WHAT’S IN A NAME?

In this column, Nouria takes her cue from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, a left-inspired French sociologist, and contemplates what the names we give to rapids reveal.

By Nouria Newman

BIG HORN This summer I had the privilege of joining whitewater legends Ben Stookesberry and Erik Boomer on two first descents in the Big Horn Mountains. At some point, we ended up discussing rapid names. For Big Goose Creek it was easy. We agreed that it would be funny to name all the rapids “Goose-something.”The “Goosaumatic” was the first big rapid: a steep slide into a big auto(ish) water boof. “Golden Goose” was a clean 40-foot drop. “The Gooseberry” was a large drop first and only descended by Stookesberry. On the Tongue River, things got a little bit more complicated and controversial. The boys wanted to name one of the rapids “Tongue Bomb of the Fart Box.” I don’t know how this sounds to you, but I didn’t really like…

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Kayak Session (Digital) - 1 Issue, Winter 2018

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