The Great River Adventure

The Great River Adventure

Sometimes an adventure does not start out that way. After a big rain storm in late July, 1987 my friend Chuck and I decided to take my son Eric, and Chuck’s girlfriend’s son Ganarro on a canoe trip down the Dupage river. Both the boys were about 11 years old, and Chuck had been canoeing down the Dupage River with me on several occasions. I had a canoe that would hold only three people, so Chuck rented another small canoe rather than try and squeeze four of us into mine.
We threw the rental canoe on top of my van with mine inside, and Chuck followed me in his car to the place in Naperville where we would end our trip. We found a place with a parking lot near the river where we could leave his car, then we drove back North along the river to the entry point we always use. We were smart enough to look at the river before taking the canoes out, but not smart enough to notice that the river was at flood stages.
Looking at the river we noticed how the little stream that is usually one or two feet deep, was now over its banks running about five or six feet deep. We even noticed the chain across the place where the boats were launched, but we looked at this as an opportunity to go up stream where the river is normally too shallow to use a canoe. We drove just a mile north where we found a place to leave the van, and enter the river.
The river was not to deep or fast here, but soon after we started our trip we had to navigate around a tree that had fallen in the river. Not long after that we came to a place where the river fanned out about fifty feet on each side. Looking out there we saw metal fence posts sticking up about one inch out of the water. One post had a piece of barbed wire sticking up on it, and I told Chuck if we tipped over the canoe to be careful not to go into the barbwire fence under the water.
Soon we went under the bridge where we normally would launch the boat, and we felt secure knowing what lie ahead since we had been down that part of the river several times. Just before the next bridge we had a mishap when my canoe turned over at a point where the river became wide again. Eric had on a life preserver, and we held the canoe trying to walk it over to the bank. It was extremely difficult because the river was to deep for me to touch the bottom all the time. Bouncing along on the bottom I managed to reach the bank where we emptied the water out of the canoe then continued on our journey.
There is a point in the river about half way to Naperville that has floodgates to control the flow of the river down stream. When we reached this point we had our first real problem. We pulled out to the side of the river to check out our options since the flood gates were almost completely closed and there was no way of going down the river through the tunnels as we had in the past. The only option was to climb up to the top of the dirt mound on top of the gates. The banks were steep and at times difficult to negotiate while dragging the canoes, and helping the boys.
Reaching the top we faced our next obstacle. There was a fence across from one side of the river to the other with barbwire on top. We searched all along the fence until we found a place where the fence had a hole big enough for us to crawl through. Chuck and I pushed the canoes over the fence while the boys crawled though the fence. It was at this point that I had wished we had all squeezed into one canoe so there would be only one canoe to try and get over the fence.
Once over the fence we dragged the canoes across fifty feet to the end of the flood gates only to find another fence on the other side where we had to go through the same thing again. Standing there covered in dirt I could only think of a quote from Casey at Bat, “There was no joy in Mud Ville”, at least until we were back in the river and moving again. The rest of the trip was uneventful until we missed the spot where we were suppose to get out of the river by about one hundred yards.
Tired and wet this was not the way I wanted to end the trip dragging the heavy canoe back through all the brush to the car. Looking back it seems like a great adventure now, but when Chuck went home and told his father what we had done he was not happy. He told Chuck that if we had fallen out of the canoe and been swept into a submerged tree we would never been able to fight the branches and river to get free. He said we were lucky we did not drown.
Some people say they would rather be lucky than smart. We were lucky, and this was not the smartest thing we ever did. Great Adventure YES Great Idea NO.

Robert L. Murdoch

02/18/09