In
Panic on Big Doubleback Creek
~ by Mark Blackwell
“ the spring a young man’ s fancy lightly turns to love.”— Alfred Lord Tennyson
Well, that may be true for a young man, but when you’ re on the downhill side of thirty-five and you own a canoe, spring means that the creeks are rising and there is fast water to paddle. And so it was, one springweek back in the waning years of the last century.
The air was bumping on 60 degrees, with warm breezes wafting up from the sunny south. Life felt worth living again. On that perfect day in early March I got a call from my long-time compadre, Clete. Before I could offer up a jaunty greeting, redolent of the happy optimism spawned by this day of vernal perfection, he asked,“ Wanna go canoein’?”
I found our list of canoeing streams and the first body of water not checked off was Big Doubleback Creek. We got hold of a topographical map and looked up the whereabouts of the stream and a likely put-in location. It turned out to be about 75 miles and several counties away, so we prepared for overnight camping. We were prepared.
The next morning we loaded our gear and the canoe on the pickup and left with the dawn … or thereabouts. On the trip north I began to have the creeping suspicion that for every few miles we traveled, the air temperature was dropping. But that was all right because this hardy duo of paddlers was prepared.
We got there early and loaded the canoe. But before we pushed off, Clete thought it might be good idea to look at the map again. Well, I don’ t maybe care as much for maps as I ought to and on another day I might have argued for the virtue of surprise. But, on a whim borne out of my recently acquired sense of bonhomie inspired by the spring weather, I said,“ Okay.”
“ I don’ t remember it being quite so crooked the last time we checked,” said Clete, as we both stared at the map.“ It does look kinda bendy,” I agreed. To be honest, it had so many hairpin turns and switchbacks that it used up twenty miles goin’ ten. And some of those bends looked more treacherous than a Bloomington round-about. But Clete and me were a team of canoeing veterans. We could do it.
I pushed off. The creek was really fast, so most of our paddling efforts went into steering to keep us in the channel and away from the banks. We paddled hard but I soon noticed the air was no longer just cool. It was getting darn cold with stray flakes of snow in the air. Clete was zipping up his vest. I wrapped my poncho a little tighter.
As we made our way down stream, I was beginning to wonder if a person could get sea sick in a canoe. I decided to throw that thought out for discussion and I called out to get Clete’ s attention. I got it. Clete turned his head away from the channel, away from the many hazards we had to negotiate if the trip were to be successful. I yelled at Clete again. Actually I screamed, this time to,“ Look out!”
Just then, the tightest turn yet rushed at us. Clete fended off the tree roots hanging across the canoe and we tipped, but then righted and continued on around the bend. We dug our paddles in that frigid water and pulled hard to stay in the channel. But suddenly, familiar looking tree roots were beckoning again.
I was acutely gob smacked. How could those roots be here when we passed them already? Clete was yelling incoherently while he fended off the roots that were reaching out from the bank like the gnarled fingers on a giant, ancient hand!“ Hang on,” I hollered. But in retrospect I should have hollered,“ Let go.” While Clete was hanging on, the canoe was still in motion.
I was working hard to keep the canoe from spinning when it started shipping water and going down. I began throwing all the gear I could get my hands on up on the bank, about five feet above creek level.
52 Our Brown County • March / April 2018