FLOATING DOWN THE OTTAWA
Body surfing on the river is a relatively new way for people to enjoy our waterways,
I am floating on my back, drifting feet-first down the middle of the Ottawa River. Overhead is a dome of blue sky. On the horizon, eye-filling views of downtown Ottawa. In a half-century of living here, I’ve never viewed the familiar towers and buildings from this watery perspective before.
Moments earlier, life jacket and helmet firmly affixed, I’d slipped over the side of an inflatable blue raft into the churning Remic Rapids, just east of the Champlain Bridge — another thing people don’t do very often.
Though I dip beneath the waves a couple of times and sample a few mouthfuls of river water, I am in little danger. The Remic body-surfing is just part of the program on this urban rafting trip, run by Ottawa City Rafting, a subsidiary of Wilderness Tours.
The 2 1/2-hour trips, which began in 2014, are a relatively new way for residents and visitors to connect with the mighty river that rolls through the capital.
Wilderness Tours owner Joe Kowalski pioneered whitewater rafting on the Ottawa River decades ago. At the time, he says, he had “more testosterone than brains,” and decided the city section of the river wasn’t wild enough.
But Canada has changed, Kowalski says. We’re all getting older and many immigrants are non-swimmers, whose idea of fun doesn’t include getting tossed from a raft into raging waters.
“As I get older, I like mild experiences as much as wild experiences,” says Kowalski. So a few years ago, he revisited the city section of the river. “It was thoroughly enjoyable. It turned out to be a fabulous trip.”
The nine-kilometre route takes us from Britannia Beach through the turbulent Deschênes Rapids to a calmer stretch of the river, dubbed the Green Mile for its lush shoreline.
The section from Deschênes Rapids to Chaudière Falls is little travelled by boaters, partly because of the frequent rapids and partly due to a paucity of launching areas. So it is fascinating and instructive to see the city from such an unusual angle.
As a small electric motor silently propels us along, our wisecracking guide, Zoë Hill — who has an overflowing inventory of groan-inducing jokes — regales us with tales of Ottawa’s lumber past and the exploits of legendary logger Jos Montferrand.
She also points out the numerous dead-head logs that still litter this stretch of the river — mammoth pieces of timber that likely broke away from huge rafts more than a century ago.
As she speaks, the Peace Tower and the top of the Library of Parliament are clearly visible from our river vantage point, poking up like watchful sentinels between two distant high-rise buildings.
As we approach the Champlain Bridge, one of its spans beautifully frames the whole downtown vista. I have little time to admire it before the whitewater of Remic Rapids is upon us and I head overboard.
After one last run at the “dessert wave” in the Petite Chaudière rapids, we proceed through the “magic portal” into an archipelago of small rock islands near Lemieux Island, where virtually all traces of the city disappear. As Hill observes, we could have been in a remote section of Algonquin Park. Magic, indeed.
Those brave or rash enough have the opportunity to cliff dive from one of three island launching pads: Wild, a vertiginous 15 feet above the water; Mini Wild, a less intimidating 12-foot drop; and Mild, a mere six-foot dunk. After dithering, I eventually hurl my sexagenarian bones from Mini Wild, parting the waters below with a satisfying cannonball splash.
The trip concludes with a “bridge hang” from a structure supporting the pipe from the city’s Lemieux Island Water Purification Plant. I manage to cling to it for only a few seconds before splashing down.
With luck, I’ll get another chance soon.