Each time they disappeared behind one hill, they returned closer on the next. Smaller musk ox calves moved quickly between the meandering adults. Most of them moved along the middle of the slopes, while one or two walked the ridge keeping an eye out over the flat Barrens around them.
Life in the Barrenlands is slow, and reminding me to slow down was the first gift it gave me. Eventually, the musk oxen were close enough I thought my presence might disturb them or they might block my path back to camp. I walked back, slower now, like them.
The author awakening to another morning on the Thelon. | Photo: Keith Robertson
Adapting to life in the Barrenlands
Our first morning, getting everything packed and ready took some consideration. We let our guides play Tetris with our barrels and packs to fit them into the four canoes—our entire lives for the 200-kilometer journey.
The group paddled close together, and the most experienced canoeists were quick to provide tips and techniques, mainly to my benefit with my cumulative four hours of practice the day before.
Canoeing, I quickly learned, is a meditative form of travel—the soft rhythm of the strokes feels like a deep and slow breath gliding you forward into clear northern air. The feeling of physical exertion melted away as my body found strength in places I didn’t realize I had—all across my shoulders, back and core.
We stopped before lunch to hike along an ancient caribou fence. Along the top ridge of a long, thin peninsula, small piles of rocks had been stacked at various intervals. A caribou fence would have been used to corral and redirect caribou into an advantageous spot for them to be hunted.
Along the remains of the fence, we found plenty of quartz shards—not tools themselves, just the chipped remnants of the tool-making process. On the Thelon there were many times I felt immersed in an unchanging world of the past, preserved as if everything had happened just a few days before I traveled through it. Close enough to feel the weight and significance, but distant enough I could only observe and reflect.
Stuart and Louise minding the canoes as the rest of the group finds a spot to wait out the coming rain. | Photo: Marcus Miller
In the encroaching distance, following where we had been just hours before, we could see dark clouds and a wall of rain rolling in. Everyone hurried to build the communal Hilleberg tent, a canopy large enough to shelter us all as the storm system passed. While this was our first time setting up the Hilleberg in a hurry, it wasn’t the last.
That evening, we started what would become a tradition on the trip, gathering together in the Hilleberg to work on a daily crossword puzzle. With people from so many walks of life, it was intriguing to see where our expertises lay and rewarding to test our minds after a long day for our bodies.
For the rest of the day, I hiked the hill we were camped against, although the word hill does a disservice to how prominently it stood on the landscape.
Based on topographical map data, it rose to only a mere 50 meters tall. The top was a wide, flat surface. From the top, you could see an uninterrupted 360-degree view of the horizon of the Barrenlands stretching for kilometers in all directions.
The wind that had carried the storm quickly onto us and beyond was powerful at the peak. With few trees to slow it or indicate the intensity, the deafening sound was in stark contrast to the still and unaffected landscape, peaceful and glorious while sun and shade moved across it.
This hill was only 50 meters tall, but provided incredible views of the surrounding Barrenlands and camp down below. | Photo: Marcus Miller
Canoes from left to right: Louise and Colin, Wendy and Kim, Marcus and Keith. | Photo: Stuart McDonald
Really, truly, away from it all
The next day,we traveled 22 kilometers on a strong current under sunny skies. Here, the Thelon narrowed and turned north to where Alex Hall had noted the “largest esker in the Barrenlands.”
The water’s edge gradually transitioned into 200 meters of low sandy dunes and shallow pools, with the colossal esker’s side rising above and reedy space in between. We stopped there for lunch and hiked our way toward the esker. It was about to be our first experience with how vast the scale of things is in the Barrenlands.
Created by the flow of rivers under ancient glaciers, eskers are remarkable in a grand sense, but also in their smallest elements. Embedded in the stark white sand are millions of rocks, most barely the size of a fist.
“The upper and middle parts of the Thelon River are more distant from human settlements and roads than any other location on our continent,” wrote Alex Hall.
On river trips, a routine is quickly established. Packing up camp each morning became a well-oiled machine. | Photo: Marcus Miller
By the halfway point on the trip, the outside world had completely faded from concern. Our daily routine had become second nature. Each day we tackled waking up, taking down camp, paddling out, snacking when we were hungry, and setting up camp again in the afternoon to rest or read or take hikes and see the beauty of wherever we had landed. I felt comfortable hiking out much farther from camp than I had in earlier days.
Our eighth day started cloudy and a little cold. Late August is autumn in the Barrenlands and while that provides relative darkness through the night and keeps some of the bug population in check, the land and weather are beginning their transition into winter. The next three days were forecasted to be the coldest on the trip, with one night dipping to zero degrees Celsius.
