PWAC Victoria Writer's Corner: A Reading Room Selection by Dave Preston

The Reading Room

Joseph, & the Amazing Technicolour Dreamboat: Blue Skies, Green Valleys, & White Water

by Dave Preston © 1993

This feature story appeared in Monday Magazine, Aug. 1993.

An old thermometer on the sun-bleached door frame of the Gold Nugget Hotel in Yale said 41°C, my watch said SAT 5 p.m. and the woman inside at the check-in desk said "Sorry." Our sweaty little party of four men would have to share a single room.

James Yale, an officer of Fort Langley, named this town in 1848, leaving it to become a seething den of iniquity. In those heady goldrush days, about half the buildings in Yale were saloons, and a bisecting stone firewall was built after the neighbourhood was twice burned down by a careless drunk. But all good things must come to an end.

Today, at suppertime, the Trans Canada Highway through here is eerily silent for minutes at a time. Occasionally, a few thundering trucks roll by, avoiding the steep hills and tolls of the Coquihalla, the highway which has let much business by-pass this stretch of the valley. There are no saloons, no bars, only the regular howl of freight trains with whistles not nearly as distant or lonesome as I'd like. But tonight, the dozen or so rooms at the Gold Nugget are jammed, and a drop of iniquity is for sale at the general store cum LCB branch across the street.

Like a 1,000-kilometre torrent from the pen of some primeval Stephen King, the Fraser has horrified and claimed the lives of many ill-prepared gold prospectors, who battled the river against all odds. It's much safer to stand in line at the mall for lottery tickets--that's civilization for you. Thrill seekers are still drawn up this raging valley, however, to ride its perpetual flood in small boats.

At eight next morning, the hotel poured its tired guests onto a couple of old school buses, headed northwards to the home of Kumsheen Raft Adventures. Giggling, nervous chatter concerned life insurance, wills, etcetera, as passengers signed releases, and made arrangements for worldly possessions and pets. I quietly made a promise that yes, by god, I would tweak the nose of fear, stick my tongue out at danger, and wave smelly socks in the face of death! Cavalier words for someone who gets water up his nose every morning in the shower.

Two hours later we were up at Spence's Bridge, on the banks of the cold, blue, rushing Thompson River, itself a major waterway but merely a tributary of the mighty Fraser. One of three rafting guides, Steve, was high on the bank top, delivering an aquatic sermon on the mount along the lines of: "blessed are those who keep their life vests tight and their grip on the boat even tighter." Serious stuff.

Three inflatable boats were to take us, over a period of two days, back downstream to Yale, some 80 km south of here. Our boatload of twenty was introduced to Joseph Farsang, our guide and veteran of the Kumsheen crew. A small guy, old enough to have a teenage son and daughter with us on the trip, Joseph wears curly salt-and-pepper hair in a ponytail, reaching halfway down his slender back. A ragged wetsuit and a red, white and blue life vest which has evidently seen action, and duct tape, was Joseph's natty ensemble for this regatta.

People clambered over the fat white rubber into the boat, shuffling along to the back, like getting on a bus. I politely let others go ahead, boarding last and finding myself sitting right at the front, or Bow, as we old seadogs call it. It would soon be known as The Wet End.

Once out into the fierce current, we made good progress downstream without using the small, 25-horsepower Suzuki outboard. Joseph's quiet confidence oozed and slopped among his passengers--I was pleasantly surprised to see that he was more concerned about getting sun-block on his kids than he was about the potentially fatal whitewater ahead of us.

We could, apparently, relax for a while. Scenery around here is big. The lower Thompson flows through a large, open valley, dotted with trees that somehow manage to suck a living from gravelly banks and arid mountains. The odd eagle soared high in a bright, cloudless sky, rugged peaks loomed large all around, and as a mere, drifting speck amid a wrinkle in the planet it was easy to forget that . . . that . . . I forget.

But another good thing came to an end as scenic idyll stopped and rapids began. Brevity is the soul of many things, including Joseph's instructions: "Hold tight," he said.

Whatever sleep coffee had left me with, the first wetting purged in a trice, taking much of the familiar body-heat my heart had maintained so well for thirty-odd years. This is no splash of cologne on the face, nor Super-Soaker surprise from some brat on the beach. This wetting, dry reader, is something like a half-acre pond frozen too thinly to skate on, being blasted all over your body, refreshing the parts even curious doctors don't reach. I felt like a spider being flushed down a frigid drain, which is something spiders need no longer fear from me.

