A Special Relationship with the ACA

It’s true. We are not good at the social medias or spending time on computers beyond what we have to… We are much more at home in a raft. Thus I realized that I have not posted anything in this space for a whole year! Life is too busy. But I am inspired today. Recently, the American Canoe Association reached out to its population of Life Members (of which I, Alan, am one) to hear from us and know more about what became of our river path. This is a particularly meaningful question at this time as CRI has just recently become an ACA Pro School! Elisha and I could not be more humbled by the enthusiasm that this step has engendered and I couldn’t help but see it as a direct continuation of the path begun with my early membership. I do not know when they stopped issuing lifetime memberships, but I know it was quite a while ago. What follows is my response to that question from the ACA membership office. If you’d like to know about some of my history, read on…

In response to your recent letter in which you reached out to lifetime members, I thought I would send a few thoughts your way as a reply and share my story. Thank you for your interest in soliciting some stories from this group of members. I wonder how many of us are still active with the ACA…

The American Canoe Association has always been a cornerstone aspect in my life. I consider myself one of the fortunate ones who was introduced to being on the river as a teenager and who has had the opportunity to pursue river running and whitewater all of my life. When I was all of about 12 years old my mother got us a couple of sit-on-top kayaks so that she and I could spend time together exploring the lakes in and around Austin, TX. I was instantly hooked on the feeling of being out on the water and in control of my own little vessel. A year later we both took an ACA kayak class that was held just on flat water. That was my first exposure to a real decked whitewater kayak and, being the scrappy teenager I was, I got my roll at the end of that second day. Two weeks later the same instructor crew was teaching an intro to whitewater class on the Guadeloupe River and I convinced my mother that we should take that one too. After that, the river was in my veins and I never looked back.

Skip ahead a couple of years and we are active members of the then vibrant Austin Paddling Club. It is also around this time that I took my first ICW and became a junior kayak instructor. I then spent the next few summers teaching intro to whitewater classes alongside another instructor who became a lifelong friend. During these years, in the late 1990s, another event that we looked forward to was the Houston Canoe Club Rendezvous. Here my mother saw at an ACA booth that there was a lifetime membership program which as a promotion included a wooden Cricket paddle. It was this my mother got for me as a birthday present and being an ACA member has been a part of my psyche ever since. The artist made my paddle with a whitewater style blade with an extra fiberglass coating to make it more durable, though in truth, it has always been too special to me to take into real whitewater. The ACA logo, “Life Member” and my name were even set onto the wood. To this day, I have this paddle displayed in my home.

What does the ACA mean to me and how does it impact my life today? The answer is: a great deal. Membership in and interaction with the the American Canoe Association truly has been a foundational aspect of my life. In 2017 my wife and I (she is a raft ITE and chair of the ACA rafting discipline committee) started Canyon River Instruction in Salida, Colorado. We are a small river guiding service that is licensed like any other river outfitter on the Arkansas River, except our focus is almost exclusively on instruction. In that time I have become an instructor trainer for swiftwater rescue as well as an instructor for kayak, canoe, raft and packraft. I believe it is teaching river safety and rescue which  I have felt to be the most rewarding contribution to whitewater recreation.

Whitewater and river exploration has been a cornerstone of my life since I was 12 years old. It has driven where I focus my energies and creativity, and it has been the genesis of many lifelong friendships, including that of my wife and business partner.

Through my involvement with the ACA, I hope that I have made some small positive contribution to the world of river recreation. But is it really recreation? Is access to a space and an environment that centers your mind and rejuvenates your psyche simply a place of recreation? Or is it something deeper… something that touches on what it is to know the quintessential state of the human condition? As we know, interacting, directly, with the flow of the river environment, with the flow of nature, we cannot help but be transported to a state of focus, to a state of flow. It is only here, only when we distill what is our direct experience and winnow away all of the human created distractions and externalities, where we feel only the water and hear only the sounds of the river, that we truly begin to know our own minds. Of course this experience, in place, time, and temperament is different for all. I will be forever grateful that I have been fortunate enough to experience such a thing, and more so that I have had the opportunity to share and help foment this experience in a positive and community oriented way for others.

The American Canoe Association has and will continue to mean a great deal to me as I continue to explore my path through the river.

~ alan cammack

Kayak, Raft, Canoe, Packraft - Instructor

Swiftwater Rescue - Instructor Trainer