Coyote Why?

 " KNOWLEDGE IS AN UNENDING ADVENTURE AT THE EDGE OF UNCERTAINTY "  
Jacob Bronowski

What lies below:

Coyote Why?

Why, "coyote" why?

Why emphasize "coyote"when "wapiti" is our company icon?

Why use animal icons to symbolize what we are?
Are informative laden trips structured and boring?

What is our fundamental message as we engage Nature?

Why consider Gary Lane's version of what these river's are all about?

Why float the rivers we offer our trips on?

Why the Grande Ronde & Wallowa River System?

Why the Owyhee River?

Why the Lower Salmon River?

Outdoor Tips:

How to Catch a Steelhead?

Is it common to limit-out when steelhead fishing?

Conservation:

Plan B 3.0

Coyote Why?

Did you click on to this page out of curiousity?  Wondering, just what is "Coyote Why"?  Curiosity may have killed the proverbial cat, but I think that is just an old wives tale.

Curiosity is what keeps life interesting. In fact, even life expectancies have been extended because of it. Discovering cures and expanding new technologies are due to the inquisitive nature of man.  Nothing inspires the mind more than our hunger for unlocking secrets of the unknown.  If I had captured  "bigfoot" and said you can now see him, would you want to?  Who could say no to that?

That is what this page is all about. Out of the box thinking. Thoughts to spark your engine. Looking at our world through a prism of perspectives.  Sometimes, even a mouth-agape, deer-in-the-headlights, utterly fascinating kind of curiosity. Lets face it, we live in a fast pace, speedy change world. So we better pay attention to how we are changing it, because like everything we humans do, it all begins with a simple thought. And that my friends, is what education is all about.

Bottomline: education is the name of the game.

Why, "coyote" why?

What does a coyote have to do with education?  Questions invite answers. It is the mechanism that inspires action and invites us to take the next step forward. A coyote is forever with his nose to the ground, questioning every niche of earth for a hint of scent to his next meal.  Each step he takes is preceded by his questioning the wind.

For generations, Indian's have understood the value of education.  Their oral traditions passed on accumulative knowledge that forwarded wisdom and built culture.

Their stories were often told through the eyes of "coyote", whom is referred to as a "trickster."  From folly to enlightenment, the trickster, tricked. Stories had morals in addition to vernacular lessons that coyote taught.  The foundation of any culture is based on education, as it is the mechanism by which successive generations advance. It shapes our view of the world.

In light of the vast and troubling global status of our times, it behooves us to question our current view of the world. How we see the world, will greatly determine how we try to shape it.  An alternative worldview, enlightened by a growing ecological awareness and call for cultural change, seems to be materializing. Hopefully we ask the right questions to better inspire creative ideas of how we might treat the earth more wisely. It is always up to the elders and teachers, as keepers of the cultural torch, to pass on the flame of wisdom.

Why emphasize "coyote"when "wapiti" is our company icon?

The short answer:   Wapiti represents what we are. Coyote is the mechanism by how we operate.

The long answer:   Wapiti is a Shawnne word for Elk.  To many native peoples, the elk symbolizes stamina, freedom, and nobility.  When an elk sees a predator, he must have the stamina to out-run, and out-last it.  But he must also have an expansive country in which to run away for his freedom.  Then when danger is not imminent a bull elk carries his head high, antlers stately behind, with an eligant nobilility.  Each step a proud testimony to his pre-eminence that beautiful landscape so inspires.

Lessons of the elk: teaches people that pacing oneself under stress increases stamina, overcomes fatigue, and improves success by conservation of energy. This is precisely what we, as Wapiti River  Guides, are all about. Balancing business needs with responsible use of all the resources we use to maintain our livelihood. Both are essential to maintain enough stamina to do our part in holding back encroachment that is ever pressing on the natural world.

As river guides, we hope to pass along some earth wisdom readily available from Mother Earth, herself, to those who tune-in. Our goal it to help people become better listeners and observers, while having tons of fun at the same time.

While many companies claim title to having superb "interpreter guides", we view our role as helping you develop your own perspectives about the natural world. Interpreting things, favors "what to think". It plants preconceived ideas that bias what things are. Naming things, are not the things.  As facilitators we strive to help you learn, and/or practice "how to think"  (and what questions to ask) so you can be more objective in your assessments of nature. What to call things matters not near so much as learning what they are and how they work.

