Rob on the Water

Mission Accomplished -- I Paddled the Don

• Posted on May 6, 2007 at 3:59 PM
• Previous
• Next

I made it down the mighty Don River.

Today was the official Paddle the Don day -- the one day a year when you're allowed to paddle down the river that millions of Torontonians see every day. It's a fundraiser for the Toronto Region Conservation Authority. (And thanks to my real estate agent and friend Justin Bowditch for pledging big bucks.)

I was slated for the 9-10 launch. Got there (DVP was closed -- arrgh), and found out that parking was limited, so had to dump the boat, drive to a lot farther away, and either walk or take a shuttle back. (I walked.)

Registered (took just a few minutes) and then got in line for my put in. Note to anyone who plans on doing this next year: allow yourself at least 40 minutes (more like an hour) to get there, unload boats, drive to Guam for parking, get back, register, and wait for the lineup to put in.

(The map plot here is the put-in, by the way.)

All of that said, the event is well run -- there just isn't a lot of space where the put-in is. In fact, there were tons of volunteers at the put-in, take out and every portage (there were two, but sometimes a third small drop needs to be portaged, too).

Anyway, I was in the Wavesport EZ, which is in no way suited to this run. There's a current for much of the river, but not too much, so a regular open canoe would have been much better, especially with someone to paddle with me. But the EZ is the only boat I have. So there.

As much as it was an easy run in a whitewater kayak, it was amazing (and a bit funny) to see how many people tipped their canoes. I saw at least 6 (including one couple who tipped for the third time, just getting into their boat after a portage -- really, if that's your situation, should you be on the river at all?)

The first half of the run is an easy float, with a bit of current, as the river winds through the path system out of Wilket Creek Park. By nature standards, the banks were pretty dirty, with a fair bit of litter, but by urban standards it wasn't too bad. (How's that for a sad comment?) And the water wasn't as toxic as I was expecting.

For most of the paddle there were no people around me, which was nice. I really just wanted to get down the river and build a relationship with this river that I've known all my life but never really known.

The second half of the run was pretty well a straight shot parallel to the DVP (which was closed for construction). Which SUCKED in a whitewater boat. And I'm out of shape to boot. But whatever. I still got out of the day what I wanted and expected: a chance to see this river from river level.

Saw a family of geese, with five little fluffy yellow goslings. Really cute. A red-winged blackbird, some ducks, a gull or two, and a fish jumped right in front of me at some point. Didn't see the beaver that I spotted last year, by the Dundas street bridge, which is too bad, but there were hundreds of people on the water, so I imagine anything like a beaver got the hell away from sight today.

After you go under the Lakeshore Blvd bridge and hit the Keating Channel, the take-out is right there. They had a tent set up, with BBQ hot dogs and burgers, and wine, and free coffee. I hadn't brought any money, so I was SOL. I waited in line for about 20 minutes for the shuttle bus that goes back to the put-in, rode up, got the car, drove back down, got the boat, and here I am at home.

All told, it's about 2 1/2 hours or so on the river, taking my sweet time. Plus the time for the check-in, and then the whole shuttle process at the end of the run.