Whitewater Rafting
August 29, 2018 9:58 am Leave your thoughts
At West Fraser in Quesnel, there is an unpredictable somewhat annual rafting trip that takes place during the summer months. To our delight, the entire Woodlands office received an email a couple of weeks ago giving the green light for this trip to take place.
It was a cold, smoky morning at the office when we were greeted with a “Big Canyon Rafting” bus in the middle of the lower parking lot. We all boarded eagerly and set out to the start of the Quesnel river which is a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Quesnel. There were about 20 West Fraser employees in total that had signed up for the trip.
We arrived at our destination just past 10 am and changed into the supplied wet suits, helmets, and life jackets. An in-depth safety lecture followed which covered protocol for every possible worst-case scenario. The majority of us who had previous incident free white-water rafting experience, naively expected these scenarios to be extremely unlikely to occur. We were soon to be proven wrong.
We boarded our rafts, each with a rafting guide situated at the stern who discussed different paddling commands before we started down the Quesnel river. Each rapid we passed was aptly named. The journey began with an exhilarating ride through the rapid known as “Albino Rhino.” The rapids began mild yet still elating and gained ferocity and intensity as we went further down-stream before finally climaxing at “Devil’s Eyebrow.”
I had situated myself in the very front left corner where I received the brunt of the river turbulence and spray. We were about half-way down to our stopping point, passing through an innocent-looking rapid when the raft began to spew its occupants into the surprisingly warm river. I had my back to the river as we glided side-ways through when an abrupt jolt, caused by a collision with an inconspicuous boulder, dumped me head over heels into the Quesnel river. I quickly re-surfaced with the aid of my life jacket and was able to get back to the raft where I was dragged back in. I regained my composure and we set forth to tackle the final rapids.
We arrived atop the highly touted “Devil’s Eyebrow,” which had been named after a rock archway atop the cliffs above this section of the river that resembled an eyebrow. We began down the churning rapids when the raft began to turn at an unfavourable angle. We again ended up slightly sideways as we lurched from side to side. The raft hit a particularly unforgiveable rapid and the raft came oh so close to completely flipping. Colleen and Doug, who were sitting in the front right two rows of the boat, were unceremoniously ejected from the raft. The rest of us clung to the sides of the raft for dear life until it resettled. We looked back for directions from our guide who had also taken a plunge into the river. He quickly scrambled back aboard as we unsuccessfully tried to haul Doug and Colleen back into the boat due to the raging rapids. We reached the end of Devil’s Eyebrow where we were finally able to drag them back into the raft unscathed.
An eventful journey came to a close as we embarked upon my favourite part of the day; lunch. We were all feeling a little sleepy and bloated as we bussed back up to the starting point where we were to do the same stretch of river once more. This time round, although not quite as exciting, went much smoother as every participant managed to stay in the raft throughout the trip. We changed into our dry clothes and drove back to Quesnel.
Thanks for the read! My next blog post will indeed be my last this time as my time at West Fraser is nearly up.
Alexander