Colleen Friesen

PUBLISHED IN: Toronto Star, Coast Reporter, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Victoria Times Colonist, 24 Hours, Surrey Now, Kamloops Now and Georgia Straight newspapers. Westworld, Homemakers, Vancouver, Spa Life, Student Traveler, Stitches, Opulence, Native Peoples, Adventure Cyclist, Alive, Ventana Monthly, Shared Vision and Northwest magazines.

SPECIALTIES: Adventure destinations (hiking, cycling, scuba, paddling, sailing) spa and spiritual retreats, humour, learning vacations, women’s travel, romantic and offbeat destinations.

BOOKS: Bestselling Travelers’ Tales anthologies, Sand in my Bra, The Thong Also Rises and A Woman’s Asia and the soon-to-be released sequel to Summit Studio’s travel anthology, Mugged by a Moose.

AWARDS: Winner of the 2006 Western Magazine Awards in the category of Human Experience, Finalist in the 2006 Canadian National Magazine Awards in the category of Personal Journalism, 2004 Travel Media Showcase - Exhibitor’s Choice Award.

Phone: (604) 885-0756
Fax: (604) 885-0786
4447 Stalashen Drive
Sechelt, BC V0N 3A1
Canada

» colleenfr@yahoo.com
» www.colleenfriesen.com

Way Down Upon The Suwannee

by Colleen Friesen

Like the Jack Daniels' in my guide's hip flask, the Suwannee River colors my dangling feet in a warm amber wash. We are somewhere in Georgia, above the Florida state line when we paddle our Crayola-colored kayaks around another serpentine bend. Six good ol' boys are standing crotch-deep in the whiskey waters, the golden hue no doubt being further enhanced by the beer flowing down their throats.

I snap a quick photo, labeling it in my mind...Wildlife in their Natural Habitat. I spot John Vassar, my overweight, diabetic, quadruple-bypassed river pilot, gesturing and talking from his kayak. In his khaki duds and his larger-than-life moustache he looks like the Quaker Oats man dressed for a jungle tour. As Pamela Bethany, a health company IT worker from Atlanta, and I paddle closer, someone yells in a thick Southern slur, “Which one of you-all is the foreigner?” Foreigner sounds like furr-ner and I silently curse Vassar for paddling ahead. He must have told them there was a Canadian coming down their river. Another man points at me and yells, “It must be that one with the camera!” I freeze a smile onto my face, pull my legs in, drop my Sony in my lap and paddle harder, wishing desperately that the river was wider.

I skirt around them as far as possible, hoping I don't give off the scent of panic. “Hey!” drawls the first one, “make sure you-all send us the picture!” My grin starts in my belly and spreads to my face. “Send it to www.redneckpepper.com!” It's my third day way down upon the Suwannee River...and I'm lovin' it.

Along the way it is fed by mysterious springs that bubble up between the cypress, oak and tupelo trees and the tributaries of the Alapaha, Withlacoochee and Santa Fe rivers. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Suwannee River Water Management District and all the cities, businesses and citizens of these counties have banded together to manage this newly protected system. There are already screened sleeping platforms and covered-shelter cooking sites at some of the campgrounds. The completed project will include some form of accommodations every ten miles so that even a novice paddler can complete an easy day-trip before pulling in for the night. The work is ongoing and not quite on target as plans get modified and set back from hurricanes and floods.

But already the range of accommodation is impressive. The night I arrived I was booked into the Stephen Foster Park cabins. Naively, I envisioned, well...a cabin. I did not expect to find myself in a deluxe two-bedroom house with a wrap-around screened porch, rocking chairs, full kitchen, fabulous couches and deluxe stereo system. I wished I'd booked it for a week and had flown down a few friends to enjoy it with me. Instead, I rambled about, finally tucking in under a patchwork quilt with a jetlagged sigh.

The next morning, I am writing in my new favourite screened porch when Vassar arrives, right on schedule at 8:00 a.m. His arrival temporarily stops the chattering squirrels and crickets outside the porch. My guide is wearing a Columbia shirt, shorts, a felt hat, a lethal-looking knife tucked into his back belt and a grin that would put even a skittery cat at ease. Seems we need to have eggs, grits and watery coffee at the Suwannee Diner before starting our voyage. Bethany, someone Vassar knows from his regular day-job of managing health claims, will be joining us tomorrow for her own little escape from her regular life of husband, child and work.