Joseph stood firmly at the rear, a cool river cowboy with rope in one hand and outboard throttle in the other. Whitewater past, he cut the engine and resumed his narrative, his gentle, Hungarian accent carrying little farther than the ripples from our boat. Somewhat inscrutable, he eventually displayed an incredible knowledge of the river system, the environment, and local history, with tongue often in cheek. It was hard to separate factual accounts from BS, but both were warmly absorbed by our motley crew.

My 19 shipmates were various ages and backgrounds, even though 18 of them came from either Victoria or Vancouver. Some were on their maiden voyage, and some back to feed the habit, like the maiden Nora on her fourteenth trip. Other boats carried tourists from Hong Kong, England, the U.S., Italy and Japan.

Between-rapids chat was generally subdued, and disposable waterproof cameras clicked at regular intervals. My picture-taking gear was carefully wrapped inside six plastic grocery bags, one inside the other, each twist-tied and, ultimately, tucked into a nylon backpack. When I dug it all out about half an hour into the trip both cameras were soaked, one useless with its lens looking like one of those Christmas bubble things you shake to watch the snow flakes fly around in. Water doesn't splash into the boat, it gushes through in torrents, like money through a government.

The rapids have names which occasionally make sense, such as The Frog, named for the huge rock squatting in midstream which parts the river in smooth, but powerful, kicking legs down each side. Others are named for effect, such as The Devil's Kitchen, or Jaws of Death. And yes, they have the desired effect.

Meanwhile, Joseph recounts a tale or two of adventure and daring, of pioneers who travelled up the valley to scratch a living or find gold. He tells of a guy who interbred camels with mountain goats and delivered a beast with two long legs and two short ones. He points out a hillside where visible steps, cut by the settler, allowed such animals to walk a trail. Winks and nudges ripple around the boat as we approach the hillside, high on the right bank. Then as we float past, Joseph turns and asks if we can see any of the beasts, which still run wild in the region. And, of course, we can. Right there, a hundred metres or so up the slope, stands a small, brown camel-thing. Unfortunately it's two-dimensional, made of plywood or somesuch.

With immaculate timing, Joseph's lectures end as rapids begin, though we're never sure if he'll start the motor and bring the boat around in time to run the whitewater forwards; (unpowered, the raft tends to swing around and float backwards downstream).

By lunchtime we reach Lytton, headquarters of the outfit and origin of its name, "Kumsheen" being a Native word for meeting or confluence. Here, we meet the huge Fraser, its brown, silt-laden current, swamping the clear, fresh water of the Thompson, which was naturally filtered upstream by a series of lakes. The Fraser, on the other hand, erodes its banks, carrying millions of tons downstream to the coast. The people of Delta are living on top of this stuff. The fast-moving suspension of sand and silt scrubs the inflatable and creates a hissing sound, just like escaping air.

We put ashore for a substantial meal of coldcuts and salad, then extra outriggers are strapped onto the boats to cope with the Fraser's power. Two more boats, from a three-day trip, have caught up with us, and the five now head downstream carrying a total of 96 thrill-seekers. Not each guide, however, has yet had commercial experience on the Fraser.

Training a guide can take four or five years, and competition is fierce--50 applicants for three vacancies this year. Work is seasonal, May to October, so these men and women all have "other lives" such as cabinet installer, ambulance driver, university student, fire chief . . . They do this because they love it, but the $2,500 or so a month helps.

The afternoon is relatively tame. A few rapids, a few water fights, and then, after a particularly long, peaceful stretch as we approach the Anderson River and our campsite for the night, Joseph breaks off a chat to raise both his arms, crossed at the wrists, to signal following boats. Our engine's gone and we're drifting rapidly downstream. Excrement Creek sans paddle, for real.

Immediately, two other rafts speed towards us, one either side, and guides tell people to lean over and grab ropes. Within seconds we've made a huge floating pontoon of three boats, held together by forty pairs of white-knuckled hands, and powered by two small outboards. Slowly, the motors howl our way across the river and gradually, against the current, we pull up to a rocky bank, farther downstream than planned, but we're pleased to have merely overshot the runway rather than missed it altogether. Joseph invites us to disembark, with the air of an elevator attendant reaching the men's-wear floor of The Bay.

