Twelve-year-old Will Brittain may not have the words to describe the thrill of rafting Nantahala Falls, but that makes his experience no less powerful.
“There is excitement; there is trepidation – everyone is a little out of their element,” says Jim Coffey, owner of Canada’s Esprit Rafting Adventures and founder of Whitewater Healing, an international project that organizes whitewater river trips for children with autism spectrum disorder and their families. “Water is a great equalizer,” he says.
Every October since 2015, Whitewater Healing has hosted one such trip along the notoriously frigid Nantahala River in western North Carolina. This year, the morning of the event was as cool as the water; around 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Coffey’s volunteer crew of local raft guides and professional paddlers, many of whom had volunteered previous years, arrived at daybreak with whitewater canoes strapped to their vans.
“Feels like the tropics,” joked Coffey, a Canadian native, as the group huddled outside Endless River Adventures outfitting company, their breaths matching the white mountain mist. While they waited for the three participating families to arrive, the paddlers traded tips on navigating well-known rapids and memories from past Whitewater Healing events.
Whitewater volunteer Shawn Malone takes a selfie with the Brittains, whom he has become close with through Whitewater Healing events. “I hope that it is as apparent to everyone else as it is to me the connection that Will and Shawn share,” Kim Brittain says. Shawn Malone, a whitewater canoeist from Chattanooga, remembered a moment he shared with then-11-year-old Will Brittain, whose family makes the two-and-a-half-hour drive from their home in York, South Carolina, every October. Malone had guided the Brittains in a raft down the 8-mile stretch, culminating with Nantahala Falls, a Class III rapid. When the trip was over, Will had taken Malone’s hand and led him to a tandem whitewater canoe, which another volunteer had paddled as part of the support crew.