First of all, let me say I’m ashamed I grew up in Gander and never ventured down the Gander River. Last week a friend of mine who recently moved to Nova Scotia, came home shortly after a crisis we were experiencing with Christopher. We spent her first day home on my deck chatting and analyzing the crisis, a day with a friend like this is better than any professional counselling session. This friend has been there for me through the thick and the thin since grade school; that day on the deck was marvelous and just what the doctor ordered. Her husband suggested maybe I would enjoy a trip down the Gander River in his Gander River Boat, thinking it would also help me get through this hard time. Boy was he right!
We started the trip in Glenwood. It was my first time aboard a Gander River Boat, for years I admired the 25-foot white boats lining the river and wondered why everyone had the same boat. The boat was designed and modified over the generations by boatbuilders to perfectly suit the Gander River and its many challenges and changing conditions. I was excited to get on the water and forget my troubles. Already relaxed, even before getting in the boat, I picked a few flowers at riverside while we waited for our guide, “Captain Dave”, my nickname for him that day. I tied the flowers to my knapsack, positioned them where I could see them during the trip and got ready for my first trip down the “Mighty Gander River”, as locals call it. I knew I would enjoy it as I love the outdoors and I love the water but I wasn’t prepared for how exhilarating this escape was going to be. The Gander River doesn’t have huge roaring waterfalls and jagged cliffs like a lot of the province’s coastline, it doesn’t look dangerous but once on it, it didn’t take long to see where the “mighty” comes from. On the way down it was peaceful within minutes, I kept asking, “What’s this place called?” ,”What’s this place called?” Trying to pick my favourite spots and remember their names to tell my friends who know the river well. I had to stop that game, as there were so many “favorites” I couldn’t pick just one… even top five would be hard.
Out there, on the way down the river, I felt like nothing else mattered, I felt like we were in a different world, tranquil and serene, the long skinny boat navigating through rocks and running water…. so peaceful. Every few minutes there was a new scene, something else to put me in awe of what I was seeing, increasing my anger with myself for never exploring this gem of a river before, only minutes from my hometown. Fishers fly fishing, salmon jumping, dragonflies following us, my friends telling stories of previous trips down the river, the sound of a loon constantly in the background, my friend convinced the loon was her father who is no longer with us, the thought of the loon being Reg following us, keeping an eye on us, enjoying the trip with us felt real to me too. Christopher tucked safely away in hospital again dealing with his recent relapse and I with time to breathe and contemplate what’s next. An escape for a day on the Gander River with some wonderful friends was long overdue. My husband told me for years I would love it on the Gander River, he used to do an annual canoe trip from Glenwood to Gander Bay and although I said I’d love to do it, I never did…. my increasing anger now focused on him for not forcing me to do this years ago (lol, as if he could force me to do anything!)
We hung out at my friends cabin for a while, had a little lunch, had a great chat, not about Christopher at all … just about their fishing, what they’ve been doing and activities of the fishers they’ve been watching. I was amused by their preoccupation with “fisher watching” and the happenings on the water, daydreaming what it would be like to spend a week down there as they were and not thinking about anything at all except who landed or rose salmon, how calm or rough the water was that day, the amount of rain, mist or fog or sharing favorite morning scenes from the cabin deck. A little debate about catch and release, a little raz about who slept when or whose turn it was to make supper….. simple, easy times. I envied their week on the river but was so happy Captain Dave suggested sharing a bit of their “man escape” with us lady friends.
Before leaving we went for a swim, water… a little cold, I was the last to get in which rarely happens to me even if swimming with a bunch of teenagers in the Atlantic Ocean. True to my Pisces sign, I’m usually the first one in the water amongst any crowd but this time I was happy not to be …. so proud of my lifetime friend, who recently lost over 100 pounds and has a new lease on life. While we were swimming, the sky quickly went grey, thunder roared loud in the distance and then rain started pouring down, warm rain, like “Florida rain” I called it, my only tropical rain experience reference. Captain Dave covered our bags, clothes and towels as we enjoyed the swim in the rain that eventually fell so hard it was like an outside shower with the nozzle on “power pulse” or whatever the fastest, hardest setting is! We left with just bathing suits and life jackets on as the lightening show started which continued all the way up the river. Not as “peaceful” a journey but just as exhilarating as coming down… just for different reasons. As the thunder roared and we watched an amazing light show I looked back at Captain Dave guiding us back up the river, which is a much tougher job than going down…. he looked a little apprehensive as the storm got worse but my friend and I we were laughing…. laughing out loud separately but even more so if I turned around and we caught each other’s gaze… laughing through the danger…. laughing through the stress….laughing I think, at the fact it was so amazing…. the power of nature… the parallels to our lives and what we talked about on my deck the day before… even in a storm she helps me smile, she gets me. To go from complete calm and happiness to this thunder and lightning storm is exactly what living a life loving an addict is like; unpredictable and jumping from one extreme to another in a matter of minutes.
I understand it was not safe to be out in a thunder and lightning storm on the river in a boat but …. WOW! It seems like every time I try to escape something aligns and makes my experience that much more amazing. Is it nature? Is it the universe? …or some other spiritual being that always intensifies my experience while escaping? I don’t know what it is but in times of need I find solace in nature and friendship. Little Chute, Petries Rock, Big Shoot, Dark Angle, Fourth Pond, Fourth Pond Bar, Max and Con’s piece of heaven…all kinds of new special spots, all kinds of areas I had not seen before, Captain Dave telling stories of the challenging times, learning how to navigate this river, how he’s on his third river boat and now hits rock bottom a lot less than he used to. I guess the river wasn’t high or low, somewhere in between, two of them telling me how the different spots look when the river is higher or lower, pointing out rocks he’s hit in the past, pointing out areas others have gone awry…. the grey, the green, the white, the water flowing constantly mesmerized my brain and took over all my troubles.
