Many people remember the record breaking spring rains of 2009, but few experienced them as John Lane did, when a long-planned canoe trip from his Spartanburg home to the Atlantic Ocean just happened to coincide with near-peak flood levels throughout the state.
A dedicated outdoorsman who has paddled rivers all over the world, Lane says he “followed the flood” from Lawson’s Fork, which flows past his backyard, all the way down the Pacolet, Broad, Congaree and Santee rivers, covering 300 river miles before landing on Cedar Island near Georgetown 11 days later. Along the way, Lane explored abandoned river towns, met some interesting characters and reveled in the abundance of wildlife found on the state’s waterways.
It was a journey the Wofford College professor had daydreamed about for a long time. “I thought, ‘How crazy is it to live on a creek in South Carolina and not paddle it to the ocean.’ ” But it was a brush with tragedy that prompted Lane to turn his plans into reality. On a rafting trip in Costa Rica in December of 2008, two fellow paddlers were killed in an accident, and Lane’s cross-state adventure was his first time back on the water—a way, he says, to settle his nerves and prove he could “get back into the wild.”
Lane details his journey in a new book, My Paddle to the Sea, and hopes his story will inspire others to explore South Carolina’s waterways.
“My major point in the book is get out, find the river closest to your house, get on it if you can and paddle as far as you can,” he says. “If you want to do these things, go and do them.”
_____
John Lane
AGE: 57
HOMETOWN: Spartanburg
OCCUPATION: Writer, professor of English and environmental studies at Wofford College.
PET PEEVE: People who will not recycle and compost at home
LITTLE-KNOWN FACT: He is the subject of a new documentary, River Time, by Chris Cogan and Tom Byars. See the trailer.