The water levels on the river were higher than normal. This meant features on the river were different than those in Jackpine’s notes. But this far, the Thelon had been manageable even for a complete novice like me.
With little ambient noise in the Barrenlands, even the smallest sounds can be heard from quite far. Many times I heard the sound of water churning over rocks and anticipated seeing a small waterfall spilling over the banks, only to find barely a creek tumbling forward to join the river. The approaching rapids were notably louder. The sound grew as we watched the Thelon in front of us wind between rising cliffs.
The second set of rapids had clearly changed since they had been recorded on the map. We pulled to the side, but didn’t bother scouting them the same way we did the previous set. The path through the middle was wide and clear. While the cliff sides had made the first set appear daunting, these rapids were flanked by familiar rising banks. My success with the first and second sets left me confident as we moved on to the third.
The rapids that were the source of so much trouble and misery. | Photo: Stuart McDonald
Into the river, out of the rain
We rafted the canoes together and discussed the map data we had on the final set of rapids. Colin and Louise would go first, followed by Stu and Ken, then Kim and Wendy, with Keith and I going last.
I watched Colin and Louise head through on the center-left, before dramatically indicating we needed to go right. From behind me, I heard Keith say, “Oh no, they’re going in…” Sure enough, the back of the lead canoe rose, pivoted and capsized along the right side.
There were three sections of this rapid, covering roughly 500 meters on the river with a large span between the second and third ledge. If we could navigate the first two sections successfully ourselves, that gap would be the first place we could attempt to get to Colin and Louise. The two canoes ahead of us moved to provide support.
“Stuart and Ken just went in too,” shouted Keith.
We eventually got all four of them to the side. We were off the water, but the nature of the rapids and rescue meant people were in the chilly tundra water for much too long. They needed to change and get warm.
Everyone who was able to immediately started setting up the Hilleberg and getting a fire going. We got the four shocked paddlers up the hill, sheltered and drinking warm soup to recover. The adrenaline was wearing off and the cold and wet was setting in. This was camp for the night.
I knew all my clothes and sleeping bag were completely soaked. I’d gotten complacent sealing my drybag and water had easily made its way inside. I knew I was lucky to not be fighting a chill to the core, but at that moment I counted it as the only blessing. My books were ruined and I’d lost the nightly sanctuary that was a warm sleep at the end of the day.
Hauling gear up to camp, I gave Colin a forced smile. It was as much to check in with him as it was a plea for some perspective. He looked at me and said, “The Thelon won today.”
Left to right: Ken, Stuart, Wendy, Colin, Louise, Marcus and Kim—cold but not dissuaded. | Photo: Keith Robertson
From left to right: Marcus, Wendy, Colin, Kim, Ken, Keith, Louise and Stuart hunkered down for breakfast in the Hilleberg. | Photo: Marcus Miller
We woke on day nine to find nothing any drier than the day before. The piddling rain through the night had kept the air humid and the cold wind did little to evaporate anything beyond what dripped out of our hanging effects.
Aside from the companionship, the food was the only thing fighting off despair during this darkest part of the trip.
Food somehow always tastes better when camping. Imagine salmon with pesto and portobello mushrooms, arugula and goat cheese salad, focaccia paninis, coffee cake and oatmeal, scalloped potatoes, and Moroccan stew. We agreed we ate more luxuriously on the Thelon than any of us did with full access to a kitchen and grocery store. We finished our meals with espresso cheesecake, peach crumble, vanilla mousse with dried raspberries and Baileys, and a collection of hot drinks to keep us warm through the days and evenings.
Back in our canoes after the rain, the Barrenlands were just as beautiful as when we had last seen them under the glow of the sun and the expansive blue skies. The pools were full, the ground was lush, and the autumn colors of the mosses in their reds and greens sparkled and breathed against the white sands and blue water. We stopped for lunch on the delta where the Thelon feeds into Eyeberry Lake from the southwest before continuing again to the north. Here we found Stuart’s lost bag from three days earlier, now almost 20 kilometers downriver from where he’d swam in the rapids.
From left to right: Louise, Wendy and Colin on the hike to a cairn built by Canadian geologist JW Tyrrell. | Photo: Keith Robertson
We found a beautiful spot on the east side of Eyeberry Lake to camp and take advantage of the now miraculous weather. All our clothes were immediately strewn across rocks, beaches, and makeshift clotheslines made from tent rope and tripods of balanced canoe paddles.
There were many times during the previous few days when I had felt defeated. Times I had thought I wasn’t cut out for the trip. I was too soft, too wet, too cold, too sad, too alone. It was too far, too much. There were times when I had felt afraid and times I would have quit if I could have.
