It took us no time at all to appropriate the canoe down from the top of the rack. The towering arrangement of classically shaped Canadian polyurethane rose before us from the rear corner of the Boy Scouts Of Canada Hall garage, twelve canoes to a rack, two racks wide, three racks deep. We both shimmied our way back to the last rack, closest to the wall. Dave, a former Scout and good buddy of mine, scaled the stack with little trouble. I stayed grounded, waiting below. We needed a canoe that was tucked in the back, stuffed in the corner. A canoe no one would notice.

Dave hooked his fingers under the lip of the vessel gave it a yank. The whole stack shuddered as his grip gave way. He rattled down from his perch, his chin making contact with the underbelly of every upturned rowboat on the way down. Our prize popped up off it’s cozy hold followed Dave to the floor. He threw his arms up, I didn’t. The dull-red watercraft thunked me squarely on my head.

My cousin Casey had decided to throw a party, a Stampede party. There was no way we mock cowboys and cowgirls would keep the social rodeo under control. There was going to be a shaker and we planned on arriving in style.

The destination stood in the shadow of downtown, two blocks from the mighty banks of the Elbow, Calgary’s favourite little river. Our plan was to infiltrate the Scout Hall, borrow a canoe without permission, and load it up with friends, drinks and cheer. And while we were at it, float on down to the party.

We strapped our prized flagship to the top of Dave’s little truck and wound through Calgary’s July traffic, the beating sun launching twenty-seven degrees at us around every bend. Pioneers about to set out. The river drew near.

Dave threw it into park. Yellow-green wisps of long prairie grass greeted our bare shins as we stepped out and untied the canoe. We set it down beside the truck and dropped our pants, changing into our bathing trunks. We left our clothes, tucked our heads inside our borrowed boat, arms levelling the craft, portaging off towards the towering grey dam.

The girls of summer and some good ole’ boys stood in the distance, waiting for our riverboat arrival. The two ladies looked stunning in their summer bikinis and the boys, our friends from when we were knee high to a beaver, hurried over to give us a hand. They looked impressed. They had expected and inflatable dingy. We delivered a luxury liner, suitable for six and a cooler. We hit the bank off the river dropped our gear and, parched by the Southern Alberta sun, raised a drink. It was time to set out, to conquer our quest, and to get everyone to that Stampede party.

We set off with high hopes and high spirits. The Stampede gods couldn’t have offered up a better day. We dip-dipped and swung the oars. The surface of the Elbow River glinted brilliant silver below a group of Canadian kids making the best of it.

Early on we ran aground some problems.

We had expected to tame the mighty flow, to thrash against her will, and win the day, like the trappers and prospectors of old. What we found out was that any decent canoe needs at least three-feet of water to run smoothly, two-feet in dire cases. We had about one and a half to work with. Dave popped up on the back gunnels and slowly eased us along with his feet while I knelt in the front and faux rowed, doing my part to help drag the ship along.

It was slow going, but nobody cared, we all rollicked and laughed as an hour passed, the grinding scrape of our ride against the rocky river bed drowned out by our raucous conversation. Soon the scrape would be as loud as thunder and as cutting and cruel as Alberta’s weather patterns.

They rolled in, slowly at first, those clouds, just little ones. We thought nothing of them until they spottily covered up the sun. Those little clouds cast a large shadow over our escapade. Sure we still had our boat, our supplies and our friends, but without the beating sun acting as the glue to our fun, we really didn’t have much of anything. My eyes gazed towards the heavens and were greeted by a flash.

In the distance a towering bank of black thunderheads cut the sky. We hadn’t seen them coming, we hadn’t even checked the weather. Maybe the winds would change, maybe the clouds wouldn’t pop, or maybe they wouldn’t find us tucked in our canoe. Maybe.

Drip. Drip, drip, drip.

Concerned glances shot every which direction, port, bow, starboard, and stern. The guys seemed frightened, the ladies disappointed, Dave and I, terrified. We had been creeping along the river at a snails pace, coasting on what little water would run us, in a stolen canoe, for the last two hours and we were still only half way to the party. It began to rain, heavily.

The cool downpour lacquered our hair and streams of fresh water ran down our faces. With a glance Dave and I got on our horse. I drove the paddle deep into the rocky bottom, with every mighty pull dragging the canoe along. Dave, still sitting at the rear, legs dangling over the edge, continued to plant his feet, galloping us forward. The river offered no assistance and the sky gave us no quarter. It was a downpour; we’d run into our very own little river squall.

We lost the ladies over the side.

They decided they’d had enough and we watched them stand up, step off, and walk the ten paces out of the river through the ankle-deep raging waters. The guys followed. They all disappeared up the bank. The party was still an hour away by boat down a meandering river, but it was only a twenty-minute walk or a five-minute cab ride on dry land.

Dave and I couldn’t afford that luxury. We couldn’t just leave our trusty canoe. Besides, We needed to have it back the next day before anyone knew it was gone.

No longer weighed down we hit survival mode, facing the cold sting of falling misery and the unnerving rumble of thunder. The wail of the boats belly across the unforgiving ribs of the Elbow screeched and we jettisoned the rest of our supplies in an attempt to ride higher in the stream.

We gave it everything we had. Frozen to the bone and exhausted to the core, we reached the 2nd street storm drain an hour later with a boat full of water, no friends, no gear, and no will to go on. Party? What party? I just wanted to take a nap by a fire.

We heaved the canoe up onto the bank and tipped the water out at our feet in the cold mud. I cursed the sky, raising my fist, every muscle in my arm screamed out and inquired as to why I’d decided all of a sudden to become an oarsman. Dave rubbed his thighs and groaned in pain.

With the canoe riding firmly on our heads, we stumbled the last few blocks. We wobbled back and forth, to tired to steady the weight with our hands.

The rain clattered against the scarred underside of our Argo, it spattered against the street at our bare toes. We couldn’t see where we were going under our blood-red Canadiana. We just kept putting one foot in front of the other. The sound of slapping rain gave way to the clap smacking of hands, the booming thunder replaced by an unexpected roar. We stopped dead in our tracks. The world opened up as the canoe lifted off our heads, held aloft by ten sets of hands.

It was a royal welcome. Sixty people lined the front lawn, all appropriately dressed for the weather, a slicker adorning every reveller. And us, topless, crystallized, in nothing but our trunks. Drinks were jammed into our hands and warm blankets rested across our shoulders. Our comrades had arrived at the party hours earlier, and had prepared for our eventual arrival. They had felt bad for abandoning ship.

I looked around at the large group of partygoers then at the bruised canoe laying on my cousins front lawn, dented and gouged I looked over at Dave. He wasn’t smiling, neither of us were, our lips were to cold, but I could see it in his eyes, and everybody else’s. We had made our entrance.

M.D. Mosley