In this light, we use coyote as the teaching mechanism for asking questions to seek answers to many of natures secrets.

Why use animal icons to symbolize what we are?

Fish and wildlife critters is primarily what draws most people to nature. The landscape would be a barren place without the life forms that give it action and enliven the scenery. From totems and mascots, to cars and trucks, animals icons symbolize the essence of our animalistic world. The spirit of all life adds a huge richness to the power of place.

Are informative laden trips structured and boring?

Oh my gosh, emphatically no!  Quite the contrary.  Idle time and routine normalcy breeds complacency and boredom.  Ever questioning and engagement with the mystery that flows through all things is always a source of inspiration.   Each trip is different because we follow nature's lead.  Mystery is everywhere, all around, and nature has triggers just waiting to be tripped. They serve as stepping stones towards new discoveries and exciting experiences.  Not knowing, yet seeking, is always an avenue to personal enrichment and ecstacy.

What is our fundamental message as we engage Nature?

Rather than reshaping a planet to accommodate our infinite desires, does it not make better sense to reshape ourselves to fit a finite planet?  But how?  Engaging nature toe to toe allows us to feel the mysteries and wonder of our living earth. Floating a wild river is an exciting venue to enhance our learning experience of the natural world.  But, if we are to have hope for continuing our abilities to have fun, and pass it on, then it is crucial to protect the integrity of the natural world. It is our home, both for industry and pleasure. As Chief Seattle is often quoted: "what we do the earth, we do to ourselves. "  Or in Zen: "the frog does not drink all the water from the pond in which it lives."

 Why consider Gary Lane's version of what these river's are all about?

(And hopefully join with us)

Throughout this website is my personal account of what each river means to me.  Included too, are a few pictures, that supposedly reveals a thousand words. But they are not the place.  Photography can never capture what you can only experience by going there.

But beyond the area itself, is the importance of how large a guides contribution is to your experience.   How informative a trip will be, is also greatly determined by how knowledgable your guide is, and how much willingness there is to share that information.

Since I will most likely be your guide, I would like you to know I have spent a life time learning about nature, including human nature, and really enjoy sharing what I have learned.  That is, for people so inclined. Some folks just want to have fun. I can just focus on that too. No problem.

But ever learning to greater my potential as a guide, I have accumulated some substantial vernacular knowledge that is very rare these days. Vernacular? What is that? Simply put, it is an intimate knowledge of place.  Living as a local in the areas we offer trips to allows me a most intimate knowledge of our area. This level of understanding is very difficult,  if not impossible, to achieve by only seasonal visitations. It is a sizable limitation to non-local guides.  It is like comparing a glimpse to a long hard look.  From which view will you see the most?

Sadly, depth of knowledge is a serious ingredient often missing in our hi-tech, fast pace, transitory style of hop, skip and jumping about the planet.  Aldo Leopold, (father of wildlife management) referred to it as a fundamental loss of an essential land-health ethic.  Long habitation in specialized areas strongly develops a deep love, respect, and profound reverence for place. This is why indigenous people have always been so tied to their land.  It inspires good ecological guardianship of Mother Earth in the present, and promotes the Seventh Generation philosophy for a sustainable future.

Why float the rivers we offer our trips on?

(each river has its reasons, see below)

All the rivers described below are rivers I personally grew up on and have floated for over 40 years.  As a more or less nomadic river runner, migrating with seasonal changes, I continue to follow passage down each river system. Of course, the calculus of our guest interests is what determines our trip schedule each year.

The Owyhee has a small window of time that it is floatable.   It is a one season river: spring only. Fortunately, the Grande Ronde/Wallowa and Salmon River's can be run year round.  It is the fish runs, chukar hunts, and whitewater thrills that draw interest here.  First-come, first-serve, guest sign-up then determines where we go between these two canyons.

Why the Grande Ronde & Wallowa River System?

(Northeast Oregon- Nez Perce Country)

Well, I cut my teeth on the Grande Ronde River and Wallowa River.  When I was just a kid, my dad took me on horseback trips to the high country of the Wallowa's. I caught my first salmon in my family's secret headwater tributary (sorry, no names here).  In reality, the salmon hooked me, and I was pulled into a life long love affair with nature.

