Currents
A LCHEMY
PAC-MAN. IT WAS AN
EIGHTIES THING. PHOTO: JOE KOWALSKI
Believe it or not, there was a time before cam straps. While they’re now used by 99 percent of paddlers to secure their
THE SIMPLE CAM BUCKLE KILLS LONG-TIME RAFT GUIDE RIGHT OF PASSAGE In those days, the trip leader’s job was to take a rookie guide,
KNOT FORGOTTEN
boats to vehicles, they were brought into the river world from the multi-day raft-guiding world. Their popularity effectively killed a prominent and meaningful tradition known only to older raft guides. Cam strap manufacturer Ancra was granted a patent on its now
ubiquitous buckle in 1972, but it was another 15 years before the buckles became small enough and cheap enough to be used by riv- er guides. Before that, raft guides rigged with two-inch tubular climbing webbing—one end was girth hitched to a D-ring, while the running end threaded through the frame, dry bags and coolers. The webbing was soaked in the river overnight so it would stretch when cranked down with a trucker’s hitch, and when it dried it would shrink and tighten the load into bombproof rigging (even today, some big water guides opt for webbing on the biggest days). Guides’ hands were always cracked and raw from pulling on wet, silty webbing. Even worse, when it was time to de-rig at camp each night, the knots were locked in place. Every guide carried pliers— channel locks from the hardware store, nothing fancy—to unstick tight webbing knots. Angled head or straight was a matter of preference and an eternal
fireside debate. The pliers also found use on gritty air valves, Dutch oven cooking and repairing tent zippers. Every guide wore them in a holster on a belt.
24 PADDLING MAGAZINE || December 2013
after his first multi-day trip, to a saddle shop to get a pliers holster sewn up from scrap leather. The shop in Vernal, Utah, where my first trip leader, Walt Woolfe, took me would slap one together in five minutes for five bucks. Though Woolfe handed it over non- chalantly, the holster cried, “You’re a river guide now.” Left unsaid was that Woolfe’s trip leader gave one to him, and it was my job when I became trip leader to keep the tradition alive. This small gesture represented entry into a community, and an obligation to sustain it. Then cam straps came along. Some companies held onto their webbing longer than others—
both for the sake of tradition and cost—but almost all use cam straps now. Multi-day river guides don’t need to carry a tool on their belts anymore. Cam straps are better in every way, but that tradition of a trip leader welcoming rookies into the multi-day guiding world is gone. The river guide community is no less strong now than it was then, but I still feel a sense of loss that there’s no longer a defined entry point into the community, an obligation that was implied with a simple gesture of giving. Firmly on the side of straight pliers (better for knots and stuck valves),
Jeff Jackson is a professor of outdoor adventure at Algonquin College. This article first appeared in Summer/Fall 2013 issue of Rapid.
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