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Author’s note: Melissa Newell, the editor of a small publication called “Banks Magazine”, asked me to write this essay. Banks magazine is dedicated to the very active kayaking community around southern Idaho, and the Payette drainage in particular. In 2008 a race was held on the famous North Fork of the Payette, and called “Kings of the North Fork”, and people started using that term to refer to the paddlers who ran the North Fork, including various guys who wrote in an earlier issue of the magazine. I didn’t like the term, and Melissa suggested I say why.
The river is the only king Doug Ammons
After spending a great many spring and summer days around the Payette drainage for nearly 20 years in the 1980s and 1990s, I was happy to see the recent creation of Banks Magazine. Overall, the magazine is something the area and paddlers can be proud of, as it includes history, personalities, and some of the places the “Banks crew” are now going. I never would have thought it was possible to have such a magazine, but yet here it is, and it’s good!
However, I’d like to provoke a little thought about a certain phrase that has been used several times: “Kings of the North Fork”. I realize it’s a tongue-in-cheek salute to people who have some expertise on the river, but there’s a side to the phrase that I personally don’t like. Namely, nobody is a king of the North Fork, even as a joke. The term has no humility to it. It has a whiff of egotism and is the opposite of my own perspective about rivers. I don’t care how well anybody paddles the North Fork, you never rule it and you certainly can’t control it.
To top it off, there’s now a professional race self-consciously called “Kings of the North Fork”. I understand the need for a catchy term to sell an event, but actually, catchiness and selling are two reasons I never called our early races by such a name. I organized races on the North Fork in the early 1990s and held them for four years. In contrast to the self-aggrandizing name “kings”, we called it the “North Fork Payette Fast Get-together” – a silly name coined by the incomparable Mark White. We didn’t want the game-face that comes with a true race, we wanted to have a friendly competition as a reason to get together and have fun. 15 to 25 North Fork regulars showed up each time. Winner bought the beer. There were sprints though the middle five miles, and a full top to bottom marathon. Only the first year did I publicize the results in American Whitewater, and I only did that after I asked everybody if they thought it should be done. I argued it defeated the purpose of our “get-together” to list times and places, but everybody else thought it was cool. The following years I didn’t ask anybody, and I didn’t report the results because I felt it was contradictory to our stated intent. I quit running the race in 1995 after a friend, who was a professional cameraman working with ESPN, excitedly said he had their ear for producing it as a professional race with big prize money. I rejected that because I felt professionalization and prize money would ruin the attitude and the fun. And look at it: we went from a “fast get together”, to people claiming they’re “kings”. That’s not an improvement. For the record, Grant Amaral also included a low water Jacob’s Ladder sprint at least once at the Payette rodeo. No “kings” existed there either.
When asked whether they are “kings of the North Fork”, some people have answered “yes”. If other people want to say such a thing, that’s up to them. But if you asked me, I’d say the title contradicts why I paddle. Arguably I’ve done as much or more on the North Fork, at more levels, in more ways, as anybody else. However, I would never say I’m a king of it even as a joke. We’re just humans, and the instant we elevate ourselves, the spotlight goes to our big heads instead of the heart of why we paddle.
In contrast, I am inspired by the river. It is the master, not the kayaker. It never makes a mistake, while we make millions. It never stops and never gets tired, while we have to rest, sleep, and eat. We can’t hold our breath more than a few minutes, we require all sorts of specialized equipment, and we have to be at the height of our game or we get plunged. Conrad Fourney's tragic death shows what the river can do to the best of us - even when we've run its rapids hundreds of times under control. However much it deflates us, it’s only honest to face that fact.
My own ideal was to move in flow with the water no matter how powerful or chaotic the rapid, no matter how high the flow, no matter whether I was handpaddling or using a paddle. I didn’t always reach that ideal, and I have the scars to show for those lapses. But I always went out there with deep respect, seeking to be the river’s respectful partner for a few hours, challenged but belonging. I hope most North Fork regulars would agree.
I will say this: if you have ever hand paddled that river at over 5000 cfs you won’t think of “kingship”. Nobody who has paddled Jacob’s/Golf Course at 6500 cfs could ever think that either. It is immense, beautiful, incredibly powerful and violent. When you’re rodeoing at 30 mph through massive exploding water, all you think about is staying on your line. Afterward, your only feeling is one of amazement at how magnificent this river is – and deep gratitude that you were able to take part in its flow for a few hours without being killed.
So if somebody thinks he’s a king of the North Fork, I invite him to get out of his boat, take off his gear and swim Jacob’s Ladder. It’d take just a couple of seconds to see who the boss really was. We don’t change the river. It changes us.
The intent of the above is to provoke a little thought about our choice of words. My comments reflect 30 years of thinking about the sport, the nature of water, and this particular river as an inspiration for certain ideals. I hope all the would-be kings out there, and all the people who use that term, ask themselves what the touchstone of such ideals should be: respect for a river that has inspired generations of paddlers, or what feels good to our ego?
Doug Ammons
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