Having grown up in the Grande Ronde Valley, I Iived local enough to float the "GR" and "WR" year round, and in any condition.  And I often did in my pre-guiding days.  I spent years fishing, hunting, and hiking all major side drainages, and nearly all slopes up, down, and both sides of the river. It developed in me a most intimate feel for the canyon. Not to mention, a very personal relationship with a lot of rocks during low water. Many a fishing trip did I have to wade and move these obstacles to jockey my raft down the skinny course.

When I first began floating both the Wallowa and Grande Ronde, I mostly did solo runs. Why? Because I could find no one brave enough or whom was interested in doing something that was not very well known at the time. Most people considered me crazy and believed such adventure was too dangerous.  Fine with me. It just added to the drama and assured me of enjoying a huge wide river world, all to myself. (Harder to find these days).

Times have changed.  Now, with more than 40 years of rollicking on these marvelous rivers, I have shared a lot of experiences with uncountable relatives, friends, and guests.

The Grande Ronde and Wallowa,  have always felt like my "backyard rivers."  (because they were). But, more important to me is the inspiration I gained from learning about the Nez Perce history of this area. It was life changing.  From early on, it has helped shape who I have become as a person.

The same love that Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce Wallowa Band had for this exquisite country, soon rubbed off on me. "Wellawea", was their word for the Grande Ronde River. It had more than one meaning:  "river that flows in to the far beyond," or "place where horses winter well."  I soon found myself deeply absorbed into that infinite far beyond, and also came to realize that though their horses are gone, many deer, elk, bald eagles, and a few bighorn sheep still winter there today.

Each year we offer special wildlife photography trips, in addition to seasonalized fishing adventures. What is so amazing to me, is that not even Alaska or Montana can exceed this combination of splendor.  A steelhead paradise, embraced by a plethora of wildlife,  amidst a Switzerland Alps -like backdrop, is hard to beat.  It is easy to see why the Nez Perce continue to cherish this country so profoundly. The spiritual essence of their ancestors still reign the area.

Why the Owyhee River?

(Southeast Oregon - Paiute Country)

This river system is like my neighborhood next door best friend.  Over 35 years ago, I skipped down south to dip my first oar into the Owyhee River. It's rugged desert beauty soon became a great contrast to my home-front forested canyon country that I had grown up in. It broadened my appreciation for the wonderful diversity of what various rivers have to offer.

The Owyhee River didn't take long to become one of my favorite places to go. Consequently, it has been an annual pilgrimage ever sense my first trip there in 1972. (minus a drought year or two when it was too low to run pleasurably).

Though we run it several times each season, the Owyhee does not provide the year round opportunities that the Grande Ronde and Wallowa River's offer. This reduces the level of intimacy that running a river in every season brings. However, hiking extensively in the canyon, fishing often, and challenging various flow levels has helped me learn the system quite well.

The Owyhee was named in reference to some Hawian Islanders who were sent down the river by Donald McKenzie to explore its potential for furs, only to disappear into history forever. Supposedly, they were killed by local Indians. And most likely, they were. The Paiute people were the original inhabitants of this remote country.

Though a tremendously beautiful sagebrush-steppe plateau and labyrinthian canyon land, it is sparse in capacity to support many humans. This is part of why only a small number of family-clan bands sought nomadic livelinoods there. They had to travel far and wide to find enough food to live by. It was a natural limiting factor and self regulating mechanism to control population growth.

Each group came to be named by what means served their livlihoods. "Tuber Eaters" referred to people living in the canyon, because cattails and other waterborne tubers along the river course, became their staple. Though much of their time was spent foraging and gathering, they had ample time to develop a relatively sophisticated art culture. Their marks can still be read on the boulders along the river.

Many petroglyphs give testimony to their appreciation for the abstract. Often these sites were near riverside hot springs that sporadically dot the canyon.  Like ceyenne pepper for the soul, these mineral enriched thermals continue to be medicinal. The draw of a hot springs is timeless.

Perhaps the Owyhee's haunting beauty, created by various landscapes that are naturally sculptured into human-like forms, also influenced the early inhabitants to transfere it into art form on the rocks. This land-human relationship may have worked in a way that each reflected in the other, a truer sense of the areas total beaut.  At least this is how it has effected me and what I feel when I visit this most mystical of places.

