A Paddlers’ Code of Conduct

Everybody Pitches In, and Nobody Gets Left Behind

Do your trips occasionally resemble an episode from Game of Thrones? Then Tamia has some good news for you: It doesn’t have to be that way.
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by Tamia Nelson | December 8, 2017
First published, in somewhat different form, on August 22, 2017

There’s safety in numbers. Or so the experts say. And I agree. Up to a point. But like most wise saws, this one is missing a few teeth. Safety in the backcountry isn’t simply a matter of arithmetic. It’s a matter of balance, and striking the right balance begins with choosing the right paddling partners. I described my approach to this vital preliminary in an earlier article. Now I’m going to take the next step, outlining what I call the “paddlers’ code of conduct.” It’s a summary statement of the rights and responsibilities of paddlers who choose, quite sensibly, to travel in company with other like-minded souls.

Let’s begin with the responsibilities of the group to each of its members. A paddling party is a collective enterprise, and the first rule in the code of conduct is therefore the easiest to state:

Nobody gets left behind. This is true in the most literal sense. The slowest paddler (or slowest boat) always sets the pace. If the fastest paddlers in a group race ahead, promising to wait for the laggards somewhere downriver (or down the lake), it’s no longer one group. It’s two, and in all likelihood it’s the weaker and less experienced boaters who end up as tail-end charlies, left to cope as best they can with whatever might befall them. This is never OK.

Is that all there is to “Nobody gets left behind”? No. The principle has a much broader reach. It embraces the notion of …

Collective Responsibility. All members of the group have an obligation to help any other member who gets into difficulty. When a companion dumps in a rapids or suffers some other mishap, an immediate, well-coordinated response is imperative. You have to get the unlucky paddler to safety and tend to his injuries. Then you need to do what you can to salvage his boat and retrieve his gear. (These are skills every paddler should learn. Read a book. Take classes. Practice.)

But what if, despite your best efforts, your unfortunate companion loses his boat and all his kit? Do you shrug your shoulders and continue on without him? Certainly not. The suggestion is absurd. You make room for him in your boat and tent — and in your sleeping bag, too, if the nights are cold and no other expedient comes to mind. You also share your food with him, even if you then go short yourself. Nobody gets left behind. Full stop.

The burden of responsibility runs both ways, however. Which brings us to the corollary proposition:

Everybody pitches in. This means doing your share of the camp chores and a little more besides, without shirking and without complaint. It also means being honest and upfront about anything — anything at all — that might prevent the group from keeping to its agreed schedule and completing the trip in a safe and timely fashion. In particular, anyone who joins a group has an obligation to let her companions know of all preexisting medical conditions that might affect her ability to fend for herself at some point in the trip. This is no time to be shy. Farwell and I have traveled with diabetics, heart patients, stroke victims, and paddlers with crippling arthritis. But because they let us know about these problems before the trip got under way, we were always prepared to help them if and when our help was needed — or to summon professional medical assistance if that was ever required. Happily, it never has been. But the day may come. And we never lose sight of the fact that one of us may be the one requiring help.

Of course, accepting responsibility for others’ well-being and safety — nobody gets left behind, right? — also means accepting risk. Rescuing swimmers and salvaging boats isn’t child’s play. Rescuers necessarily put themselves in harm’s way. Nor can wilderness medics “play doctor” with impunity. Even administering a companion’s prescribed medication carries some danger of doing inadvertent injury. The members of a paddling party would therefore do well to discuss these things before setting out, agreeing to hold each other harmless in the event of misadventure. Better yet, draw up a formal compact to this effect, a sort of recreational counterpart to ship’s articles. You say this isn’t to your taste? I understand. It’s not something I warm to, either. But when you consider the possibility that an ill-starred trip might end with an exchange of arguments in a courtroom, it begins to look more attractive.

There are other matters to be discussed, too, especially when US citizens travel out of country. It’s essential to decide how the not inconsiderable costs attendant on emergency medical care and evacuation would be met if worst should come to worst. Unless your party is composed entirely of millionaires, this will probably mean giving members’ insurance policies very close scrutiny, indeed — and then contacting an agent for any needed riders. Since the alternative is bankruptcy, it’s not a task to be shirked. And while we’re on the subject of money… If, as is often the case, unrelated paddlers carpool or share boats, make sure you all agree how the cost of getting people, boats, and gear to the put-in (and bringing them back from the take-out) is to be met. Decide how any repair costs to cars or boats are to be apportioned, too. This is tedious, persnickety stuff, I admit, but it’s necessary, nonetheless. Get it done long before your departure date, and consider making the agreement part of your “ship’s articles.” Arguing about who pays the bill for a new transmission while the Griner brothers look on with ill-disguised impatience adds nothing to the holiday atmosphere of a trip.

The bottom line? Picking a paddling partner (or partners) is only the start. The real work begins when you draw up plans for a trip. Discussing what to do if someone has a heart attack isn’t much fun, but it’s a lot easier when you and your friends are seated around your dining room table than it will be at midnight on the shore of a lonely lake in the middle of a thunderstorm, with the nearest hospital two hundred miles away.

Risk and responsibility aren’t words you’ll find in many tourist brochures, but they’re part of the working vocabulary of all canoeists and kayakers who venture off the beaten track. Or at least they should be. So if you haven’t already drafted your own paddlers’ code of conduct, it’s high time you got started. Don’t leave it till the drive to the put-in. Do it today.