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Group Photo in front of my van and three canoes
The tiny town of Tewksbury is about 20 miles northwest of where the Jacques-Cartier River joins the Saint Lawrence River after draining part of the Laurentian shield. It is more a location than a town. The road map marked the town center at a fork in the road where the only structures were a church and a phone booth, although, I doubt the booth is still there. With stunning valleys of intense beauty, the J-C river runs south and southeast through a large park, Parc national de la Jacques-Cartier, and ends in Quebec City. The Tewksbury section is one of the finest whitewater sections that can be reached by road, with a reliable water level right through the summer. Rafting companies use this stretch to thrill adventurous customers selling trips in ten-man groups, the size of the rafts. In August the level is usually low enough to make it attractive to experienced open boaters. This stretch was also used for training by Canadian kayak slalom racers. It may still be.
Our Base Camp, looking down from the parking area.
Our base camp was on the banks of the river behind the home of a kind landowner in Sainte-Catherine and with his permission, our trip leader was allowed to pitch tents and call it our home for one week a year. Our entire group consists of ten people, all paddlers with open canoes. Six of the ten opted to take on the challenge and paddle this powerful Tewksbury section today. This was the high point of the weeklong encampment. After all, this was not just a vacation, but a high-energy adventure. Being lazy for a day is a relaxing option for the four left in camp. Some probably played tourist and took a day trip into Quebec City.
Our six-paddler group who decided to go were a strong and smart group, in my opinion. Keech, our trip leader and co-owner of Champaign Canoeing, trip organizer and open-canoe slalom racing for many years, said at the put in that the water was higher than he had seen in his four previous trips here, by a "foot or so".
Looking back upstream at the slalom course
Immediately after we put-in, we found a full slalom course hanging across the river, waiting for us. Play time was spent here warming up and testing our skills. The gates were designed for skilled kayakers, not open boats. Most of us made the gates we tried, but I purposely avoided the bulk of them. I did a few, but wanted to save my energy for the river below. Then we continued following the current. This was Wednesday and our group had heard stories told by prior survivors about past trips on this section. The campfire and adult beverages helped enhance the tales. I must mention Ann's meals were great. Keech looked at Marco and Bruce, who had run this section in other years. They agreed, the water was definitely up. It looked to me like about 2000 c.f.s. (cubic feet per second).
John Berry and Jan Palmer were running OC-2 mixed (open-canoe, one man and one woman) in a Kevlar "ME" designed and made by John at his Millbrook Boatworks in Riparius, New York. The "ME" was for several years the competition slalom racing boat of choice. John proudly proclaimed that "ME" stands for Maximum Exposure, chosen as a follow up to his earlier solo boat, The Flasher. Use your imagination. He had the forethought of attaching long lining ropes to the bow and stern. I questioned the need, but it showed great foresight on his part. Everyone else in the group was paddling solo in ABS MEs manufactured by Mad River Canoe in Vermont. ABS boats are the closest thing to indestructible there is. John manufactured and sold MEs in fiberglass and Kevlar at Millbrook Boats but licensed the production of the ABS version of the "ME" to Mad River Canoe. John's hand-built boats were the choice of racers because of their light weight. I thought about how he felt seeing everyone in our group enjoying themselves today in boats he had designed.
We were all experienced open boat slalom racers and all boats used in this run were ACA-WWOC (American Canoe Association - White Water Open Canoe) race legal. That means only 36" decks were allowed and floatation was limited to the space under the decks. All the rest of the canoe's interior was empty space ready to be filled with water. A seat, thigh straps and foot bracing allowed the paddler to "wear" the canoe.
Drop #1, Keech was a good example.
Drop 1. Keech ran the first drop as we looked on. In a slow bend to the left, the river funnels to about fifty or sixty feet wide and drops in two steps about fifty yards apart, each with tongues. Each drop was about four feet and I don't recall any rocks to mention. It was mostly velocity ending in angled curlers, or holes if you miss the line. Keech made sure he made it look easy, luckily, it was.
