When paddling his canoe down the Chattahoochee, David Hanson travels slowly so he can appreciate the river’s natural beauty. He stops along the way and makes friends.
His boat is named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, and Hanson is living one of his. Still, there is something disturbing.
“South Atlanta treats this river like a drainage ditch,” he said. “Just tons of trash thrown in. It’s so sad.”
In other areas, his craft glides through raw sewage.
“Some of it can’t be helped,” he said. In some places, he knows it can.
Hanson, an Atlanta native who lives in Seattle, Wash., began his canoe trip last month in North Georgia around Helen and will have covered the length of the Chattahoochee when he reaches Apalachicola Bay in Florida come December.
Hanson calls his trip an exploration of people, landscape and community.
He’s leaving Columbus this morning after spending two days here. During his stay, he talked to students at Brookstone School.
“They want to know if I saw any snakes,” he said.
The subject of his chats with students at Brookstone, and other schools, is about river conservation and explaining its importance. He does water quality tests with students.
“The results for the Chattahoochee haven’t shown anything crazy,” he said. Hanson adds he doesn’t have what is needed to check for E coli.
Hanson, 31, graduated from Pace Academy in Atlanta and Washington and Lee University in Virginia. He majored in English and geology. He has worked for the Yosemite National Institutes as a field science instructor, taught English in Ecuador and was travel editor for Cottage Living magazine. He currently freelances and is a teaching artist for Arts Corps.
“This is a personal trip for me,” Hanson said. “This was the first river I ever knew. It has been the source of my drinking water most my life. I liked to get to the source of things.”
Hanson, saying he feels like Huck Finn, learned his skills in canoes and kayaks at his grandparents’ home in South Carolina. They lived near a lake.
His canoe is a 16-footer with two seats. Sometimes, someone will ride along for part of the trip.
“I spent one night camping on a island,” he said. Another, he slept in a barn. He came across a party where campers were roasting a pig. “I accepted the invitation,” he said.
Hanson got a big thrill walking along a portion of the Chattahoochee Riverwalk on Tuesday morning.
“You can tell Columbus really appreciates the river,” he said. “People here get what it’s all about.”
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