Early
Recollections of the Outing Club
By Steve Ransburg
The club’s only boats in 1961 were seventeen-foot Grumman aluminum canoes - four-ribbed “lake” canoes with about one-inch keels and seven-ribbed “rapids” canoes with rounded, half-inch shoe keels. Rapids canoes were often damaged on trips and were repaired by pounding out dents until their hulls regained a semblance of their original shape and by covering holes with aluminum patches that were attached with rivets and sealed with tar. Small leaks frequently were only covered with tar. Rapids canoes typically lasted about two years and were retired, usually to the quiet water fleet, after acquiring considerable weight from tar or, sometimes, simply after the integrity of their hulls had been too severely compromised. Because of constant flexing and expansion and contraction that resulted from changes in temperature, the tar on a canoe seldom maintained a tight seal, and many rapids and quiet water canoes leaked. Eventually, a canoe leaked or weighed so much that it exceeded subjective limits and was retired from the fleet.
The Outing Club had an established system with which to qualify canoeists for different canoeing activities. As I recall, a member passed a “quiet water test” to be authorized to paddle a canoe on Lake Mendota at his or her leisure and to participate in trips on quiet water. Prospective canoeists received perhaps an hour of instruction and demonstrated a small measure of proficiency in strokes which were, in the bow, the forward stroke, the bow sweep, and the draw and, in the stern, the J-stroke, the stern (forward) sweep, and the reverse sweep. They were then designated “quiet water boaters”.
Those who wished to qualify to participate in rapids trips received further instruction, after which they were administered the “rapids test”, in the course of which they were required to demonstrate greater proficiency in those strokes and proficiency in the cross bow draw stroke, and were required to pass a written or oral test, preparation for which included learning facts characterized by sayings such as, “wool is warmer when wet”, that it was important after capsizing or swamping to get upstream of a canoe and to stay there, and that it was desirable to swim on one’s back with one’s feet pointed downstream. On passing the rapids test, one was designated a “beginning rapids boater” and was allowed to participate on trips that paddled on what we later called grade I and easy grade II rapids. Although at the time some members of Outing Club had heard of the international rapids grading system, we did not use it, and many of us did not know of it. We classified rapids only as “beginning” and “advanced.”
After one had paddled on beginning-level rapids trips and was judged ready, one was designated an “advanced rapids boater” and was allowed to paddle on rapids that we later classified as high grade II and grade III. Outing Club’s life jackets were extremely cumbersome WWII-style kapok jackets with a clasp over one shoulder that sometimes came apart, and members very seldom wore them. No canoeists were required to pass swimming tests. Few if any members were aware of the concept of wearing a wet suit while boating or had heard of kayaking on rapids. The pry-away was unknown to us. Since I had some experience in small boats and had earned the canoeing merit badge as a Boy Scout - which had solely required quiet water skills - I qualified fairly quickly as a beginning rapids boater.
The club’s first rapids trip of 1961 was a joint trip of beginning and advanced rapids boaters to the Flambeau River in early- or mid-May and was my first Outing Club trip. We beginners paddled the South Branch of the Flambeau on Saturday, while the advanced boaters paddled the North Branch. The two groups met at around four or five PM at the confluence of the two branches and camped that evening a mile or so downstream. As I recall, in those days there was no road to that campground, so it was a true two-day river trip. One of the boaters I met and talked briefly with that evening was a quiet, blond-haired advanced rapids boater named Oscar Strickholm.
On Sunday, after donning our life jackets and carefully scouting Cedar Rapids (only one drop was noticeable in the high water) before running it, my partner and I hit a rock and tipped over, affording me the first of many close encounters over many years with water temperatures of fifty degrees or less. Torolf (“Torgie”) Torgerson, an advanced whitewater boater and grad student in entomology, who also was a mountaineer and who had been a smoke jumper, had a fire started almost before we made it to the rocky east bank. Shortly, another pair of beginning boaters asked me to describe how they should run the drop, and, on the basis of the close familiarity I had just gained with it, and being anxious to help, I gave them directions that led to precisely the same result.
The following weekend, advanced rapids boaters from the club took a trip to the Wolf and Peshtigo rivers in high spring water. On Sunday or Monday, the Madison news media carried a story that a boater from the University of Wisconsin had drowned on the Wolf. To accommodate a large crowd, Reed Saunders, the Canoeing Chairman, who was in charge of the white water boating program, conducted the Tuesday evening meeting in a room on the east end of the Memorial Union next to the cafeteria. He said that Oscar Strickholm decided to film Boy Scout Rapids on the Wolf from the center of a canoe paddled by Reed and another boater. When they entered the boat, Oscar sat on his life jacket. Reed suggested he put it on, but Oscar insisted he would be all right. Perhaps he indicated he still could use it for flotation if he found himself in the water.
