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June, 2007
Kumbaya
By Mike Krepner
Sometime back in the 60's I contracted a social disease. Being a bit wilder then than now, and not as careful with who I shared a campfire with, I came down with a case of Kumbaya. This is a rare affliction characterized by sullen rages, a desire to retch, and antisocial behavior. Kumbaya is not curable, but one so afflicted may live a long and happy life provided they avoid contact with insipid folk music. Simply hearing the opening line of such songs as "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore", "Amazing Grace", or of course, "Kumbaya", will send me into a frenzy of shaking and gagging. Being a mostly polite person, I prefer to shake and gag in private. I will usually part company and retire to a place of solitude and there reflect on the meaning of life, and why such folksong singers are allowed to remain part of it.
Please don't get me wrong, I do love folk music, it's only grukk that I am allergic too. As would any good Hessian-American, a few bars of "Du, du liegst mir im Herzen" will set me to sniffling in my beer, and evoke dreams of faraway ancestral forests peopled with St. Pauli girls and wild boar. Such is 'Gemutlichkeit', you either have it, or you don't. Like life.
This forest was certainly far away, but in no way ancestral. The pines, birches, maples, and fir looked close enough to those of my home to engender a certain comfortable feeling of safety. However, a brief check of any riverbank in Siberia's Sikhotealin Mountains will quickly reveal the presence of critters who never roamed the forests of Maine. Primor'ye is a lush area, temperate in climate, located between China and the Sea of Japan. It is covered in yet uncut forest, drained by crystalline fast-flowing rivers rushing between 3000 - 6000 foot mountains.
Kumbaya had driven me out of camp and up along a bank composed of mixed cobbles and gravel on the south shore of the Armu River in the heart of the Sikhotealin. We were five days downriver from the put in at Tayezhnoye, itself a grueling 36 hour bus ride from Vladivostok, when Kumbaya struck. On preceding nights after our American clients were safely tucked in bed, the Russian staff and I would hang out by the fire and trade tales of other trips on other rivers. After a nip or two of Kapitan Rom, Tanya would pull out her guitar and soon a chorus of voices would roll forth in songs of steppe and forest, echoing softly off the virgin taiga on the far bank. Now this was real folk music, songs of lost love, yearning for home and hearth, war, pestilence, all that great stuff that makes life more than a spectator sport. And so it went for four nights.
Well, the fifth night we got caught. The tourist wanted to sing too, and shortly the stirring chorus of "Michael row your boat ashore" made even the raccoon dogs chitter in consternation. Some will argue that such songs are folk music too, but to me it is like the difference between pouring hot grease on a fire or slathering it with tofu. Passion vs. poop. In the interest of the safety and satisfaction of our clients I sat there benignly smiling with a death's head rictus grin through their repertoire. Thank god for vodka, the Cossack pain-killer. Turns your brain to mush before the songs do. Luckily the session didn't last too long. We had covered 25 miles that day and most of the clients were more than eager to seek their sleeping bags. Silence once again settled over the taiga broken only by the distant sound of a raccoon dog hrukking its cookies.
The next morning was overcast. Waves of mist and fog drifted down the river shrouding the banks of the Armu in mystery. The tourists were quiet, most likely burned out by their emotional outpourings of the evening past. Coffee came around for the second time when suddenly one of the clients began humming "Kumbaya". Were I not responsible for these people I would have tossed my pack in the canoe, boogied for the Chinese border and pleaded for asylum. Duty won out over dismay. Instead of fleeing I grabbed my coffee and headed up the beach to search for signs of nocturnal visitors. Since the heavy rain two days ago this section of the river had been visited by musk deer, raccoon dogs, moose, a good sized bear, and a family of wild pigs. Fearful that the humming back in camp may have degenerated into a full scale sing-a-long I sat down quietly on a rock and contemplated the rushing water.
This was my second trip down the Armu. The first as an ecotourism consultant in 1993 was a bizarre comic opera. Imagine if you can a Fellini version of "War and Peace" starring the Marx brothers. The crew was straight out of "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest". Our leader, a very competent man and one of the best guides in Primor'ye, unfortunately handled clients like most people scramble eggs: crack, whip, and fry. After a harrowing tree-grazing flight into the mountains in a 1935 ex-military biplane, we embarked downriver in a collection of craft that made the Mariel Boatlift look like a regatta. Each day we looked forward to three delicious meals of bread, cheese, and salami, interspersed with fried fish, boiled fish, or fish soup. Something had to be done to make the trip more appealing to western clients. The pristine beauty of the virgin taiga alone wouldn't do it.
So it was that I found myself in charge of the 1995 trip. We arranged a great staff, a rounded and diverse menu, and reliable craft including a Mad River folding canoe. I insisted on this last item as a safety feature. In the event of a serious injury help was available only by going downriver as quickly as possible. The canoe allowed the option of a fast evacuation, its speed two or three times faster than our inflatable craft. To say that this area is remote is an understatement. No settlements, no phones, no radios, no one to monitor them anyway, and no rescue services even if someone did receive a call for help. Travelers in the taiga must be self-contained, and self-reliant. With these improvements trip two was to be very different from trip one. All was running smoothly, and up until the songfest, enjoyably.
Something moving in the willows on the far bank broke my reveries and centered my focus on the here and now. It moved again, big but quiet, a bear? Not a boar certainly, they move with all the grace of a plane crash. What little breeze there was came from the far bank and boars have a particularly piquant aroma. I sat very still and watched the spot, waiting for the bear to appear. The willows suddenly parted and out padded the biggest cat I’ve ever seen in the woods. Tiger! I didn't move, couldn't if I had to. This was unbelievable. On the past trip I felt very lucky just to chance on the dinner plate-sized tracks of a tiger, but to actually see this rare beast was amazing! The willows parted again and down the bank scampered a smaller tiger, a cub. Mother lapped the water quietly while the offspring splashed right in and bounced about.
It seemed like hours that I watched them, likely it was only a minute that they drank then turned and melted soundlessly back into the misty forest. Only then did I remember that the river was only 100 yards across and nowhere deeper than a tiger's shoulder. A couple of good leaps and I could have become American fast food, a much appreciated delicacy in Russia. I waited ten more minutes just to make sure the tiger wouldn't reappear in a mad rush across the river, then headed back to camp. Sergei, our interpreter/naturalist saw me first. I suppose I must have been a bit pale because without pause he asked, "What did you see?" I told him quietly, out of earshot of the others. The last thing we needed was a mess of chattering tourists clattering over the cobbles to catch a glimpse of the world's largest predatory cat.
Tigers are protected in Russia. Their formerly large range has now been reduced to certain areas in the Sikhotealin where reserves have been set aside for their safety. Poaching is a very serious problem. The cats I saw were far outside the borders of their reserve and any poacher hearing of their presence would be on the trail in a minute, the cats shot, then parted out to apothecaries across the Chinese border. This practice, if continued, will soon spell the end for these magnificent animals.
I still dream of that brief encounter on the banks of the Armu, years ago and many miles away. It takes no effort of will to recreate in my mind's eye each ripple of river or muscle during that eons long minute. But, despite the passage of geological quantities of time I will never, ever, enjoy "Kumbaya". Oh lord, Kumbaya!
Mike Krepner is an international guide who builds outdoor equipment in Waldoboro, doing business as Igas Island Co. Email him at igasisle@midcoast.com.
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