Two Boys and a Canoe

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The Flint River rises in a valley of the Cumberland Plateau just north of Alabama-Tennesee State Line. It runs for about 65 miles until it flows into the Tennesee River below the Guntersville Dam. The Flint is not a "wild" river, but to a young boy in the late '50s, it was certainly wild enough to produce some vivid memories! This is one of those memories. - Jim 

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It must have been 1957. Our parents hauled eight barely teenage boys, and four canoes to where Hwy. 72 crosses the Flint River near Brownsboro, Alabama. My paddling partner was Owen Bennett. Owen lived on Ward Avenue, in Huntsville, Alabama, and I lived a block away on Pratt Avenue. We had ordered plans for "canoe-yak" from Boy's Life Magazine. The plans showed how to build a boat that was kind of a cross between a canoe and a kayak. Owen was taking shop classes at Huntsville Jr. High, so he was the leader of our construction project.

It took us a couple of months to complete our canoe-yak, but finally, it was ready. We hoisted it to the top of my folk's car and headed east on highway 72. At the bridge, we met the others who would be paddling down the Flint with us. I can't remember exactly who all was there - memory dims. But we were eight young men, full of ourselves, and ready to take on the world. We figured that a good canoe trip was just the thing to set us up for starting high school in the coming Fall.

Neither Owen nor I had actually spent much time in a canoe before this. Our expertise came from pouring over the Boy Scout canoeing merit badge pamphlet and finding an article or two in Field and Stream. Since Owen was the primary builder, we decided that he would paddle in the more responsible stern position, and I would paddle from the bow.

There had been a lot of rain the past few weeks, and the Flint was not placid! The water was high and the river was running fast! We struggled to get the canoes and our gear down the muddy bank from the road to the water. I climbed into my place at the bow, and then Owen pushed us off and jumped into the stearn. The current immediately grabbed the canoe and pushed us into a low hanging tree on the opposite side of the river. From my vantage point in the bow of the canoe, I saw a snake in those tree branches. It was directly in front of me and we were on a collision course! 

Now I was not comfortable with the idea of that snake falling out of the tree and into the canoe with me. In fact, I was yelling and swatting at that snake with my paddle! I suppose that the snake was even more scared of me than I was of him because he skedaddled away pretty darn fast.

Before long, all four canoes and all eight boys were paddling downstream. We had given our parents instructions to pick us up at Ditto's Landing, down near the Whitesburg bridge, in three days. I think that a couple of the Moms were holding back a tear or two, but in those days, things were not quite the same as they are today, so there wasn't any hysterics, and soon all of us boys were in high cotton as we headed downstream. I'll bet that John Wesley Powell wasn't any more excited when he started his float down the Grand Canyon than the eight of us were to be floating the Flint.

Several memorable experiences stick to my mind about that trip. For one thing, the rain did not let up! That muddy brown river was deep and moving along at a brisk pace. After an hour or so, we came to a place where the river split around an island. The river was high enough that what was usually just a side slew, had enough water in it to create a channel where there wasn't usually a channel. Owen and I took the right-hand channel, but everyone behind us was swept into the left channel.

Now, the water was too swift for us to go back and take the left channel. Besides the island was not very wide and we could hear the others shouting as they shot down the river on the other side of the island. It turned out that the right-hand channel was a bit longer than the left channel, so the others beat us to the down-stream end of that little island. When we got there, we could see that a large tree had fallen across the river. Two of the canoes were caught in the branches of the tree and a third canoe had pulled up to the river bank just before the tree.

Owen and I paddled as hard as we could to reach the bank, but we did not make it. Our canoe was swept sideways up against the trunk of the tree that was blocking the river. That tree trunk was high enough above the water that our canoe could get beneath it. Unfortunately, Owen and I stuck up high enough above the canoe that there was no way for the two of us to get beneath the tree trunk. Pretty soon, sideways against that tree trunk, that old Flint River grabbed us, tipped our canoe beneath the surface, and the next thing we knew, we and the canoe were stuck in the half-submerged branches of that tree!

