Paddling to Nowhere
The DEC launch, located beneath route 481 in northern New York, clanked and rattled with the movement of traffic overhead. A pick up with an empty trailer parked to the side. A sign advised us to clean our boats of invasive species. Like every boat launch in the country (it seems) a man sat in a white Buick, watching the water go by. And watching me put my boat in the water.
I write “the water” because at the point I was slipping my boat into the calm river I did not know the name of the Oneida river. I noted the launch site on my map, and as I drove home from a lovely visit to a writing class in Oswego, decided to make a short paddle stop. I didn’t know where this river ran or what I would see. In this way I concoct small adventures.
I struck out to the east. The river divided and I chose the left fork. Houses lined the water, docks allowing easy access for small motorboats. The river was about one-hundred and fifty yards wide. I paddled down the middle, flushing mallards and a stray great blue heron that loitered on the far shore from the houses. The river felt intimate and calm and I wondered at these hundred or so people who got to live there, watching the river shift along: what did they see? No one was home, though I wished for someone to appear so I could ask where this river led, what this river is called.
The DEC launch, located beneath route 481 in northern New York, clanked and rattled with the movement of traffic overhead. A pick up with an empty trailer parked to the side. A sign advised us to clean our boats of invasive species. Like every boat launch in the country (it seems) a man sat in a white Buick, watching the water go by. And watching me put my boat in the water.
I write “the water” because at the point I was slipping my boat into the calm river I did not know the name of the Oneida river. I noted the launch site on my map, and as I drove home from a lovely visit to a writing class in Oswego, decided to make a short paddle stop. I didn’t know where this river ran or what I would see. In this way I concoct small adventures.
I struck out to the east. The river divided and I chose the left fork. Houses lined the water, docks allowing easy access for small motorboats. The river was about one-hundred and fifty yards wide. I paddled down the middle, flushing mallards and a stray great blue heron that loitered on the far shore from the houses. The river felt intimate and calm and I wondered at these hundred or so people who got to live there, watching the river shift along: what did they see? No one was home, though I wished for someone to appear so I could ask where this river led, what this river is called.
The sun hovered high in the sky warming the air and my thoughts. I thought in comparisons: the Hudson is wider, bolder, more textured. Would I be happy paddling smaller rivers. Would I have become a paddler if I lived near a smaller river? Because the truth is, I bought my kayak in order to know the Hudson, to enter onto and into a big river. I’m not a paddler; my boat was a way to get to know the Hudson. I have only twice paddled on rivers beyond the Hudson. It felt, I hate to say it, a bit traitorous. I was cheating on my river.
Soon, the riverside houses started to bore me. I wanted the intimacy of cattails and maybe a turtle or two soaking in the last of the summer’s warmth. I wanted sparrows dashing from sight. And if I could not have that peacefulness of no-people, I wanted a cement plant to entertain me.
Just as I was deciding to turn back, to give up trying to find the magic of this little river, it took a sharp bend. In front of me yawned an underpass. A man stood with a fishing pole on the far side of the pass, as I coasted into a narrow channel, grass and cattails in front of me. My heart soared. “Excuse me,” I said, “what is the name of this river?” The man looked surprised to hear a voice. “I don’t know it’s name. But around these parts we call it Big Bend.” “Thanks. What are you catching?” “A few sunnies.”
I coasted onward into the reeds and isolation. The houses had vanished. Calm descended. I stroked forward feeling as if my paddle had just begun. This wide, empty swamp land confirmed my sense that if you just paddle long enough you’ll end up nowhere.