Vintage paddle and sage advice inspire winter canoe trip on the Mohican River
What’s stopping you?
Her question hit me like a punch in the gut. I dropped what I was doing and packed for a canoe trip.
I had no itinerary, other than it was going to happen with the next break in the weather and favorable river conditions.
Gretchen Conrad posed that question in response to my post on Facebook — a photo from a previous canoe trip with the caption, “I need more of this in my life.”
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Part of me believes it was Gretchen’s father, the late Bill Conrad, speaking through her. Regardless, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Bill, my mentor and friend, dedicated his life to the protection and promotion of the Mohican River Corridor. He died Jan. 31, just shy of his 92nd birthday.
Winter canoe trip waiting to happen
I hadn’t been on the river since November and was looking to do a winter canoe trip. My gear — enough for a three-day trip — was staged in the bedroom, ready to cram into drybags. I had hoped to get out sometime in January but was sidetracked with a writing project. With that behind me, I had no more excuses.
What’s stopping you?
I pondered that question as I headed to the house to pack. I came up with a lot of answers but only one that fit — nothing.
A weather window opened. The forecast for Feb. 12-14 called for unseasonably warm days, nighttime temperatures in the mid 20s and no precipitation. River conditions were favorable; the Mohican was well within its banks and no ice had formed on the pools.
My friend Curtis Casto was game. Actually he constantly nudges me to get out on the river. We decided to reprise last winter’s canoe trip — camping the first night at the Conrad’s place near Greer and the second night on a friend’s property downstream from the Bridge of Dreams.
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We had a special reason for wanting to camp at Conrad’s. It was our way of honoring Bill. It just felt like the thing to do, to be there, dwelling in the presence of his spirit. Even if it meant we would not be treated to Bill’s traditional liverwurst sandwiches and Molson Golden. Curt doesn’t drink, so I get his share of the beer.
Gretchen provided the Molson Golden and the all-important chocolate chip cookies. (Cookiehydrates are a crucial part of any paddler’s diet.)
Bill Conrad's vintage paddle gifted to Irv: It will have many stories to tell
We were sitting around the campfire when a yellowish band of lights appeared over a hilltop to the west of us. The apparition didn’t streak across the sky like a meteor but floated along at an angle, like a canoe sideslipping on the water.
I scrambled to my tent to get a camera with a zoom lens. By the time I found where I’d stashed it, turned the camera on and pointed it at the sky, the band of lights went dark, slipping into the earth’s shadow.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have taken the apparition to be an omen from Bill. Instead the extraterrestrial glow was Elon Musk’s doing. I’d seen photos of the bands of light before — SpaceX Starlink satellites.
I didn’t need an omen from Bill. I already had it. Earlier that evening, Gretchen presented me with a vintage wooden Old Town canoe paddle. It was still in the original plastic wrapper. The plastic was so old parts of it flaked apart in my hands.
“Bill wanted you to have this,” she said.
My first inclination was to put the paddle away, maybe find a place to mount it on a wall at home. Then I heard my own father’s voice — and perhaps Bill’s.
When I was a boy, my father gave me a brand-new baseball. He was disappointed to come home from work the next evening and find the baseball still in the box without so much as a scuff on it.
“I didn’t buy that for you to put on the mantle,” he said.
So I did what my father — and Bill — would have wanted me to do. The next morning I stashed my fancy carbon fiber paddle under the thwarts of the canoe and used Bill’s vintage wooden paddle for the rest of the trip.
From now on, that old wooden paddle will join me on my voyages. Like Bill, it will have many stories to tell.
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Vintage Paddle, sage advice inspire winter canoe trip on the Mohican