But first, Vassar and I will be traveling on our own. His truck is stuffed with packages of food, bottles of water and gear, mixed in a jumble-sale mess. He drives us to the ramp. It's October and it's hot. I feel my shirt sticking and despair at ever getting all this crap stuffed in the kayaks. It's sweaty work, and as usual, I'm having my silent first-day-of-the-trip regrets. Vassar reviews safety, handing me my life vest that “will not be removed” and finally allows me to wiggle into my boat. Pushing off, my Inner-Whinge is silenced. I am instantly transformed. No longer am I a sweaty awkward land mammal. No, I have become a gliding sleek amphibious creature, at one with the river breeze. I feel the current hold and carry me. I'm happy.

The paddling is easy. The impossibly wide trunks of the cypresses narrow as they rise to the blue skies. I drift with the steady stream, watching the brown clear water run over my toes as I hang my legs over the bow of my boat. The oaks spread their fingers up, and out, reaching for the impossible. I realize I am staring, mindless, yet mindful, the way one stares at aquariums or camp fires. The way one stares when thoughts have finally abated and nature has taken her Zen hold of calm.

There is silence, save for the rolling sound of desire from the cicadas hidden among the cypresses that drape their shadowy mossed arms overhead. When we drift into sync together, Vassar keeps up the patter of a man interested in his world. The landscape is surreal to me. He explains how the river is steeped in tannins from the trees, a colour so rich and yet the water so very clear in its orangeness. It is the type of swampy world where a dinosaur chewing in a giraffe-lipped mimic at the tree tops would not be out of place. I find myself looking up - a lot.

There are few others on the river. Mostly we meet canoeists, and most of them are loaded over the gunwales with coolers, tarps and gear. We pass a few paddlers that are obviously dads and sons - a sight that always makes me ridiculously hopeful.

By late afternoon, after a lunch on a bone-white beach, we slide up to a brand new dock. Boots, Vassar's wife, drives in next. Boots and a few of the Parks people will be joining us for dinner under the shelter. I'm beginning to realize the Suwannee is much like I imagine the Appalachian Trail...seemingly way out in the wilderness, yet with the roads and 21st century just beyond the tree line. We munch on a chicken salad made with mixed greens, grapes and nasturtiums. But first there is sage cheese with crispy homemade croutons and fine merlots. We sit under the sturdily constructed roof of the dining shelter. Heavy sprays of Cutter repellent do nothing to discourage the critters biting my ankles. The lemon pound cake with lemon curd and candied geranium helps to distract from the itching pain of my feet. Finally, the last vehicle pulls out leaving Vassar and me alone.

“Bubba is alive and well here on the Suwannee.” Vassar says, as we finish off the last of the merlot. I find him making these pronouncements, leaving me to tease out the meaning. We head off to our separate forts, headlamps lighting up the boardwalk to our homes for the night. Luckily, these sleeping shelters, positioned along the path, are tightly screened, giving my bites a chance to heal. I sleep among the sighing trees and hear the distant snores of Vassar on the other platform.

Instant coffee and cereal is on the menu for our breakfast. Like most times when I travel, it is my cappuccino maker that I pine for the most. Boots Vassar wheels back in. The plan is to load out the kayaks so we can meet Pamela Bethany at the Suwannee River Outdoors headquarters. In other words, we're going to John and Boots' house. Or, to be more accurate, their saloon.

The Vassars live in a conglomeration of outbuildings among the piney woods. The saloon is one of their living spaces, with one of its overstuffed walls bearing shelves of Jack Daniels' collectibles. There are other bits and pieces of things scattered about the yard, but somehow they seem to be able to find and grab whatever they need.

By the instantaneous back-and-forth banter and teasing, there is no mistaking that the blonde-haired Bethany and Vassar are chums. He taught her to kayak and she's made the trip out a few times. We settle quickly into a companionable groove as we package up containers for our next two nights on the river.

Boots deposits us at the ramp. I'm in a sweat again as we schlep our mess and stuff their cans of Coke into every nook and cranny. Is there anyone in Florida driving without a Coke in hand? I feel like I've landed in one giant product placement promo. I don't realize my building drippy irritation until, once again, I push off and feel the cooling freedom of my floating craft.

Every few twists in the narrow waterway, we come upon another brilliantly-white sand beach, the product of a gazillion years of eroding rock. Between beaches, I slide closer to the river's edge to view the undercut limestone. With the aquifer so close to the surface like this, it is no wonder the droughts, when they come, hit so hard. Tonight we will camp on one of these picture-perfect camp spots. Soft sugar to pitch a tent in, lots of dead and down branches to build a campfire, and logs to lean against and listen to Pamela Bethany's stories of growing up in the swamps of Louisiana, where one of her chores was to check the catfish trap line and hunt for squirrels.

