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JOE COOK
Govwctoe ©vi
Paddle Georgia Comes Home
J ames Joyce's famous, if inscrutable, Finnegan's Wake
begins right here in Georgia, on the river that draws
its headwaters together in Clarke County: in the open
ing lines Joyce writes, "nor had topsawyer's rocks by
the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens
County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all
the time." Unfortunately, for many Athenians the historic and
geographic significance of the Oconee riversystem remains
as obscure and inaccessible as Joyce's prose in his late work.
.Thankfully, if you want to know your river more closely, it
doesn't take wading through Joyce's troubled waters; it just
takes getting out there.
This weekend you might see an unfamiliar sight if you
take your dog out to Ben Burton Park or go for a stroll along
the trails at the State Botanical Garden: hundreds of paddlers
immersed in and enjoying first-hand one of our city's lovely
rivers. Friday, 350 river enthusiasts will converge in Athens to
begin the seventh annual Paddle Georgia canoe-kayak adven
ture, a 106-mile journey over seven days from Athens down to
Dublin. More of us ought to take advantage of this defining
feature of our landscape, and Paddle Georgia promises to help
make getting out on the river here in Athens a more accessible
possibility.
Participants of Paddle Georgia, ah event fashioned after
Bike Ride Across Georgia (BRAG), will camp out in towns
along the route. Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, the group
will be staying here with us at Clarke Central High School.
Following each day's stint on the river, shuttles will ferry river-
goers to the shopping center at Alps and downtown to enjoy
Athens' restaurants and night life. Be ready to welcome these
visitors and to glean from them what they've learned about
your city by paddling though it.
Thfe trip begins Saturday upstream from Ben Burton park
on the Middle Oconee river. By Saturday afternoon, partici
pants will make it to the confluence of the Middle and North
Oconee rivers at Whitehall Forest, and from there the flotilla
will continue to make its way down out of the piedmont and
into the coastal plain to the Journey's End festival in East
Dublin. Along the way, participants will visit historic sites
such as Scull Shoals in Greene County, and will gain a sense of
the instrumental roles the river plays by touring a hydropower
dam, the coal-fired Plant Branch in Milledgeville, the proposed
intake site for Plant Washington near Sandersville and the
recently opened solar panel manufacturing center in Dublin.
Paddlers, who on previous trips have ranged in age from 4 to
74 and often come as family groups, will also benefit from edu
cational programs on the river's cultural and natural history as
well as the opportunity to collect chemical and biological data
on the river's health.
Sold out every year, the event is organized by the Athens-
based Georgia River Network (GRN), a nonprofit that works
statewide to engage and empower Georgians to protect and
restore our rivers. Overwhelmingly popular from its start in
2005, Paddle Georgia has brought more than 1,800 people
out for extended river trips and raised more than $85,000 for
river protection. Proceeds from this year's fundraising "canoe-
a-thon" will go to watershed groups along the Oconee includ
ing the Upper Oconee Watershed Network, Lake Oconee Water
Watch, and the Altamaha Riverkeeperis Oconee River Project.
More than a boon to Athens' businesses for the weekend
and source of funding for the important work that watershed
groups do for our community (e.g., watch-dogging officials
on the Trail Creek chemical spill), this event brings important
attention to an underappreciated amenity here in Athens.
Though many of us visit the rivers in town at Ben Burton, the
Botanical Gardens or along the Greenway, few of us
have had the opportunity to travel through town and
across the landscape borne upon the river's waters.
Lots of people head up to the Broad for a short trip,
but folks really familiar with the two-headed Oconee's
winding path through town are few and far between.
Big Dogs on the River, an outfitter on the Atlanta
Highway, is an important step in the direction of
getting more Athenians to know our rivers, but the
city could do much more to highlight the beauty and
importance of the North and Middle Oconee.
As it has with communities along previous jour
neys on the Chattohoochee, Etowah, Ocmulgee, Flint,
Coosawattee, Oostanaula, Broad and Savannah rivers,
Paddle Georgia can help Athens better appreciate the
Oconee. According to GRN Executive Director April
Ingle, when Paddle Georgia comes to town, folks say,
"Hey, we have something here in town that we didn't
even realize could draw people into our communities
for tourism and recreation."
Modest improvements such as canoe access points
and portage paths could easily transform underused
amenities—the rivers—into more salient and enliv
ened parts of our city. Water trails, routes that facili
tate access to the river for paddlers, would "dovetail
nicely with the existing Greenway project" says Chris
Mangiello, a staff member at GRN.
The Oconee River system provides our drinking
water, and it carries away our waste water. Its waters
play a critical role in producing the energy for our
homes and businesses. For Ingle, one of the most
exciting parts of Paddle Georgia is helping people,
many of whpm are newcomers to canoeing or kayak
ing, to experience rivers first-hand and to see the
state from the perspective of its rivers, an experience
that makes the need to protect our watersheds appar
ent. In the process, she explains, an "awesome little
community forms—everyone sort of leaves the world behind
and comes together around the shared goal of moving down
the river."
Building this kind of relationship between people and
the river is absolutely necessary if we want to protect this
essential component of our broader ecological relations. Ben
Emanuel, director of Altamaha Riverkeeper's Oconee River
Project, explains the important ties between recreation and
conservation: "The idea is the more people actually get to
know the river, the more they'll be interested in protecting it."
Hopefully, witnessing the community-building and conscious
ness-raising fluvial experience of these paddlers will help us
see the opportunities to develop a more central and recognized
relationship to the Oconee for our community here in Athens.
Richard Milligan
If you are interested in participating in Paddle Georgia next year, sign up
to receive information—spots fill up quickly—at www.garivers.org.
Participants in the 2009 Paddle Georgia event on the Upper Coosawattee River.
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