Version
To remember the continuous destruction of our rivers ...
Canoeing literature history
Riverguide
River descriptions online
Spirit of Canoeing
(Folding) Kayak trips illustrated
River graveyard
The destruction of our rivers
Links
Canoeing in the internet
About the author
Introduction
During my life as a canoeist I came across a lot of beautiful, wild and natural rivers - some of them were 'killed' by the human hunger for energy or closed for canoeists for different but mostly very obscure reasons.Being a quite young men who practiced canoeing for more than 2/3 of his live, the loss of each of these old friends did hurt a lot. In discussions with others I did experience, that human rememberance is very limited indeed and that even I - collecting (and reading) a lot of 'antique' canoe literature - am not able to envision how the (canoeist) environment looked like only 50 years ago !
This page should remember everybody on how dramatic the loss of natural rivers was during the last 2-3 decades. Even though showing only silenced rivers of my personal trip collection, it is a quite long list which should force everybody to think about what we have lost for just some more (and still insignificant) electric kilowatt-hours and what will be left for our children to experience the value of nature for their life !
Further places
To get a more global view of the problem you should look at the International Rivers Network.Current (2004): Please sign and distribute the call to action
Online-Petition against destruction of the Tara-Canyon (Montenegro) by a new dam, erasing one of the greatest whitewaters on earth!
Graveyard
The following list was carefully set up from personal rememberance and complemented with details from various river guidebooks. Nevertheless, I beg your pardon for eventual inaccuracies you may come across especially with the year of death provided. If you can specify corrections or would like to add some of your old friends to this list, please send me an eMail right now. Please be aware, that I did only include the 'big' losses in my list, the continued murder to all rivers by canalization, weir building and other day by day destruction can not be recorded by a single person nor can the consequences be described as dramatic as they sum up over the years.
Albula, Switzerland
Famous 'Forst gorge', WW III-IV &
'Schyn Canyon', WW IV-V.
Canyon partly (4 km) flooded by a dam in 1988, water diversion for the following 8 km.
Bregenzer Ache,
Austria
One of the most exciting WW III-IV
canoeing rivers of the northern Alps.
Clutha,
New Zealand
The bluest river I have ever seen,
WW I-II.
Inn,
Switzerland
Was the last remaining high-water
stretch of the Inn in Switzerland,
WW III-IV.
Kelchsauer Ache,
Austria
WW III-IV river.
Rienz,
Italy
Last gorge of the river which had
not been spoiled before, WW II-III.
Vorderrhein,
Switzerland
Famous 'Forest canyon rapid',
WW IV.