“School shut down when squirrel season opened,” she says in her soft syrupy intonations as we sit staring into the fire. I look at her to see if she's kidding. She is not. Our conversation is cut short when the rains from a far-off hurricane hit. The rain thrums on my tent, my swampy world shrunk to a nylon enclosure.

In the morning I discover that at some point back at the saloon, we failed to pack the instant regular coffee. Never mind the loss of cappuccino, now we're down to only decaf. We stuff the emptied red wine bottles, flattened water bottles and find still more of Vassar's endless stash of chocolate bars stuffed in odd corners. Everything now coated in a wet layer of sand. The day is clear and the air freshly washed from the nights rains. I load up on ibuprofen for the rapidly building headache from my caffeine withdrawal.

This morning we sneak up on two gators. Paddling softly around corners, we find them, grinning in that prehistoric devilish-eyed way. The first one slides his scaly bulk into the sepia waters and disappears. The second one stands his ground on the bank. We paddle against the current, circling and trying to get close-up photos without actually getting too close. Finally, he too, slides beneath the gold waters, his nasty saw-toothed smile lingering like a ghostly grin long after his bulk is gone.

I really don't give it much thought, until tonight, our last night on the river. Earlier, we'd pulled out and gone to a café for lunch. The inevitable fried chicken, collard greens, over-cooked corn, cooked-to-graying-peas and soupy mashed potatoes was on offer at the buffet. One of those buttery/oily concoctions began a protest and soon I was sick. Sick in the way that you really don't want to be sick like when you're camping with a guide and his one other guest, even if that guest is a former bayou-living squirrel-hunter. Bethany and Vassar are enjoying fine red wine and a pasta dinner over the campfire as the sun sets a pink blaze down the Suwannee's waters. I am trying to put out my own internal coals by not eating, drinking buckets of water and trudging off into snake country on a much too frequent basis.

Finally, I set up my tent and crawl in. My gut spasms and kicks. I try repeating my well-worn travel mantra, “This too shall pass.” Soon it's dark. The wine-induced mumbles of Vassar and Bethany end as I hear them zip into their respective tents.

I doze off and then am wakened by the pain in my stomach and my deflated sleeping pad. As I zip open my door, I realize - too late - that I had not enquired as to the nocturnal habits of the jaw-snapping critters that litter the banks. I adjust my head lamp, find my digging stick and walk slowly along the bank. Is that a log? Oh dear god, tell me they sleep in the water...This cycle is repeated all night at about 30 minute intervals. Doze, wake from gut wrench to realize I'm sleeping on the hard ground, zip, scout for gators, dig and squat. Return to inflate mattress and repeat. And repeat. Ad nauseum.

I still don't know where the gators got to that night. Maybe my illness wasn't any more appealing to them than it was to me. I am just grateful they stayed away long enough for me to be quasi-recovered by morning.

I am pleased to be pushing off from the shore and leaving my wretched night behind. I am instantly revived by the morning frogs, strange jungle bird sounds, the soft sploosh and dip of the paddle and the gentle rippling wake our kayaks create. Bethany's sighting of a small red fox tops it off. Mr. Fox watches us watch him as he disappears among the tupelo trees.

“Howdy, William. Whatcha catchin'?” We see the man in the navy shirt drift his motorboat closer to meet up with his friend, tied to the shore. William, the red-shirted man in another motor boat answers, “I'm headin' out to catch me some jackfish. Sure beats deer huntin'. That kin git borin'.”

I feel like I'm drifting in and out of movie sets, trying hard to memorize each of their lines, before we disappear around another bend in the Suwannee. “What are you fishing for?” I asked the man in the striped shirt as he launches his boat. Bethany, Vassar and I are ending our trip. I am already feeling nostalgic as we drag our gear up the ramp. Next time, I want to do the whole trip. Top to bottom. From State line to the Gulf of Mexico... “Catfish.”.

“Is the fishing any good?” “Uh-huh, we catch about hundrid, hundrid and fifty at a time.” “Are there no limits?” I'm awed at the numbers. “No, ma'am...not on catfish.” His reply is patient in light of my ignorance. “But what do you do with that many catfish?” I persist. We just give 'em away.” he says, in the tone of a man who is trying to explain the obvious to the ignorant.

I feel for my passport in its zip-locked baggie and realize I have traveled to a far- off land, to a different time, in a much different world. A land where time travels at the speed of sugared water, where dinosaurs could appear any minute and where rare, delicate orchids blossom in swamps while alligators silently observe it all.