ON THE ATHABASCA RIVER

I would never have gone white water rafting had I not been swept up by magic. When you think of it, white water rafting in late September is an unlikely recreational choice for a person whose fingers freeze easily, one who cannot swim, one who hates roller coasters. But magic was happening all around me.

There’s magic in the Rockies. Everybody knows that. It’s not very often that a person like me gets to go to Jasper Park Lodge without having to pay the bill, and it’s not very often that I happen to meet a childhood friend whose husband is attending the same conference that brought my husband there, and it’s not very often that I have an extra glass of wine, which, in addition to the magic theory, explains why I agreed to go white water rafting.

It all happened, at least the agreeing part happened, on a golden evening. My friend Janice and I reconnected. We shared our memories and updated each other on the status of our children. And then she said—as if I could really be important in this-- that if only they could find one more couple to meet the absolute minimum number of paddlers needed, they could go on a white water rafting trip down the Athabasca river the very next morning. If only she had not said it on an evening when almost anything worth having seemed possible.

By morning I knew I had made a mistake. I had a headache. I had a queasy stomach. I was a young mother who might leave three orphans if something bad happened. It was colder than it had been the previous evening.

Had it been my conference, I might have arranged an important emergency meeting. But the spouses at conferences don’t ever have anything important to do. I would have backed out if David had not been so pleased to go, and if I hadn’t promised Janice, and if I could have thought of any way to get out of it.

Time ran out on me. A bus came by to take us to the river. Suddenly I was struck by a hopeful possibility. “I’m a blind person,” I announced to the guide, trying to look as incompetent as possible. Unfortunately, he had successfully completed a course in inclusiveness strategies. It was clear that he was delighted to find a place for his under-utilized knowledge.

He took charge, offering beginner’s lessons to us all. I shall never forget what he told us as we put on our wetsuits and donned our life jackets. He said, “I will steer the raft and your paddling will give me the power. The power of your paddling will get us safely through the white water. “ I say I will never forget it now, but I did forget it when he first said it. I was a little bit distracted, what with wondering if our wills were completely up to date.

When the initial instruction was complete, we climbed into the raft. I planned to sit in the center. But there was no center. Everybody sat on the edge. I planned to hold on, but you don’t hold on to anything but the paddle. I began to wish I’d brought glue for the bottoms of my boots. Then we started down the river.

At first it was wonderful. The magic had returned. We paddled lazily. The river did the work. I put on heavy gloves and took them off as the September sun rose higher in the sky. Everything was the way it ought to be. There was wildlife. There were mountains. There was laughter.

And then there was the white water. It wasn’t like a roller coaster. It was like an airplane, the scariest kind of airplane, landing in terrible weather, splashing you. It was up and down, bucking like a wild bull, going from side to side. I wanted to hold on to the side, needed to hold on. This is what I always do on airplanes. A seatbelt is fine as it goes, but you have to take precautions.

“Don’t hold on Wendy,” the guide shouted over the roaring water. I suppose that was part of his training, to make sure I wouldn’t think he was talking to somebody else. “Paddle!”

So I paddled, badly, no doubt, not being a good paddler. I didn’t hold on because you can’t paddle and hold on at the same time. I didn’t throw up. I didn’t fall out. We made it! In only a moment the river was as lazy and loving as it had been before the rapids.

Janice doesn’t know it, but I have been telling this story for years. It turned into a hope story, a story of lessons for many occasions. It is one of the best examples of a time when I was okay, though I didn’t know it until later. It was a time when I had to stop being afraid and get down to work so that somebody else could steer the course. And—something to focus me on the golden evenings in the years that followed--this is a story that reminds me never to agree to anything when I have had an extra glass of wine.