Marco ran drop #1 a bit too left.
The bottom of Marco's boat can be seen.
Marco was battling the odds. He had roughed up (that's sort of like trashing) a boat on each of his previous trips down this section. He had a minor oops here on this, the first of the five major drops this trip had in store. He was filled up in one of the curlers. A throw rope from Keech and all was well. The day wasn't over yet. Bruce was next. He's basically a floater and survived every drop with excellent form. He seems to do very little paddling, yet makes it look so easy that most of my efforts seem wasted.
Me? I call myself a recreational competitor in the races I enter. In the rare case I win my class, I feel good. Overall, I know I will never win in the Nationals, but competing in that race is very satisfying. Taking this week to run a big river is a vacation getaway from work and home life. One thing I get out of racing is building up whitewater paddling skills in a safe setting, hoping to bring those skills to the next river I paddle. Slalom racing began by simulating difficult river situations that require techniques the paddler needs when dealing with "real" river situations.
That's the whole group on this run, six people in five "MEs", four paddlers solo and two paddlers tandem. I am the youngest at 39. The rest of the group is, well, older, with John Berry taking the top honors at about 70. Time now to enjoy the short relatively relaxing class II stretch between drop-1 and drop-2. No one knew that I would come up with a totally new method of ignoring the big drop's full experience.
Drop-2 is "Chapeau de Melon", or melon shaped hat, and is the most complex on the trip. At the entrance to this drop, the river width is about 100+ feet and starts to narrow with no obvious good route. This was class 3 with lots of shallow rocks everywhere. At the falls it narrows to less than 60 feet wide. Most of the width was fast and shallow. A lot of the flow veers right just above the falls flowing all the way to the right impacting a huge rock named Chapeau de Melon. I call it the Melon rock. The Melon rock stops the water, then gravity takes over and the flow turns left, over the falls.
Keech observed the rapid and explained a suggested safe approach that avoids all the river center rocky mess. On the far river right is a huge rock that hides a deep clear channel between it and the shore. Here a generous 15-foot-wide unobstructed approach narrows to a channel just five feet wide. You could touch the smooth river ledge with your right hand on the way through if you wanted to. Note that terms like "river-right" refers to the paddler's point of view. In a photo looking upstream, river-right is on the left. This way, paddlers can describe rapids and avoid confusion when verbally discussing a route.
Keech suggested this path for all of us. We're never obligated to follow his suggestion. This is important because if things go wrong, we can always say "That's what I was trying to do". We all agreed with Keech's recommendation. John Berry and Jan Palmer were busy on the left bank of the river fiddling with their lining ropes. Once successfully through the shoot the technical portion begins. Clearing the shoot, paddle calmly angling to the left towards river center about 200 feet through swift somewhat shallow class 2+ water and over rounded rocks. Melon rock will come into view on your right and forms the right riverbank. Turn right passing behind the impenetrable boulders below that first shoot and head directly at the Melon. You are now staying just above and paralleling the falls on your left, a line of nasty staggered submerged boulders with drop-holes below running diagonally towards Melon rock. Follow this channel of current about 20 yards until just before you run into Melon rock wall directly ahead.
The closer you get to the wall without hitting it the better. A two-foot-high pillow wave of water at the wall tells you that the water has momentum, but the rock is immovable. The river wants to turn left but has to stop and be redirected downstream, left, by other forces, like gravity. Follow the water and turn your canoe to the left and go over the falls just before the pillow-wave. It's a four-to-six-foot drop with a clean tongue, totally clear of rocks. Punch threw the current and the right side of the tongue into a micro eddy left. This is the preferred route, and it would show that you are in control of your boat. The outflow, should you miss the eddy, was class 1+ and very swift and deep. Sounds simple but requires precise maneuvering and timing to get where you want to be.
Drop two (chapeau de Melon). Keech ran the little shoot, no problem.
