Volume 2, number 7, July 2000 Swimming the Chatanika In the summer of 1991 Margaret and I were newly wed. I had spent the two previous years working and had saved up a reasonable amount of money even though I had been recently laid off. Margaret was still working three twelve-hour shifts a week at the hospital. We agreed that we had enough money for a while and that I could take the entire summer off. Oh, sweet paradise. While Margaret worked I would take care of chores and prepared for our next four-day weekend—these nearly always involved canoeing. The entire summer was just one big safari. We’d pack up the gear, tie on the canoe and take off on our next adventure. It seems we canoed every river in the Interior within our ability that we could drive to. Sometimes we went with friends. Mostly it was just the two of us, very romantic. On our first trip down the Chatanika, Margaret had forgotten to bring rubber boots. Since it was fairly early in the spring the water level wasn’t very high. Every time we ran aground on a gravel bar I would gallantly pick Margaret up and carry her across so she wouldn’t get her feet wet. I was so in love and such a sucker. Our friends were pretty grossed out. Karma prevailed, though. On the last bend of the river before getting out we ran aground on some sweepers. Margaret got out while I tried to free the canoe. While waiting for me, Margaret stepped onto an overhanging slab of organics and fell straight through to the river below—which was well over her head. She bobbed back up to the surface and was greeted by our dog Ruby who simply stared and sniffed at her. I was able to help her back into the canoe without dumping everything else into the water. Our friends, behind us in their own canoe, were laughing so hard they nearly missed the spot to get out at. Later that summer in July we tried the Chatanika again, this time alone. It was frying-pan hot, above ninety degrees Fahrenheit. We dressed as lightly as we could and still keep covered to prevent sunburn. It was no use. We were still dying in the heat. We stopped every twenty minutes or so to swim and cool off. Every time the river got even remotely tricky we would just jump out and walk the canoe through, getting as wet as possible. Eventually we were just floating with the current beside the canoe and never bothered to get back in. That night we camped on a sand bar and even after dusk it was so hot the bugs never came out to bother us. The next morning the weather hadn’t changed and we were looking forward to another red-hot day of frolicking in the cool clear waters of the Chatanika. Our camp was eventually packed up and we were ready to go. Ruby was coerced into the canoe and off we went. Exactly 100 yards later we were back on the riverbank because Ruby had jumped out and we were trying to get her back in. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something rather peculiar. On the other side of the river a man was thrashing around, upside down against the riverbank, with his head in the water. It seemed pretty obvious that unless somebody did something he was going to drown. We had no idea how long he had been in the water. The river was only about thigh deep so I asked Margaret to hold on to the canoe while I ran across to help this guy out. Somehow, while trying to retrieve a fish he had just caught, he had slipped off the embankment and got his hips jammed in the forked branches of a sweeper. His upper body toppled over and he found himself hanging upside down with the only thing in the water being his head. The thrashing I saw were his attempts to get a breath of air. With a little bit of care I was able to free him and help him back to the top of the embankment. He was very surprised and grateful to see me. Turns out this guy was about eighty-five years old, owned the piece of property he was fishing from and had for his entire life. Nothing like that had ever happened before. He was pretty shaken up about it. Nobody had passed by on the river the entire day before and we were the first to come by that day. A fantastic number of circumstances had occurred for me to save this man’s life. The window of opportunity was only a few minutes. Any earlier and we would have just waved and passed him by. Any later and we would have been calling the troopers to recover his body. We talked awhile. I wanted to make sure he was OK and that he didn’t need any more help. At one point he looked me in the eye and asked, "Do you think I should stop fishing?" I thought about it for a bit, wondered if he had any family that might be worrying about him and what would happen to him after I left. I thought about it some more and started equating his question to; "Do you think I should stop fishing for good?" His faith in himself was shaken. He thought he was too old to have fun anymore. He was obviously still having a great time, up until he nearly drowned. I told him he should keep fishing. Fate had given him another chance. Why should he quit now? He hadn’t died yet and probably had plenty of time still to catch fish. Go for it, you old geezer—catch those fish while you still can. After eighty-five years I hope I can survive nearly drowning while fly-casting for grayling. I’m sure there are better ways to go, but there are an awful lot of ways that are worse. I’ve since realized that he was thinking too much like an adult, always thinking safety first and rarely taking any chances. At eighty-five years old I want to think like a kid again, live for the moment and blaze ahead never looking back. What doesn’t kill me can only make me stronger. I want to jump to the edge of the abyss, spin around in circles with my face pointed straight at the sky and my arms held wide until I’m giggling and too dizzy to stand. Maybe I’ll fall in and that will be the last of me. Maybe I won’t and I’ll go for ice cream afterwards and think nothing of the danger ever. What we need is a different attitude towards old age, after we’re done with adulthood, after the kids are grown and on their own, after we retire and after all the responsibilities go away. When everything is done and we’re all wondering what’s next, we should somehow be magically reunited with our childhood friends. We could forget about meaningless accomplishments or failures of our lives. We could start frying bugs on the sidewalks with magnifying glasses, swim all day until our skin turns blue and squirt root beer out our noses whenever one of our buddies cracks a joke about failing body parts. I never got to know the man in the river and I never saw him again. I know nothing of his life. Our only contact was when I saved his. My only memory of him is our brief chance encounter while swimming the Chatanika. We were both having the time of our lives. I’m sure he’s fine, if he’s still alive. If he is I hope he’s still at it, fishing, or enjoying whatever else he can think of to fill what is left of his time. | ||
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