Where else could I have been tested to such limits? In the face of what had been required of me, I finally understood why a trip like this was so important to everyone who had sought it out. This is what makes these trips life-changing.
I stopped taking notes. I knew I would have no difficulty remembering the sights and events and feelings that filled the last days of the trip.
Enjoying a clearer day on the river. | Photo: Marcus Miller
Riding high across the finish line
Our last travel day was only 25 kilometers to our take-out spot. We cleared Eyeberry Lake, which was slower progress without the river’s current to carry us, and then stopped for lunch where the Thelon began again.
From a distance, we could hear the sound of rushing and churning water grow louder. Wendy and Colin made it clear we would approach every section of rapids with caution and scout well ahead.
Before the first set of rapids, we pulled into an eddy on the right side of the river. Here, the Thelon threaded between two cliffsides, snaking west and then north again, hidden from our view by the rock walls.
The path forward looked exceptionally simple. The same high water levels that had complicated the rapids earlier had now washed out these ones nearly completely. The rocks on the right were far beneath the surface and the river ahead was undisturbed.
The canoes rocked, waves rose as we rode their tops, and I called out shallow points and navigation to Keith from the bow. My body had worked for nearly two weeks to be ready for these rapids. I gave a long celebratory whoop, loud and carefree as the current carried us to join the other paddlers. Our last hurdle.
I met the party for dinner at Bullock’s, the best fish restaurant in the middle of Yellowknife’s Old Town community.
We were loud and enjoyed cold beers and hot meals none of us had to cook. We found a place on the wall to sign, as is a custom at Bullock’s.
Left to right: Wendy, Colin, Marcus, Ken, Kim and Louise enjoying their “new selves” at Bullock’s Bistro in Yellowknife. | Photo: Stuart McDonald
Dinner felt like a reunion. Like familiar people meeting each other again in an unfamiliar way. We all looked mostly the same, albeit cleaned up and in fresh clothes.
In the silences between mouthfuls and memories, I realized I felt differently. I’d gotten myself ready for dinner the way I would have before, but the person looking back at me in the mirror was not the same. Only a few hours off the Thelon River, returning to the simplest of activities of normal life, I could already feel the ways the old me was not the same as who I was now.
Marcus Miller moved to the Northwest Territories in early 2020, enjoying the beautiful northern landscapes just outside Yellowknife. After falling in love with the serenity of the Barrenlands and the satisfaction of a full day of paddling, he’s confident this won’t be his last trip on the waters of the NWT.
This article was first published in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
Despite its remoteness, the Thelon is one of the easiest rivers of the north to paddle. And the views are some of the best. | Feature photo: Maria Stern
Start middle, head river-right and then keep paddling forever. | Feature photo: Rob Faubert
Looking back on 25 years of Rapid, I can’t help but feel nostalgic. A lot nostalgic. Now published as Paddling Magazine, I somehow have contributed to every single issue but one. I honestly don’t know how many articles this amounts to. As I attempt to look back over that span of time and memory, it becomes most of a lifetime; one spent around moving water and with the good people who find solace, joy and connection there.
I’ve made some modest predictions in this column over the years. Some have played out and some have not. I predicted freestyle kayaking would become its own thing, only loosely related to what the rest of us call kayaking. True. I asked why proven, popular boat designs are retired for better ones, and predicted boats like the RPM would be back. Hello half slice. I also predicted river rescue training would become a mandatory entry requirement to our sport. Wrong. I called for a recreation competition model of some sort, other than the Olympic slalom/class V/freestyle paradigms. Wrong on that too, at least so far.
Start middle, head river-right and then keep paddling forever. | Feature photo: Rob Faubert
I did not see the kid revolution coming, even though I was immersed in it the whole time. Somewhere along the way in my kayak school days we went from teaching the odd kid to paddle among the adults, to it being the other way around. The typical weekend now, on my rivers, is a parade of kids; some with parents, some with clubs or paddling programs. All having fun. Kids, combined with freestyle paddling, slowly unloaded the seriousness that pervaded whitewater in the preceding generations.
…the more they stay the same
Some things are a whole lot different, and some things are a whole lot the same.
The rivers are more or less unchanged; the same waves are still there and still give me the giggles when I spin to wathunk. This would be a good place to insert the often cited—in this magazine and elsewhere—Heraclitus quote: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” The fact these words are still recited today is the perfect case study for their meaning—namely the impermanence and duality of opposites—because although none of Heraclitus’ writing survived, his words still live on, having been carried on by others for the last 2,500 years.