We pitch tents on a rough patch of grass, bordered by an old orchard planted by someone's ancestor, dense bush, and a high, steel railway bridge that screams for lubrication each time a train crosses, which is often. This is native land, and Kumsheen pays rent for our overnight stay. Some rafters camp out on the huge sandbank below at the estuary, and two volleyball courts are quickly rigged, and used. The warm evening is pulled gracefully into early morning, by campfires, music, and what some would call dancing.

By 8:30 a.m. we're packed and already squinting and sun-blocking another cloudless day, heading down the steep riverbank for what we're told is the best (read: most dangerous) part of the trip. The part that includes the legendary Hell's Gate.

The Fraser is ready, strong and fierce as ever. Before we board, Joseph sits like a wise elder, high on a bank away from passengers, to counsel the other guides. They gather around him, listening, asking, and watching his hands curl and wave as he gestures. Since a multiple drowning in 1979, rafting has been closely monitored by federal and provincial governments, and the Canadian Coastguard. After twenty years in business, Kumsheen is accident-free. So far. It's Joseph's job to see it stays that way.

Rapids vary in thrill and potential danger with the water level. Depending on the volume of water flowing, some rapids almost disappear while others, usually insignificant, can become shallow but deadly maelstroms. After 15 years, Joseph knows all possibilities, and armed with flowrates supplied by people who read gauges at Spence's Bridge and Vancouver, he advises which course to take, the order the five boats will travel in, and the distance between them. This isn't just a lazy float downstream on some fat innertube.

Joseph mentions that it's his kids' thirteenth trip down this fierce stretch, and guess what--it's not Friday. I ask about the boats and he tells me they're made from U.S. Army pontoons, possibly left over from the Korean War. In other words, this rubber and canvas, with cute little brass eyelets, could be forty years old, and was only built to . . . never mind.

After a decent batch of whitewater, in which everyone gets wet and screaming echoes around the valley, we settle down for another long, even stretch of whirlpools and eddies. Joseph tells me that even "quiet" stretches can be dangerous, as a huge volume of water sucked down by a whirlpool gets sent back up elsewhere, as a surge. Fun really begins when big whirlpool meets big surge and the water explodes, enough to flip a 30-foot boat, et al. I said that sounded like fun, and immediately tried thinking about something else.

We've been quiet for several minutes in this, the leading boat, when Joseph slowly rises, extends a dramatic arm downstream and says, "Ladies and gentlemen . . . Hell's Gate." All eyes follow his gesture 300 metres downstream, and a rubbery silence snaps shut on us. Because the river makes a sharp turn, right after the gate, it looks like everything is boiling and disappearing down a gigantic plughole. Suddenly, the nose of fear seems an awfully big one to be tweaking.

Hell's Gate is a narrow gorge, only 33 metres wide, with a river at peak flow forcing up to 10,000 cubic metres of water through it, every second. Today, we're riding on much less water than that, so I'm told. I suggest we put ashore for a picnic and enjoy the view from 100 metres upstream, while Joseph tours the boat to see that life vests are tight and everything is tied down. My cameras, in six grocery bags, suddenly seem very disposable.

Fifty metres to go, we appear to gain speed and Joseph says, again, "Hold tight." I glance up and see the footbridge and notice a woman with a video camera aimed at us. I recall TV news reports with captions saying "AMATEUR VIDEO" showing wobbly, unfocused pictures of an airshow crash or something. I try to smile. I'm second from the front, right behind Eric, who appeals loudly to his Maker and adds a few expletives for effect as we finally rush into swirling, thundering foam.

You can't see a thing and senses are overloaded, you grip, and grip and howl . . . Cold, white hell, roughly speaking, then we're through, thank Whoever, and pulling aside to monitor the following boats, one of which has a rougher time than we did. I feel a word of congratulation should go to the guide, a lad who's just taken his first batch of screamers through Hell's Gate and who'll soon be back studying in a warm, dry U of Calgary.

And soon, 35 hours after leaving Yale, we're back on its shore, deflating outriggers and loading trailers. Beneath a shady maple outside the hotel, certificates are awarded, t-shirts are bought, hands are shaken, and celebratory drinks are splashed about. We're not setting fire to the town, but for a heartwarming, brief while, the Fraser has again washed up a little life at Yale.

Dave Preston
| Author Profile | More Writing Samples |

Last updated: September 17, 1996 http://www.islandnet.com/pwacvic/presto03.html