By KEN HUGHES
The hot, sticky Dog Days of
summer; too little to do for entertainment in Eden; two guys with time on their
hands, and a new six-man inflatable raft combined for a weekend of fun on the
Dan River in August of 1973. I was
working for a company in Greensboro, and one of the guys in shipping mentioned
his new, tough, inflatable six-man raft, and asked about a decent river to float
one weekend. I had plied the Dan
many times in my airboat from above the Duke Power Dam below highway 14 Bridge,
all the way up to the Bent Farm below Shiloh downstream of Settle Bridge, and up
the Smith during high water all the way to the dam that diverts the Spray canal.
However, I had never been below
the Duke Power Dam, and wondered about how the river looked east of Eden.
I suggested a weekend float trip from Eden to Danville and the old dam
near Schoolfield where US 29 crosses the Dan to US 158.
“Good one,” was the reply, so plans were made.
When the big day came, two coolers were loaded with food and drink and
topped off with ice, and backpacks were loaded with the assorted gear and duds
we felt we would need for two days. The
raft was laid out and inflated, cigarettes and something to smoke were acquired,
and my dad and his truck delivered our paraphernalia and the two of us to the
old boat landing just below the confluence of the Dan and Smith Rivers. The boat landing held many memories for me from when I was a
child. I remember boat racing on
that section of the Dan, and a shelter for snacks and beverages, and fun
weekends watching races. Perhaps
more fondly I remembered some “parking” there when I was old enough to drive
and could convince a girl in the 60s to do so, which was rare enough in those
idyllic days long gone.
Because of the Duke Power Dam,
the Dan is a slow mover from just below the junction of the Smith, and the water
is usually turbid to some degree. We
pushed off from the boat ramp and paddled out into the slowly moving river, but
them stored the paddles. Who wants
to work on a fine North Carolina mid-August Saturday morning anyhow?
On the way to the Duke Power Dam, I described how the dam was a roll-top
design with maybe a six-foot or more roll and a backwards curl of water on the
other side below the dam. The
discussion was whether or not we were brave enough to shoot the curl rather than
portage the boat and its contents around the dam.
Discretion overruled valor, and cold feet won the day.
We rationalized our cold feet by agreeing we didn’t want the bacon
soaked or the eggs scrambled before they hit the pan Sunday morning.
We were going in style after all.
There was a clear place just
above the dam and across the river from the power plant, and we were careful to
not get caught in the current and taken across the curl anyway.
Nosing the raft onto the sand bank, we clambered out and dragged the raft
up behind us. It took us the better part of an hour to portage everything
to the dam’s downstream side and reload the raft.
Now we really felt like we were on the way.
The Dan is a little faster
between Duke Power and the US 770 Bridge out of the Draper section and towards
Danville. I had crossed that bridge
many times, but had never before seen it from the river.
We passed several homes up on the bank going down to Draper, and it was
clear that we were still in a built-up area.
However, the river was nice and things were very quiet.
There was a surprising amount of wildlife to be seen along the Dan in
1973, and since we were not making any noise they were not spooked by our
approach. Turtles would sit and
watch us slowly approach, only roll off of the log or rock at the last moment
when we almost touched them with the raft.
Departing the Eden city limits
at the Draper Bridge marked a definite change in character of the river, its
banks and the surrounding countryside. The
amazing thing was the quiet and serene nature of the river and the bordering
bottomland. There was the
occasional tractor to be dimly heard out working in the bottoms, and an
irrigation pump or two, but there was very little else to disturb quiet
reflections of how the Dam must have been one, two, perhaps three hundred years
before we made the trip. Surely it
was crystal clear most of the time. According
to the reports of William Byrd, who surveyed the Virginia-North Carolina line
for King George, the character and clarity of both the Dan and Smith Rivers was
a good part of the reason he referred to the area as “The land of Eden.”
He also wrote that fish could be seen virtually anywhere that sunlight
penetrated through the bordering trees to touch the river’s surface and
illuminate its depths. We both
agreed that it would have been great to have seen the river before farming,
construction and towns silted it up, and most of the wildlife either killed or
chased away by “civilization.”
There was an occasional tall
cliff, and the constant presence of trees overhanging the banks to reflect their
color and beauty in the smooth river surface. Watching Kingfishers swoop down and stab the occasional fish
that its polarized vision allowed it to see just below the surface was a
pleasant surprise. Game fish
breaking the river surface to go after a bug or fly reminded us that the Dan
River hosted far more species than lazy Catfish.
We had music on cassette tapes
and a player, but the peace and quiet was for too nice to shatter with rock and
roll, even the “Love Rock” of the period.
However, we did play James Taylor’s soft and easy “Carolina in my
Mind” several times as it suited the mood of our float trip.
