Wednesday, 12 Jun 2002

BRISCO, British Columbia

I am sitting on a muddy riverbank, shivering and staring at my dripping, gloved hands, trying to command my fingers to close so that I can pick up a thermos of hot tea. My plan is to drink this cup of tea, slide back into the river, and keep on swimming. As my fingers close around the handle, I smile in surprise, lift the cup, and tip it toward my lips. Because my lips are frozen, it takes a while for the “you are burning yourself badly” message to work its way to my brain. Unfortunately, when it does, I have already swallowed. The hot liquid scalds my throat and drains toward my stomach. In a weird way, I relish the pain. I am cold enough that a stab of heat in my gut seems like just the thing. I manage to finish the cup without further injury. I even feel a bit warmer.

Tea helps, but it’s not what keeps me going. It’s the people that keep me going. It started with the school kids I met in my hometown of Portland, Ore. At Abernathy Middle School and Open Meadow School I looked into the eyes of the kids who will inherit the Columbia. I told them I would inspect the entire river, report back, and help them find a way to clean it up. They took me at my word, and I would rather drown than fail them.

Once I got to Canada, Michael Langenek, the principal of Martin Morigeau Elementary School in Canal Flats, B.C. — the school nearest the river’s source — not only invited me to speak to the entire school the day before I started, but let out school the following day so that every single kid could see me off. He even put my family and crew up in his house for five days. By the end of our stay, I felt like an adopted citizen of the Columbia Valley. Kids were stopping me to chat outside the supermarket, and their parents were coming out on their lawns to yell my name as I swam by.

In Invermere, I met Fred Thode-Hamilton, a member of the local district council. When he spotted me, he asked, “Are you the heroic Columbia River swimmer?” I said, “I don’t know about ‘heroic.'” And he said, “Well, you are heroic to us.” For the record, Fred is the real hero. He fled Nazi Germany for the Yukon Territory at age 24, froze his right foot in a 72-below-zero blizzard, waved off the doctors who tried to amputate it, and then made Canada his adopted home. He kept his foot, by the way, and it works just fine: just last Saturday, he and his wife Shirley danced all night. The way I see it, if you tell a guy like Fred you are swimming to the Pacific, you better swim to the Pacific.

Yesterday, Rick (my crew chief) and I were taking a break on a section of river bank a few yards from the Canada Pacific Railway tracks. Soon we heard a familiar rumble. Nearly every CP Rail train that passes us blows its horn in greeting, so we turned and looked toward the tracks. Instead of a train this time, we saw a maintenance truck rolling past our position. After it passed, we heard it slow to a stop. Then came the “beep-beep-beep” of the truck in reverse. The truck slid back into view, and the doors banged open. Three crewmen piled out and ambled down the bank toward us. “We’ve been looking for you for days,” they said. “We heard you on the radio and we wanted to come by and say hi.” We shook hands all around and then got to talking. Pretty soon, we started talking about salmon, and, inevitably, the American dams that ended the salmon runs in the Canadian half of the river. At this point, Brian adjusted his overalls and weighed in. “Americans. You can put a man on the moon, but you can’t figure out how to get a four-foot f—ing salmon over a f—ing dam.” We all burst out laughing. Then, quiet again, we stood in the mud, sun on our necks, staring at the river. Four guys, from two different countries, charmed by the same piece of water.

Finally, there was Cody. On my way out of Edgewater Elementary School, which had just held a coin drive to support my journey, a brown-haired sixth-grader stopped me. “Here,” he said, pressing a rolled-up $5 bill into my hand. “I want to give you this to help.” I was floored. “Are you sure?” I asked, remembering how much money this was to me in sixth grade. “Oh yeah,” he said. We chatted for a moment and I asked for his name, which he gave me, and his address, which he didn’t know. We shook hands and parted ways. On my way to the door I asked an administrator for his address, explaining that he’d said he didn’t know it. “That makes sense. He probably doesn’t know it. He’s a troubled kid. He’s been in three different homes this year.”

Well, Cody, wherever you may be right now, I want you to know that your generosity kindled my heart. If you are “troubled,” then the world needs more trouble. I’ll be thinking of you when the water runs cold, my friend. And your $5? Consider it a little spending money for your upcoming trip to Astoria, Ore. That’s right. Somehow, I am going to find a way to get you to the mouth of the Columbia this November so that you (and maybe a few of your schoolmates) can feast your eyes on the lines of breakers where your river meets the ocean. So take care of yourself, Cody, and stay in touch. I’ll see you in the fall.

(If anybody reading this wants to help organize a Columbia River headwaters/mouth student exchange trip this fall, go ahead and send me an email from www.columbiaswim.org.)