Sandstone Press :: Contemporary Quality Reading

Recognising that no book stands alone, that a notion of where it comes from and where it is going is of great interest to the reader, we present behind each book a context of experience and culture, a Hinterland.

EXTRACTS: BEGINNING, MIDDLE, CONTINUING

EXTRACT 1: AT THE ESTUARY

It’s going to take four to five days to walk the length of the River Findhorn from the coast to the mountains. I could have dropped into the source from the back of Newtonmore in upper Speyside and walked downstream. Instead I’ve chosen to walk upstream and canoe back down which feels more natural and complete. There will be sections, too, where what paths along the river that exist run out, or take detours away from the river bank. The return journey by canoe will allow me to gain as full a sense of the river as possible.

It’s strange – for the past week I’ve had trouble sleeping at night, having awaited the start of this journey for over a year now. It’s not the weather or the natural environment that concern me. It’s people. It’s the meetings along the way that I’m most nervous about. Will folk be hostile or welcoming? Humans are an unpredictable species.

Weather, on the other hand, seems far easier to predict as I watch the front move in from my outlook beneath the pines. First comes the calm, followed by the sermon of thunder, and then the chorus of rain.

Gulls signal the end of this three-part movement by taking to the air in the storm’s wake. The last drops of rain now fallen, I remove my waterproofs, shoulder the pack and slip down the dune back to the beach. The journey is now underway.

The last few hundred yards of the River Findhorn divide the Culbin Sands from the beach at Findhorn. Already mixed with the outgoing salt water from Findhorn Bay, the river races over barnacled channels to the firth where clapotis waves rise in the fracas of colliding currents. Lipping around the entrance to the bay is a sandbank spit where common seals lounge1. It is difficult to count their exact number – fifty, perhaps sixty. Waiting for the tide to turn and the bay to fill with salmon running upriver, the seals keep watch on human presence. Anyone approaching the spit on foot or by sea-kayak is sure to trigger an evacuation of the seal colony off the sand and into the water. Despite this wariness, you invariably find seals trailing your kayak. Yet turn quickly for a glimpse and the seal will have plunged leaving only bubbles.

EXTRACT 2: AT THE WATERSHED

Rivers all connected by the oceans and seas, the winds and the rains. The veins of the Earth. Their names alone conjure images of movement and beauty. The inhabitants of their banks, islands and deltas, the explorers, the ferrymen, listening to the music of the rivers’ currents and then naming the sound, or basing the name upon the initial sight, or the mountain source, or the dream finally discovered.

Who was it that named the Findhorn? Was there a debate – did the river dwellers sit on the sands under the pines tossing white mountain stones into the blackwater calling out ideas? Or sleep beside the whitewater awaiting the sound to form a name? Or was it the sea travellers arriving at the Culbin after crossing the North Sea, ecstatic at the distant sight of the white sands? Or was it because of the belly colour of oyster catchers, osprey, salmon and herons? Or because of gulls, or the tail of the roe? Or because of the moon? Or because of the white of the clouds in the morning light?

For the first time in my life I feel as if I am beginning to understand the River Findhorn. From now on, whenever I gaze upon the river downstream whether flowing with the ink black roar of a snow melt, or with the bluebottle sheen of a spring morning, or with the peaty red brindle in the warm light of summer, or with the muddy thunder of an autumn spate, I will know where it’s coming from.

I dream of a day when the watershed of the River Findhorn has been reforested; when the howl of wolves can be heard on moonlit winter nights; and when wild salmon return to the river in abundance. Because that day will be a great day. It will be a day when we human beings have come to see our true place in the interconnectedness of the world, and have been moved to act upon that consciousness. It will be a day when we start to inhabit the Earth with a grace. Like a river.

EXTRACT 3: THE CANOE AND THE RIVER

I move all the gear towards the bow to alter the trim and minimise the weathervane effect. You’d think that travelling with the river’s current would create enough momentum to override the efforts of the wind, but the wind can be one of the most critical factors when canoeing on a river. As you line up for the deep-water “V” at the entry to a rapid, a gust of wind can flick the boat off course into a rock and swing you broadside.

Today I’m paddling from Tomatin down to Banchor unaccompanied. It’s certainly not what canoeing associations endorse, and many would view paddling in this manner as plain foolishness. I fully heed the warnings, and most of my time out paddling I go with a companion. Having weighed up the risks involved for this section, I’ve decided that going alone will allow a greater opportunity to learn about the river more intimately. The canoeist-explorer Robert Perkins once described how travelling alone particularly into a wilderness can be risky, but that just as risky is not to follow your dreams.2 There is something unparalleled about paddling alone. The legendary Canadian outdoorsman Calvin Rutstrum summed it up for me when he wrote that our most profound moments generally occur when we are alone, and that we do not become intruders to the natural world but more part of the natural order. 3

Going solo lessens the footprint but means heightened concentration and greater attention to the immediacy of what surrounds you. Going solo requires silence and no talking – the key to entering a level of discourse with the natural world. Where you hear the music of the rapids, of the oyster catcher, of the wind in the aspen, of the splash of the salmon’s belly. Where you become aware of the life around you. Of the song of which you are part, and which you can learn to sing.