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< May/June 2001
	Features
Canoeing in the Land of the Rising Sun Four days of saki, faux pas and paddling across the Pacific Eugene Buchanan

It wasn't your normal put-in for a canoeing trip. Next to a fleet of Grummans was a keg-sized vat of saki, surrounded by 40 shot glasses laid out in our honor. Our jet lag had barely settled when the mayor of Yuzawa raised his glass, welcoming us to Japan. Then he nodded to our host, Shugo Nakanishi, who had brought us here to share his vision of franchising canoe rental operations in the Land of the Rising Sun. "We are honored to have you come experience the Omono River," said Shugo, beginning one of several obligatory toasts. "We look forward to sharing it with you canoeing the next four days." With that we threw our heads back, the warm trickle down our throats as foreign as our surroundings. It was 8:30 a.m.

To franchise a canoe-rental operation you need to have a viable product--an easily accessible, pristine waterway--and the belief that people will want to paddle it. Shugo, president of the recently founded Niigata Canoe Cruising Association (NCCA), feels he has that and more in the Omono River. Our group was a rag-tag mixture of outfitters, association heads, journalists and other tag-alongs with some tie to canoeing. I met our most celebrated member--at least to the Japanese--as soon as I got off the plane at the Narita International Airport: World Freestyle Canoe Champion Karen Knight, here--as a Marco Polo of Paddling--to demonstrate water ballet in a land of water lilies. Unfortunately, her performances here would be like Tiger Woods using somebody else's clubs. Her custom Bell canoe and "suspicious-looking" paddle bag were confiscated at take-off, forcing her to make do in a weathered Grumman.

Once the rest of the group arrived, we trained to the Tokyo station, making the rookie mistake of placing our bags in the direct line of commuters about to pass through the turnstiles. After parting the masses like Moses, we grabbed the pile again and shuffled it to the Bullet Train, playing human Space Invaders against traffic. Every once in a while, one of us would eddy out and grab a beer or sack of sushi from a vending machine.

The train resembled a kayaking playboat, with a flat snout leading to a bulbous two-story cockpit. Once perched inside, we were whooshed away to the Omono, playing Russian Roulette with our sushi while passing the homes of the Tokyo area’s nearly 30 million inhabitants. I was glad to have some space to myself when we arrived at our hotel, where I slipped on a kimono and pair of slippers, and thumbed through the nightstand's The Teachings of Buddha.

Unfortunately, the book didn’t shed any light on how to survive the next morning's liver-waking ceremony. And the libations were just a warm-up for the ensuing tour of a local saki factory. Dry, sweet and everything-in-between samples later, we lunched at the local community center. By noon--including the tour, lunch and bathroom stops--I‘d already changed in and out of my shoes 11 times, and posed for twice as many photos. Karen had us beat, meeting us after giving a freestyle demonstration to the media and 300 junior high school students. If our saki initiation was an interesting introduction to canoeing in Japan, so was Karen’s ambassadorship. Onlookers treated her as a celebrity, and the next day she would show up in one of Japan’s major newspapers with legs astride her gunwales.

Not that canoeing is entirely new here. On the walls inside the community center were photos of the Omono Big Run Canoe Cruise, a 10-mile float organized by Shugo the year before. But canoeing hasn’t caught on as it has in the States, mainly due to a lack of multi-day waterways, recreation time and storage space. "Canoeing isn't very popular here," said Shugo. "There are a hundred different rivers people can canoe, but not many do." Though the country has a Japanese Rafting Federation and Whitewater Association, its only canoe organization, the NCCA, was formed only last year.

Lunch was in the town of Jumonji, one of countless names hinting of Star Wars or Robin Williams' movies. On the bank was the same portable sign that had greeted us earlier at the sakifest, an easel reading "International Exchange for Canoe Cruising Omonogawa 2000." It appeared everywhere, with attendants setting it up wherever there might be a photo shoot. Countless poses and shutter clicks later, we finally dipped our blades into the Omono. The mayor joined us, hopping in a canoe for the first time in his life. Though a bank-ramming capsize by some of his cohorts delayed matters, a few miles later we saw yet another welcome sign on the bank, this one indicating snack time. Local villagers greeted us with the exact opposite of sushi: burnt-to-a-crisp, sardine-sized fish, fresh from the Omono. While Jeff Yeager, head of the American Canoe Association, and I took a turn poling the boat that landed the fish, Karen, in keeping with her rock star billing, signed hats, shirts and even the tent awning before we shoved off.