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For us paddlers, any one place on a river appears to look the same, even over all these years, yet moments pass and can never be relived. A favorite wave breaks consistently and continuously, yet is made up of new water every single moment. Where I paddle and call home, amid ancient granite river ledges and rocks, that wave has been there since the last ice age, and hopefully will continue to break for many generations after I am gone. Time goes by, yet some things stay the same.
So many rivers and so many beautiful places. I used to keep a logbook of all the rivers I had paddled. I foolishly let it lapse, but even so it left off at something like over 200 different sections paddled. That seems fascinating to me, being permanently planted with a home and a family now, but every one of those rivers are a part of my life and who I am today. Heraclitus again.
Where I paddle and call home, amid ancient granite river ledges and rocks, that wave has been there since the last ice age, and hopefully will continue to break for many generations after I am long gone. Time goes by, yet some things stay the same.
This retrospect is not without sadness. Rapid publisher and now longtime good friend, Scott MacGregor, had asked me to contribute to issue one with an obituary for my best friend and whitewater video pioneer, Lynn Clark. This is a club to which you don’t want to belong—those with friends who lost their lives paddling. It was a life altering event for me, rivers of beauty and the joy of whitewater showing for the first time their black void that is always present, but rarely realized. In those intervening years I have lost more friends, not only to whitewater, but also to mental illness or addiction, proof that life and its problems find their way even to our graced little subculture of river people.
Bring on the next 25 years
I’m at a loss for any crystal ball predictions for the next quarter-century. That Rapid is still thriving after 25 years is unlikely and against the odds. That Scott still asks me to say something in it is even more implausible. Rapid is one of the few voices proving whitewater media is more than YouTube clips. Note: YouTube didn’t exist until six years after Rapid started.
I still guide and spend my summers on rivers—the one thread tying together the 25 years of stories that has stayed the same. But my paddling partners are now my teenage kids, who happen to be rapidly outstripping my ability and risk tolerance. I also have some real moral concerns about climate change and our paddling carbon footprint; I’ve no conclusions on that yet, though I am heartened when paddlers rally to defend our rivers when they come under threat.
In trying to capture this long view of 25 years, I feel immense gratitude. Along with the rivers and places, I am thankful for the things paddling has brought to my life. I met my wife while paddling. My best friends, I guide and teach with. As we float downstream on this current of life, I await seeing what is around the next bend.
Jeff Jackson is a risk management consultant and professor of outdoor adventure at Algonquin College. Alchemy first appeared in the Summer 2000 issue of Rapid.
This article was first published in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
Start middle, head river-right and then keep paddling forever. | Feature photo: Rob Faubert
Finding lines on Little Sauli Creek. | Feature photo: Frank Wolf
Alex and I hadn’t planned on starting our trip here a week ago. I’d originally arranged an 18-hour shuttle drive from Whitehorse to the Tsichu River high in the Mackenzie Mountains, but the washed out Canol Road forced us into this last-minute bush plane drop to an obscure little lake the charter company didn’t know anything about. Scanning the maps, this lake looked like our best shot.
It took a bit of convincing to get them to fly us here, wanting instead to deposit us at a lake that was eight kilometers away from the Tsichu. The prospect of beginning our 1,300-kilometer trip from here to Kugluktuk with a long, bludgeoning bushwhack portage was unpalatable, to say the least. Thankfully, they relented.
The opening gauntlet: Arctic expedition gets off to rocky start
Our pilot, Sauli, a Finnish expat who’d only been flying professionally for about a year, was keen on the adventure. After a two-hour flight over the misty mountains, the sliver of water came into view. At under a kilometer long the lake was barely big enough to land on, but looked clean enough for Sauli to be willing to give it a shot. As we banked in, we spotted the remains of an old cabin crumpled among the low willows, indicating this had been a landing zone in the past.
Finding lines on Little Sauli Creek. | Feature photo: Frank Wolf
The plane skimmed smoothly on the surface without a hitch, after which Sauli taxied us to the edge of the lake and dropped off our canoe and kit. He scooted back to Whitehorse, leaving us to work our way from the lake down a 1.5-kilometer-long mystery creek that would bring us finally to the Tsichu. For our own reference, we decided to name the lake Little Sauli Lake—though I would later find out it was called Lost Guide Lake—and the exit flume Little Sauli Creek.
We first pushed through the brush to inspect the flattened cabin—a dream of wilderness living now reduced to weathered gray boards scattered over the rusty old springs of a bed frame. “E.H. 1979” was carved into a footstool, hinting at the vintage of the structure and perhaps its builder.
