Jumping Off and Setting Down

Our  trucks are unloaded and our canoes are packed with a week’s worth of supplies and equipment, a process that seems always to take more time than it should for a simple transfer of freight from one container to another.

At last, I heft my setting pole and step into the shallows at the foot of Baker Lake, wading far enough to avoid grinding more scratches into the hull as I slide onto the stern seat.  The loaded canoe feels leaden and unresponsive as it glides into the stream to pick up momentum.  I paddle toward the channel under the logging bridge, tensing muscles long unaccustomed to this form of exercise.  Away from the bank, the distracting activity of black flies subsides.

At this moment, things change.  Worries about car keys, wallets, how-many-minutes-after-the-hour, and half-empty gas tanks vanish.  We’re jumping off for a week-long trip.  Time of day is no longer a concern;  my wrist watch and pocket alarm clock are packed away in the waterproof ammo can, the sanctum sanctorum of survival gear and other odds and ends that require protection from the damp.  The sun’s arc is now my timepiece.  Even so, I feel the tug of ambivalence between lazing along  and rushing toward our intended campsite.  It takes a while to fall into the river's groove, to resist the impulse to hurry for hurry’s sake.

There’s a mild breeze and a scattering of white clouds in a blue sky.  Mayflies rise from the river’s surface and spin skyward.  It’s early afternoon.  Disturbing the swallows nesting under the span, my canoe drifts under the bridge of the International Paper road into the spruce-green valley of the Saint John’s south branch.  The fire warden's camp - the last official building we'll see for days -- drifts away and out of sight on the western bank.

After six hours of driving to get to Baker Lake, I’m eager to get moving.  Within the confines of the canoe’s stern I pick up my setting pole and stand up to stretch.  I swing my pole and shift my weight from one foot to another, rocking the canoe to get the feel of its trim.  Stepping forward, feet apart for balance, I straddle the stern thwart.  I push the pole shoe against the bottom and the stern swings.  I want the current to correct the canoe’s course, to keep it pointed downstream, but not so strongly that I must fight it to change direction.  There.  I’ve got the feel of it.  The current pulls the bow downstream and I’m satisfied with the trim.

Old-timers call the use of the setting pole to run downstream “setting down”  and one is said to “set” a canoe when it’s navigated with a pole.  This is descriptive, since the canoeist picks his course by choosing a series of placements for the canoe, rather than thinking of its course as a line-of-travel. The term “to set” is especially apt for pushing upstream, when the canoeist “sets” the canoe from eddy to eddy, avoiding the main force of current whenever possible.    Once one develops skill with the setting pole, he’ll prefer setting to paddling.  The pole’s connection with the solid river bottom is surer than the paddle’s connection with water.  When the pole’s striking on the bottom slows the canoe or changes its course, that action is described as “snubbing.”  “To snub” is an old-timer’s word for stopping or slowing any object, such as a canoe or log,  by means of friction.   Thus when one runs a canoe firmly onto the shore, the canoe is said to be “snubbed.”   And when one pushes a setting pole on the river bed to hold or push canoe against the current one is said to be snubbing the canoe.  I should add that the pole point, or shoe, is never dragged along the bottom, a motion that would likely break the pole. Instead, the direction of the push is always aligned with the length of the pole. (I’ve inserted a couple of illustrations to show this.) “Setting” is the process of moving the canoe with a pole.  “Snubbing” is an action that slows the canoe with the friction of the pole against the bottom.  Got that?  It’s really interesting to watch a competent canoeman snub a canoe to a halt in a strong current.  A loaded downstream canoe develops too much momentum to be stopped with one single push against the river bed.  Such an attempt would pull the canoeist out of the canoe, or knock him over, or break the pole.  The canoeist decelerates the canoe with a precise series of snubs until he can hold the canoe steady.   The action of the pole rising and falling reminds one of a woodpecker hitting a tree, except it sounds like “CLANG, CLANG, Clang, clang, clang, clang.”   

I float aimlessly, watching from the corner of my eye for rocks and observing the progress of my companions, while I fuss with placing my paddles, setting pole, bailing sponge, cup and bottle within arm’s reach.  Well, really, the canoe doesn’t allow aimless floating when drifting among rocks.  While steering a canoe doesn’t usually require the concentration of driving a car, once a canoe has acquired momentum it develops a contrary mind of its own that wants to slide sideways and midships onto barely submerged rocks.  It will stick until you have jumped up and down, cursed for a minute or two, and rogered on the river bottom with your pole.

Downward between the forested banks of spindly firs and alders the little river beckons, its serene surface concealing its unyielding, hurrying current.