In the afternoon, I paddled up to Shugo, whose felt hat, goatee, knife and wisps of gray evoked a Japanese Harrison Ford. "Canoeing will help the river," said Shugo, who remembers playing and fishing on the Omono as a kid. "For a long time the government changed the river to deal with natural disasters. Now they're making changes to benefit its environment." Shugo’s first time in a canoe had come 20 years earlier on the Delaware River while working for the Japanese Consulate in New York. "I fell in love with it and wanted to share that feeling with others," he said.

Squatting naked on a tiny stool cheek-to-cheek with other stripped-down men might not seem the best apres-paddle pastime. But it was all part of the experience as we descended upon our first Japanese bathhouse after reaching the day's take-out. "I'm really glad we had the chance to visit a bathhouse together," Jeff said on the bus ride back to camp. "A couple years of therapy and I think I'll be over it."

By now we had figured out to treat each day as we did breakfast, boating and the bathhouse: Let yourself be surprised. We never knew the real itinerary until the last minute, leaving us in a continual state of rummaging for swimsuits, cameras and whatever else the day's activity called for. After setting camp, we were whisked away to a conference in Omonogawa. Everyone clapped as we walked in, and we listened in a post-bathhouse haze to a bunch of "welcomes," "congratulations," and other speeches we had no prayer of understanding. But it all centered around fostering the growth of paddlesports, and it was clear the Omono was an important resource. During a slide presentation, we learned that the Omono, which, true to Japanese mercantilism means "Producer of Good Materials," starts at 3,000 feet before flowing 120 miles to the Sea of Japan. We saw photos of the river flooding, meandering through rice fields, and getting its last major bend re-directed by development.

The ceremony also afforded our first look at how many international protocol breeches we could conduct in one day. During the morning's saki ceremony, Jeff nudged me with his elbow. "Don't look now," he said, nodding to my sandals, "but I think you just mooned the mayor." Indeed, in reading a CBS guide for the Nagano Olympics, I noticed advice to always wear socks for when you have to remove your shoes. Other faux pas we committed: finishing your drink before waiting for the toast; not waiting to receive a gift after giving one; filling your own glass; blowing your nose in public; and dipping your saki glass into the vat instead of using the ladle. We were a walking protocol-wrecking machine. "I predict," said Jeff after counting his own violations, "that by the end of the week, the U.S. and Japan will be at war."

Though the dinner afterward was fit for an emperor, the hectic schedule--combining jet lag, 8:30 a.m. saki shots, canoeing and a bathhouse--eventually caught up with us. Just as our eyelids tried to commit Hari Kari on the ride back to camp, the bus stopped at a restaurant owned by the day's safety kayaker. Time to eat and drink again. Inside was a shin-high table that seated 30, filled with soups, shish-kebabs and more saki. After more toast, slipper and gift exchanges, we climbed back in the bus for a comatose ride back to camp.

In my tent the following morning, I woke up next to a drinking jacket I'd received as a gift. Not a good sign. Outside, the skies matched my head; low-lying fog blanketed everything. "I had Mt. Fuji under me all night," ached filmmaker Mike Bye as we gathered for coffee. A breakfast of mystery breads saw us back on the river, floating past banks of hedges sculpted by Edward Scissorhands. Thanks to tributaries, the river had more volume today and we made good time until stopping for lunch in a farmer's field. I was beginning to like our paddling program: take-out number two was also located near a Japanese bathhouse, this one at an old Samurai training house, complete with weapons hanging on the walls and a wooden hallway hiding built-in squeaky floors so residents could hear intruders. I tried to cross it undetected, but after two days of canoeing, my knees creaked as loudly as the floor. Samurai hors de oeuvre. After bathing, I stepped on a spiked foot plate that correlated painful areas to the health of your vital organs. After the previous night's activities, I expected my foot's liver area to jump off the scale.