Why the Lower Salmon River?

(West Central Idaho - Nez Perce/Shoshone Country)

"If you go down river, you no return" - was the advice local Shoshone Indians gave to Lewis and Clark, near North Fork, when they were considering a canoe trip down the Salmon River. Thus was born the famed slogan:  "River of No Return."  Of course, a lot of history has changed the meaning of that. Now it means, float this river once, and you will wish not to return from where you came.  Yes, it is that beautiful. That powerful.

Soon after I graduated from college, (yikes - that was 1971) I took my first trip down this river. It was also a graduation from my school of hard knocks, or more aptly, hard rocks, on the Grande Ronde. My training grounds had enabled me the skill level to attempt this more powerful river. Like all the other rivers I floated, this one strongly impacted me too.

The Salmon River is where I first learned to kayak. Hard shell, old school, but I learned from the best. "The Father of Western Big Water Kayaking," as the legendary Dr Blackadar came to be known, taught me how to roll and read the river.   I bought my first Vector kit-boat kayak from him. From there, I threw myself religiously into paddling, and quickly passed into an acutely new level of appreciating the nuances of simple river dynamics.

However, my college degree in wildlife science called me back into another ("what do you do in real life") brief career with the USFS. Caring for habitats, from a land mangangement perspective, for country I was intimate with,  was very rewarding.  But, it was also beyond my tolerance level for bureaucracy and was my downfall with  mainstream society.

Fortunately, in my numerous kayak escapades I made contacts with boaters who turned me on to another way of life. It led to my encounter with the dory people of Martin Litton, Grand Canyon Dories, fame. Also, a soon to be guide job with his company. This is where I then graduated from kayak and rafts, to dory boats, and learned what guiding is all about.  I spent 5 years as an esteemed dory boatman (in dory boatman eyes, anyway) where I led trips, 13-days long, on the Salmon River. From there I leap frogged from guide world to an outfitter and river company owner.

 Alaska called, and I began exploring and running my own commercial trips into some of the most remotely wild places on the North American Continent.  These were summer trips only, with the rest of my time devoted to living and working in the Grande Ronde and Owyhee country, of Oregon.  Eventually, opportunity knocked and I acquired a permit for Idaho's Lower Salmon River. It led to my transformation from a base of operations in Cove, Oregon to our current location in Riggins, Idaho.

Since 1983, Riggins has been our home. Who is we? My wife Barb, and me, of course. I met her from a newspaper ad I had placed in the "Boise Statesman".  Riggins is not a vortex for marriage inclined  women. Fortunately, by mimicking nature, I followed the lead of a bull elk. They bugle to advertise for cows. Seemed reasonable to me. My ad became my bugle. It worked.

Barb soon left a full time Hewlett-Packard job, for a high paying guides job, we jokingly claim. But, we both now live happily in the depths of the second deepest canyon of north america. The Seven Devils Mountains is above our head, more than a mile high, and the Salmon River is at our feet, less than 30 yards away. 

We feel fortunate to live where we do. It surely must be one of nature's best handi-works. The canyon is more than a mile deep for over 180 miles of its 425 mile length. This mileage makes it the longest free flowing river in North American, excluding Alaska.  This is our front yard reality. Wow!

To us, one of the real beauties of our home front, is that it provides us a year round livelihood, as well as a  never ending source of inspiration.  It gives us a chance to offer adventures anywhere from a half day to six days.  More significantly,  the section of river we offer our more remote floats on, is less crowded than other highly popular and famous waterways of the West.

But you be the judge. We are biased by our own perceptions of what constitutes great beauty.  Like someone once said: "you have to go, to know."  The exposed lava flows with bunchgrass slopes sandwiched between, from top to bottom, is direct evidence of how this canyon was formed.  It is mute testimony to a creation story. Be it told by the perspective of Nez Perce legend, scientific explanation, or religious belief, it is ever mysterious. 

Ponderosa pines with pumkin colored bark and deep green needles, guard the white sand beaches and emerald river water.  Along with colorful wildflowers and some exciting rapids, this semi-arid country is hard to beat.