I hear the first set of rapids before rounding the corner, then they’re dead ahead -- patches of gurgling white turbulence among dark rocks – rocks that can grind a canoe to a halt.  I squint into the chaos in search of a navigable channel, choosing the sky’s reflection on the glassy lip of a slick between two rocks.  I must correct my course to get there.  I let my setting pole drop to the river bottom, feel it clank and bounce, and when it’s in the right position I push gently -- just enough to swing the canoe and aim it toward the needle’s eye of the open slick.

This is the finest canoeing that I can imagine.  These aren’t big, heart-pounding rapids, just a small river with enough spring run-off left to float a canoe.  My efforts are far from heroic, any danger inconsequential.  I could fall out of my canoe and stand up on the river bottom.  The thrill of this sort of work occurs when the canoe goes precisely where I want.  I feel the canoe bob up and down in the quick water as I stand and watch the rocks and woods glide past.  Frequently there’s just an inch or two of clearance for the hull to pass between two rocks.  When I reach a quiet stretch I relax, sip some water, perhaps sit and paddle for a while if the water’s deep enough.  When the next set of rapids appears around the bend, I stand and peer ahead, choosing my course, and now and again use the setting pole to swing the canoe to one side or the other.

Running rapids with a setting pole is a fine skill.  Navigation is too complex for simply pushing the canoe toward one’s target, for one must account for both the current’s speed and direction relative to the ground and the canoe’s speed and direction relative to the current.  The canoe is trimmed bow-heavy so that the current will tend to point it downstream after I’ve pushed it to one side or the other.  From my vantage point in the stern this motion feels as though the heavier bow is swinging like a pendulum against the fulcrum of the setting pole snubbing the river bottom.  The apparent direction, the longitudinal axis, of the canoe often seems to move opposite to its real direction, the movement of its center of gravity.  This phenomenon leads alarmed novice bowmen to believe they’re about to collide with rocks they’re really moving away from.

The beginner’s tendency in a downstream current is to overpower the canoe with wide swings that must be corrected and over-corrected.  The principle is to let the current take care of the forward motion, and to use paddle or pole only for crosswise movement.  The main force of moving water is in deeper channels and around rocks -- the current generally will steer the canoe in the right direction, and the idea of letting the river help with steering is essential to elegant canoe travel.  The principle is easier in theory than practice.  For one thing, the canoe’s movement through the river’s sinusoidal shape develops centrifugal force that throws the canoe toward the outside of every curve, away from the main current.  For another thing, the river bed is a rock garden, a slalom course of surprises and sudden changes of direction.  You can’t always count on the current to carry you away from rocks.

Along this sunny and desolate stretch of river is, as I said, the finest canoeing that I can imagine.  The canoe’s speed is like a fast walk  The rocks and forest pass by as I stand, alert and relaxed, to read the river.  “Reading water” -- the canoeist’s skill in finding a navigable way though moving water -- involves the use of all the senses to locate the route using clues from the visible surface and from sounds, too.  While many useful technical descriptions of navigating rapids are available often with diagrams, photos, and even movies, “reading” the rapids is a subtle and intuitive skill that can be described, perhaps, but can be learned and understood only with practice.  To read water, one absorbs the whole scene of the river in a way I am tempted to describe as meditative;  it’s the sort of thing that works best when one doesn’t try too hard.  One doesn’t concentrate on any particular thing, but rather scans the lay of the land, hears sounds of the moving water, feels the trajectory of the canoe – all senses engaged.  Sometimes the navigable channel is revealed only by the most minute difference in inclination between one side of the river or the other, and this can be perceived by combining fine depth perception, peripheral vision, proprioception, and balance, not by looking first at one side and then the other, but by relaxing one’s concentration to absorb the scene in its entirety.

One often hears a set of rapids before it comes into view.  A good canoeist can hear the layout of an approaching rapid -- whether it is generally shallow across its width or whether it is divided into discrete deeper channels, how shallow it is and perhaps which side has the deeper channel.  The frequency and volume of the sound of rapids reveals where the deepest water flows, and if both sides look identically runnable, then one heads for the deeper sound, for the lower frequency indicates the greater force.  There are many other things to learn.  For example, the shortest distance between two points is seldom a straight line.  Also, the apparent best direction of the surface current often leads to a dead end, that is, into a channel that becomes too shallow to navigate, although generally the fastest surface current reveals the deepest channel.

The afternoon is sunny and warm.  The current, persistent and ample, moves the canoe along.  One daydreams of hydrology and mechanics, of evening’s prospective dinner, of emphemera, and sometimes of nothing in particular.

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