From McCoy’s to Champlain, tight-knit groups of paddlers have been passing hushed whispers around about the possibility of an untapped inner-city monster wave on the Ottawa River.
Every now and then when the water runs high, rumours of this urban legend bubble to the surface. Since early sightings more than two years ago staff from the Ottawa Kayak School have joined in the search for this elusive Bigfoot. Patiently waiting and watching, it was said to graze by some old mill ruins near the Deschenes Rapids section of the Ottawa River, on the Quebec side.
Although difficult to fathom any kind of secret on one of the busiest whitewater rivers in the world and a two-time host of the World Freestyle Championships, pro paddler Mariann Saether got caught up in the hunt.
“It was being compared to the infamous Buseater or a larger Garburator and it seemed too good to be true,” she says.
But lo and behold this spring the river swelled to 4.6 on the nearby river gauge, providing perfect conditions to flush the beast from hiding… almost.
The wave lurks within the stonewalled ruins of the mill, an impossible scout from shore.
“It forms in the ruins and has some dangerous consequences—the river flows into some dead- end stone walls if you don’t make your ferry out— but all things aside the wave looked fantastic,” says Saether. “It is amazing because it is huge, powerful, and has a lot of air potential.”
The wave is formed as swelling overflow goes through the ruins and over a stone ledge. The flow picks up speed as it is constricted by the walls. Two reactionaries lead the way into a green wall of water, an approach Saether describes as similar to looking down a bowling alley.
Missing the small eddy on the right after the wave results in a 20-minute walk back to the top to start all over again.
Now that the controversy of the feature’s existence has been settled, the next to resolve is the name. Some are calling it Heavy D for the Deschenes Rapids, others call it the Ruins Wave.
This article first appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Rapid Magazine.