“A remote writing retreat for Ernest Hemingway?” I mused. Perhaps not.
[ Plan your next northern canoeing expedition with the Paddling Trip Guide ]
Turning our attention to the creek, we followed it from the lake through the willows for about 50 meters before it turned a corner and dropped away—disappearing completely beneath a matrix of boulders and leaving us high and dry.
Thankfully, our loaded canoe had a T-Formex hull and slid fairly easily over the rocks, aided by gravity and the fresh energy of two people on day one of a canoe expedition. After grinding and grunting our way into a deepening valley over the course of an hour, Little Sauli Creek eventually reappeared over a flat gravel braid melding into its confluence with the Tsichu, where the fresh tracks of a grizzly and her cub wound along the bank. Flowing fast and narrow, a two-day paddle along the Tsichu’s course would bring us to the broad waters of the Keele River.
Glancing back at where we had come from, it looked like there was no creek at all, just a wall of green we somehow descended on a magic carpet of boulders. Our journey had just begun, but we’d overcome the opening gauntlet and were already immersed in a new world.
This article was first published in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
Finding lines on Little Sauli Creek. | Feature photo: Frank Wolf
From wild waters to wild flowers. | Feature photo: Aimee Hodgins
A few years ago my wife and I were walking in Ely, Minnesota when we came upon an unusual flower bed. Propped up against the wall of a repurposed bank building was an old wood-canvas canoe, overflowing with zinnias.
I’ve seen plenty of boats turned into flowerpots through the years, but this one struck me. Maybe it was the fact that it was a wood-canvas canoe, quietly living out its final years against a brick wall, slowly decaying back into the earth. I like wood-canvas canoes, and I couldn’t help wondering if this one might have been saved. Brought back to life to travel the North Woods once again, rather than filled with dirt.
Pushing daisies: Where good boats go to die
Where had it traveled? Who had paddled it? Certainly, it had spent some time in the Boundary Waters. Maybe it had made it all the way to Hudson Bay, riding home in a freight car after a months long adventure. Or maybe it was a cottage canoe, dragged out from under the porch for summer weekends with laughing children. We’ll never know. Dead boats tell no tales.
Thinking back on that old canoe I wonder: where do old boats go to die?
From wild waters to wild flowers. | Feature photo: Aimee Hodgins
Obviously, some of them end their lives as flowerpots. Or signs. More than one kayak has made its way up onto the wall of a shop to announce to all the world, “Get your kayaks here!”
A range of resting places
When a tornado ripped through Northern Wisconsin years ago and hit the Bear Paw Resort, it flung their whitewater rental fleet up into the trees, ending the lives of dozens of boats. Today, many of these old kayaks still hang in the air, bolted to a “kayak tree” that serves at once as an advertisement and, perhaps, as a talisman to ward off future storms.
Luckier kayaks might end their days as museum pieces. Twenty years ago, while visiting Nigel Dennis’ kayak school in Wales, a friend and I came across a sea kayak that had been used in the first kayak circumnavigation of Norway. A deal was struck and the old Nordkapp was boxed up and shipped across the Atlantic. Today it hangs in the rafters of Madison, Wisconsin’s Rutabaga Paddlesports, along with a handful of other historic canoes and kayaks.
Down the end of a long gravel road in rural Pennsylvania you’ll find another informal kayak museum. This one at Starrk Moon Kayaks, where Brad Nelson has been collecting prototype Pyranha whitewater kayaks for decades. If you’re ever interested in a trip down whitewater memory lane, Cold Cabin Road is the place to go.
Waiting to part the waters again
Then there are roads closer to home. How many of us grew up with an old aluminum canoe in our garage? Purchased during the height of canoe mania in the 1970s. Rarely paddled. Never growing old. Discarded perhaps, but not dead. Just dormant. Quietly resting until adventure calls once more.
Even battered old boats are willing to answer the call, if we care to ask. The COVID years saw resurrection upon resurrection of ancient discarded canoes and kayaks. Along with calls to manufacturers asking after the parts needed to return them to service. Countless good boats were saved from an early death by our need to get outside, away from the restrictions and fears brought on by the Pandemic.
In the end, though, even the best boats will meet their end. The cracked creek boat that’s been welded one too many times sits mildew and moss covered behind a cinder block garage in the Southeast. A sleek composite kayak is snapped in two by an unsecured bow line. An unlucky canoe ends its life in an instant, wrapped around a rock in a rapid that its owner never intended to run. Or, maybe as a flowerpot. Quietly returning to the dust from whence it came. Fading into the mists of paddling history.
Q: Have you ever thrown out one of your boats?