Time for Keech to turn this plan into reality. Keech ran the narrow approach slot with apparent ease. Angled left, 200 feet, turned right, headed at the Melon rock, then left over the drop and into the eddy. Looked easy. He jumped out onto the shore, pulled his boat up, and set up a throw rope on top of the Melon rock wall.
Keech has just made his right turn and is now heading at the wall on the far left. He followed his Plan-A. He is almost to the location where my eye caught the drop.
Marco was next and he preserved his record. As he entered the approach, a little demon wave pushed him onto a rock on his left where he stopped abruptly. Water flowed over the stern right gunnel, flushing around Marco before exiting at the bow. From my vantage on the opposite shore where I was photographing, it looked like a little fountain with Marco seated in the middle. Keech walked back upstream to engineer a resolution for his problem while I paddled over to help with the extrication. All four of us pitched in with ropes and recovered the boat. It had some minor changes to its shape, but still, it and Marco were ready to continue. Bailing out the last of the water, he completed his run successfully over the drop. I can see that John & Jan were still on the other side of the river, showing off their lining ropes and giving them a lot of use. Our group saw only glimpses of them on the far shore blazing a new trail in the woods. In truth, we were just too busy dealing with our own reality.
It took quite a while to extract Marco's boat
Bruce, in his usual form seemed to float through the shoot like it was what nature intended. He completed the Plan-A route perfectly and continued downstream around the corner where drop-3 waited for us.
I took my full five minutes looking over my intended route and was the last of the four of us to run it. Rule of thumb says that if you take more than five minutes to decide how to run a rapid, you shouldn't run it. You too should have lining ropes. My plan was to follow the leaders, run the shoot, drift paddle to center, turn right, take 3 cross forward strokes and turn left through the drop just ahead of the pillow wave and into the little eddy. Actually, hitting the eddy was optional, but a nice touch. I took into account what happened to Marco in the shoot and took extra precautions. Yet, I did the same thing he did. Damn that little demon wave. Straining to keep the right gunnel up and the water out to prevent my boat from looking like his, I was marginally successful taking on some water but at least did not get stuck. Saved from embarrassment. Keech and Bruce are righties, Marco and I are lefties, so I speculate that must have been the difference. Bailing was necessary so I stopped for that before continuing down river.
Diagram of my route
I peeled out toward the center from the right bank. Very pleasant and easy paddling brought me past the washed over rocks to river center to turn right. Now I can see the Melon rock on my right. A cross-draw was next to turn me right as planned, pointing my boat where I wanted to go. Perfect so far. The three cross-forward strokes planned came next. Now staring at my target wall, this happened. Imagine you're playing baseball as an outfielder. A line drive is hit softly right to you. You see the ball floating in space, not moving left or right, first going little up and then a little down. But you know it's coming straight to you so it will be an easy catch. It looks motionless, just slowly getting bigger.
Stop imagining now, you're a paddler again. I swung the paddle over to my off-side for the first cross-draw which will also turn the boat to the right. The bow slapped a wave sending a spray of water into the air. One drop of water stood out from the rest because it looked almost motionless. I watched it behave just like that baseball, growing bigger as it approached. Instead of a glove, I caught it in my right eye. Instantly a cool sensation. The fact that I wear contact lenses is now very relevant to this story. A drop of water with velocity hitting you in the eye is enough to make the contact lens lift off of the eyeball thus distort vision and remove depth perception. I'm too busy right now. Can't take time to wipe my eye. It took a couple panicky blinks, two I think, to reseat the lens and regain acceptable vision. During those blinks the planned sequence of three quick cross forward strokes was completed without a thought, and without decent vision. The melon-rock was dead ahead and Keech was standing on top of it, I assume watching me, pleased so far. It was suddenly apparent to me that I only needed to have taken two of those three cross forward strokes.
