A new year, a new river, a new me: Life and canoe trips one day at a time
Paddled the Mohican River lately? That’s a rhetorical question because you probably haven’t.
As of mid-December, the Mohican was a different river than the one you might have paddled last summer. Or a few months ago for that matter. In the last four months of 2023 the Mohican River gained a covered bridge and lost a dam.
Meanwhile, I became a different person. Or perhaps more of the person I once was, a man deeply in love with a river. In September I took up a new hobby − sobriety. I’m enjoying life with a clearer mind, a healthier body and a renewed relationship with the Mohican River.
The Spellacy Covered Bridge was completed and Wally Road opened to traffic in time for Labor Day weekend 2023. The road had been closed at the construction site all summer. Which made for a challenging tourist season with detours on the road and − at times − on the river.
When Wally Road reopened tourists and locals drove down to see the impressive wooden span. There’s even been a wedding there.
When canoeing time comes, paddlers will find a different world
When canoe livery traffic returns to the Mohican River in 2024, thousands of paddlers will float beneath the Spellacy Covered Bridge. It’s not far from the main canoe livery takeout points so it will serve as a fitting climax to a fun day on the river.
The liveries don’t send boats as far downriver as Brinkhaven. Paddlers who venture down there will also find a different world. The lowhead dam that presented an obstacle to boaters since the mid 1800s is gone. Contractors hired by the Nature Conservancy made short work of removing what remained of the concrete, rebar, and original timbers. They started the second week of December. By Dec. 12, they were hauling the last of the concrete from the dam site to a nearby quarry.
It was a bittersweet experience watching from the old Brinkhaven Bridge as the excavators − which brought to mind images of yellow Godzillas − gnawed chunks out of the dam, trundled across the river, and spit them out onto the east bank. Brinkhaven was the first place I ever camped on the Mohican. That was in 1980. It’s been one of my happy places ever since. I’ve requested my ashes be cast into the river from that bridge.
He found a wagon by chance because of a bout of shingles
Back then − in the early ’80s − my life was a blur. I became what’s known as a functional alcoholic. I’ve gotten a better handle on it over the years and haven’t regressed to those “glory days” when, as Alice Cooper put it, “All of my life was a laugh and a joke and a drink and a smoke and then I passed out on the floor, again and again and again and again and again.”
I’m on the wagon now. That happened by chance after a canoe trip in mid-September. On that trip, my friend Ken Arthur and I camped at the Lost Horizons Family Campground near the Spellacy Covered Bridge. It also was one of the last times I would paddle through the debris field at Brinkhaven.
Around Labor Day sores had begun to crop up on the right side of my face, one of them at the corner of my eye. It turned out to be shingles. Because of the anti-viral drug the doctor prescribed, I had to stop drinking. It felt good to get out of my alcoholic fog. What a novelty — waking up in the morning without a headache! Soon I noticed I had more energy.
That’s a thing about drinking; it saps you of your stamina and ambition. Sadly, it had made me less enthusiastic about my river trips. They had become fewer and farther between. Like my former canoeing buddies, I had come to love drinking more than canoeing.
Life and canoe trips one day at a time
In three months of sobriety, that’s changed. I’m getting out on the river more often. Now, after a canoe trip, I don’t even put my gear away. I just stage it for the next trip and start packing.
Also, on my first cold weather canoe trip in November, I noticed my blood circulation had improved. My extremities — my feet in particular — didn’t go numb or feel cold like they used to. I felt more comfortable and confident and enjoyed the experience far more with a clearer mind and a stronger body.
Not that I won’t fall off the wagon. I have many times before. Including one glorious night that would have put Hunter S. Thompson to shame. My shenanigans that night got me barred permanently from a Cleveland Heights watering hole. (It was at least the third bar I’d been kicked out of in my illustrious drinking career.) Regardless, I’ll enjoy sobriety for now and take life one day — and one canoe trip — at a time.
To ring in 2024, I’ll raise a glass of non-alcoholic beer. Here’s to a promising year, yet no promises. To my canoeing friends — old and new — come join me on the river. You might not recognize the Mohican. Or me.
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: A new year, a new river, a new me: Taking life a day at a time