We “ran” a few little rapids on Saturday, but that was as close to
white water as can be found on the Dan at that point.
The only time the Dan becomes wild and really fast and dangerous is when
the occasional heavy period of rain, or a hurricane strong enough to make it
that far inland chased it out of its banks.
I did ride the Dan during high water in my airboat, but it was always to
the extreme disapproval of my mom.
The river rolled on towards
Danville, albeit stately and slowly, and we talked of Credence Clearwater and
“Rolling on a river,” and Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and wondered how it must
have been in those years long ago to float the mighty Mississippi.
Well, the Dan was as close as either of us was ever likely to come, so we
just kicked back, smoked a bit, chatted and enjoyed the trip.
Approaching evening found us at
the Berry Hill Bridge, and a very nice set of rapids through which we were
relatively “tearing” along in the midst of perhaps a 6 to 8-inch tall
section of “white water.” We
spotted a nice wide sand bank that looked perfect for the purpose of pitching
our tent, and it was almost too late and we had to paddle like crazy to get to
the bank, but we made it. We landed
and secured the raft and set up camp, then flipped the raft over on to all of
the equipment.
I had driven across the old iron
bridge several times when I was just roaming the countryside near where my dad
had grown up. I also knew there was
a small country convenience store up the road a bit from the bridge, and we
discussed making the walk and calling home.
Those were days before cell phones, and when one could leave things like
a raft covering some camping gear, walk away for a while and still find it in
place on returning. We got back
just before dark and pitched our tent.
Morning came with birds singing
all along the river. The noises of
nature were all we heard that bright Sunday morning before folks started out for
churches. Other than the songs of
nature, which were welcomed by ears that overnight had grown accustomed to only
the night sounds of a river and one of its sandbars, the quietness was
incredible. No cars, no jets, no
man-made noises of any type impinging down to the river bottom made it possible
for us to imagine we really were a couple of centuries back in time and it was
wonderful.
As we were quietly preparing
breakfast, a car stopped on the bridge, and some folks got out to see what the
big yellow thing was down on the sand bar.
They saw us, waved and said for us to have a nice float and drove away
leaving us to the continued enjoyment of a period out of time temporarily
pilfered from the past for our present enjoyment. It was then when we noticed that we had been conversing in
tones that in town would be a whisper. I
am sure our soft tone of voice was due to our reverence and respect for our
quiet surroundings, and I started to understand why some modern-day people move
into the wilderness.
We broke camp and loaded the
raft to set off down the mighty Dan. However,
we were extremely careful that the only trace of our ever having been present on
that Dan River sand bar was footprints that the next rain or high water would
rapidly erase. Pushing out into the
small set of rapids, we resumed our float towards Danville.
A major change we both noticed,
and on which we commented was the clarity of the water from that point onwards.
There was very little turbidity, and the water was exceptionally clear
and clean. Other than the
occasional bit of modern civilization’s flotsam and jetsam in the form of the
occasional bit of plastic and Styrofoam, nothing intruded on our enjoyment of
the river and nature. There was one
disconcerting vision we would much rather have not had to endure.
Somewhere along the Dan a junk car lot extended right to the river’s
southern bank. Fortunately, there
were no cars spilling down the bank and into the river. Had that been so, we both agreed that we would have stopped
the raft and given the owners some hell about it.
We might have bitten off more than we could have chewed.
We knew we were getting close to
the Schoolfield Dam when the river really slowed down.
According to our watches, we were way behind schedule so we had to start
paddling for the first time since leaving the boat landing.
We were passed a couple of times by guys in small fishing boats, one of
which the owner stopped and asked if we wanted a tow.
We both agreed that it would spoil the original intent of the trip, and
we said thanks, but no thanks, we would press on with human power only. We arrived in good measure, sunburn and all but it was worth
every bit of the temporary pain. I
called my dad as prearranged and asked him to please come down to pick us up in
Danville. I never did that trip
again, and I must wonder how the nature of the Dan has changed in the quickly
approaching thirty years since that hot August weekend that witnessed a modern
day Huck and Tom “Raftin’ the Dan.”
Ken
Hughes, Morehead
High Class of '62, is presently 58, married to Diane Shively also of Eden, and has two
children, Kevin 34, daughter Kristy 30 and five grandchildren. After almost 7 years in the Army Security Agency in
electronic counter-intelligence work in Korea, Europe, The Middle East and
southern Asia, Ken was a computer service technician, owned a sports car
shop, worked in physical oceanography on the SOSUS network for detecting
submarines, has been a plant engineer for a large printing company, owned a research
and development company, and moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1993 to open Delta
Marine International, Inc, and has been self-employed for almost 3/4 of his professional life.
He works closely with Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, with both of whom he has a
working partnership to develop a ballast water purification system for large
ships and cargo vessels.