The water I was in was moving faster than anticipated. At eight miles per hour, small distances disappear fast. At the same time that I took the third cross forward, my depth perception returned, and I saw that time and distance had run out, plan-A was no longer appropriate. I was no more than one second away from the Melon rock. Returning to my left side, I hoped to draw left and turn toward the falls, I realized that if I did that stroke, my boat would be only partially turned when I encountered the pillow wave. Controlling the boat in that situation was questionable. To hit the wall at this speed while in the middle of a turn did not seem a good choice. I was going to hit the wall before any plan-B could be evaluated. This is not a good time for indecision. No time. Plan-C, the no-action option, was not actually a choice because there was no time to make one. Inaction was now my default plan. Still at full speed and with the main drop just feet to my left I had to accept that I was going to have a head-on with the Melon rock wall. Instinctively, my physical safety and structural survival was my priority. The only thing I could do was to protect myself and minimize injury as I slammed into the wall. Sit erect, face forward, keep my spine straight. My hands should be in front of me holding my paddle ready for the next stroke, whatever it would be. How fortunate! I was already in that position; sitting facing forward with the paddle held defensively. I was aware of Keech standing on the rock just above me with his throw bag in hand, perhaps he was beginning to wonder. Impact!
My bow hit the Melon rock at full speed straight on, causing my boat to stop instantly. My upper body flopped forward from the waist which held firmly thanks to the thigh straps. They must have been well made keeping my 240 pounds from ripping the mounts away and letting me leave the saddle seat. The boat stopped and then bounced backwards a couple feet. That was the end of my sensory inputs and where I left my conscious existence as a canoeist and became a deaf and blind mannequin experiencing some alternate reality. Now things have gotten weird. My body recoiled like a Gumby back to an upright position (I think). My head never hit anything. From this point until I saw green, I had only some sensation of motion, and afterwards Keech's description of what happened. The water under the boat was running parallel to my boat towards the wall forming that two-foot-high pillow. The boat just sat there for one, two, three seconds; slowly beginning to drift to the left, accelerating sideways about eight feet to the edge of the drop, broadside.
Where was I? ----. Yet, I knew where I was. I/O error! I had no sight, hearing, touch, and I was paralyzed. I could "sense" the rocking of the boat and I knew where I was but didn't know why I was there. I was not able to move, and I don't recall wanting to. I did have a basic sense of time passing. My trusty craft drifted over the falls rocking heavily through the first forgiving wave. Somehow, I knew I was still upright. The second wave was a breaker and took advantage of stupefied me and my boat. A flurry of watery noises announced the return of some missing senses. Murky green color illuminated the floor of the boat which was oddly above me. I was looking upward at the bottom of my boat and was suspended from the floor by my thigh straps. The thought which calmly entered my mind at that moment I can clearly remember; "Well, I guess I can get out now". Relaxing my legs released me and I popped to the surface. Instantly finding Keech preparing to throw the bag.
Google Earth view of Chapeau de Melon. The water level may be different in this image.
I felt as comfortable as taking a swim in a lake. No adrenaline, no panic, breathing calmly. My contacts were working perfectly, now. The throw rope landed close to me and I grabbed it. The current was slower because the water was deep. As it took me and my boat away from Keech, it became too difficult to hold onto my paddle and the canoe and the rope. The great strain on my arms was caused by the boat full of water being pulled by the current one way and Keech pulling the rope mightily the other way. I was the link between them. The boat was released in favor of the rope. Keech later explained that if I had not let go of the boat, he would have released the rope because my mass plus the filled boat travelling directly away from him was too much to hold. He would have been pulled into the water. As Keech pulled me with the rope, I looked to see Marco chasing my boat around and disappearing around the next corner out of sight, toward drop-3 "The Meat Grinder", French unknown. Inside my boat were both of my 35mm cameras in an ammo box carabineered to a D-ring on the floor and also my spare paddle.
