Our two rivers run through the heart of the city, natural wilderness corridors, watery trails complete with wildlife.   On the river today, dead salmon floated along or lay on the beach, crows, magpies, and seagulls scoured for scraps, gaggles of geese clustered in bays, ducks dove for aquatics, a bear foraged for fish on the shore, all while cars, trains, and planes roared by.

This is not a route to paddle in the summer.   Too many power boats; too many for the space available.   But the river is quiet and peaceful in the spring and the fall.   An hour for yourself.   Start at Pioneer Park and paddle upstream to the Gregson Trail and back.   The river’s current will make you work upstream.   It will take you ten minutes less downstream.