The Small World of the Takeout
By Nick Console
About three years ago I was in Coyhaique, Chile, one of the larger cities in Chilean Patagonia. I was down there for about eight weeks for work and was eager to find a canoe to buy for cheap or borrow. Someone suggested I reach out to the NOLS branch. I did, and through a couple other connections, met Tim. Tim and I got out for a tandem paddle on a class II section of the Rio Paloma... arguably class II because of the wind. Anyways, after spending the day with the British transplant I had just met, he invited me over to his place for what he called “Boys Night.” Boys Night was almost embarrassingly stereotypical… darts, beer, whisky, all in Tim’s woodshop. There was a urinal in the corner of the shop. Anyways, at Boys Night, I met Pascal, a young Chilean kayaker and his brother Lukas, who were family friends of Tim’s. We chatted a bit about boating, the night ended, I went home.
Fast forward a year and I am at the takeout of Packsaddle on the North Santiam. I see a raft guide who looks familiar. We both looked at each other a little funny, until I said “What is your name?” He said “Pascal,” with a little bit of a confused look on his face. That quickly turned into a series of “holy sh*ts” and hugs, as if we knew each other better than we did. The next Summer, 2025, I bumped into Pascal at the starting point of a Clack Fest race. We boated together a couple times that Summer.
Nick and Pascal on the river together again.
Today, I drove up to the White Salmon to see a friend of mine I hadn’t seen for a couple years. We did our lap, and at the takeout we met up with her partner and someone he’d recently boated with, Rose. Rose was hanging out with us at the takeout, waiting for her friend Brit to show up, who was coming from Asheville, North Carolina. Brit and I talked, I threw out the one name I knew from Asheville, Harper. Lo and behold, Brit’s roommate was Harper’s best friend.
One afternoon in Banks, Idaho, I recognized a face I hadn’t seen in years… Charlie. Charlie was the third business partner in my wife's farm in Michigan, who had dropped out of the venture. Neither of us were boaters when we met, so bumping into each other in Banks nearly ten years later was bizarre, to say the least.
The boating world is a nice, small-world community. We bump into people we know well, and people who we’ve boated with once in the past. The takeout is full of those types of connections. But, it also seems like it reaches beyond them. They say Banks is the “Center of the Universe.” I’ve heard others say the same about White Salmon. Maybe it’s just the magnetism of all of us boaters out there. I don’t know, but I bet you’ve had similar experiences at a takeout too.