Consulting a variety of maps, I wrote out an itinerary based upon an average

of a twenty-mile day, planning stops, when possible, at official campsites

and what I thought were likely places for primitive sites, such as an island, a

town, or the confluence of a major tributary. With the bits of knowledge I

collected in my scouting and reading, I found that segments of the river, particularly

in the upper region, still held quite a bit of mystery and uncertainty,

even for those who lived nearby. One man, Vic Scoggin, who had swum the

length of the river in 1996, gave me the most reliable and cautionary information,

but even he didn’t have all the answers, even he acknowledged that

things happen on a river that resist explanation and light-of-day description.

I didn’t want all the answers. I wanted to leave much of the river a mystery

so I could experience its surprises firsthand.

Working rivers like the Cumberland and the Tennessee are the last back

roads, the few places left in America where mysteries remain deep in the

night, in the early mornings, sometimes surprising you in the midday glare.

They wind far away from strip malls and four-lanes into lives that have

retained distinction, originality, and character. Canoeing, you set your own

pace and rest assured that no matter how much concrete is poured, no matter

how many trees are cut, no matter how much riprap smothers the banks,

humanity will never succeed in obliterating a river. Rivers will endure forever,

and in canoeing them, you become a part of their immortality.

KIM TREVATHAN