Bad day at the damned dam. | SouthernPaddler.com

Bad day at the damned dam.

jimsong

Well-Known Member
May 24, 2008
247
1
lakside village, texas
It had been a month of Sundays with no time off. I had not gotten
to get in the boonies for several months. The next week end I
was to have off.
I called my brother-in law, who was a
workaholic like me, who also had not been out of the city limits
for months, ane we decided to take a long run on the Illinios
river the next week end.
I had a nice Grumman at the time, but the illinois is
particularly hard on canoes, so we decided to go the rental route.
There are eight or ten concessions along the river. Well the
day finally came, and I drove about two hours to Talaquah,and
Rod drove about an hour down from Tulsa.
We had both been so busy, that neither of us had paid any
attention to the weather reports, and it had been raining heavily
in northern Arkansas, and the Illinois was flooding.
We decided to run it anyway, since we already there. Most of the
concessions were closed, but we found one willing to rent us
a canoe, providing we went downstream from their camp, and they,
would come to pick us up in three hours.
Now, I have turned over a canoe seven times in my life, and six
of them were on that three hour run. The water was boiling, and
there were sweepers about every hundred yards. Rod wasn't
terribly experienced and he wanted to try to crash through
the sweepers that were low in the water. He never did
understand that a sweeper is about the most dangerous
thing you'll find on a stream. But he humored me for
the most part.
About two hours into the trip, we came to a dam. Water was
a foot deep going over the dam, and going around the dam
on the east side. The dam had washed out about in the center.
I said we had better get out and walk the canoe around the dam.
He didn't want to do that.
We looked at the break in the dam from a distance, and it
seemed wide enough and deep enough to take the canoe through.
It was about eight feet wide, and the water appeared about
two feet deep in the center. We were going to drop about
four feet on the down stream side of the dam. He really wanted
to do it, and I, although reluctant, thought we would have
plenty of water.
We paddled back upstream, and got centered on the wash out.
The closer we got to it, the faster we went, and the more
difficult it was to keep control of the canoe. I knew we
were in trouble, but Rod was having a blast, yelling and
waving his paddle around.
Just as we came up to the dam, perfectly centered, Rod
for reasons I will never understand,
stabbed the dam with his paddle, and all hell broke loose!
The bow of the canoe jerked to the left, and dug in to
the concrete.
I weighed about 190 pounds, and we were going fast enough,
and the canoe was stuck fast enough, and the canoe was
strong enough, that it went vertical, almost balancing
on the bow. I got hold of the gunwale with one hand, and
got one foot on the thwart, and was doing my best, in the
little time I had, to gracefully disembark the vessel.
Rodney has already abandoned ship, and for some reason had
thrown his paddle away, and his PDF had been torn off.
By the time the canoe started on down, I was standing on
the thwart. Eighteen foot canoe, four foot dam, but it
looked like about 100 feet to the water. Headed straight
for Rod. fortunately, the current moved him down stream
before I hit.
By the time I got untangled from the canoe, and was
bellied across the bottom of it, Rod had made it to shore.
He had lost his paddle, his PDF,his glasses, and most of
the skin off one knee.
I worked the canoe to the shallows, a hunded feet of so
below him, and we got the canoe dumped out, and we loaded
up, and tried to catch up with our gear.
We actually got most of it back, but we didn't find his
paddle or PDF.
We got to the take out point very early, but they were
already waiting for us. They were shutting down the
operation.
Three people had drowned, and two canoes had been
destroyed by sweepers behind us.
They didn't even charge us for the lost paddle, the PDF,
or the damaged canoe.
I don't recall ever going canoeing with Rod ever again.