When I climbed out of the water, Keech asked me, "Were you stunned?" I said "no", but I knew that wasn't correct and I was just beginning to realize that something I did not understand had happened. I knew I had done nothing to prevent what did happen. I knew I hadn't been unconscious, but I also realized, I had not been fully there. As I played back my mental tapes, there were many things I could have done after impact and before going over the falls, if only I was able to comprehend, if only I had been aware. There was plenty of time to spin left and run the falls bow first. Or throw a downstream brace to my on-side, forward sweeps, anything would have been better than nothing. I never even put my paddle into the water until the water did it for me. I just sat there motionless holding my paddle horizontally in front. At least I didn't grab the gunnels; I'd never live that down. I'd have to be conscious to panic. Keech must have been awe struck with my lack of movement looking like my power had been cut. Keech's boat was set up for both solo and tandem. He jumped into the bow and offered me the stern. Good thing I still had my paddle. We paddled about 100 yards to the Meat Grinder around the corner to the right.
Meat Grinder was really a large hole in the center of the river with huge ledges on either side, about fifty feet between them. A hole in this context is a recirculating mound of aerated water caused by a steep drop over something. It's similar to what is commonly found below a low head dam. It can require calm nerves and skill to get yourself out, or someone on shore with a throw rope.
I would have enjoyed running this short powerful rapid, but my boat had already done so and then gone down river to take a rest. I guess I had taught it to run drops without my help at drop-2 and it assumed being OC-0 (open canoe, no paddler) was okay. Marco said my boat had run Meat Grinder on the left, surfed and played and then disappeared for a minute. Eventually flushing out and grounding on some rocks a hundred yards downstream on river left. I could see it just floating there, all alone. It looked dejected, bottom up, waiting to be rescued. It needed me after all.
There was no trail in those woods. Large, jagged moss-covered rocks steeply sloped in a dense scrub pine forest. It was there, while slowly scrambling through that stuff on my way to recover my boat that I found, or should I say stumbled upon Jan working her way downstream on foot, alone. We laughed finding the circumstances humorous, meeting this way for the first time since we pushed off at the start of the trip. John had decided to run their boat solo through Meat Grinder and Jan was walking to meet him downstream. When I reached my boat, I set my paddle and throw bag, which I had given to Keech prior to drop-2, on a rock and waded into the river to inspect my boat, floating upside down in waist deep water about forty feet from shore. Approaching from the downstream side it took some searching to find footing solid enough to lift one gunnel and roll it over. My camera box was floating there in eight inches of water and was still closed. My spare paddle was floating freely next to the ammo box, what luck. Just as I reached to open the camera box to look inside, I heard a whistle from upstream.
Lifting my head to look upstream I see John's boat on its side floating toward me, without John. No one at all in sight. I was the only person downstream of his boat excluding Jan, invisible in the woods. Downstream was fast moving water passing out of sight between tall rock walls into aqua incognita. Grabbing the center thwart and lifting the whole boat over my head to empty the water, then dropping it back into the river, right side up, grabbing the gunnels and hopping in and seating myself and grabbing the spare paddle still inside, I was just in time to intercept John's boat before it floated past. It is very difficult for a solo paddler in moving water to rescue a swamped canoe. Both my hands were busy paddling to control my position and trying to push a half-swamped canoe. The current pushed his canoe close to the waist deep rocks I had just been standing on. Unfortunately, there was no way to get to shore before the river swept us between the rock walls ahead. I dropped the paddle and grabbed the gunnels of my boat again and jumped into the water between the two boats holding onto one gunnel of each and tried to find a purchase for my feet to stop our movement downstream. The rocks on the bottom were not smooth but angular and pointed making this nearly impossible. After a few yards I found tentative footing and was able to stop the little flotilla. Holding onto John's lining rope in my left hand I slung it over my shoulder. With my right hand I held onto the gunnel of my boat midship, keeping it balanced upstream of me against the downstream current and waited.
