Water Words: “White Water”
-A Carolina Paddler Book Report
WHITE WATER
By Vivian Breck
Published by Doubleday
192 pages
-Report by Alton Chewning
It’s the 1950’s and Andrea Dawson is a young girl living in San Francisco and her life revolves around skiing and family. An unavoidable crash on a ski slope leaves her with a severely broken leg and the doctors say her skiing career is over. After months of sadness and a loss of confidence, she becomes interested in foldboating, a form of whitewater kayaking using canvas and wood folding kayaks. She joins a foldboating club called the River Runners and her life takes on a new bloom. She pours herself into the club and runs many California rivers: the American, the Truckee, the Merced, the Stanislaus and more, learning from her new crew of friends, most of whom are older than her.
A River Runners team makes an expedition to Utah and Colorado to paddle the Green River through Ladore Canyon. Andrea isn’t sure she’s ready but the club leader assures her she is, she’s put in the time. They hire a local outfitter who handles the supply raft and are accompanied by several outsiders, the most prominent being Johan Speiser, a German foldboat champion. Andrea immerses herself in Green River lore. The River Runners put-in is at Brown’s Park, an isolated mountain valley once the hideout of Butch Cassidy and sister-outlaws, Ann and Josie Bassett. Andrea learns about John Wesley Powell, the leader of the first expeditions down the Green and Colorado Rivers and the Grand Canyon in the late 1860s. Powell had a knack for naming and he called the canyon below Brown’s the “Gates of Lodore,” after a popular Robert Southey poem, “The Cataract of Lodore.” Andrea memorizes parts of the poem,
“And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
All at once and all o’er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.”
The splashing and clashing goes well and as her skills improve she glories in the delights of river running. “In fact, day by day, the bright blue canvas streak became more a part of her being; Andrea and the boat were one. It was a passport to fresh worlds and when the low-voiced boom of plunging waters sounded ahead, heralding the moment when the current world seized the two of them-that was heaven. That was what she lived for.”
Throughout the trip, Andrea’s self confidence rebounds and she dreams of becoming a champion racer. One day, she’ll race on the Arkansas near Salida, Colorado, the biggest race of all. Her attention becomes divided though, as she takes an interest in a fellow traveler, Lance, who is equally avid on boating and also in photography. Meanwhile, Andrea avoids the unwanted attention of the outfitter’s assistant, Buzz. Andrea fends him off saying, “I don’t know what kind of gal I am. But I’m sure I don’t want to be pawed by you. I don’t go for necking. And if I did, it wouldn’t be with you.”
The novel was written decades ago and despite reading quaintly at times, it holds up well. The ending is especially satisfying. Andrea learns an important lesson as her success and cockiness are followed by failure and dismay. Andrea studies another person, much worse off than herself yet still happy and vibrant… and realizes, “It’s really very simple-it isn’t what happens to you that counts, but what you let it do to you.”
The author, Vivien Breck, was not a foldboater but she spoke with many paddlers in her research. She also took a rafting trip down the same section of the Green to familiarize herself with the culture and geography. Many of Breck’s other novels center on adventurous young girls.
“White Water” is one of a Junior Literary Guild series of books for juveniles, ages eleven to sixteen. The JLG still operates as a commercial book club now called the Junior Library Guild and continues to publish young adult literature. “White Water” is available in used bookstores and from internet resellers.