There we were! Three canoes, seven boys, trapped in the branches of that old tree. All of our supplies, including the watermelon we had brought along as a special treat, were floating downstream. Since one canoe had been able to avoid the trap, we lifted it up over the tree trunk, and one of the guys went chasing our stuff that was floating downstream. The other seven of us struggled to pull the three canoes from those submerged tree branches. It took us several hours to do that, during which time no one noticed that the tree had a healthy growth of poison ivy vines wrapped around and through its branches!

After the canoes were free from the tree, and after we had captured most of our floating stuff, we paddled on down the river. It was still a rainy, gray day, and as the evening approached we started wondering where we would camp. None of us had thought to actually plan where we would camp for the night. We just assumed that when it came time to stop for the evening, we'd pull up to the bank and find some idyllic place to spread our bedrolls. But it was still raining, the bank was steep, and muddy, and no place we saw looked idyllic in any sense of the word!

Then, we came around a bend and saw a bridge. We'd reached where Highway 431 crosses the Flint, and this seemed to be an ideal solution! The bridge was fairly high above the river. There was a handy place where we could lift the canoes out of the water. And the best part was the wide flat area at the top of the abutments where we could spread our bedrolls. We figured that the roadway above would help us stay dry, although, to be truthful, by this time we had only the most nebulous conception of what the word "dry" meant! 

So we set up our camp on the bridge abutments beneath highway 431! We had thought that we would be reasonably dry beneath the bridge, but, no - water ran off of the highway and onto the flat concrete abutment. We were sleeping in an inch or two of water! Of course, all our gear, including our bedrolls, was already wet from the poison ivy tree, so the water was not our major issue. Now, for those of you who have never tried to sleep beneath the 431 bridge, I will tell you that a LOT of trucks use that highway! Every half-minute or so, another eighteen-wheeler would rumble across the roof of our not so cozy night's lodging. I can tell you, not much sleep that night!

I don't remember much about the next morning. As we got closer and closer to where the Flint joined the Tennesee River, the current slowed quite a bit and we found that paddling was much more strenuous. On the good side, the rain had let up and every now and then the Sun would poke through a bare spot in the overcast. Eventually, we came to the mouth of the Flint and turned downstream on the Tennesee!

Now the Flint is not a big river. At its widest, it is seldom more than about fifty feet from bank to bank. The Tennesee, on the other hand, is more like a half-mile across, in the narrow spots! Although we were paddling DOWN the Tennesee, the wind, and there was a right smart bit of it, was traveling UP the Tennesee. Those of you who have seen the Tennesee when the wind is blowing, know that the waves can get to be a fair size, and I had some concern about our canoe being swamped. On top of that, the wind can blow a light canoe around like a leaf. I had to paddle three or four strokes just to make one stroke of headway. 

And then the sun came out! A hot, blistering sun that soon turned all eight of us, (we'd all shed shirts by then) a wonderful color of sunburn red. That pull down the Tennesee was not the most enjoyable part of our trip. Anyway, we all made it to Ditto's Landing. I believe that our parents were relieved! I know I was! 

Our trip had been a great adventure of the sort that every boy deserves. We had faced the "wilderness" and won! Tired as we were, there was a bit of extra swagger in our walk as we greeted our moms and dads at Ditto's Landing.

There were some after-effects, however. Several days after the trip, a bunch of us were still feeling itchy from the bad sunburn. Turns out that the time we'd spent extricating our canoes from that downed poison ivy tree had pretty much guaranteed that there would be some serious itching going on!

For my part, every inch of my body was covered with poison ivy blisters, on top of the sunburn. My folks took me to Huntsville Hospital where I spent a week wrapped up like a mummy with soaking wet towels. ... But it was worth it! I'd do it again today if I could!