And waited. No one was in sight, no idea when anyone was going to come. My position was feeling less stable quickly. It took all my remaining strength to hold my position. I was stable but could not move or else I'd lose footing and we float downstream. After an hour, or 20 seconds, I'm not sure which, Keech appeared upstream paddling from drop-3, coming to the rescue and offering to take John's boat. Finally, I was freed to find my way to shore and get my gear back in order. My main paddle and throw bag were still sitting on a rock upstream where I dropped them while I recovered my own boat. Again, I had to bushwack that woods. On my way through the undergrowth described earlier, I again found Jan, carefully making her way downstream to meet John. His boat was there and I'm not sure how John got there. He must have hitched a ride with Marco or Bruce. We laughed again.
I rushed upstream through the woods as quickly as I could to get my things and return to my boat. Of course, this provided another opportunity to pass Jan and smile one more time. When I finally assembled everything in one spot, the ammo box was finally opened for inspection. About two tablespoons of water had seeped in and the cameras looked unaffected. The smaller camera had previously run out of film. I tested the other and took a picture of the rock walled "canyon". That was its final shot and it would functioned no more. Drop-3 must have traumatized it and caused internal damage because it was DOA and the film never advanced again. Even after drying out. From this I have learned to line the ammo box with absorbent Pampers. Remember, this was in 1987, before digital cameras. These cameras used real film. They call it film because photographic negatives were created by exposing a chemical film coating on glass or plastic to light.
Bruce between the walls was the subject of my camera's final shot
The rock walled gorge that had seemed so dangerous turned out to be a lovely place with calm water so deep that the current moved slowly, even with a 2000 cfm flow rate. We all gathered in an eddy below the gorge as a single group for the first time since we started this trip.
Three drops done, two more to go. I barely remember what those last two were like and there are no photos to help. The two drops ahead were anticlimactic to what was already done. Drop-4 I can't recall at all and drop-5 was so technical, it had to be taken at very slow speed. There was whitewater, but it was just a typical rock strewn river requiring quick maneuvers. Sadly, John & Jan encountered one problem and he twisted a knee exiting the boat, leaving him in pain. This happened so close to the takeout that we could see our vehicle.
The only physical effects on me from the impact at drop-2 were two diagonal stripes of black and blue, the bruises on my inner thighs where the bracing straps had held me in place when I hit the Melon rock. There was no identifiable new impact mark on the bow of my boat that I could find. It must have been hidden among all the past scars, or maybe my boat was too shy to show it. Hats off to Mad River ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene).
Looking back at trip safety, we did great. Trip leader Keech applied his knowledge and skills to make sure we had ropes in place at each potential trouble spot. Without those there would have been complications at Chapeau de Melon and other spots. My thoughts centered on what if there were shallow rocks below where I capsized. I was not wearing a helmet. I took this as a hint, learning from that situation. After that a helmet was standard gear and I recommended it as something one should do paddling in class IV water. That's it. We all returned to camp to enjoy Ann's dinner offerings, beer, wine and shared all the details and all the thrills that we could recall.
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APPENDIX 1 Additional Photos from other places
Me, posing before a race on the Kenduskeag River in Bangor, Maine.
Trip leader Keech LeClair pointing things out on The Gorge on the Rouge River.
KEECH bendin a paddle at the 1980 WWOC Nationals, Nantahala, NC during OC-1Men's Medium competition.
The author, me, taking delivering of my new Millbrook Boats Kevlar ME S/N 44 from the designer / builder John Berry at his shop in Riparius, NY.
Marco Zurlingo, MD, enjoying camp time at the Rouge River.
Bruce Lictenstein enjoying this 100 miles in two days fund raiser for our Olympic Whitewater Team down the Delaware River. Ten of us paddled five boats loaned by Mad Rover Canoe
Marco & I resting after a slalom race run in Webster, NH on the Bearcamp River.
Me, Don Steele, surfing on the Jacques-Cartier River at our lunch spot. This was before the story above, otherwise I'd have a helmet on.
Keech & Ann LeClair during Nationals competition on the Nantahala River, NC probably 1981.
John Berry competing at the 1980 Nationals, Nantahala River.
John Berry in front of his Millbrook Boats manufactory in Riparius, NY, shortly before retiring and passing it over to John Kaz who was in Weare, NH at that time.
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