Aug. 2001, Xene #23
Whitewater Terror: Niseko's Terrific Whitewater Rafting
by Bill Andrechek

You're going to the river today to ride in a raft with a group of people you hardly know, but everyone on the bus seems to be in good spirits as you wind through the mountains. Some are singing popular songs, some are snoozing peacefully and many are eating from bentos or munching the onigiri they prepared that morning.
"Is this your first time?" a young girl in a pink New York Yankees baseball cap casually asks. You reply that it is, and she responds that it is hers too. The atmosphere in the bus is calm and no-one has a care in the world about what they are about to do. You, however, are starting to feel an uneasiness in the pit of your stomach as you become more acutely aware of your surroundings. That's when your eye suddenly catches something on the shoulder of the highway. A dead gull is lying awkwardly in the dirt with a wing reaching to the heavens, and you know it must have been hit by a vehicle. You remember hearing somewhere that a dead bird is a strong omen but you laugh it off, never really having been a superstitious person.
"Did you see that bird?" you ask the girl beside you.
"What bird? no... was there a bird?" she distantly replies.
Now you're getting into your raft and you look around at the other riders and feel a bit perturbed that everyone else is delighted with the prospect of taking a trip down this unknown river with these complete strangers. It's a bright day but the water is black and the vague uneasiness in your gut has grown into a distinct fear. Nobody notices you at all and you tell yourself it's all in your head and that if these frail little girls you're with don't mind what's happening, then why should you?
You're in the middle of the river now and the fear remains. The guide is telling you to sit nearer to the edge of the raft to paddle correctly but you cannot feel comfortable there and he finally comes back to where you're sitting and yells at you to do it because, "Everyone has to pitch in!" You'd like to cooperate but it feels like you are sitting on a beach ball.
You lose your balance. You look around for something to grab. You fall. Under the water you can't tell which way is up as you flail and fight to find the sunlight that will tell you which way to swim and your life flashes, a little too quickly, in front of your eyes and stops on a story in the newspaper.
One feared drowned in whitewater rafting accident

Niseko - A Canadian man was reported missing after he fell out of an eight-man raft in fast water, hit his head and was carried down river. After spinning sideways and hitting a rock, the raft partially capsized and flipped the man overboard, according to co-riders.
"It was freaky, mate. I mean it seemed as if he was yanked out of the boat by a rope or a bloody big bird or something...oh God! No one could help him and he was a goner. He wasn't wearing his life-jacket and down he went," the rafter stated. The search for the man continues, but hopes of finding him alive are not good, according to a diver on the scene. "People who smack their heads on rocks and go under are usually found, but not alive."

And then I woke up.
Oh, perfect! Why did I have to have this dream the night before I was to go rafting for the first time? This is a true account of the nightmare I really had. It is still clear in my mind as I write this, and I will probably remember it for a long time. I had, in fact, seen a dead bird on the side of the road near my home about a week earlier. At that time, too, I felt it was far from auspicious but put it in the back of my mind where it would later reappear as "the gull," pointing at me with its little feathered wing like a miniature grim reaper.

So, the day of the trip came and where I should have been looking forward to a fun-filled jaunt down a river, I was mentally stressed.
Whitewater rafting had always seemed the mildest of all adventure sports. I mean, compared to jumping off a tower or bridge with an elastic band around your feet or hurling yourself out of an airplane or climbing up a sheer rock-face, rafting with a group of novices has to top the list for "least extreme," does it not? My mind was telling me that it might turn out to be boring, but my stomach wouldn't have any of that. Why was I nervous? It was making me angry. But I would soon find out.
Arriving at the base and prep-centre of the rafting company, we got off the bus and heard a lot of strange noises coming from a bunch of sun-ripened Aussies and Kiwis. "Grab-bu a paddle-lu from the pile-lu!" was what one of the guides was saying. He was obviously trying to communicate the instructions to us, a group of mostly Japanese, after reading a book on how to Japanize Your English in One Day, or something along those lines.
But the guides were ridiculously energetic and after they toseed the rafts onto a trailer and assembling us into rafting teams, we got on another bus and away we went to the starting point.
In the water, we practiced responding to a few commands because, as we were told, timing was crucial in avoiding a disaster. In unison, we moved about the raft and were choreographed in paddling and positioning.

"How ya going, mate?" was what my ever-smiling guide asked as I was retaking my position in the back. "Yar looking a bit crook."

Not wanting to admit fear to this macho type, I blurted something about being hung over or binging the night before, thinking this to be what was needed to stop any further questions aimed at me and still not totally buying the fact that what was bothering me was fear.

"Oh, you and me both, mate. I haven't had any sleep at all and in fact I've only had about an hour's sleep in the past three days."

"Hmmm, jolly good," I thought to myself as we set out.

About a hundred metres down, our guide barked at us to pull into a small inlet. Then he jumped out, reached into the water and pulled up a fistful of black mud. He then proceeded to smear the mud on his face! Then this Rambo challenged me to jump in and do the same, which I did.

We were waiting for the other rafts to catch up with us before we could continue on and since it was getting hot, we decided to go to a deep spot and have a swim. And here is where I genuinely understood the fear that had been trying to reveal itself to me all along.

hy"dro.pho"bi.a n. 1, rabies. 2, morbid fear of water.

Well, I don't have rabies, so...

The water was deep and moving quite quickly, which triggered a vision from my childhood as clearly as the day it happened. At summer camp in Canada, our group of about 10 eight-year-olds were led to a small river where we could swim with our group leader. I hesitated to jump in because there was a bit of a current and I had always been afraid of swimming. All of the other kids were having a good time playing in the stream, but I just couldn't bring myself to make the leap. My leader finally pushed me in, with good intentions, I suppose, and I frantically thrashed at the water trying to get back up on shore, screaming for my leader to give me his hand to grab onto. He didn't, and under I went. That's all I remember about it.

So now I had put a name to my fear and was headed down river to face white water with an exhausted, mud-faced guide with a ghoulish grin on his face.

"How ya feeling now, mate?"

There was only one incident, however, on our tour down the river. I was listening to our guide describing how rafts and kayaks can buckle and maim their riders if they hit rocks dead-on when -- Smash! Didn't we hit our own rock dead-on? I was holding on pretty tightly -- had been from the outset -- but a young girl, the pink Yankee, sitting behind me flipped backwards and just missed the rock that we had plowed into. Luckily, up she popped like a cork in the ocean. She was hauled in before you could say, Law Suit! And just when I realized I probably wouldn't meet my maker on that particular afternoon and was beginning to really enjoy myself, it was over.

The trip was about two hours from starting point to end, on about seven or eight kilometres of the beautiful, winding Shiribetsu River, in Niseko, Hokkaido.

Hydrophobia? Ha! I think I'll go again next spring.

Rafting Info

Niseko & Mukawa
NAC (Niseko Adventure Centre)
Rafting \5,000/ adult.
For details: http://www.nac-web.com/e_index.htm or call 0136-23-2093

Niseko & Furano
SAS (Scott Adventure Sports)
Rafting \5,000/ adult.
For details: http://www.sas-net.com/ or call 0136-22-3599

Hidaka
HOA (Hokkaido Outdoor Adventures)
Rafting \6,000/ adult.
http://www.rafting-hoa.co.jp or call 01457-6-2668