I asked Gilles if we were any-
where near a road or escape route. His lips tightened and he shook his head. There was only one real option. About four kilo- metres downstream was a small bridge where he hoped we could still exit from the river on the right shore. We would have to risk it and run the river down to the bridge, praying that nobody capsized. We turned upstream and hiked back to the campsite. The group was sitting around the fire tucking into
ing, I was more than a little con- cerned for myself.
“Before I could stop myself, I grabbed a paddle. Soon we were ferrying back into the muddy current.”
the Baies de Chaleurs.
Moroccan omelettes and looking very relaxed—few under- stood the gravity of the situation. Apart from Gilles, a sec- ond guide named Christian and myself, everyone was from Quebec’s tourism agency. They were here to see a part of the province they spent their work days promoting but none had been expecting to grapple with serious whitewater. Gilles ate his breakfast calmly before calling the group together for a briefing, explaining the situation and spelling out the plan. We would load the canoes by floating them up into the woods and then re-launch them carefully so they stayed close to the river’s edge. All gear would be securely bound inside. Once the whole group was on the water, we would make our way down the left shore in single file, leaving plenty of space between each canoe in case one got caught in a bush or an overhanging branch.
Amidst it all, we tried to maintain a modicum of humour to keep everyone calm. The last thing we needed was to scare everyone out of their wits. After all, this was supposed to be fun.
Gilles led off and one-by-one the rest of the team fol- lowed ducky style. We negotiated the tricky left-hand bend, hugging the shoreline to stay in the weakest part of the cur- rent yet were careful not to run into any of the abundant strainers. All well and good, except that in order to get off the river, we had to cross over to the right bank before we reached the bridge—a dangerous endeavour. Gilles carefully entered the main current on a diagonal and the other canoes followed. We crossed the centre of the river, crashing through some substantial waves. Taken one at a time they were manageable, but this wasn’t the place to take anything for granted. Though most of my nervous energy was spent worrying how the other canoes were far-
Bringing my attention back to the task at hand, I leaned into my strokes and, after a few moments of shouting encouragement through clenched teeth, the last canoe slid into the slower current on the other side of the river. I was relieved to think the crux was over, until I realized that even something simple like stopping would be dicey on this river. I paddled ahead of the group and reached the bridge.
Fortunately, there was a small bay that formed a reasonably sized eddy where salmon fisherman launched their boats. My partner, Sophie, and I set up early and punched into the calm water behind the bridge abutment. We jumped out, secured our canoe and waded out to the edge of the eddy to catch the oncoming boats.
It’s like those trapeze artists on a high wire. No matter how confident you are in your abili- ties, there’s always an element of risk and it’s nice to have a safety net. Looking down this river nearly devoid of eddies, I didn’t see much safety, let alone a net. Fanciful though it might have been, I imagined myself swim- ming all the way down to the mouth of the river and out into
It looked like a chocolate milk- shake in a blender gone berserk—except this milkshake was rising six feet above the banks and flow- ing freely
throughout the forest.
One by one, we wrangled the canoes in by grabbing their painters and swinging them into the eddy. When the last canoe was in, Gilles pushed his hat back a little and I saw that the pattern of weather-worn creases in his face had changed from worried to relieved. Gilles burrowed into his personal bag of tricks and pulled out a satellite telephone to contact base camp. The
2005 Annual 21
photo by Jean-Pierre Huard
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