Andrea Bemis
Organic Farmer, Mother, and Cookbook Author
Featured Styles
The best hike of Adam Edwards’s life was the one he took away from a river—a class V rapid where he’d almost drowned.
Kayaking the roiling waters of Washington’s Little Salmon River with friends in 2018, in a flash, Adam tried to do a freestyle trick above a dangerous drop. In a flash, he found himself upside down underwater, the current pulling him into a small cave. The more he tried to roll his kayak to safety, the deeper it got pulled into the cave. Holding on to the upside down kayak, he gulped down air, then swam out of the cave and downstream. Luckily, a friend scooped him up and hauled him to safety. In shock, Adam wanted to immediately get back into the river and try to retrieve his kayak.
“I was standing waist-deep in the water, saying, ‘I can get it! I’ll just swim back in there!’” says Adam. To get the kayak, the group would have had to use ropes to lower him down into the cave to free the boat. “It was a terrible idea. My friends were really calm; they talked me out of it.” After his body settled down, a friend ferried Adam across the river to where he could hike out.
It was a terrifying ordeal. But it made Adam reflect on why he chooses to spend his weekends throwing his body over waterfalls and through wild, unpredictable rivers. On his hike out of the canyon, Adam felt a cascade of emotions roll through him: anger at himself, anxiety about what could have happened, and gratitude for his survival.
“We’re dancing with the river, we’re navigating it. We’re not controlling it at all,” he says. “I’ve always done things that people perceive as scary or risky. You’re not conquering your fear, you’re bringing your fear with you. It helps you make good decisions.”
I’ve always done things that people perceive as scary or risky. You’re not conquering your fear, you’re bringing your fear with you. It helps you make good decisions.
During his fourteen years as a whitewater kayaker and instructor, Adam hasn’t seen nature—or fear—as something to overcome. Instead, he sees it as a place to build understanding and community.
“You can’t conquer a river, just like you can’t conquer a mountain,” he says. “You have to form a relationship with the river. The thing about running rivers is that it’s not about getting to the end. It’s about everything in between.”
In addition to teaching kayaking and leading river trips, Adam works as an urban arborist. It’s also a relatively high-stakes and dangerous activity—a falling tree limb can mean disaster—but he loves the chance to work outside. Adam lives in Portland, Oregon, which offers him quick access to the fast rivers and tall trees he loves. “Portland is one of the best places in the country for whitewater kayaking,” he chuckles. “I get to see and become intimate with spaces that are basically right under everyone’s nose. Having that intimacy with the space is just amazing.”
Adam’s roots are far from the chilly Pacific Northwest waters. Born in Miami, Florida, to parents from the Bahamas and Jamaica, Adam got into kayaking while studying at Portland State University. He took a New Year’s Day rafting trip organized by the university’s Outdoor Program, hitting a local river when there was snow and ice on the ground. He was immediately hooked. “I was like, ‘This is amazing.’ I worked for the Outdoor Program and learned everything I could.” He got licensed as a kayak and paddleboard instructor, worked at a kayak shop in Portland teaching and leading trips, and spent several summers in Alaska guiding trips out of Talkeetna, a small town nestled at the base of Denali.
Through his work as a guide and writer, and just by hanging out with friends on the river, Adam is building a welcoming community in the outdoors for people of color. “One of the big draws to me for kayaking is other kayakers. It’s a support network built around a shared activity. Those people are a part of my family. We’re alone in our boats, but we look out for one another.”
Adam says he’s met many people of color who are interested in kayaking and whitewater adventures but aren’t sure where to start, or whether they’d be welcome in the tightly-knit—and predominantly white—outdoor communities around Portland. That kind of ongoing work takes time. Adam knows that, like a river, it’s another ever-changing challenge he can’t single-handedly conquer.
But Adam is someone who doesn’t give up easily—and he doesn’t need to go it alone. Twenty-eight days after his boat got stuck in the cave, Adam and his buddies were back on the river to retrieve it. With a little help from his friends, both Adam and his kayak got home.