Q: Have you ever given a boat away as a gift or donation?
Q: Have you ever repurposed one of your boats?
Reader feedback on old boats
We asked readers about their retired boats. Here’s what they had to say.
Q: If you’ve ever repurposed one of your boats, tell us how!
Shelves in our storefront, drilled to our entry signs, raised bed gardens. —@missouririveroutfitters
Gave to sister for flower bed. Aluminum canoe leaked bad. —@5863.chris
Canoe shelf. —@daytodaytrey
Q: For what reasons have you gotten rid of boats?
I broke up with them and traded them in for ones that better fit my needs. —@melissaannestudio
Crack down the center, won’t survive more rental customer abuse, too pretty to use. —@missourriveroutfitters
Didn’t paddle it and found the right buyer. —@tracelessintiveden
Wanted something better. —@matthewrandall004
Not enough room for all of them! —@lintondoug
Got new boats as an upgrade, usually sold or gave away the old boat. —@mattylerp.outdoors
Morning lake tours just got better. | Feature photo: Dorothy O’Connor
It’s easy to see why the Pioneer 2.0 is ISLE’s most popular SUP. This beginner-friendly inflatable board is suited to a variety of applications ranging from day touring to fishing, easy surfing and yoga, and has excellent stability making it a great platform to learn from. From that short description alone, I figured it would be an ideal paddleboard for my mom to add to her ever-growing collection of kayaks, canoes and sailboats at her waterfront home.
I chose a frosty morning in early May to introduce her to the Pioneer. It only took me a few moments to unpackage the board from its surprisingly-comfortable-to-carry, expedition-size backpack. The paddleboard, pump, three-piece paddle and accessory drybag containing a removable fin, leash, valve-tightening tool and spare parts all pack up tidily inside a pack that wouldn’t seem out of place alongside a commuter on a subway or city bus, let alone inside the trunk of a compact car.
I warmed up by using the double action hand pump to inflate the Pioneer to the recommended 15 PSI in about five minutes of effort. Tip: Unless you’re musclebound, start on the double action setting and move to single action when you reach about seven PSI to reduce the resistance and make it easier to finish inflating the board. As usual, I approached the board building task through trial and error. Meanwhile, Mom carefully read the instructions and helped me figure out how to tighten the high-pressure valve with the provided tool. This crucial step would’ve saved me the effort of inflating the board a second time after most of the air escaped during my first attempt at sealing the valve.
On the water performance
As expected, my first impression was the reassuring stability of the 34-inch-wide board when I launched onto the recently ice-free waters of Lake Huron’s North Channel. Drop stitch construction increases the stiffness and improves the efficiency of the all-around, 10-foot, six-inch board. The modest length of the ISLE means it can’t match the efficiency of a longer touring board—and the cruising speed of this general purpose inflatable SUP will never match that of a hard-shell. However, the Pioneer toured easily enough on a quick lap of the white pine clad, smoothrock islands adjacent to my mom’s place.
Morning lake tours just got better. | Feature photo: Dorothy O’Connor
Always listen to mom when she tells you to read the instructions first. | Photo: Conor Mihell & Dorothy O’Connor
Two smaller built-in fins and a longer removal central fin contribute to excellent tracking; you can also choose to go without the central fin for greater maneuverability and control in waves. The broad width and beefy six-inch thickness allows you to transfer your weight to engage the edge to carve turns. There’s plenty of volume to accommodate an additional human or canine passenger on board.
Rigging and outfitting
The Pioneer is surprisingly well-equipped for a thrifty $795 kit. Fore and aft tie-down points provide convenient places to attach drybags full of day and fishing gear. The supplied paddle is reasonably light and stiff with a carbon shaft, and adjusts to fit a wide range of adult sizes, including enough length to accommodate my six-foot, three-inch height.
While I was paddling, I thought about how the Pioneer’s convenient take-down and highly mobile package would be perfect for riding glassy waves in the warm water on a vacation in some faraway place.
Two permanent side bite fins and one removable center fin make adjusting the board for varying conditions easy. | Photo: Conor Mihell & Dorothy O’Connor
On this day, my mom was happy to stay cozy in her puffy jacket and take photos from the dock while I cruised the shoreline and pushed my luck with silly yoga poses while floating offshore. The cold water provided a good incentive to keep my core tight and senses finely tuned. I tend to gravitate to paddling canoes and sea kayaks; however, the Pioneer made me reconsider the simplicity of paddleboarding and the full body workout it provides, along with reminding me of the great vantage point standing affords. After years of sit-down paddling, I felt myself being drawn back to standing up.