The skill it took to guide us up that river in the thunder and lightning storm with so much water pouring down on us! Captain Dave’s skill going up Big Shoot in such conditions impressed the hell out of me… he stopped and repositioned us in the boat to make it “a little easier” he said. Again when I looked back during the struggle up Big Shoot, he looked apprehensive but still Joanne K and I were laughing. I said to her the next day, still on a igh from the trip, “I can’t believe we were laughing through all that” and she said only a few people would understand and appreciate why we were laughing. Peaceful beauty on the way down, a tranquil indulging swim in calm cold water with hidden surprising currents and then boom… thunder, lightning, pouring rain like we’ve never seen before…. so much more vibrant because we were in the woods in the middle of nowhere away from streetlights, signs, paved roads, houses, buildings… just us on the river in a boat listening to the clapping thunder and watching the light show. Flowers no longer on my knapsack, placed in a cup at the cabin for the boys to enjoy and remember our visit. I could live down there so much easier, Christopher would be happy there, he actually caught his first salmon on the Gander River, very close to the cabin we visited that day…. coincidence? Probably not. I am pretty sure I saw one of my husband’s fishing buddies casting his flyrod at one point early in the trip. Jason was away working for over 30 days at this point, missed the recent crisis at home but I was thinking of all the fishing he’s done on this river…. I don’t think it was a coincidence I saw his fishing buddy while thinking of him and I don’t think it’s a coincidence our journey brought us to the place Chris caught his first salmon. He was such a proud young teen at that time, reminders of better times in the past and maybe a place where we could enjoy better times in the future. I told Christopher and Jason it would be a great family building trip if three of us took our canoe and did it ourselves. I thought there was no way you could get down that river unless you knew it well; then one of my dragon boat buddies told me a group of teens had done it the week before and they made out fine, as a matter fact the only person that flipped a canoe was the one who knew the river. A family trip down the Gander River…. the challenge, the fun, the emotions, the conflict, the decisions we will have to make, the preparation and planning, the togetherness… it’s all exciting me.
I feel like everybody who lives in the area needs to see this river from a Gander River Boat at least once. So beautiful, so serene and yet so challenging. On my return I was texting two friends who spend a lot of time on Gander River telling them about my experience and sharing my joy and marvel at the skill it takes to guide that river, especially coming up. I asked them how many females guide the river and they only knew of one. I thought to myself, what a challenge it would be at 50 years old to take on learning how to guide the Gander River. Ya never know! … for now, I feel lucky and privileged to know people who own a Gander River Boat … I do know more than Captain Dave, warning to other friends who own them, I will want to go again. I know fly fishers already appreciate this trip but if you are not a fisher, the ride and experience is still worth whatever the guides charge. If you’re like me and never did before … GO do it…. I am not a fisher, at least not yet, maybe later in life when I slow down a bit, so I want people to know you don’t need to be a fisher to enjoy a trip down the Gander River, the tranquility and beauty of navigating that long water, in the long skinny boat amongst good friends on a day your mind is full of stress is reason enough to escape to this happy place, no need to fish if you’re not in to that.
To Captain Dave who thought this trip would be therapeutic for me, you were right. I told him one-night last Christmas, the only reason I loved him was because of how he loved my friend…. now I also love him because he can guide the Gander River, lol, actually I do love him for more than those reasons, one being his openness with himself while I visit his home to get counsel from his wife, he walks around as if I am not there!
I talk a lot about getting yourself to your happy places when you’re down, it is so important to self-care to find the things that make you happy. Nature does it for me and all physical activity helps me, find your happy places in life no matter how bad things seem. A friend with stage four breast cancer recently told me it’s stepping into her quilting room and creating beautiful works of art using textiles and thread that does it for her. It may be singing or jamming with your friends playing music in your garage, listening to classical music as you read a book, painting, dancing, going to a cottage by the ocean, writing long blogs (lol) etc. whatever it is, find your passions in life, something that helps you through the hard times, whether it is grieving the loss of a loved one, worrying about a sick relative, dealing with a break up, conflicts with others etc. one thing alone should never monopolize or consume your life to the point where you can’t find happy places and happy times. As much as that’s hard to do when you’re experiencing crisis and trauma you need to force yourself. Secluded to my home, not even comfortable enough to walk into a grocery store in my hometown lately, I’m happy I ventured out that day even though it might have ended a little dangerous.
I believe I found a new happy place that I will not ignore or stay away from the next 50 years of my life, so sad it was my first time but so happy I finally found it. The “Mighty Gander River”…. as if I never heard of it, a new experience, a beautiful experience. Dragon boating Gander Lake, ocean kayaking, whale watching in a zodiac, climbing the Rockies and biking the trail way from St. John’s to Gander were all some of my most memorable outdoor experiences. This Gander River trip has been added to the top pf my list. I don’t know why large bodies of water have consumed my water adventures or why rivers have eluded me in the past but I can guarantee you I will be a river runner now! It is a new happy place for me.
Over Half Way 