December Paddling on the Pacolet

Climb into a canoe or kayak in December and float. The weather's often mild this time of year. You can see the bones of the land passing. You can stare far into the dormant woods and see ridges and fields invisible in July. People always say what they love about the upcountry is the vast expanse of green, but this time of the year I like the deep, wooded reaches along rivers where you see the ghostly gray bark of hardwood trees visible after the leaves have all fallen.

Floating three or four miles down the Pacolet River between Clifton and the Lawson's Fork's confluence always challenges my assumptions about where I live. There are no houses along the way. There's no overwhelming evidence that somehow the only purpose of our planet is "wise use" by human beings. Floating along the Pacolet it's possible to believe for a few hours that it's not we humans that are primary. It's the land itself and all that's connected to it in this vast web we call life.

Are we humans really meant to be shopping/working creatures bent on spoiling each of our little pieces of the planet with over-consumption and blind belief in our own primary needs? Are we not instead really creatures of beauty and flow somehow hardwired by evolution and experience to enjoy wild land and deep time? You might think about other things, but these are the thoughts that find an opening when I'm floating on the Pacolet.

From the seat of my canoe I see everything differently. A water view reverses the illusion that we are creatures of Wal-Mart parking lots, of suburban hardwood entry ways, of lawns, and driveways. Roads as a priority are far way when you're on the river. On a river a canoe is primary and a car is simply a secondary instrument for high quality of life.

It's easy floating on the Pacolet to forget the petty fights over road taxes. There are no potholes to worry about on that watery road. How would our county change for the better if some far-out progressive county council member proposed a $25 "river tax" and we used all the revenue generated to create river access at put-ins and take-outs, acquire a hundred feet of buffer along all streams to protect the health and secure the view, hire two or three "river rangers" whose soul job would be protecting our county streams and busting anyone stupid or greedy enough to back a pickup to the edge of a flood plain or bridge and dump something unwanted?

These are the dreams that flow through my brain as I slip downstream on the Pacolet on a December afternoon. What brought such dreaming on this time was the announcement last week that our newly reelected governor Mark Sanford understands the importance of preserving open space and farmland. He says he wants to add $20 million to the state budget to buy and preserve forests, farms, wetlands, and river frontage. That would double the amount currently in the state budget for such purposes. We could protect 500,000 acres of South Carolina with that much money.

But if Mark Sanford gets his way how much of that SC Conservation Land Bank money will flow into the upcounty? That's up to us. So far the coastal interests have been much better at selling the case for conservation and land preservation. For various reasons historic and cultural South Carolina people think that a tidal marsh or a black water river is somehow more valuable than a piedmont stream or upcountry wetlands. When thinking "conservation," many people imagine duck hunting in the ACE Basin but not canoeing on the Pacolet River. Is there any way to shift this perception and get our fair share of conservation fund money too?

Well, SPACE, Upstate Forever, Palmetto Conservation Foundation, and Pacolet River Conservancy are doing all they can to change the perception. These four upcountry organizations work daily to identify properties, contact willing landowners, and secure easements on key acres. A few grants from the Conservation Bank have flowed into Spartanburg County over its first few rounds of funding, and money from it has saved land in Greenville County. Land trusts and conservation organizations are important, but it's canoes on the water that will change the perception of upcountry waterways.

I've tried here to make a case for the importance of the beauty of rivers and the truth of finding experiences that point out to us how we are only small strands in the vast web we call the creation. It's also important for us to remember that these rivers have and will continue to provide recreation for local men and women who have known them all their lives.

As I was waiting for my floating colleagues to return from running our vehicles down to the put-in I stood and talked with a fisherman on the sandbar at Clifton. He said he grew up on the Pacolet and since the 1950s he'd floated the very stretch we were paddling countless times in a flat-bottomed Johnboat fishing for bass.

He'd worked in the mills and seen the fortunes of the river rise and fall as industry opened up on I-85. The river wasn't so healthy through the 1970s and 1980s, but since then some of the plants have closed, and it's come back. The fishing has improved. Just two days before, he'd caught a five-pound bass right where we were standing. He was glad to see us on the river, and he wished us safe passage through his watery backyard.