The Canoe Trip

2009. Summer. July. Monday. The river.

A friend of mine invited me to float a river with him. I had to work at three-thirty. We agreed to meet at eight-thirty at his house, and we’d go straight to the river.

I showed up at eight-thirty sharp and knocked on the door. The man was still asleep.

I woke him up and asked him where the canoe was. He said it was over at his other friend’s house. After he got ready to go, it was nine-thirty. We drove to the other friend’s house and got the canoe.

It was a metal canoe. This metal canoe needed a major welding overhaul. The sides were coming apart at the front seam. There were no seats. We would have to kneel at the bottom of the boat and paddle. The top edges of the canoe were jagged, and I knew by the end of the day, I might not have an arm on one side or the other. But hopefully not both sides.

I knew we could reach our destination by two thirty. One time, I floated to the takeout spot in three hours in a kayak. And I hardly paddled.

By the time we loaded up the canoe and reached the water’s edge, it was eleven o’clock.

We set off from the concrete boat ramp and had no idea what lay ahead.

I’ll spare you the details, but by one-forty-five, we had only floated a mile. By that time, I had several cuts on my hands and forearms.

I expressed my need to hurry, and that’s when it got worse.

We started taking on water. I bailed water, and he paddled the canoe, then we switched.

We finally reached one of the roughest rapids in Southern Missouri, and it was at this point the canoe sank to the bottom of the river.

I floated the entire length of the rapid, holding onto the canoe and dragging it underwater.

That was the easy part.

Once the water stopped flowing at a breakneck speed, the canoe was still underwater.

It was then that I dragged the canoe a quarter of a mile to the nearest clear spot on the bank. He was still upstream away.

He hollered down. “Hey, Caleb! Just let the canoe go, man. It’s hopeless.”

“No.”

“You can’t get it to the bank.”

“Wanna bet.”

“How are you going to empty it?”

“Flip it over.”

“We can just float downstream to the get-out spot on our life jackets.”

“Ha!”

By this time, I needed a transfusion.

I was dragging a canoe across the bottom of the riverbed toward the shore. I was in water up to my eyelids and was standing on my tiptoes.

Two men in a brand-new canoe floated by and asked what I was doing. I told them I had a canoe under the water and was trying to get it to the shore. They wished me good luck and continued down the river.

I was not floating the remaining TWO miles on a life jacket. We finally got to the shore, retrieved our coolers and other paraphernalia, and set an empty canoe back on the surface of the water.

I got in my car at three-fifteen, had thirty-five miles to go, and reached the parking lot at work by three-forty. I’ll let you do the math.

Needless to say, we haven’t been back to the river together. But we have been to the lake. I may disclose the details of that trip in a couple of years. I’m still getting over it.

to the time I almost died by canoe,
– Caleb