If you find yourself on a two-night canoe trip with a sleeping bag not suited to sub-freezing temperatures and a tent that smells suspiciously of cat urine then hope that canoe trip is led by John and Becky Williams. The Williams own and run, in a refreshingly hands-on manner, Pack and Paddle in Lafayette, Louisiana. John and Becky are the sort of people that just seem to get “it.” Whatever that indefinable sense of place and opportunity is, whatever virtue it is that creates an advocate for life’s passions, whatever it is that defines good people, John and Becky have by the bucket. And, all plaudits aside, they are a lot of fun to be around.
I met John and Becky Williams and their volunteer passel of outdoor enthusiasts at an Exxon station off of Interstate 12 near Covington, Louisiana. There were sixteen of us, seven canoes, two kayaks, innumerable water-tight bags of gear, ice chests, paddles, life-jackets (less alarmingly named PFDs or personal floatation devices, by the hydrophilic set) and looming thunderheads in the East that had more than once made me reconsider the wisdom of taking this assignment.
John, Becky and I were to ride together from the gas station to De Soto National Forest and as I stowed my mud-smeared (and very recently borrowed) dry bag in the back of their car, Becky nodded approvingly and said, “It looks like you’ve done this before.” It is a grim scenario when your luggage makes promises that you know you will be unable to keep. While the bag containing my sundries may have been an old hand at river adventures, I was decidedly not.
I had paddled a canoe, it was true, and done a little white-water rafting with a guide but I am possessed of a lifelong fear of the water. A childhood summer camp issued colored necklaces to campers that we were required to wear at all times. Green bands meant you were up for any aquatic adventure, blue that you were a competent swimmer, red meant you needed to be watched near the camp lake and black meant that its unfortunate bearer should not be allowed near the water under any circumstances. I had a black one.
During the car ride to our first campground, from which we would put in the next morning, I did my best to dim John and Becky’s expectations about my likely performance on the water. But, there is just no muting some people. Every objection was deflected with confident reassurance. “I don’t want to sound like I know what I’m doing,” I pleaded. “You will be great, after the first three miles the creek is pretty easy to paddle,” Becky chirped back. “I’ve been in a canoe, but I wasn’t very good at it, really.” “We are going to put you in the last canoe with another strong paddler so you guys can help out anyone that gets into trouble.” I gulped back horror.
The Williams are not reckless, not by a mile. Instead, they are infused with the sort of boundless optimism and faith in other people that seems to mark those souls that are both in love with, and at ease in, the outdoors. That sort of vibrancy is catching. By the end of the drive I was pretty sure I could go over Niagara Falls in a barrel if John and Becky told me I could.
We pitched our tents at a small car-camping site called Moody’s Landing on Black Creek. The storm clouds still threatened but the group was already starting to show a little of the voluminous good spirit that settles on a bunch of people preparing for an adventure. The following morning John and Becky were up early, heating water for coffee and planning the first segment of the paddle. As we drove to the launching site (or “put in”) the clouds finally opened up and we were treated to one of those blinding gushers of rain that regularly afflict the Gulf Coast. The boats were unloaded under a bridge and final arrangements were made as the rain turned the orange sand into coursing channels of mud. No one seemed too excited to paddle their boats in a downpour but fortune cut us a break and the rain moved off right as the moment came to launch.
Becky was right, the paddle was tricky for the first three miles. Our journey down Black Creek began cautiously as we picked and turned our way over sunken logs and other obstructions. The group would string out over clearer stretches then bunch up around frustrating turns in the creek. Methodically, we pulled our way south with one eye on the grey skies and the other on hidden menaces that promised to capsize our boats, soak us through and send our possessions floating down towards the Gulf of Mexico.
But attentiveness is a great averter of disaster. Our careful passage over the first leg of the twenty-four mile trip delivered us safely to a sand bar for lunch by mid-day on Saturday. Becky has a bit of a reputation for camp food. Freeze dried Beef Stroganoff, astronaut ice-cream and jerky are eschewed in favor of homemade hummus, black bean and corn salad humming with lime juice and cilantro, and hearty wraps. That night we would feast on Becky’s gumbo, fresh bread, and gooey brownies baked the night before. Exercise builds the appetite, but Becky Williams produces food from a two-burner Coleman stove that most would be proud to create in their home kitchens and that everyone would devour whether they had paddled a canoe all day or not.