The final verdict
A late May heatwave extending into June gave my mom ample opportunity to enjoy the Pioneer. “This board works for me for several reasons,” she told me. “First, it is very stable and since I’m not yet comfortable with my balance on the board, having a stable platform helps with my confidence and performance. The leash is comfortable and doesn’t get in the way of my movements.”
Mom also highlighted the Pioneer’s easy to manage 24-pound weight. “It is surprisingly light and easy to grip,” she said. “It’s far easier than moving my kayak to the water.”
Finally, she offered a simple plain-language summary capturing the Pioneer exactly: “If you’re just starting out, this board will work well for you.”
Highlands Ranch, Colo. (October 4, 2023) — Calibre Engineering, Inc. (Calibre) and S2O Design & Engineering (S2O) have united to expand service capabilities and resources. Together as a part of the Calibre family, Calibre and S2O will provide comprehensive water resources design and engineering for whitewater parks, in-river engineering, swiftwater rescue training facilities, and stream restoration throughout Colorado, across the United States, and globally.
“Calibre is passionate about building an elite small business with a focus on exploration and environmental stewardship,” said Gregory Murphy, president and owner of Calibre. “We have been longtime admirers of Scott and his work with S2O, particularly his focus on accessible water recreation and responsible waterway design and construction. Uniting with S2O gives us the ability to bring invigorating work to our staff and further our commitment to integrating rivers and waterways into communities.”
Feature Image: Calibre Engineering
Scott Shipley, founder and president of S2O, said: “S2O has built a reputation for exceptional design and customer service in the whitewater space. Our rapid growth and demand put us in the unique position of wanting to grow quickly in a sustainable way. Uniting with Calibre gives us additional resources and capacity to serve more clients and bring whitewater to even more communities across the globe.”
Whitewater parks are becoming event and activity hubs and the focal points of their communities. These destination venues turn often under-utilized urban areas into true recreational amenities.
Shipley, a three-time slalom kayak Olympian, and S20 are responsible for designing the lion’s share of recirculating whitewater parks in the country and overseas, including the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte, NC; Montgomery Whitewater in Montgomery, AL; and the Lee Valley Whitewater Centre in London.
Image: Calibre Engineering
Calibre Engineering, Inc. is a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) driven to provide support, service, and exploration in civil, water resources, and structural engineering. Founded in 2000, their team has collaborated on prominent projects across the country in the private, public, and federal sectors. They are passionate about integrating rivers and nature into communities in a tangible way. With offices in Colorado, California, and North Carolina, the firm has supported more than $1.5 billion in development and infrastructure design and construction. Learn more at www.calibre-engineering.com.
S2O Design & Engineering brings unique and innovative whitewater parks and swiftwater rescue facilities to life. Through engineering design and construction support, the S2O team enriches communities with adventure sports, outdoor activities, and endless opportunities for recreation. S2O is trusted around the globe as the leader in traditional in-stream whitewater parks, pumped whitewater parks, and river engineering.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have imagined.” —Henry David Thoreau | Feature photo: David Jackson
For every canoe trip I’ve been on, I’ve planned 10 more. Maybe that seems excessive, like I’m wasting time or not tripping enough. Okay, the latter is probably always true. But to me it’s not excessive when I get so much enjoyment out of just looking at maps.
I get laughed at every year when I’m asked what I want for Christmas. Maps of canoe trip areas are always onthe list. In the map drawer of my gear closet there are lots of maps of places I’ve yet to go. Some I have no intent of going anytime soon, maybe never. But that doesn’t stop me from taking the maps out once in a while and planning new routes; for future trips, I think, or maybe just to have something to dream about by the woodstove in February.
Losing our way: Map reading skills are on the decline
According to a recent poll conducted by Ordnance Survey, three-quarters of adults in the United Kingdom can’t read a map. The other quarter must be canoe trippers, like me.
It begs the question, what do maps look like to people who can’t read them?
I’m willing to bet what the poll actually meant was that people can’t use maps anymore, at least not independently. We still use maps in the sense that we have GPS devices showing us the map and telling us how to get there. But how many people can do the navigating themselves? I think wilderness trippers are probably the few remaining folks who can.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have imagined.” —Henry David Thoreau | Feature photo: David Jackson
The ultimate choose your own adventure
If map reading is a lost art, so must be map dreaming. If you can’t read a map, why would you look at a map? And if you aren’t looking at maps, how else do you dream up paddling adventures?
I know reading trip reports and guide books is a popular way to plan trips, but I much prefer to look at maps first.
