La Liberté

Our first rapid to cross was a congregation of multiple, sharp rocks - some big and some small - that created a watery roller coaster of sorts. Adrenaline surged through me as I saw the liquid flow quickly over the rocks, creating an unstoppable current. The guide explained what we had to do: paddle as quickly as possible, so as to make it across the rapids. If we could not maintain a quick speed, he would lose control of the boat to the river and we would most likely lost the craft.

Too soon, our boat met the roiling waves. Adrenaline coursed through my body and it felt like the raw energy had replaced my blood. The guide yelled his order over the waves: “Hard forward!” We all paddled as quickly and furiously as we could as the guide fought for control over the boat; the river was determined to have its way. The raw power of the adrenaline surged through my limbs and forced them to limits that I had never reached before. And then, suddenly, the rapid was over. My crew and I let out a loud whoop, as we all felt the same; the adrenaline rush combined with the quick twists and turns of the river provided a high that none of us had felt before.

It was only a short paddle to our next rapid, which was a hole. A hole, the guide had explained, was where the water dropped suddenly, creating a huge wave that the boat could surf on, given the right guidance and speed. He also explained that in order to keep the boat atop the large wave, we would need what was referred to as “princesses”; they kept the balance. My two brothers volunteered before I did, much to my disappointment.

We waited until the wave had subsided enough for us to mount it, and then paddled towards it. Within seconds, the wave returned and I saw the true meaning of balancing the boat: my brothers were engulfed in water! It was as if the river had swallowed them whole; I could not see them anymore underneath the river’s roiling mass of white and blue. They surfaced briefly, which allowed them to breathe, but then were forced back into the water again.

The crew could not stand idly by and watch, however. In order to keep the boat atop the surging wave, we had to paddle furiously to combat the raw power of the Ottawa River. But oh, the reward! I could feel the boat rise and fall with the water; it was as if the boat was hovering in the air! If it were not for the loud, unceasing waves that engulfed my senses, or the need to paddle as fast as I have ever paddled, I would have described the experience as the closest to a gentle flight without machinery that I will ever receive.

Later, I found myself paddling furiously amongst the roiling waves of Ottawa River’s rapids. The loud, foaming water beneath my boat was a flowing mixture of blues, light browns, and bubbling whites. Sharp, dangerous looking rocks jutted from the water, helping to create the rapids but loomed ominously before our path. We flew through the water, the current taking us and our unceasing paddling increasing our speed. We paddled as one, the ostentatious, yellow instruments dipping into the water at the same time; it was as if one person, with one mind, was working through our bodies in unison.

The guide bellowed his orders, in order to be heard over the crashing waves: “Easy forward, easy forward... Hard forward now, hard forward! Hard, hard, hard!” We yelled along with him, repeating his orders in unison with him when he said things twice.

Though I had felt the raw, surging power of the Ottawa River before this moment, I had never felt anything exactly like this. For the few, brief minutes that we paddled that section of rapids, I felt at one with the river; it was as if we were the same entity, the same being with the same mind and body. For that one moment, I could feel the river; I could feel what it felt, I thought what it thought: we were one. We laughed out loud with abandon together, for the feeling caused an exhilaration that no one person had ever felt before.

While we were of one mind, I told the river of my fears of drowning from its awesome power, but it told me to forget my fear. The river would not kill me. In turn, the river told me of its history, of the people who had crossed it decades ago: les voyageurs. It told me that they had felt the same as I had felt and were one with it, just as I was one with it now. They too, feared drowning, but that fear was what helped keep them alive. They loved the river, just as I did, and treated it was respect, just as I was doing.

Empowered by the exchange, I felt a wild exhilaration that I had never felt before and felt the sudden urge to cry out in the first human language that the river had ever heard, the beautiful, poetic language of les voyageurs: French. I felt like crying aloud for les voyageurs, to preserve them in that moment as the river had preserved them in its heart. So yell I did. I renewed my repeats of the guide’s orders with zeal; I bellowed them not only for my crew, but for all of the other boats to hear and laughed, laughed with the river for we had both felt something of old, something deeply embedded inside of us that we had previously thought forgotten.

My crew regarded me with suspicion; my expression had become wild and primal and I was laughing with abandon. But what can I say? I was the river, and the river was me.