Oscar Strickholm was a highly skilled mountaineer and all-around outdoorsman whom everyone regarded as well able to take care of himself, and no one felt it was appropriate to argue with him. As the open canoe proceeded down the rapids, it took on water, and, when it swamped, he grabbed his movie camera instead of his life jacket. It soon become apparent that he was not a proficient swimmer, and people stationed along the bank with rescue ropes found that they were unable to throw them accurately enough to bring them within his grasp. Apparently weakening in the cold water, he clung to a rock without strength to crawl onto it and, a few moments later, slipped under. I believe his body was not found for several days. Reed announced that after some soul searching he and others had decided to continue the white water boating program but to institute a stronger safety program. Among the new rules, all who would boat on rapids with Outing Club would be required to pass a swimming test and to become proficient at throwing a rescue rope. The club also would purchase and use new life jackets that would be less cumbersome in which to paddle and less confining to wear - and, in fact, the new jackets arrived in about one week.
This moment marked the near death of what later became the leading white water boating program west of the Allegheny Mountains and east of the Rockies, a program that was largely responsible for the introduction of white water boating to the Midwest. It also marked the real start of the development of the Hoofer’s Whitewater Safety Code, under which over the following forty years hundreds of people, most of whom had never paddled before joining Outing Club, canoed and kayaked on rapids for thousands of hours with no deaths and virtually no injuries.
I was elected president of Outing Club in April 1962. Dick Gerber was elected vice president. The club’s activities were limited by the size of its membership, because that determined the number of people who would be available to lead or participate in activities, and because it also determined the size of the budget, which regulated the amount of equipment that the club could purchase. The club had perhaps no more than thirty or forty members that spring. On the other hand, there were about 35,000 undergraduate and graduate students on campus, and almost anyone who took an hour or less of instruction could learn to paddle well enough to become qualified to take an Outing Club canoe out on Mendota at his or her leisure. The membership was small only because most of the 35,000 were unaware of that and, in fact, had never heard of Outing Club. Relatively few of them had heard of Hoofers.
Therefore, just as spring temperatures arrived, we advertised that reason to join Outing Club. Of course, we also mentioned other club activities. We aimed toward bringing a large number of students to what became known as the “spring kickoff meeting”, held in Science Hall, at which they would learn how to become eligible to canoe on the lake and join the club. At the meeting, we gave a program describing the scope of the club’s activities. Since that was impressive, especially for such a small group, many people were further interested, although a large base joined only to take canoes out on Mendota.[1]
The two primary advertising methods that I remember employing were plastering the campus with posters and placing ads in the Cardinal. The University Boathouse, located on the east side of the Union’s east parking lot, was also administered by the Memorial Union and rented canoes to people in the University community. However, Outing Club dues were low enough to provide a much cheaper alternative, and, until the Boathouse complained (they took a long time to catch on), we ran “Why Pay More” ads. I don’t recall whether the Union held an open house that spring, but, when it held open houses in later years, the club took as much advantage of them as possible.
The result was that hundreds joined Outing Club, and in the warm months during the following several years we held weekly meetings in Science Hall. The larger membership and increased budget resulted in more trips of greater variety, larger white water and quiet water fleets, and more and better equipment of all kinds. In 1962, they also brought about an expansion of the club’s Executive Board. I don’t recall now what offices we added, but I have a dim recollection that they included more than one category of equipment chairman. (We called chair people “chairmen” in those days irrespective of their gender.) This expansion of everything also caused some growing pains and administrative headaches that we nonetheless muddled through, and in time we learned how to run a larger club. I doubt that much stands in the way of a similar expansion whenever the club is small.
However, it became more difficult to hold large meetings a few months after three professors attacked the Outing Club in Science Hall, some time during the 1965 – 1967 period. The three were deeply involved in - and perhaps were helping to orchestrate - the growing anti-Vietnam War movement. A naturalist named Zimmerman, who was a member of the faculty, was giving a program about Wisconsin’s deer herd. (I believe he said the deer population in Wisconsin should be held to 400,000 or fewer, certainly a smaller number than that of the 1.6 million-plus deer that presently inhabit the state.)
The three professors, led by an historian named Williams who was well known as an opponent of the war, entered the room and loudly interrupted the program with a challenge to our right to be there. We responded politely that we had properly reserved the use of the room. After a few additional loud objections that seemed to make no sense, the three withdrew. A few months later, the faculty passed a resolution to the effect that only academic groups would be authorized to hold meetings in classrooms. That confined organizations from the Memorial Union to the Union building. Although there were a number of sizeable rooms in the Union in which the club could hold meetings, their acoustics were far worse than those of lecture halls.
Apart from taking occasional interest in issues related to the environment or ecology, Outing Club was wholly apolitical. I am still puzzled about the motivation of the three anti-war professors in attacking us. No one in the anti-war movement attacked Outing Club on any other occasion, as far as I am aware. Perhaps their reason was that we were apolitical. Perhaps they thought that by depriving students of apolitical outlets their energies would turn to supporting the anti-war movement. Or, perhaps their attack was part of some power play to which Outing Club was incidental. Or, perhaps they made some other mistake.
