WHY DO WE DO THIS?:
"It is difficult to find in life any event which so effectually condenses intense nervous sensation into the shortest possible space of time as does the work of shooting, or running an immense rapid. There is no toil, no heart breaking labour about it, but as much coolness, dexterity, and skill as man can throw into the work of hand, eye, and head; knowldge of when to strike and how to do it; knowledge of water and rock, and of the one hundred combinations which rock and water can assume -- for these two things, rock and water, taken in the abstract, fail as completely to convey any idea of their fierce embracings in the throes of a rapid as the fire burning quietly in a drawing-room fireplace fails to convey the idea of a house wrapped and sheeted in flames."
Sir William Francis Butler (1872)
(as quoted in the Wild Rivers Survey series of pamphlets, Parks Canada; forwarded to Rsk by Don Wegeng, who got it from Brian Smith.)
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