Haidee and I were making our slow way back to Sapporo from sea kayaking on the Shiretoko Peninsula (details here and here). Greg and Mari were keen to paddle the Akan River again (they’d paddled it a number of times previously), so we arranged to meet them there, overnighting at the lovely Tancho-no-sato Campground.
When we put on the river after the shuttling, the weather was somewhat subdued. A low mist hung over the surface of the river, coming and going as we readied the canoes.
I was feeling the normal pangs of nervous excitement that I always get when paddling a river for the first time. These nerves were heightened by Greg’s warning about a very significant rapid not long after the put in that we’d likely need to line down.
Sure enough, about 400m after setting off, dodging boulders, we pulled up above a very nasty-looking bedrock drop. Narrow, canoe-jamming slots were roaring with water. We spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out if it was runnable. The general consensus was that it wasn’t runnable in our canoes. But then how would we line down it? Portaging didn’t seem to be practical on the river right. Neither did lining on the river right.
The only practical solution, it seemed, was to run the canoes aground in the shallows on far river left, and walk the canoes from there.
Once past this very early crux in the route, we were able to enjoy some nice long rapids of varying difficulty. We actually paddled this section of river twice over two days. Hence, the following photos are somewhat of a mash-up of those two days paddling.
Between the early crux and Chuo-bashi 中央橋, there were rapids, but they were relatively mellow, with not too heavy wave trains on the exits.
Just before Chuo-bashi we stopped on the river right for a bite to eat for lunch. Haidee noticed some cows in the distance, so we went to say hello, assuming they’d be in some sort of fenced enclosure.
They weren’t.
The curious, gentle beasts were extremely interested in Haidee it seemed. They followed her all the way back to where our canoes were landed on the beach.
We bid our bovine friends goodbye, and in the process also bid the relaxing portion of the river goodbye too.
Very soon after Chuo-bashi, we found out why there are rafting tours on this river. It was all together quite rowdy in an open deck canoe, at 7.44m on the gauge.
It started out simple enough, with a few splashes and sploshes.
A dark, misty tree tunnel here…
And another CII swift there.
And then the river decided it was time to get rowdy. Even the usually stone-faced Greg appeared taken aback at how sporty things were.
Like a well-oiled machine, though, Mari and Greg ran the first rowdy rapid with finesse, coming out smiling.
The Akan is not a one-rapid wonder though. The next rapid was bigger and boilier still. We thoroughly scouted this one, as there was a huge rock in the middle of it. There was some back and forward as to which side would be the better line to avoid it, but in the end, a hard right line was the winner.
And to top it all off, there was one last big wave train before the river calmed down a bit for the final warm-down paddle before the take out.
Arguably, it’s this final 4km or so of relaxed paddling at the end of this section of the Akan that really makes this a fantastic paddle. There’s the thrill of the rapids, and then there’s the peaceful calm of wildlife, waterfalls, and relaxed paddling to finish off. While we didn’t catch it on camera, we saw a couple of small herds of native ezo-shika deer bounding across the river here.
