22 River miles from Colebrook, NH (at river mile 47) to the Maine Central Railroad Trestle Campsite (at river mile 69)

Dot and I drove up to Colebrook NH, where we had taken out with Joanie a week before. We found a spot off the side of the road, right by the river where we could camp for the night. It was an auspicious start to our long stint downriver.

In the morning we drove to our put in point. It took a bit of fiddling with the gear but we managed to get it all loaded into the boats. Then we had our first real challenge; a short but gnarly portage down to the river. I loaded my kayak, got it on the cart and pulled it to the river, managing to get it down a few steps, across a rickety, uneven footbridge and through thigh-high weeds. Dot had much more trouble using her smaller set of wheels with her much heavier boat so eventually we loaded her boat onto my cart. After a few mishaps we got her to the river as well.

The first stretch was lovely. I was amazed to feel my boat, which had felt so heavy on land, glide easily down the river. It wasn’t the fastest nor quickest turning boat, but it was a totally different animal in water than it had been on land when I was struggling to pull it to the river. It was in its element.

I mused a bit about how being in one’s true element makes all the difference in the world. Yet it seems these days that many people are disconnected from their true selves and their environments. They find a job and move to it, often without a sense of what their home element is. I know that mine is country living. The few times I lived in large cities I felt I was losing my sanity I have a friend who has to hear the ocean as background noise or he becomes anxious. I have often felt that in my home state of Vermont, people live there because they want to and then they find a way to make it work out, even if it means creating their own business. For them the quality of their environment is more important than their job.

It soon became clear we were in bald eagle territory. Dot and I kept following them downriver. They would perch on a dead branch over the river. As we approached they would take off above our heads and fly down river, perching somewhere else. This continued for a few hours. We also saw hawks and osprey. Later that day I learned we were in what is known as North American Raptor Territory where almost every type of North American raptor can be found.

We also saw lots of tiny mergansers and ducks and hundreds of juvenile geese. We saw numerous other birds including kingfishers and cormorants. I heard chestnut sided and yellow warblers.

Suddenly I had to stop focusing on the sights and sounds and completely focus on the river. It became fairly shallow and rocky while moving at a good rate, ranging between class I and class II. At first it was a fun obstacle course. Then It became a real challenge. The map said we might hit rocks, and did we ever!

A few times I got hung up on rocks and was glad when Dot called out to me, reminding me to lean downstream into the rock. It is just so counterintuitive but exactly the right thing to do. Dot’s boat rides much lower than mine causing her get completely stuck on the rocks. I could not paddle back up through that rocky mine field to help her, so I paddled down to where I could beach my boat. Then I got out and walked up to where she was, precariously balancing on the slippery river rocks. I would pull her off the rocks and get her heading down river again before wading back to my boat. After a few times of this I learned it was better to take my spray skirt off before walking up to her so I did not get as tripped up in the river. After five times of this I was exhausted. But there was more work to come.

We had a lovely lunch at Lyman Falls campsite where we picked handfuls of the largest wild strawberries we have ever seen. We scouted the breached dam and decided we could run the short class III rapid. It wasn’t the prettiest run I’ve ever made, but considering I was in a tank of a boat rather than in a dancer it was okay. At least we both stayed upright.

We joined up with the Northern Forest Canoe Trail which is a 740 mile water trail running from Old Forge, NY through Vermont, Quebec and New Hampshire before ending in Kent, Maine. This longest in-land water trail in the country utilizes traditional water travel routes of early indigenous peoples. Dot and I passed by some Abenaki sites including a spring very sacred to these native Vermont people. We also paddled by a number of farms just over the banks of the river. We could not see them from our low perch in the water, but we sure could smell them. For miles the air smelled of freshly spread manure, making me glad we were carrying enough fresh water for three days.

Just as we thought we were done with the hard stuff the wind picked up and we spent the last hours of our twenty two mile day again pushing into the wind. If we let up for a minute we got blown backwards. When we hit another section of shallow, rocky rapids, this time with wind, I was so tired that all I could do was laugh. I laughed until my stomach hurt. That helped me to keep paddling. I was so relieved to see the train trestle which marked our campsite for the night.

We were both wet, chilly and famished but we couldn’t rest until we had lugged our gear up the hill and set up our tents. What a difference putting on dry clothes and eating dinner made. We talked about the importance of challenges. When they push me just to my limit, as today’s had done, there is a sense of pride and accomplishment at having succeeded. I thought about how much less fulfilling my life feels when I don’t have real challenges to face. I recognized that had we capsized those challenges would have felt very different. They then might have crossed the line into trauma. These challenges we had faced were valuable because they showed me I could manage in the river even when I felt stuck. I was grateful they had stopped shy of causing me trauma. I was even more grateful that I had had Dot to share that challenging day with.