Confronting speedboats, lazy lagooners, and loneliness on the Columbia River
On an 800-mile canoe trip, Hannah Griffin learned that a crowded river heavily altered by humans can be the loneliest to traverse.
This is a guest essay by Hannah Griffin. Pinch of Dirt is a free newsletter, but it’s thanks to paid subscribers that I was able to commission a handful of writers to share their unique and inspiring nature and outdoor adventure stories with us this year.
The loneliest part of my trip on the Columbia River was the persistent sense that I was using the river the wrong way.
After I moved to Revelstoke, British Columbia, in 2022, the Columbia River became my near-constant companion.
When I walked my dogs over the bridge spanning the river where it flowed through town, I’d watch the rippling current through the bridge slats. During heat waves, my friends and I would jump in the frigid water, which was only slightly warmer in summer than winter. Even while skiing I could see it crawling through the valley below, a deep, opaque navy blue.
On maps I could trace the path of the river as it flowed northwest and then abruptly south in British Columbia, where it leaves the Rocky Mountain Trench, before snaking through Washington and Oregon out to the ocean. I couldn’t shake the thought that the river a few blocks from my house could carry me to the Pacific.
The seed of an idea sat in my mind for months, until an impromptu job loss at the right time of year allowed it to blossom into reality.
The plan was to leave from the source of the Columbia in mid-summer with my husband, Steve, and paddle together for nearly 500 kilometers (about 300 miles) until we reached Revelstoke. From there, I’d carry on solo.
As a child, I learned how to canoe at a summer camp on an island in northern Ontario, and later led multi-week canoeing trips for teenagers, but this would be my longest and most ambitious paddling adventure yet.
Steve and I launched on Columbia Lake in a gusting tailwind on July 31. Our first few hours on the river required some highly technical paddling, as the Columbia snakes and coils between Invermere and Radium. This section of river is a popular lazy lagoon for people on inflatable rafts. I would stern us around a sharp turn only to encounter a river-wide flotilla of people lying prone on blown-up unicorns and swans, PBRs in hand. This continued for many kilometers. The happy floaters stared at us curiously as I dug my paddle in around each careening turn, using sweeping steering strokes to avoid smashing into a lazy lagooner.
It took us nine days to paddle to Revelstoke. From there I continued on solo, as planned. The biggest hazard I faced was speedboats. On Lake Roosevelt, I often found myself kneeling in the canoe, bracing against multiple wakes hitting me at different angles. Even in my bright yellow canoe and yellow PFD (personal flotation device), on three different occasions I found myself waving my paddle in the air and yelling so speedboats wouldn’t drive straight into me. I stuck very close to shore on Labor Day weekend, wary of the wild teenage jet skiers.
I saw firsthand the myriad ways human interference has changed the Columbia, from the absence of salmon on the upper section to the 14 massive dams that dropped me in elevation each time I portaged around one.
I met generous and interesting people when I resupplied in riverside towns. At Grand Coulee Dam, a family whose livelihood depended on that massive hydroelectric facility helped me portage around it. I ate dinner at the home of a biologist couple who explained that the orchards lining the Columbia’s banks—and irrigated by the river—were a key part of their town’s economy. I spent a rest day in Bridgeport, where more than half of the town’s population is Hispanic, eating stuffed poblano peppers from the Mexican grocery store on a bench by the river. I slept on public land and quietly on private land, or the occasional campground, and one night in a farmer’s field with some overly friendly cows.
I was also often lonely. Being by myself for days on end was a unique and isolating experience. There were several remote stretches of river, like west of Grand Coulee Dam and on the lower Arrow Lakes, where I didn’t speak to anyone for days. Sometimes I felt like a weird ghost, floating alone past jubilant extended families barbecuing on the shore, or lying in my tent on a beach and hearing people call their kids for dinner.
The loneliest part of my trip on the Columbia River was the persistent sense that I was using the river the wrong way. In six weeks, I didn’t encounter a single other person on a multi-day paddling trip. I didn’t expect to meet anyone else trying to paddle the whole river, as it is not a common endeavor. Yet I was sure there would be people out on overnight canoeing and kayaking trips. And I’m sure there were, but I never met or saw any.
I found I profoundly missed the experience of connecting with others on self-powered journeys on the Columbia. Even backpackers on long-distance treks through remote wilderness usually come across other thru or section hikers. But on the Columbia, there were no opportunities to bond over shared experiences: How awful was that storm two nights ago? How did you find the water levels in Little Dalles? Weren’t the tree stumps eerie on Kinbasket Lake?
I missed the camaraderie, the ability to bond over a shared experience. Ironically, it is likely the amount of human interference on the Columbia River that makes it a rare choice for multi-week long paddling trips; the 14 dams throw up a major logistical challenge. The loneliness was compounded because it didn’t feel like a true wilderness experience where you don’t see another soul. I still saw people all of the time, but they were using the Columbia in a radically different way than I was. I felt a strange kind of melancholy—near other river users, but alone at the same time.
Lying in my tent among the petrified ginkgos, sagebrush, and rattlesnakes of Vantage, Washington, I decided to end my trip. I was 70 percent of the way to the ocean. I was burnt out and run down. Once I returned home I couldn’t get out of bed. After some tests, I learned I actually had a bad case of giardia.
As I recovered, I reflected on what I learned about myself on this trip. I realized a solo trip somewhere I wouldn’t encounter others on the same adventure was too isolating. I want to go on adventures where I’ll either get to periodically connect with others doing the same trip, or do the trip with someone else instead of solo.
Next summer, I’ll return to the banks of the Columbia in Washington State, and canoe the last 600 kilometers of the river to the Pacific Ocean—together with Steve.
Hannah Griffin is a writer who lives in Revelstoke, British Columbia, where she enjoys skiing, trail running, canoeing, and working hard to tire out her two huskies. Hannah also writes the newsletter Good Book/Good Bread, where she reviews books and then bakes a matching bread.
Such a unique feature, thank you Hannah!
I live in the Okanagan and my partner and I have spent a lot of time tracing the path of its waters southward to where it eventually meets up with the Columbia (we educate youth about plastic pollution and our connection to the ocean is always one thing we talk about). What a waterway.
But I hadn’t considered that traversing its waters could be an isolating experience in the way Hannah described. Sad, strange.