Is the Pope Catholic? The rivers were all high, and the air had lost the worst of its winter edge. So I showed up at the rendezvous next morning in my usual chinos with my 18-foot Old Town on the rack and a bag lunch in my small pack. I’ve always loved the White River: gravel and boulder bar rapids in a steep-sided valley, clear water, and lots of places near a highway to stop if you need to. Miles of mild rapids, half a mile of exciting ones, and the wonderful drop at the West Hartford bridge, where mortality looms before you, but the river shoots you right through.

The White River wasn’t clear that day. It was over its banks and more the color of café au lait. Dan, like the Energizer bunny, kept going and going, past Stockbridge and Rochester and Hancock. The river that far up had become a narrow trough, filling its channel and thrashing the alders on both banks, and the day began to look more like a bobsled ride than a strategic whitewater run. We paired off at a likely launching spot just south of Granville. Dan O’Hara and I were the oldest there; we took my big Old Town. We also decided to let others, clearly more eager than we, go first. If they came to grief, we’d be able to see how, and possibly avoid the same problem. (You don’t get old by being stupid.) I remember thinking, as we launched dead last across the grass of a flooded meadow, “This is the first day of my fiftieth year of canoeing.” To Dan I said, “I really don’t feel much like getting wet today. What do you say we backpaddle through the worst of it?” He nodded, and off we went.

It got exciting right away. A humpbacked, midriver standing wave under a bridge had thrown a couple of guys sideways. They were just below it, hung on a rock and up to their waists in their wet suits, trying to get back into their canoe without dumping again. Just beyond them, a married couple with a too-small aluminum canoe were up on the bank, wringing water out of their clothes. And within another minute, Dan and I watched Professor and his daughter drift helplessly into an overhanging sweeper. In a flash they became two heads floating toward White River Junction. And to make sure their mishap wasn’t a fluke, they did it again minutes later.

It was a great day or an awful day, depending on your point of view. A solo boater quit after a few miles, declaring. “This just isn’t much fun.” Dan and I did a lot of waiting in eddies while order was restored behind us. At one point he sharpened my concentration immensely when he casually remarked he’d forgotten to remove his wallet from his pocket before setting out. We backpaddled strenuously in every set of big waves, and at the takeout miles downstream stepped smugly from our canoe to the shore, in the process wetting our toes for the first time. It’s so easy, when you’ve just been brilliant, to think that’s what you’ll be every time.

It’s April again, and the White River is high – as are the Connecticut, the Winooski, the Missisquoi, the Nulhegan, the Lamoille, and dozens of others all over the Northeast. Excitement is high, too, among the whitewater brigades; every day somebody asks, “Been out yet?” The answer so far is no; the big Old Town is just emerging from the snow, and I’m still refinishing my truck’s roof rack after the ravages of winter.

The rivers of New England have in the last three decades experienced a renascence. Where once they were largely friendless and polluted by log and pulp drives, paper mill effluent, and raw sewage discharges, they flow cleaner. But now they’re threatened by different enemies: overpopulation and development, posted land, non-point phosphorus pollution, and agricultural waste. The good news is they’re no longer friendless. A quick Google of the name of any river turns up dozens – even hundreds – of references, including the names of organizations dedicated to their preservation, improvement, and development for motorless recreation. Guidebooks are much improved and more detailed; designated campsites are maintained by volunteers; background information about the geology, history, and natural history of each river is right there to be downloaded. Most have great photos, too. There are a couple shots of kayaks playing in a wave near Middlesex that I really hope we can miss in a canoe. We’d get more than our toes wet there.

While most rivers have their fan clubs, another organization – The Vermont River Conservancy – has taken on the entire state. Its goals are to preserve still-undeveloped land around the rivers, lakes, and wetlands of Vermont. Saving historic swimming holes is high on its list. And with public access to water increasingly restricted by new landowners, it has been negotiating and helping to purchase easements on attractive parcels. Supported mainly by private contributions, it’s managed to save a lot of beautiful spots and protect them in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, which stretches from Old Forge, New York, all the way to Fort Kent, Maine, with a little jog into Canada, is seeing more travel each year. A few people have done the whole trail nonstop; their pickup and dropoff problems were a little larger than the usual. The Lake Champlain Kayak Club is booming with activity for paddlers of all levels. Competition among manufacturers is making modern plastic boats ever cheaper. It can’t get much better for water lovers; but too often our familiarity with the opportunities around us has bred indifference. But in May the Ledyard Canoe Club at Dartmouth will make its annual run to the sea, and in June there’ll be a multi-day group trip down the Winooski. So much to do, so little time!