MCA HUT! Archive

Bein’ a slave to fashion is tough. But it’s even tougher when you end up bein’ a fashion victim. It can be painful, too.

Like it or not, whitewater paddling has become something of a fashion sport. It’s sad it had to come to this. But I guess it was inevitable. Once business targets you as a potential market, it’s just a greased slide from there to the pits of consumerism and fashion consciousness.

Not but what a lotta good gear has evolved in the process, mind you. But used to be a guy could just toss on his oldest, rattiest clothes, grab his boat and go paddle. What fashion there was in that was a scruffy and accessible mix of second-hand and army surplus. If you’re of a certain age, you can probably remember havin’ to repeatedly rescue your favorite sneakers from the trash ‘cause your mom would throw them out every time you came home from a canoe trip. Where paddling accouterments were concerned, your oldest friends were your best friends.

Back then, a man was known by the age of his gear. Old, worn equipment lent you an aura of experience and mastery even if you didn’t have a clue what you were doin’. You wouldn’t be caught dead with anything shiny or new, especially if you didn’t have a clue what you were doin’. Ah, those were the days!

Times have changed. Anymore, paddling seems to be as much about lookin’ good as it is about skill. Paddlers are turnin’ into a pack of image-conscious gear heads and clothes horses. Gotta always have the newest and the best. Gotta have that paddle-macho look, the Look that Madison Avenue has been using to sell everything from soft drinks to SUVs.

Funny thing is, the ladies don’t seem to be afflicted by this fashion bug half as much as the men are. Maybe that’s because so little paddling gear is actually made for women that for them, fashion takes a back seat to findin’ something that doesn’t fit too terrible. Or maybe they just intrinsically know that to the rest of the boating community they look good no matter how they’re attired.

No, paddler chic is definitely a guy thing. It’s a manly look. After all, what other sport lets you go out in public with a knife strapped to your chest? And it’s gone to extremes. I know of a guy who bought all new paddling gear to color coordinate with his kayak; helmet, PFD, paddling jacket... even his dry suit is a color match. And I think he got a custom paint job on his truck, too, so it wouldn’t clash with his boat on the way to and from the river. That’s what I call extreme kayaking. Or at least, extreme fashion kayaking. But I digress.

What we were talkin’ about here was the Whitewater Look, that youthful, paddler’s panache that seems to be such a hot commodity right now. The Look is part attitude, that slightly swaggering, self-assured stance that fairly shouts, "I’m in charge of my fate and maybe yours, too, if you don’t watch it." And it’s part gear, from the glittering, Kevlar, bomber helmets to the beefy, physique-enhancing, high float PFDs to the racks of rescue armaments; ropes, knives, and chains of carabiners. And it’s part style, that intangible, ephemeral paddler chic.

Style, whether on the river or off, is something I recognize without entirely understanding or trying to attain. But then, I don’t have to. One of the few advantages of bein’ an old goat like me is that nobody expects you to be fashionable. I’m off the hook.

Not so with some of my more youthful paddling companions. Take Nathan, for example. He’s a twenty-something C-boater. And he’s pretty darned good at it. Just don’t tell him I said so, he’s already got a full quota of ego. He’s also got the attitude. And he’s got the gear. And he’s got the style. He’s got the Look; a hair boater’s hair boater all the way down to the tip of his ponytail.

That’s right, I said ponytail. Now, I always thought that ponytails for guys went outta fashion shortly after George Washington left office. But what do I know? They seem to be enjoyin’ something of a revival in whitewater circles these days. In fact, the Samson look has been havin’ enough of a renaissance in some locales, say, the Southeast, that the ponytail has somehow become emblematic of manliness on the river.

Seems like half the guys aspiring to whitewater greatness down there are wearin’ their tresses long and pulled back. You’d think it was the whitewater equivalent of a black belt or something. Everybody wants one. In fact, in North Carolina alone (according to highly unofficial statistics) WalMart sells more of those little, elastic, ponytail doodads to river guides than they do to grade school girls. It’s a fashion trend to watch.

Well, young Nathan aspires to whitewater greatness with all the youthful ardor that can be packed into a C-boater who’s got enough skill to cover all his high stakes bets in the rapids, at least so far. And to broadcast his river god status to the world at large, he’s let his locks grow long and pulls ‘em back into a tail. I think he secretly harbors delusions that this makes him look virile and attractive. But I’ve got news for him: girls generally don’t fall for guys who have prettier hair than they do.

Besides, there’s a price to pay for bein’ a trend-setter, or even a trend-follower, for that matter. And sometimes it’s levied as a kind of retroactive excise tax, as Nathan found out once up at Sauk Rapids.

I don’t know what possessed us to go surfin’ on the Mississippi in the middle of December. But Sauk Rapids was one of the last bits of open water left to us that year. So we musta been thinkin’ it’d be our last whitewater fling of the season before Winter’s big freeze was complete.

It was pretty darned cold. We were all of us havin’ ice problems of one kind or another. They ran the gamut from icicles in mustaches to sprayskirts freezin’ to cockpit coamings. And just to prove that open boaters really do always have it tougher, Brad took a break from his OC1 only to discover that the relief zipper of his dry suit had frozen shut.

But Nathan was stoically sufferin’ through his own, unique purgatory of ice. He was playin’ the hole in the middle of the river, side surfin’ doin’ 360s, and toyin’ with verticality despite the freezing weather. Occasionally he’d flip and roll, apparently impervious to the gelid water and frigid air.

What wasn’t apparent to us, or him, either, to begin with, was that every time he came up from a roll, that long, wet ponytail of his would commence to freeze to the back of his PFD. It was cold enough to firmly affix all those loose ends and stray hairs to the life jacket with rivets of ice. Then, next time he was doin’ a 360 and had to turn his head to look at the hole, he’d rip a few more hairs outta his head. It had to be a painful experience. But C-boaters are accustomed to pain. So he kept on playin’.

Next time I saw him, though, the ponytail was bobbed short. Guess Nathan got himself a winter haircut. Most guys’ll get themselves a short haircut to help ‘em deal with the heat of summer. But Nathan got his to help him deal with the ice of winter. And I guess that makes sense. After all, what guy isn’t sensitive to the issue of premature hair loss? Besides, there’s a limit to how much anyone should suffer to be chic.
Well, ‘til next time, keep your paddle wet and your hair dry. And keep in touch. Drop me a line c/o Rich Furman and Morgan MacBain, 901 East Geranium Avenue, St. Paul MN 55106 or editor@canoe-kayak.org. Let me know if you’ve ever witnessed someone bein’ a fashion victim: you don’t have to admit it was you. Remember, Uncle Wally promises to 1) tell the truth so no one would ever believe it anyway and 2) never reveal your true identity to anyone, not even Vidal Sassoon.