Kayaking in Ottawa

It can't be all finance all the time, so I'm allowing myself the excuse to ogle past paddling photos by tossing my #1 pastime into the blog. 

I haven't been in a kayak in over four months, and it's the middle of October - I've missed the best of the fall run-off. Not to long ago I would be in a boat at least once every two weeks all year round (pools in the winter), and I hope to incorporate at least a quarter of that frequency into my life post-university, but for now let us reminisce.

Why Ottawa
As a western raised, blue blooded, Albertan, I often got this question. Why did you come to Carleton? Time warping back to my 17 year old mind, I moved to Ottawa for this:

Oswegatchie

and this,

Ottawa River - Britannia Bay

and this.

Ottawa River - Bus Eater - Roche Fondue Section

Ottawa is a bit of a paddling mecca to the world. Big warm rivers that are characterized by lakes between huge waves and rapids. The creeks are all carved out of the Canadian shield, giving them a bit of a roller coaster feel as you ride a carpet of water as it ricochets from huge slab wall, to waterfall, to a big friendly pool that collects both the victorious and the swimmers. Contrast this to the glacier fed freight train like creeks I grew up on, and the pucker factor drops several notches.

How to get into it
If you are still in school many universities have great clubs for those interested. The Carleton Kayak Club has grown a ton in the last 4 years and I would highly recommend them to anyone interested. Although university clubs usually allow the public to attend their lessons as well, as they get popular it's students first. If you are in Ottawa and no longer in school check out the CDB, and Ottawa River Runners. Club's are great for the total beginner but the real learning comes by befriending a kayaker and getting out. Most kayaker's learned this way and will be willing to pay-it-forward and teach a couple beginners the ropes. Some kayaker's can't get enough of teaching and spend their whole time on the river bringing newbs into the sport. It's usually easy to find these kind souls at the informal pool sessions run by clubs or individuals in the winter.

Boating Resources
In Ottawa the king of all boating beta and drama is the boaterboard.  For the more core boater I would suggest Liquid Lore as the place to grab beta. Generally the Ottawa area goes through the same paddling cycle ever year. In the spring the ice breaks up and you get some high water play boating and creeking. Bus Eater (see above) comes in around 14-15 on the gauge and is good to the 18ish range. However you can play boat all summer long, this is the time to get out the 8 footer and go creek boating! Quebec and NY State both have really good runs. The Quebec runs get a bit more western boulder flavored as you drive further east, while the NY runs maintain the shield feel, and sport several waterfall filled sections. Check out American Whitewater and Myosis (mind the french).  If you are city trapped check out this little diddy that is literally 15 minutes from Parliament. The summer is a good time to play boat The Ottawa, and come fall its time to grab both low water and high water creeks depending on the rain - the Rouge River in particular has a great 7 waterfall set up that's good under 40c.m./s.

Why Kayak?
Play boating is fun but the kayaking I really enjoy is the river adventures you can have on creeks, and I think I can best describe my feelings for the sport by focusing on creeking in particular.

Like most sports, Kayaking takes a fair bit of learning before you are reacting on instinct and get to experience the fringe of what the sport can offer. Bringing it back to finance, think of yourself landing in the middle of the investment universe on you're first day. Going anywhere that has tough water would be really risky, and paddling in the pool is not really that much fun. As you get better you have the opportunity to safely paddle harder water which is more fun. Some people don't get better they only get braver (they move straight up on the graph), some get better and "wiser" they move straight left. When you have the optimal skill set in all forms of kayaking you can use your knowledge in play boating to paddle harder creeks than you could if all you paddled was creeks (enter the capital market line). Here is a picture that explains all this.

Nirvana/Risk Kayaking Frontier

Now that I have haphazardly mashed the learning progression in kayaking with some financial efficient market hypothesis framework, lets bring in some psychology. The reason so many people like extreme sports is because in the intensity of the challenge they get to experience flow.

When I'm kayaking down a class V canyon with my friends there is a lot going on. The water is roaring so loud that you communicate with hand signals if your more than a boat length away. To keep yourself and your friends safe you are using the rolling safety technique where every time you clear a feature you "eddy out" and make sure the person behind you makes it through. Not everyone can catch every eddy so your position in the group flips around a lot. When you are going over waterfalls, punching massive holes, ferrying around sieves, and banking off boulders, there is a lot of technique going on. Each moves requires it's own type of stroke and cadence; if you were to just paddle willy nilly down a class V river you would be stuck in a hydraulic and swimming before you could say back-deck roll.

So while you're charging down this stretch of river, your senses are receiving a full on assault. There is water in your eyes, you hear only the roar of the water, and you are constantly re-adjusting and charging through the river to keep yourself upright and moving downstream. Unlike almost any other sport, you can't stop in kayaking, so when you start getting off line things will only go bad to worse if you hesitate to rethink where to go. It is in these moments you get to experience flow; every thought is wiped from your head and you are only thinking about what you need to do in the moment. You are feeling every push on your boat and instantly reacting with a paddle stroke, while you careen down the river. As you boost over 30 foot waterfalls or blast through waves that are twice your standing height a bit of your brain is going "soooo coool" while the rest is going "I'm off line, I'm off line!!!". You finish the stretch and smile as your endorphins cruise through your veins and try to remember what just happened - and this is the coolest part - you can't. You can remember snippets, but generally your brain was under such an assault of receive and respond sensory input, it was firmly on 'play' not 'record'.

You probably have experienced a very watered down version of this when you talk on your cell phone in your car. Next time you end a call that required some real thinking to respond, try to remember the last couple of minutes of road. If you haven't traveled it before, I bet you'll find this quite difficult. That's a little bit of flow, you took your surroundings as insignificant because you are so used to not paying attention to anything when talking on the phone. Times that by 50 and you get the kind of flow that exists in extreme sports.

Sometimes I get this in finance exams, and sometimes I get it in racket sports, but never to the same degree as creek boating. This reality definitely sweetened Calgary as a destination during my job search - back to the cold water creeks of the Rockies. I hope that i-banking leaves some time for a weekend creek excursion, and hopefully my body can take it on a lower fitness baseline. If not maybe I'll have to find flow in golf?

Bobby Burns Creek - BC