We're building a movement

Lead image: Search and rescue personnel preparing to test a modified Hovercraft 150L ('Riversled' Prototype) in a V-lower scenario.

Yesterday I was on the Tuckaseegee River with a crew of wilderness medicine professionals for a swiftwater rescue clinic.

For some of them, it was their first time learning how to swim in whitewater, how to safely move from an eddy into current, and how to navigate a rapid. Skills that those of who grew up around rivers learned so gradually that we may have forgotten they are skills at all.

Earlier that morning at the put-in, I also met a group from Team River Runner who was there hosting a women's kayak clinic. Team River Runner's mission in their own words: 

To provide all active duty service members, veterans, and their families an opportunity to find health, healing, community, purpose, and new challenges through adventure and adaptive paddle sports

We started talking about the rescue training happening nearby, and a bigger conversation emerged:

There is a huge need for more water-wise people.

Here in the United States, more than 4,000 people lose their lives to drowning every year. Beyond those tragedies are countless close calls: moments where a lack of basic river knowledge turns a day outside into a life-changing experience.

A few years ago, some friends in the Latino community had one of those moments on the Green River. They went tubing together, and one person in the group who couldn't swim flipped and lost his tube. Thankfully, they narrowly avoided a tragedy. But the experience left their group afraid of rivers and hesitant to ever return.

For those of us who grew up paddling

[Image: Paddler Seth Gelbaugh on his backyard run on the Tucksaseegee River. ]

For those of us who grew up paddling, it's easy to forget how much knowledge we carry with us. Not just how to paddle, but how to move safely in the realm.

How to read a river.
How to understand risk.
How to evaluate the abilities of your group.
How to make better decisions before something goes wrong.

One of the unexpected evolutions of Riverskate is realizing that the same features that make it such a unique whitewater freestyle craft also make it incredibly effective as a rescue tool.

During the swiftwater clinic, we tested a modified Hovercraft 150L with a V-lower setup, and the rescue personnel were surprised by how much easier it was to control compared to their traditional setups.

Another unexpected evolution is seeing Team River Runner use Riverskate as an introduction to whitewater for veterans — as a more approachable first step than a traditional whitewater kayak.

Learning more about TRR, and how they use paddling as a vehicle for connection, therapy, and healing, has made me see Riverskate differently.

When I started this project, it was simply a creative experiment. I wanted to explore what was possible in whitewater freestyle.

But something bigger has started to emerge.

People around the world are taking this little craft and making it their own, using it for play, exploration, accessibility, rescue, and connection.

And maybe that points toward something much more important, something that actually feels like it's the start of a movement:

Getting more people to become water wise.