What Has Changed?

From the Expedition 2012 Blog.

As I sat on a bus headed from Arlington to New York, I tried to think about all of the moments from the trip I wanted to talk about.  In New York, Kyle was preparing the necessary equipment to start filming a series of interviews for the Expedition 2012 documentary and when I arrived, it was my job to speak insightfully about what all of these experiences meant to me.  The trip took sixty-seven days to complete—the bus ride about four hours—but before we had even left Virginia, as we crossed the Potomac River, I realized something the trip had changed in me that I hadn’t stopped to recognize before.

Before the trip, I could have passed across this bridge over the Potomac on a windy day, noticing the whitecaps surging underneath, and thought to myself, “Brrr, that water looks cold,” but the simple acknowledgement of its uninviting appearance might have been the extent of my thoughts on the scene.  Now I see so much more.  I watch the frigid water on either side of the bridge and as many questions flow through me as drops of water flow under me.

It starts general.  How far could I travel downstream before I reached the next dam or lock?  Or, more likely in the case of our trip, how far upstream would I have to work before an otherwise insignificant little ripple of whitewater required all my strength and concentration to ferry up.  At this thought, my mind wanders to the shallow shoreline of the Ottawa River on Day 17 where the rocky bottom bit at our paddle tips as we scraped for more water in an effort to move just 40 yards further upstream against the swift current.  Maybe this bridge marks a portage and we could carry along this road to another body of water.  In that case, where could I take out along the bank so that the icy water would not rise above the height of my boot and leave my feet wet and cold for the rest of the day?  Does the current gain strength and bottleneck under this bridge as it does on the Ottawa River by Canadian Parliament or again on the same river far to the northwest in Mattawa?  At those sections, the bridge pylons gave us just enough of an eddy to rest our arms before driving up against the current to calmer water.

Perhaps this bridge shelters a well known meeting spot for local teens in the same way the bridge over the Riviere l’Acadie does in Chambly.  Would the rebellious adolescents at either end, hiding beneath its support beams, separated by the river and by gender, watch us with awkward confusion and smoky conversation as we drifted past in strange wooden canoes?  If this is the first bridge in many kilometers of wild river, would it be as welcome a sight as the train bridge high over the Onakawana River where it empties into the Abitibi or would it be a place of shelter and nerve like the one we huddled under just before entering the thrashing whitecaps and roaring headwinds of the St. Lawrence?

Maybe it is not meaningful in any of these ways we experienced and maybe it takes on a whole new place in a tripper’s memory as they pass by, but I know now that I am not just standing on a bridge anymore.  I am standing on a landmark on a map of some tripper’s itinerary.  And on the day they reach it, this bridge will hold a meaning that stays with them for the rest of the trip and for the rest of their travels.

As my bus ride continued north to New York these thoughts were still on my mind.  Outside the window, stretches of forest interrupted neighborhoods and parking lots and I realized that it was not only my view of rivers and bridges that had changed.  Once our Expedition moved beyond more frequent canoe routes aided by well groomed portage trails and bike paths, we were responsible for blazing our own way through the woods.  Where nature did not courteously supply a clear path, it was our job to find one.  Now, as I look at a patch of forest, I see characteristics of the small troubles and triumphs we met along each portage trail.

Outside the bus window there is a large grassy area where the woods open up.  Here we could easily unload the boats and set out all of the gear for our portioned trips across a carry.  There is no long grass in which to lose a glove like on the side of the Ottawa just beyond Carillon or craggy rocks where water bottles like to hide on the shore of the Fredrick House River.  And there is certainly no steep muddy bank like the one that borders the entire East Whitefish River.  The footing is firm, unlike the loose shifting caribou moss around the hunter’s cabin at the beginning of the East Whitefish just past Nokomis Lake.

Now I find two trees at the edge of the forest, perfectly spaced and angled to rest the bow of my canoe a kilometer into the 4K carry from the East Whitefish onto the Whitefish River.  I see a fallen tree trunk supported about 2 yards off the ground.  If I were to come across this log on the trail, is it low enough to step over without losing my balance or high enough that I can duck under with my wannigan?  And at this turn up ahead, is there enough space to spin with a canoe or will I have to do a three-point turn of sorts to maneuver between the trees?  Slowly, in what was before just another patch of trees, the features of a trail start to emerge.

Maybe we haven’t even started the carry yet, but instead it is my job to go ahead with the hatchet and scout out the best route through the woods.  In this case, where could I tie flagging tape so that my trip mates, with heads hung low under the weight of the tump strap, could still see and follow it easily?  Are the branches so dense here that they would sweep under the gunwale of the canoe as I walk and whip at my face and arms like on all of the portages along the East Whitefish?  Is the hill in front of me as steep and endless as Devil’s Portage along “the Trip In” or is it rolling and slippery wet like under the power lines by the Frederick House River?  Are the bugs here as relentless as they were at the end of the portage off of the Abitibi onto the Onakawana River or are the winds so strong that I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep the canoe on my head like when we crossed the open farm plot west of Chambly?  Is this trail as familiar as the one around the Gorge on the Otter that we use every summer or is it so strange that I end up going a different way each time like around the dam on the Ottawa on Day 23?

Each portage trail holds, and in some cases scars, a special place in our memory of the trip.  They were both loved and hated for what they gave us but each was an essential part of the story.  And this story, remembered for the miles and miles of paddle strokes over water, owes just as much recognition to the miles and miles of footsteps over land in between.

As we start the interview, I’m wondering if I still remember the stories well enough to tell them accurately and do them justice.  Are there moments that were so important to me during the trip that I won’t remember how to tell them when faced by bright lights and camera lenses?  Can I find some memory from the Expedition here in this setting like I did in the bridges and forests on the bus ride up?  I look past Kyle, the camera, the light, and in that space, I find myself in a canoe.  The gentle rock of an even K-stroke is there and the comfortable give of a caned seat.  The smell of cedar bent ribs still lingers even after two months of muddy water and baking sun and in this same way, so too will these memories.