We hardly noticed the rain during the night. The trees must have done a good job of sheltering us because when I crawled out of my tent in the morning I was disappointed to see the rain persisting. It had let up significantly from the day before, but that wasn’t saying much. Yesterday, the still-potent tail end of hurricane Frances had rumbled overtop of us as we spent our first day on the Bonaventure River.
I thought back to the news reports I had seen on television before boarding the train to come to Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. Frances had just ravaged Florida, leaving 34 dead in her wake. The fact that she had lost her hurricane status by the time we encountered her was little consolation. She was still packing the sort of punch that only Mother Nature can deliver.
By mid-afternoon, the river had started to rise noticeably. The Bonaventure’s nor- mally gin-clear waters had taken on a brownish tinge.
While the others snuggled in their damp sleeping bags, I walked toward the bank to look at the river and heard what sounded like a freight train roaring through the valley.
The Bonaventure had been transformed. It’s ranked as one of the 10 most limpid rivers in the world but today it was a foaming mass of violent brown water. It looked like a chocolate milkshake in a blender gone berserk—except this milkshake was rising six feet above the banks and flowing freely throughout the forest.
Every eddy had disappeared. Floating tree trunks and branches raced past at an alarming speed. Though I’ve been pad- dling rivers for 30 years, this normally intermediate river was a terrifying sight. I thought about the rest of the team—most were only novices. We were in pretty deep.
I heard a noise behind me in the bush and turned to see our guide, Gilles Brideau, emerging from a small clearing a little further downstream. Though small and wiry, this enthusiastic French-Canadian pumps out more energy than a Hydro-Québec mega-project. He’s been guiding trips with his outfitting company Cime Aventure for 16 years. With sharp eyes gleaming beneath an ever-present weathered leather hat, Gilles looks every bit the backwoods pioneer.
Gilles was uncharacteristically subdued as we surveyed the rabid river. The canoes he had so wisely fastened to some trees were now floating around on the edge of the forest, tugging at their ropes.
Gilles and I took a walk down the bank to scout the next kilometre or so of river, bushwhacking down the left bank and stopping wherever there was a vantage point. As the river swept around a long left bend, a tiny green island made a feeble attempt to disrupt the current. With emphatic language that brought some colour to the grey morning, Gilles explained how this patch of flooded trees was usually an island big enough for a campsite.
As we continued our reconnaissance my anxiety progressed like the rain trickling under my rainjacket and creeping down the back of my neck.
There were large brown wave trains in the middle of the main stream and, to the sides, massive whirlpools and boils confused the current. Any eddies large enough to gather the group and prepare for the next section of river were nowhere to be seen.
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.
It’s like those trapeze artists on a high wire. No matter how confident you are in your abilities, there’s always an element of risk and it’s nice to have a safety net. Looking down this river nearly devoid of eddies, I didn’t see much safety, let alone a net. Fanciful though it might have been, I imagined myself swim- ming all the way down to the mouth of the river and out into the Baies de Chaleurs.
Bringing my attention back to the task at hand, I leaned into my strokes and, after a few moments of shouting encouragement through clenched teeth, the last canoe slid into the slower current on the other side of the river.
I was relieved to think the crux was over, until I realized that even something simple like stopping would be dicey on this river. I paddled ahead of the group and reached the bridge.
Fortunately, there was a small bay that formed a reasonably sized eddy where salmon fisherman launched their boats. My partner, Sophie, and I set up early and punched into the calm water behind the bridge abutment. We jumped out, secured our canoe and waded out to the edge of the eddy to catch the oncoming boats.
One by one, we wrangled the canoes in by grabbing their painters and swinging them into the eddy. When the last canoe was in, Gilles pushed his hat back a little and I saw that the pattern of weather-worn creases in his face had changed from worried to relieved.
Gilles burrowed into his personal bag of tricks and pulled out a satellite telephone to contact base camp. The happy bus, an old school bus painted in the red, white and blue tricolour of this proudly Acadian region, would pick us up in two hours.
With an emerging sun punctuating our safe arrival, the group began trying to make sense of their first whitewater experience. Down by the water’s edge, I noticed Gilles and Christian in a huddle and strolled down to meet them.
Christian, a confident, easy-going young guide who has worked for Gilles for several seasons wanted to run the rest of the river and was looking for a partner. Before I could stop myself, I pulled on my lifejacket again and grabbed a paddle. Christian gestured toward the bow of the boat and I nodded. Soon we were waving adieu to the group and ferrying our way back into the muddy current.
Christian has been guiding on this river for years but he had never seen it this high, not even in spring flood. He’d point out land- marks and tell me what they normally looked like and I’d marvel at how watersheds can collect and discharge so much water.
I pulled out my GPS and shook my head. The satellites were clocking us at 19 kilometres per hour. We were 40 kilometres upriver of Cime Aventure’s base camp. A distance that would take some groups two days to cover would take us two hours. There were, howev- er, a few things to turn our attention to before pulling out. The rapids in this section were normally class II and III. It was impossible to predict whether they would be completely flooded and washed out, or larger and more difficult. A flooded river is an unpredictable thing.
Christian was sure the highlight (or perhaps lowlight) of the journey would be where the Duval River drained into the Bonaventure. This tributary would be carrying a huge volume of water, wood and debris, which would pile into the main stream of the Bonaventure, creating massive standing waves, swirling boils and river-wide holes.
As we approached the Duval we passed mobile trailers floating in the woods, swamped fishing boats and even a couple of kayaks hauled up into the bush. We ploughed into some bushes just below the kayaks to see if anyone needed assistance, but there was nobody to be found. It looked like a group had abandoned their trip and taken an overland route.
I began to weigh the pros and cons of such a plan, but Christian read my mind, “We have no choice, Jim,” he said. “We’re running it.”
I knew we actually did have a choice, but I also knew neither of us would rather exercise the overland option. I happily resigned myself to the situation, fully aware that I was here for no other reason than the condition from which
I suffer. It’s called foot-in-mouth disease. Every time I have the opportunity to avoid trouble by keeping my mouth shut I usually end up opening it and shoving my foot firmly into it. It has gotten me into trouble before. Why did I suggest sea kayaking through walrus-infested waters in the Arctic last year? Did I have to insist on camping close to fresh bear scat in Temagami? Would this day turn out any better than those?
As the Duval entered on our left, the familiar taste of my feet was replaced by the earthy taste of mud as the Bonaventure crashed over the bow and into my face. I was only aware of moments of lurching tippiness as the canoe heaved over—and through—the waves and holes. Upright but almost swamped, we steered the canoe into what passed for calm water below the confluence. The bottom of our canoe was full of water so brown I couldn’t see my feet below. Busy bailing out the bow, I took Christian at his word when he told me he had leaned hard into a few huge braces, saving us from flipping more than once.
With the added volume of the Duval, we descended all the faster and tore through the last of the kilometres to the base. I was sure we would arrive before the rest of the group, but as we approached the floating dock I saw arms waving us in. I couldn’t help but notice they were only using one arm to wave. The team was two beers ahead of us and it was time to catch up.
They’d decided that with one of the world’s clearest river’s running so muddy, we would drink a special toast. And we did, with La Fin du Monde, one of Quebec’s darkest and strongest beers.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2005 issue of Canoeroots Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Canoeroots’ print and digital editions here.