[ Plan your next canoe trip with a map!—and the Paddling Trip Guide ]
I want to scan maps for myself and see potential routes jump out at me. I want to spend time wondering about that lake or that portage. I want to stitch together a route that makes sense to me. It feels more personal that way, a dream I cooked up and not one served to me. Thanks anyway, Google. It is more magical when I actually get out there and see the places I wondered about. Even if those places end up being quite different from how they appeared to be on the map. Or in my mind.
My last canoe trip, I spent a lot of time beforehand wondering about this 2.4-kilometer low-maintenance portage we’d be undertaking in the middle of the fourth day. Turns out, the portage was in fine condition. It was a little overgrown in places but was easy enough to follow. It was the 50 meters before the portage that was the problem.
A light snow year and hot, dry spring had left the edges of the pond a thick, sludgy, gooey mess. We could neither paddle through nor walk on top. To make matters worse, it was starting to rain and we could hear thunder rumbling in the distance.
The unfortunate person in the bow of the first canoe—me—quickly deduced through science—firsthand experience—that while standing or walking caused you to sink up to your waist, by running you could stay on top of the sludge. Mostly. There is video evidence of the whole ordeal, which is already being pulled out every time this story is retold. Which is often—it’s the part of the trip we talk about the most. But the map had said nothing about this tricky take-out.
As Jeff McMurtie, cofounder of the camping map company Jeff’s Maps and now Unlostify, put it in his TED Talk, “Your opportunities are limited by the knowledge you have. If you don’t know something, then you can’t do it.”
That’s a pretty good argument for why maps are important. Jeff and his maps provide us with the knowledge we need to make trips happen.
But the other good things about maps, Jeff, is that they don’t tell us everything. Because if we did know certain things about a route, we might not do it. Like, say, if we knew a certain unnamed pond was full of muck instead of water. I’m glad maps don’t tell us everything. Maps leave just enough to imagination, wonder and true adventure.
Digital editor Marissa Evans is filling in for Kaydi Pyette as editor of Paddling Magazine.
This article was first published in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions, or browse the archives.
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have imagined.” —Henry David Thoreau | Feature photo: David Jackson
FORT MORGAN, ALABAMA — We have an overall winner of the Great Alabama 650! Trey Reaves (Time: 6 days, 1 hour, and 39 minutes) crossed the finish line at Ft. Morgan at 3:30 PM on Friday, October 6th, taking the Overall Winner title and the male solo first-place prize. Trey from Florence, Alabama, is the first Alabamian to win the title and was welcomed by family, crew, and racing staff yesterday at the finish line. He was closely followed by Bobby Johnson (Time: 6 days, 5 hours, and 50 minutes), last year’s winner, and Salli O’Donnell (Time: 6 days, 6 hours, and 40 minutes), who came less than an hour later to claim the female-solo first first-place title.
Bobby Johnson and Salli O’Donnell were the first five-time finishers of the Great Alabama 650 and received the 3250 Achievement Award. This award pays tribute to the 3250 miles each racer has paddled in the AL650 over the years and commemorates the achievement through an alligator sculpture made of Coosa River clay.
Race Update: All twelve racers passed through Check Point 2: Millers Ferry (Mile 417/650) just North of Camden, AL, well before the cutoff time. The final race section typically takes racers the longest from Spanish Fort down past Fairhope and on to Ft. Morgan, primarily due to the changing bay conditions and open water environment. Matt Taylor & Myles Sumerlin, the next team headed for the finish are at mile 642.0 mile. As of October 7, at noon, the next individual racer, Mirko Pruefer, was near mile 580.5. There are still nine boats left in the race, and they have until October 10th to make it to the finish line.
Racers compete in one of three divisions– male solo, female solo, and two-person team. Participants can use kayaks, canoes, or stand-up paddleboards interchangeably throughout the event. Race staff and volunteers closely monitor the racers’ progress to share the latest information. Fans can see live updates and photos on our Facebook and Instagram (@GreatAlabama650). Spectators who spot racers can post their pictures under the hashtag #AL650, and up-to-the-minute information is located online at AL650.com.
Trey Reaves, Overall Winner of the Great Alabama 650
Male Solo- 1st Place, Time: 6 days 1 hours 31 mins
Bobby Johnson, Male Solo- 2nd Place
5 Time Finisher- 3250 Achievement Award, Time: 6 days, 5 hours, and 50 minutes
Salli O’Donnell, Female Solo- 1st Place
5 Time Finisher- 3250 Achievement Award, Time: 6 days, 6 hours, and 40 minutes
Photos Courtesy: Alabama Scenic River Trail (ASRT).
This article was first published in the 2023 Paddling Trip Guide. 
