MCA HUT! Archive

If you’re gonna spend any time at all in the Great Outdoors, it pays to learn how to read the signs.

Now, I’m not talkin’ here about signs like NEXT SERVICES 15 MILES or EAT HERE-GET GAS or those legendary Burma Shave jingles. I’m talkin’ about the myriad and mostly subtle signs given off by Mother Nature herself. They’re usually not as flashy or as obvious as the other kind, but they can be every bit as important. And, as with any other lady, you can get yourself into a heap of trouble for not payin’ attention to her.

Some folks are really good at this sort of thing. They are the ones who somehow manage to notice everything; who else’s been around, what kinda clouds are in the sky, when the moon rises, where the wind’s shifting, which way is up, and why things are the way they are.

But those folks are in a definite minority. Let’s face it: it takes a whole lot of livin’ outdoors to be able to pick up on all the subtle nuances of Nature. And the fella who can tell the weather’s changin’ just by sniffin’ the breeze is an increasingly rare oddity. Most of us can’t tell it’s gonna rain ‘til the tent starts leakin’.

Bodies of water have their own, special set of signs. And the seasoned paddler knows how to correctly interpret them. But just ‘cause we can do it, doesn’t mean we will. Ugly truth is, we often get so involved with the pleasures of paddling that we ignore the obvious. This is especially true of those of us who paddle whitewater. We’ll get so intent on surfin’ a wave or playin’ a hole that a sign’d hafta whack us over the head to get us to notice. That’s why we wear helmets.

My buddy, George, falls solidly in that knows-better-does-it-anyway-and-so-far-gets-away-with-it subgroup of paddlers. As long as there’s a patch of open water big enough for his kayak, he’s out paddling on it, whether that is, strictly speaking, a good idea or not. He likes it, so who’s to argue?
George called me up one chilly-bright April day and suggested that we while away a few hours playin’ on the Vermillion River. I’d never paddled there before. But he made it sound easy and enticing; a nice park and play spot with the ice out and the water up. Ignorance bein’ bliss, at least temporarily, I went along.

In theory, park and play is a pretty cushy way to paddle. You just pull up to a favorite play spot on a favorite river, park your car, put your boat on the water and enjoy yourself for as long as you want. No complicated, time-consuming shuttles. No long stretches of flatwater. No havin’ to find the take-out after dark. It sounds pretty darned easy... in theory.

Then we got to the Vermillion and practice over-ruled theory. The parking part went OK. But getting our boats to the water proved to be a bigger odyssey than I’d anticipated. Standin’ there at the brink of the gorge watchin’ the river plunge abruptly over a 20 foot falls beneath us, it first occurred to me that it was gonna be a heckuva long carry down to the water. George had artfully left the portage part outta his park and play scenario.

What with the roar of the falls and the whine of the flour mill which towered imposingly above the cliff top across the river from us, I could barely hear George assurin’ me that this was gonna be worth the effort. There bein’ no way, short of flyin’, down the sheer cliff at our feet, I doggedly followed him downstream along the rim of the canyon, ever hopeful of an easy way down to the water.

We eventually came to the path that angled down into the gorge. But I wouldn’t call it easy. It was narrow and steep and still packed with snow. The April sun wasn’t high enough to shine very far down into the narrow chasm and it wasn’t reachin’ this south wall of the canyon yet at all. Vermillion Falls, roaring as it was with snowmelt, was still flanked with big fangs of ice. Winter was gonna be holdin’ out for quite some time in this deep defile. Maybe it was tryin’ to tell us something.

I started off draggin’ my kayak down the hard-packed snow on the trail. But gravity bein’ what it is and friction bein’ virtually non-existent on compacted snow, it wasn’t long before my kayak was almost draggin’ me. I resisted the urge to let go and let it find its own way to the water. There was too much undergrowth for the boat to pinball off of, for one thing. For another, the river was really cruisin’, constricted as it was in its narrow confines and so full of itself in the midst of spring run off. I figured if I let go, my boat’d be floatin’ placidly down the Mississippi before I even made it to the banks of the Vermillion. So I just dug in my heels and pulled harder, tryin’ not to dwell on the thought that the comin’ back up from the river was gonna be even more fun than the goin’ down.

When we finally got right down to it, we could see that the water, newly released from its icy prison, was actin’ like snowbirds in January: it was in a real big hurry to get to just about anywhere warmer. The currents were elbowin’ each other to the side in their headlong rush to the sunny South and those nudged ashore were fretting petulantly among the remains of last year’s riverside flora. The water was murky with silt and there were some sizeable branches cavorting in the waves. But we were too intent on findin’ the favored play spot to notice much.

George led me unerringly to a nice rodeo hole and we finally got down to the pleasures of paddling. Trouble was, George had a heckuva lot more tricks up his sleeve than I did. He coulda stayed there all day practisin’ rodeo moves, like some big, happy, porpoise escaped from Sea World. Only I don’t suppose a dolphin’d wear a mango dry suit, even if it did immigrate to Minnesota in the winter. Anyway, he far outlasted me in the hole. Before long, I sought out the one bit of rock still managin’ to keep itself above water on river left and hauled myself up on it to stretch my legs.

As I was standin’ there, regrettin’ my long, winter dormancy in every muscle and joint, I started takin’ note of the wide variety of debris comin’ downriver at us. Somehow or other I hadn’t noticed it while I was paddlin’. But there it was. All manner of flotsam from farm and field and exurb came bobbin’ down the waves past my vantage point.

For a while I was mesmerized by the passing parade. But when I next glanced upriver, I was startled into immediate action. The granddaddy of all river flotsam was sailin’ majestically downstream. And it was headin’ straight at George, the unsuspecting rodeo king.

It took a coupla blasts on the rescue whistle to get George’s attention. Then I frantically waved him ashore. He still couldn’t see what was headed in his direction. But at least he amiably came outta the hole moments before he had unexpected company.

With a mix of awe and wonder, we both watched, jaws dropped, as a big, ugly, brown and orange plaid easy chair dropped over the ledge into the hole George had vacated just seconds earlier. Apparently at this water level that hole becomes a real keeper for unmanned, family room furniture. The recliner landed hard in the hole and stuck fast, footrest poppin’ up and backrest tiltin’ back as it did. It looked like the rapture had come suddenly on some devout Vikings fan and lifted him corporeally outta his LaZBoy into football heaven. I was tempted to look back upstream to see if the TV was comin’ down, too.

We watched in stunned silence as the chair commenced to retendo for a few minutes before it washed outta the hole and continued on its merry way toward the Gulf of Mexico. I asked George if he was pickin’ up any new moves and he answered he thought that chair could teach me a thing or two. But neither of us could figure where it had come from. I couldn’t imagine it coulda survived the drop over Vermillion Falls in such pristine condition. But I couldn’t imagine it hangin’ out halfway down one of the cliffs between us and the falls either. So I guess I just have a regrettable lack of imagination.

Anyway, we both knew it was a sign. Correctly interpreted, it was a sign that we should go put our feet up in some cozy, unflooded living room, maybe rent a video and make popcorn, but in any case to get offa the river. And maybe it was a sign that we should pitch in with the next river clean up on the Vermillion, too. We’ll hafta think about that. ‘Cause you know, it does pay to learn how to read the signs.

Well, ‘til next time, keep your paddle wet, watch your back, 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 what kind of portents you’ve seen fit to ignore or attend to while out on the waterways. 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 talent scouts from the Tommy Bartlett Show.