In 1961, the Wolf River was known as one of Wisconsin’s best trout fishing rivers, as it is now. When boating on the Wolf during 1961 and 1962, people from Outing Club camped at a small picnic area in Langlade that was located in those days immediately adjacent to the Highway-64 Bridge. Boaters on a trip to the Wolf in which I participated camped there shortly before dusk one evening in late May or early June of 1962. Just as dark was falling, during a heavy rainstorm, a fellow approached and said he would like to speak with some of us. Reed Saunders, Scott Arighi, who was a mountaineer and, along with Reed, one of the two principal advanced white water boaters, and I responded, and the fellow suggested we stand out of the rain under the bridge.
He introduced himself as Herb Buettner and said he had lived near the Wolf and had fished and hunted along it all his life. A real estate developer had purchased some land along the river and planned to dam it to create a flowage, beside which he would construct houses. Herb, his brother (“Cap” Buettner), and some other residents of the region believed that would damage the Wolf and had formed the Wolf River Conservation Club. He said, “We have a valuable resource here”, which should be preserved. The flowage would warm the water to temperatures too high for trout, and a great deal of water would be lost to evaporation, reducing the rate of flow downstream. Rapids would be covered by the flowage, which eventually would fill with silt. Once one dam and housing development had succeeded, others would follow. As I recall, Reed, Scott and I agreed that Outing Club also would be opposed to the construction of the dam.
During the winter of 1962-1963, I received a phone call from Herb, followed by a letter. He said that to make further progress the Wolf River Conservation Club needed to persuade a township board (probably the township in which it would be located) to pass a resolution opposing the dam, and the board was inclined to pass it if Herb could produce a letter from “somebody from the University of Wisconsin” saying that the dam would have the effect on the Wolf that he claimed. I was a graduate student in math at the time, but my undergraduate major had been physics. However, I had no background in hydrology. Nevertheless, I knew the physical principles that led to the conclusion that the dam would warm the water and cause increased evaporation and that the flowage eventually would fill with silt, and I was certain that those effects must have been empirically verified on flowages. I also knew they would be particularly severe on a flowage on the Wolf River in Langlade County, because it would be shallow, and, further, it occurred to me that I was “somebody from the University of Wisconsin.” So, I wrote the letter. A month or so later, I heard from Herb that the resolution had passed.
Thereafter, Herb’s efforts gained momentum, and, by late spring of 1963, The Wolf River Conservation Act had been proposed in the state legislature, with Outing Club as one of its many sponsors. When the bill passed, the news media said it was the first state law enacted anywhere to protect a river. The new governor, John Reynolds, signed it shortly. Gaylord Nelson had been a very strong supporter of conservation as governor until January, when he had taken his new seat in the United States Senate. Five years later, Senator Nelson authored The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, which founded The National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The Wolf River Conservation Act seemed to have been its prototypical forerunner. Sometimes when I hear about one of the rivers preserved by the act I recall the conversation Herb and Reed and Scott and I held under the Highway-64 Bridge over the Wolf on that rainy evening in 1962.
We were fully aware of the disadvantages of running rapids in open canoes. We were hampered by the high frequency with which they swamped in what we considered high water, and, when we ran rapids in those conditions anyway, the rate of damage to expensive canoes accelerated. During the winter of 1964-1965, the club made (or hired the making of) the first canvas cover for one of its Grummans. It had holes at the bow and stern positions and one in the middle for solo canoeists. Covers were made for the center holes when two people occupied a canoe. I think I recall that there was an effort to make spray skirts but that they turned out not to fit the holes. Hooks were installed on the outside of each hull a few inches below the gunnels, to which we secured the canvas covers before starting a run.
I was on a spring trip to the Wolf and Peshtigo rivers on which we used the covers, probably in 1965 or 1966. We quickly learned that soaked canvas held a lot of water and was very heavy. The canvas-covered canoes became top-heavy and without spray skirts took on a great deal of water through the open holes, which nevertheless were small enough to make dumping water out of the very heavy canoes a major chore. When we reached Third Drop on the Roaring Rapids section of the Peshtigo, we realized that our canoes were so un-maneuverable that it might be impossible to run it and still get into position to run Five Foot Falls properly, and that we most likely would be swept over Five Foot where we did not want to go. So, we portaged Third Drop. I think we also portaged Horse Race Rapids. I still remember carrying and dragging the canoes over the granite, soaking wet with cold water (we still had not heard of wet suits). We needed a better solution. However, the general form of that solution had arrived in mid-summer 1963, when Dwight Gibb had brought a fiberglass whitewater slalom kayak to the UW.
[1] Some club members’ backgrounds and interests were impressive. For example, I recall a program given at a club meeting in Hoofers Quarters during 1961 by club member John Behrendt about the first successful cross-continent Antarctic expedition, which he was about to lead.