Mission: Billy Harris, Damming and my parasitic ways!

By Billy Harris

Paddler: Billy Harris
Location Box: Canyon BC Canada
Photographer: Scott Findel

It never fails to amaze me how beautiful BC is in the summer time. For some
reason or another BC has been hammered with Water and there is an endless
supply of possible river trips up here. The hardest thing about creeking
here is shooting photos. You get into these tight canyons and there is not
a chance anyone in the world is going to see them again. I have been
creeking a bunch this year and have reaped the benefits of the Rocker’s
design a lot this year. Whenever the River goes haywire I seem to pop right
through. Big drops little drops keepers, I have either been blessed by a
higher power or just blessed with a boat that puts me though the bad stuff
well. This trip was no different, I hooked up with the good old boys Scott
Findel, Kelsey Thompson ,James Mole and Dan Drost from Ontario too to do
some of the local runs in Squamish. We had a great time on BOX canyon, nice
drops, tight hard stuff to get through and I laughed all the way down.
Kelsey Clipped a rock with his chin, got 2 or 3 stiches. Poor guy looks
like frankenstien, then a week later gets his boat stolen a Blue Project.
If you see it for sale let me know. Dan ended up tail squirting into a cave
above a big run. J man and I bagged him out and pendulemed him above a
waterfall to safety. The whole time just poopin about him clinging to the
underside fo the cave. Thanks to the dry suit he was warm. All of us being
led down by Scotty who has been charge’n this year traveling all over the
world also thanks to Scotty for shooting these photos I wish I had more..
On another note.. I wish I could say more positive things about what is
going on in that neighborhood. The BC government has decided to dam
everything that flows it seems. Our Government is changing the waterways
act in Canada to take out the environmental assessments and user group phase
of the application process for putting in a dam. That means the people in
the area who use the waterway don’t need to be consulted and the dam
applicant doesn’t need to get the same assessment on the impact of the dam
on the waterway as before. "removing red tape" I believe there is as many
as 1000 dam applications in right now in BC alone. I do mean everything
with any volume is being checked out there are stakes everywhere on river
banks. SO that whole valley is going to be lost and its being dug up as we
speak, huge trucks etc all over the road, cutting a hole in the mountain as
we were there to divert from or to gosh knows what. The sad thing is it’s
an X paddler that is helping with assessments for the dams. Helping them
know what is what up there in the way of water. Before you get all
indignant, It brings me to the conclusion that it’s hard to judge him or her
when I sit here on my laptop tapping away with electricity from the same
source. I grumble about dams and how much they hurt the environment by
flooding forests and valleys letting off toxic rotting vapors that kill the
ozone and releasing acids into the river streams killing fish but I tap away
on my computer and drive my small 4wd SUV to the put in and use paper just
the same. It’s hard being or doing the right thing being a human. It seems
like we are just a highly evolved parasite. We react well, but very rarely
do we be proactive about things. We all I suppose try to do the right
thing, reduce re-use recycle I guess at the end of the day we all could try
a little harder.

As for the Dam’s, I wish that Canada had as powerful a group as American
Whitewater, if your not a member get on side. Here are some photos of the
runs in the area, I wish I had more but check it out.

Billy Harris