I'm glad it didn't. Back at camp we learned from Shugo’s son that tonight we should prepare for a "weird drinking party." Time for the jacket again. This time it was with another mayor at a dinner hall reserved for dignitaries. Long, knee-high tables greeted us, each filled with more exotic food than we deserved. Tired of sitting in a canoe all day, I extended my legs under the table until my toes surfaced on the opposite side. Faux pas number 23.

In the morning, after sampling soups, eggs and seaweed, we again heard the dreaded words: "And now we eat." This time it was Japanese cabbage and pork pancakes, continuing our tradition of more consuming than canoeing. Karen executed freestyle eating, twirling between mouthfuls, but quickly burned it off with another canoeing demonstration in a nearby pond. She also gave onlookers tandem lessons, the resulting capsizes fitting in well with the routine’s theme song from the Titanic.

We put on in the afternoon on a braided river nearing its search for sea level. Bridges appeared out of thick banks high overhead, ushering commuters home from work as we paddled silently below. Given that Japan's 125 million people live in a country the size of California, it was hard to escape signs of development. We never rounded a corner without seeing bridges, water pumps or power lines. But it was also hard to escape the river's beauty--even on a small scale. Along the way we encountered dragonflies, small green frogs, spiders and other things Japanese that bore a striking resemblance to our morning's breakfast.

After a four-jetski salute by some teenage revelers, two large signs marked the night's camp and yet another celebration. We arrived during the annual Dahlia flower festival. After walking through gardens whose flowers dwarfed our drybags, we made camp above a community center overlooking the festival. Tonight we finally got to get rid of the gifts we had been lugging around since we arrived: T-shirts, hats, buttons and commemorative paddles. But we received more in return. The night's conference was with the governor of the local prefecture, and once again we were asked to take the stage, this time donning hats and fans.

Walking through the gardens the next morning, I ran into Mark Cunningham, department head at Minnesota State's affiliate college. He said we were the first group of foreigners to pass through this region, apart from those working at the university. He was also one of the few people here who owned a canoe, and he used it weekly on the Omono. "I don't know where you're staying tonight," he said, "but I'll probably see you on television."

The next day we put in about five miles above the Sea of Japan and followed the Omono on its last breath. Instead of an exotic confluence, we were greeted at the mouth by huge windmills generating power for the city, and long-poled fishermen standing behind piles of tide-washed trash, casting toward Russia, Korea and China. After watching Ed and Bess Council of Lexington’s Canoe Kentucky almost get carried there by the tide, we piled back in the bus and followed Karen to her final performance, this one in front of cameramen from two TV stations. Despite having just finished a "90 minutes of beef" luncheon, she performed admirably, while the rest of us lay in a carnivorous coma. Thankfully, it was the last time we would have to suffer through the Titanic's theme song.

Back in Tokyo, we were paraded into the massive Ministry of Construction offices, passing cubicle after cubicle of suit-clad employees. Shugo led us into the office of Koutaro Takemura, head of the ministry's river bureau. "Rivers are very important for our country," he said, pointing out major arteries on a wall map. "Droughts and floods are very serious here, so river management is important. Though river sports are just beginning, I'm happy to say that the Omono has been recognized as our first official canoe cruising river."

Next, we met Ryuichiro Tanino, the Coast Guard's chief director of marine safety. He too had thoughts on Japan's potential for paddlesports. "Because Japan has so much water, our people will start to enjoy watersports more," he said. "But most Japanese still think canoeing is for competition and not for recreation. We hope to change that."

Promoting it is the first step. And if you can survive the early morning saki, the Omono could well be the perfect venue for Shugo’s plan.

--For more information on canoeing in Japan, contact the Niigata Canoe Cruising Association at 0183-73-1806 (phone/fax); or Professional Paddlesport Association at (703) 451-3864.