(vehicles zooming by)
- [Narrator] You can catch glimpses
of the South Umpqua River while racing along the interstate.
(water gently clapping) (birds chirping)
Or you can see it Tim Palmer's way.
- You know, you can drive the highways,
driving along, you look through the windshield,
a lot of what you see is the pavement out ahead,
landscape beyond.
That's the view from the car.
When you're in the canoe,
what you see is mostly water
and then you see the shorelines
and then you see this gorgeous sky beyond.
It's a totally different view of Oregon
and to me,
it's the only way to see it,
because this is the natural way.
This is the path of the water.
It's the path of the ages.
It's the path of the explorers.
It's my path.
- [Narrator] Tim's about the closest thing
there is in Oregon to a river evangelist.
Born not far from the Ohio river,
he was raised among rivers at their most polluted.
Yet the grace of his paddling tells you that
rivers became a big part of Tim's life
and it's a passion he doesn't mind sharing.
- [Tim] I think we often think of river sports
as the province of the skilled angler
or the experienced boater,
but in fact,
rivers are for everybody.
- [Narrator] Here's a fact,
most Oregonians live within just a few miles of a river.
Many of the rivers we take for granted
are in fact, exceptional.
- We have more free flowing rivers.
We have more long river trips that you can do.
We have 10 rivers of epic length
that you can run a river trip on in Oregon.
That's more than any other state in the west.
- [Narrator] Tim's four-day trip
on the undammed South Umpqua
began in the wilderness,
passed through farmlands,
and eventually,
flowed through a city of over 20,000 people.
- We've got the last of the I-5 bridges.
Number five.
- [Narrator] But here,
even in the heart of downtown Roseburg,
Tim had the river largely to himself.
- Along this river,
we see houses like what we have here on the left.
That's actually about the most I've seen
on the trip so far.
(fly buzzing)
- [Narrator] Celebrating the beauty of overlooked rivers,
like the South Umpqua,
is something Tim emphasizes in his guidebooks,
but writing books about rivers
has also given him the chance to dip his paddle
in some of the biggest,
the wildest,
and longest rivers in America.
He's paddled about 400 rivers by his estimation.
Still, he speaks of Oregon rivers with a special fondness.
One of the really amazing things about Oregon's riverscape
is the diversity.
- [Man] Keep going!
Nice!
Keep forwarding.
- We have just all kinds of rivers in terms of climate,
in terms of landscape,
in terms of whitewater,
wildlife,
fisheries.
- [Narrator] And in a state where hiking permits,
campground fees,
and park passes can add up quickly,
Tim reminds us that many rivers don't cost a dime.
- On many of our rivers,
you can go without worrying about a permit.
It's usually public land.
So, rivers really offer that opportunity,
which is becoming kind of a rare thing
in today's world,
where everything is so built up
or so regulated
that you just don't have the opportunity
to be wild and young and free again
and to pretend you're Huckleberry Finn
going down the Mississippi River.
(water splashing gently)
- [Narrator] On a river,
there's often no need for a campground reservation.
Solitude can be as easy to find as a sandbar.
It can seem like pure escapism,
but rivers also bring out the fighter in Tim.
He's a vocal advocate for river protection,
but his approach is more reflective than combative.
- To me, the connection to every natural landscape
involves three fundamental emotions
and the first is a sense of love of that place.
The second big emotion
is a sense of outrage.
When we realize what's happening to these places
unnecessarily,
maybe a dam that's built,
even though it's not needed
or development that occurs right next to a river,
when it could just be set back
a little bit from the shoreline,
when we realized that there's pollution
that could be cleaned up,
but it's not something we can live with.
For that, we need a sense of hope
and that's the third great emotion
that I believe is essential for people to get
in the natural world.
A sense of hope that we can do a better job.
- [Narrator] We paddled with Tim
for just a few sunny days on a river.
We saw just a handful of other people.
It may be that places like this,
offer the break many of us are looking for
and maybe even need.
(water gently clapping)
- All you do is get that paddle in,
and pull it back thousands of times a day
and for some people,
this might seem boring,
but to me,
it's a totally meditative experience.
No cell phone,
no conversation,
no talk, no people,
no nothing.
Just you and the river
and there's a certain magic in that.