Off the Tongue
BUT I CAN’T TRACE TIME. —DAVID BOWIE
TIME MAY CHANGE ME; PHOTO: RICK MATTHEWS
RIVERS OF CHANGE
BUILDING A RIVER used to be a simple process. All it took to create the world’s best white- water freestyle river was the weight of a slowly receding gla- cier compressing the Ottawa Valley to below sea level. When the ice sheet slowly left
town the area filled with sea- water. As the land eventually bounced back the salt water ac- cumulated in the oceans where it belongs. Fresh water began falling through the deepest of the remaining ditches, forming the Ottawa River and its tribu- taries we paddle today. There was nobody proposing these changes and nobody fighting to preserve the ice age as it was. About 175 million years later
in May of 1977, Roger Parsons discovered a for sale sign on the land alongside the unpaddleable upper rapids of the Gull River. Money was raised, wheels where greased and permits obtained. A large bulldozer and giant back- hoe descended into the river. “Major renovations were made to the stream bed to make it like
8 | RAPID
an alpine river and allow it to be navigable throughout its length,” wrote Parsons. They created a levee, eddies, chutes and pools. Above all, Roger Parsons cre-
ated a level of trust with the various levels of government, convincing them that his dream of a whitewater training base would provide tourism and local economic benefits. Reeve Sinc Nesbitt officially
opened the Minden Wild Wa- ter Preserve on September 13, 1980. I was only nine years old. Thousands of adults and camp
kids have learned to paddle whitewater at the Gull. In ad- dition, the Preserve has hosted the Pan American Champion- ships, three World Cups, doz- ens of national slalom champi- onships, two national
freestyle
championships, hundreds of regional slalom races, 34 Gull River Open Canoe Slalom races and one ACA National Open Canoe Slalom race. When To- ronto won the bid to host the 2015 Pan Am Games the Gull River was the obvious venue.
The last World Cup slalom
event at the Gull was in 1993. Compared to the ASCI white- water center (Playground, page 30) and Wadi Adventure (page 33) the Gull River feels quaint, wild and natural. Many of us who regularly paddle the Gull like it that way. Others dream of a better racecourse and a better training facility and the Pan Am Games is their goose that laid the golden egg.
lieved that it’s always been the way I’ve always known it to be. Reading the story, I learned how a river changes over time, sometimes naturally and some- times with a little help from a couple guys in Caterpillers. The thousands who learn to
paddle at the Gull after the Pan Am Games won’t remember the river any other way. They will only remember learning, train- ing, racing and playing. They will
I’m young and naive enough to have believed that it’s always been this way.
When the local municipal-
ity and Pan Am committee proposed walkways, improved channeling and permanent sla- lom gate structures my kneejerk reaction was to resist change. Until I read the book Build-
ing a River…Following a Dream: The Roger Parsons Story I had no idea how dramatically the Gull River was changed from its truly natural state. I’m young and naive enough to have be-
remember snuggling into the riv- erside campground Roger and his friends carved out of the woods for us. They will remember fall- ing asleep to the sound of water falling from higher ground, just like it has for millions of years. Scott MacGregor is the founder
and publisher of Rapid. In 2008, the Preserve’s training center building was renamed the Roger Parsons Centre. Parsons was pre- sented with his own set of keys.
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