August 05 2009 » Skeena Swim » The Globe and Mail
Swimmer feels the spirit of the Skeena
Mark Hume
Vancouver — From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Wednesday, Aug. 05, 2009 04:01AM EDT
As the member of Parliament for Skeena-Bulkley Valley in northern British Columbia and natural resources critic for the New Democratic Party, Nathan Cullen is used to jumping into big issues.
But he never got into a topic quite as deeply as he did this week when he pulled on a neoprene wet suit, a helmet, a life jacket and, with water rescue specialists hovering nearby in kayaks, joined environmental activist Ali Howard in the middle of the brawling Skeena River.
“We had a nice chat as we swam,” said Mr. Cullen yesterday, safely back on dry land. “But even with the neoprene suit and the life jacket I kept getting my head pushed under by the waves.”
That wasn’t the worst of it. Trying to swim around one point he got body slammed into rocks.
“It is enormously powerful,” he said of the river.
When he emerged it was with a sense of awe for Ms. Howard, 33, a Smithers-based chef and former player with the Ottawa Titans water polo team, who is swimming from the headwaters to the ocean.
“The idea of this woman swimming the whole river is incredible – it’s daunting,” said Mr. Cullen.
Her epic journey is bringing attention to the environmental threats facing the river, which runs 600 kilometres from the Spatsizi Plateau, where coal-bed methane drilling is proposed, to the Pacific, near Prince Rupert, where overfishing is a concern.
It’s a big, fast moving river with standing waves the size of haystacks, whirlpools and log jams.
A member of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Ms. Howard was about half-way through her 28-day swim on Monday when Mr. Cullen and Doug Donaldson, the NDP MLA for the riding, joined her in the water near Hazelton. Greeting them on the river bank were about 400 people and another 50 – including her mom and dad, Alex and Jim Howard, who’d come from their home in Ottawa – provided an escort in native ceremonial canoes.
Speaking by satellite phone yesterday, Ms. Howard said it was an emotional reception after weeks of swimming with her nine-member support crew through the Skeena wilderness where they saw almost no one else.
Despite tackling some wild water, she said she has never been afraid and hasn’t had any close calls.
“Every day my feelings grow stronger for the river. The trip feels enchanted,” she said. “Something is happening here that’s more powerful than our collective parts, that’s getting us down the river.”
Ms. Howard, who trained by swimming back and forth across some of the smaller rivers in the area until she dropped from exhaustion, said the upper Skeena was full of “fast, big, crazy water.”
Now the river is broader, but more powerful.
“It looks a lot gentler, but there are a lot of boils and whirlpools,” she said.
After spending so much time in the water, her body can sense the river hydraulics and she’s figured out how to use giant whirlpools to slingshot her downstream.
“If you time it right, you can kick out before you start going upstream again,” she said.
Ms. Howard said she’s also developed a deep sense of wonder for salmon.
Safety, she said, remains a key concern and she has a kayak within reach at all times, while a second kayak scouts ahead.
Todd Stockner, logistics planner for the expedition, said the only time Ms. Howard got out of the river to walk was when they came to two Class 5 rapids, where the water was so violent even the inflatable support raft couldn’t go through.
“She’s swum virtually every inch of the river. She has been fearless. And her swimming skills have impressed everyone,” said Mr. Stockner. “She is pushing the crew downriver. She’s swimming so fast they have to paddle to keep up.”
And she’s having fun.
“You see her out there sometimes in big water, and she has this huge smile on her face,” he said.
Ms. Howard, who wears a dry suit over two layers of insulated clothing, gets in the river every day by 10 a.m. and swims until 4 p.m.
She expects to reach Terrace on Sunday and to finish in Prince Rupert on Aug. 15.