The dangers of upper Black Creek avoided, we now had time to settle into our rowing. The real pleasure of outdoor activity seems to come at the point when the rhythm of your activity (hiking, biking or paddling) falls away and you are at once face to face with the beauty of the world. It is hard to say when it will happen but a moment will come when the wind is moving across you and your muscles have warmed to the strain and you will look up and be humbled and gratified by the crisp painting nature has made. The banks of Black Creek rise steadily to oak and pine dotted crests above you. In late winter you can see through the canopies of trees and briar thickets to the first hint of greening spring budding out over the water, pebble bars and clay turns. Moisture from the earlier rain collects and drips from moss draped ledges, small streams feed into the creek in gurgling, miniature falls as the tea colored water parts away from your paddle and lowland hawks follow the rising current in the air. It is splendid.
Now is the point where I could gripe about having an inadequate sleeping bag, no gloves or hat and a tent that, as mentioned, had been christened by a wandering cat (all my own fault). I will just say that I got a bit cold when it started to sleet around three am, and that the human nose can adjust to most things, given enough time. Camping that night could have been much worse.
John had been watching the water level in the creek and sometime after I had bedded down for the night he came by to let me know that my chosen site would likely be underwater in a few hours. We pulled up the stakes and moved my tent to a higher spot on the sand bar. The next morning proved him right, where my small tent had been, Black Creek now ran. If there is anything worse than an inadequate sleeping bag in freezing weather then it has to be a wet and inadequate sleeping bag. Black necklace camper 0, John Williams 1.
Sunday morning started cold and overcast but the temperature got us all moving and we put our boats in the water early. The rising water that had inundated my campsite also meant that the creek was flowing fast. That day we would cover the same distance as Saturday but in a third of the time. We had all started the morning in our warmest clothes but around 9:30 am the sun broke through the clouds and the group began the awkward ballet of stripping off layers in a moving canoe. The bright sun gave Black Creek a whole new appearance. What had looked to be wintery forest in repose was now a tumult of green foliage and caution-orange banks. The trip had been wonderful but now it was really singing.
We had an early lunch of rosemary chicken salad with apples and pushed on toward our destination, a take out point called Cypress Creek.
Disaster seems to like to plant itself in a pretty day. Flipping a canoe might not rise to the level of a true disaster. However, judging by the frantic clinging to an overturned tree that two of our fellow travelers were executing and John’s sudden grimness as we came into view of them, this situation was pretty grave. John and I had paddled together for the second part of the day so that I could get a chance to take some pictures. When people are in the water you mainly see flailing arms and bobbing PFDs. John had been patiently answering my questions about Pack and Paddle but as soon as we rounded a turn in the creek and the word came back that a couple was in trouble, John was all about a different sort of business. I asked if I could take pictures of the canoe recovery procedure. John said, “I think you are going to need your hands for this,” and we were off like a shot.
Becky had paddled her canoe back up stream and was doing her best to get the two to shore. The sun might have been out but the temperatures of the water and air could still bring on a case of hypothermia. These people were cold and you could hear them gasping as they struggled up the muddy bank. John and I caught up to their canoe and proceeded to empty it of water and get it righted. This may seem like a simple concept but it is made less so when you are doing it from a canoe which itself seems to be balanced on a line approximately the size of a number two pencil.
Embarrassment, cold and bruises were about the only costs this minor catastrophe exacted, but the people that had been in the water were asleep the moment we started off in John and Becky’s car. Fear can be draining. At the drop off lot for the group’s vehicles our little party disbanded and I was alone again with the Williams for the two-hour ride to Covington.
Weary though they were from keeping us all warm, fed and alive, John and Becky patiently answered my questions about other paddle trips and creeks. How long is the Buffalo River? How fast does the water move in the spring on Bayou Saint John? Where does Lake Martin empty into? This is when the thing that makes this couple such a joy became clear. They are fluent. They know Louisiana, the place they are from, they love it and they speak its language. Better still, they want to teach you its waterways, its lines on a map, its smells and its pleasures. And there is no reason to be afraid of the water when you have people like that in your canoe.
Frank McMains is a Baton Rouge-based writer who cast his black necklace aside and valiantly defied his aquaphobia to cover this story.
