River Life

            Life on the river is a pretty incredible thing. You’re cut off from the outside world, leaving you with just the river and your companions as entertainment. And between the two they did more than just that. The connection you seem to develop with the river and nature itself, as well as the rest of your group, was to me a very rare and special thing.

            You wake up, pack up your tent, eat breakfast and load the boasts early enough to spend most of the morning on the river. Maybe you take a quick bathroom break before stopping for a late lunch. Then of course its back on the river in the afternoon before stopping for the night in time to get everything unpacked before dinner. We occupied our post dinner hours by sitting around, discussing the highlights and lowlights (as few as there were) of the day with each and of course singing and playing music late into the night. There’s a certain routine to it all, a routine that you sort of fall into without thinking about. A routine that makes you want to stay there forever…..

Probably the most inspiring part of our trip was watching our guides and how they operated. Our Maori guides really made this trip for us. They cooked all the meals, kept us safe on the river and best of all played beautiful acoustics for us late into every night(some life myself took advantage of these free performances more than others). The coolest part about them though was seeing the passion they had for the river, both in the passion they had for being on the river was well as the passion they had for the maintenance of river health.

            These are a people who care for the river as they would relatives, deeper even perhaps. They care for all of nature because they know that it is where we come from and what allows us to carry on our own short lives. As a culture they cherish these great outdoors more than anyone of anything I have ever encountered. It is extremely difficult to explain the connection that they felt with the river, and as such I won’t do them the dishonor of trying to. I’ll just say that through their passion for it, I felt a passion for it. And honestly still do. I believe that the trip has changed my perception of the world in a very positive and uplifting way. While I was on it I felt free of other troubles and concerns, only a peacefulness that only the river could have provided. And now that I’m off of it, I can still feel its pull. The desire to not only go back to it, but to protect it and other places like it in order to preserve it for all.

            Running the risk of overkill, I’ll continue on. During our first night with them, the idea that all water is connected was brought up. We were told to whisper to the river at some point, whisper to our home bodies of water. And someday, while we were there, it would whisper back. At the time, I sort of thought to myself, well yes that’s true in a sense and it may be an nice thought but it’s at the same time kind of silly. Little did I know that I would come to eat those thoughts? Because during the last 100 meters or so of our trip our guides let us get out and swim to the boat ramp. Now nearby I could hear a chainsaw, and the mechanical sounds rattled me. I just wasn’t ready to get back to the mechanized world that I had been away from. So I laid on my back, put my ears underwater to block out the noise and suddenly I was one with the river. And I just started whispering “I am the River and the river is me (Ko au te awa, Ko te awa ko au)” which is sort of the motto of some of the local Maori. I just whispered this to myself over and over before I started speaking to the lakes and streams near and dear to me: Star Lake….Indian Lake….Pheasant Branch Creek….Lake Mendota….Lake Monona. And next sometime in the future, I fully expect them to whisper back, I am the Whanganui, a part of it forever and always, just as you are.

And I think I’ll leave you with those seemingly crazed words by a touched pakeha boy…..