A Swim for the Ages
It was late morning on a hot August day in northern New Hampshire as we paddled our way between the spruces, birches and silver maples overhanging the upper Saco River. We bounced through two easy rapids in our kayaks and gathered in the pool below the second. Even now, years later, the day is vivid. Scott, eight years old at the time and a youth hockey player, wore a Dallas Stars cap, why the Dallas Stars we have no idea anymore. In keeping with vacation playfulness, he dipped the hat in the river and splashed water over his head. We were doing an eight-mile run along a section of the Saco that is sprightly in places, placid in others, but always cold, clear and moving its way assuredly through the White Mountains.
“Let’s go swimming,” Allison, 12, suggested.
We stopped a short distance downstream along one of the Saco’s many natural, sand beaches. In we went. The river bottom was sand and small, smooth stones, the kind that don’t hurt your feet. Every pebble was visible beneath the surface the water was so clear. Earlier, we’d seen an otter streak upstream just off the bottom. The water had to be eight feet deep, but the otter seemed but an arm’s length away; we could see the wavy patterns the current made in its fur as it propelled itself.
As we waded, we found a spot where there was just enough current to carry us along, but not so strong that we couldn’t stop and stand up when we wanted to. We pushed off the bottom with our toes and let the river take us where it would; we were like astronauts in space, as if in a gravity-free state. Bounce off the bottom, float downriver, swim back upstream, and repeat. We jumped and splashed. We dove and swam underwater with our eyes open.
A big “mistake,” one we repeated often, was to venture into deeper, swifter water. At the near edge of the main channel it was about five feet deep this day and the current was all business. Whoosh, there’d go our footing and under we went. We’d right ourselves, step back a foot or two out of the swift current, and return to equilibrium with the river, smiling.
Sand, sunshine, spruce, the Saco and us. Shrink the summer to a moment, and we’d choose this one.
There were no lifeguards or concession stands, of course. In fact, we saw only a few people. Isn’t that part of the romance, the pleasing sense of remoteness, an intimacy with a healthy river, a reassurance, however illusory, that our world - our nest - is unfouled?
There are important components to a great swim. How you get to your swimming hole is one.
You can whisk yourself in a motorboat to the beach at the far end of a lake, but you won’t have earned your swim. You can’t really appreciate it, even if at some level you nonetheless enjoy it. There is humdrum wine and there is noble wine. You can’t understand the difference until you’ve tasted both.
Arrive by kayak at a little pool on the Saco, as we did, and it is high adventure. This is your river, your trip. You are explorers, not passengers. You count every spotted sandpiper along the way, work your way around even fallen birch, spot the perfect redness of the cardinal flower in bloom. The miles of muscle-warming paddling pass slowly, not in a noisy five minutes. Even if the road alongside the river is only a half mile away, it seems like 10. With your paddle, you transport your psyche to a place of heightened consciousness.
Where you swim matters, too. No water parks, please. No machines to pump and filter over and over. The water for a truly grand swim is filtered through a forest, refreshing as the scent of birch and soft as the first emerging leaves of spring.
Allison recalls that in the afternoon that day I announced that we had to get going or we’d never get to our take-out in time for supper.
“Who cares?” she and Scott replied. Perhaps better than I, they knew not to hurry a swim for the ages.
A version of this article first appeared Canoe Journal magazine.