River water feeding into the Fraser and the Nechako at this time of year is providing a deadly mix of fast flow and low temperature for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in its grasp.
Even experienced kayakers are picking and choosing their spots, said Ian Norn, safety director with the Northwest Brigade Paddling Club.
"They're all very high right now," Norn said of area rivers.
He suggested that those venturing near the banks, let alone onto the water, should be taking precautions.
"To me, walking on any precarious ground by any stretch of river, you should probably be wearing a life jacket or stay far enough away with a buffer zone of trees between you and the water," Norn said.
Even with a life jacket, he said it can be a struggle to stay above water at this time of year.
"The nature of white water is it tends to be very erratic and aerated," Norn said. "And the more aerated the water the less you, as a person, float."
Add in the boils and seam lines found along local rivers and "it's a lot easier to be pulled under the current than it is when it's at a normal flow, just by the nature of the hydraulics."
The exceptionally-cold water does not help.
"It's like standing outside on a cold day with a 20 kilometre wind," Norn said. "The cold in the river is exponentially worse because it's moving."
Logs and trees washed away from the shore are also in the mix, causing paddlers to take to land and look around the corner in search of jams.
Not even photos do justice to the turbulence rivers like the Willow are currently presenting.
"You get what's called 'road side effect,'" Norn said. "You're like 'okay, that's big' and when you're on the water, you realize how much bigger it is than you thought and realize just how powerful the water is."
He said only three or four local kayakers have the skill to paddle along the Willow River where it passes under Highway 16 East. It calms down somewhat after that, only to soon enter the Willow River Canyon, also known as "killer canyon" after eight Prince George high school students died in the section during a May 1974 canoeing trip.
"I think they misunderstood where they should be putting on and taking off the water and they put on at the rest area up around the corner and ended up all going through killer canyon and they all tragically died," Norn said. "In my opinion, at high water, killer canyon is beyond the scale of whitewater [kayaking]."
