Up White Rock Creek With a Paddle

Made a short canoe trip up White Rock Creek from the lake with my son yesterday evening. He's visiting for the holiday. Half the leaves are off the trees, so we're back to the season of the year when you can see all the trash along the banks. But it's still beautiful -- a long black river of glass ahead, hawk gliding beneath the canopy of trees on the right-hand bank, ducks swimming for cover on the left.

When the weather gets cool, you usually have the creek to yourself. We ducked under Mockingbird, paddled north, then passed beneath Northwest Highway. I have an old beat-up aluminum canoe that I got for two bills from a retired postman. It leaked like a sieve the first time I put it in the water, but I filled the hull full of epoxy, and now it's dry as a bone. With two good paddles working, she slides right up that creek like a knife.

Got an important cell call just after the Northwest Highway bridges, had to put in to shore. Then it was time to go home. The sun was almost down.

On the way back out around the point out into the lake, we passed a guy who had two fishing lines going, anchored out deep, marked with bobbers. He had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie, and he was bouncing from leg to leg to keep warm. Dedication.

White Rock. What would this city be without it?