Gordon Lightfoot in a recent publicity shot. He'll be performing at the Michigan Theater on Sept. 21, but has a decades-long history of touring here.

For his part, the 72-year-old singer-songwriter is glad to be returning. “I’m looking forward to it,” he says via telephone from his home in Toronto. “I’ve always gotten good vibes from Ann Arbor.”

Lightfoot first brought his guitar to town almost exactly 45 years ago, to play a three-night stint at a funky Episcopalian coffee house located in a former print shop at 330 Maynard Street. Today the unprepossessing brick building is home to Madras Masala, purveyor of exotic Indian delicacies; but in the ’60s it was Canterbury House, purveyor of coffee, donuts, and a hip spirituality that meshed nicely with the countercultural ethos of the day.

Canterbury House is actually a generic name used by many Episcopal student ministries at colleges across the nation. Ann Arbor’s incarnation was established in the mid-1940s and by the ’60s had become an important feature of the city’s increasingly progressive landscape. It began offering folk and blues music in 1965 as an experiment in reaching youth through the arts. Though mostly local performers were featured, the new program proved phenomenally successful, and the next year it was moved to a bigger location to bring in nationally-known acts.

First to appear at the extensively remodeled Maynard Street venue was the California-born “one-man folk festival,” Michael Cooney – “brandishing guitar, kazoo, banjo, autoharp, microphone, guitar strap, and truck,” according to the ad – who played three sold-out nights in early September.

Next up was a singer-songwriter from Ontario named Gordon Lightfoot, whose first album – the appropriately (if a bit over-exuberantly) titled “Lightfoot!” – had recently been released by United Artists. Although the young Canadian himself wasn’t that well-known in the states, his songs were. Marty Robbins took Lightfoot’s “Ribbon of Darkness” to the top of the country charts in 1965, and Peter, Paul and Mary made a Top 40 hit out of “For Lovin’ Me” that same year.

“If I had not gotten my songs recorded by some other artists very early on,” says Lightfoot, “I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. It was my songwriting, actually, that got me started.”

Which according to Herb David, proprietor of the famous guitar studio that bears his name, made Lightfoot very similar to another famous troubadour of that era, Bob Dylan.

Like Dylan – Except He Could Play

Herb David was a central figure in Ann Arbor’s vibrant ’60s folk scene. He saw all the acts that came through town – including Dylan – and often sold them something from his shop. Sometimes he even joined them onstage. David remembers liking Lightfoot’s music and looking forward to his appearance at Canterbury.

“In Dylan’s case we used to say that he couldn’t play worth a damn, and he couldn’t sing worth a damn, but he sure wrote some nice songs,” explains David. “It was the same thing with Lightfoot – except he could play.”

Gary Rothberger, at the time a University of Michigan senior majoring in American Studies, also remembers Lightfoot’s Canterbury gig. “Not only do I remember it,” he says, “I remember the grass I smoked on the way there.”

Rothberger was one of the leaders of the campus chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, meaning that his real major was radicalism. By 1966 rock and roll was well on its way to replacing folk music as the soundtrack of the protest movement, but at that point folk was still holding its own. Rothberger liked it all: the Stones, the Beatles, Motown, Dylan, the Dead – and also Gordon Lightfoot.

“The thing about him,” explains Rothberger, “was that his lyrics were incredibly poetic, and his music was relatively complex, not just the strum-strum-strum of a lot of so-called folk singers. Plus he sang great love songs.”

Lightfoot played at Canterbury House for three nights, from Friday, September 23, through Sunday, September 25, 1966, doing three 30-minute sets each night – all for the princely sum of $500.

In fact, Canterbury operated on a razor-thin margin and could barely afford to pay the small fees that it did. With a seating capacity of 150 and tickets going for $1.25, simply breaking even often required a sell-out crowd. Which it had in most cases, including Lightfoot’s. But Canterbury’s goal was never to make profits, and the intimate setting suited both the earnest folk musicians of the mid-’60s as well as their thoughtful audiences.

Are You Gonna Be There (At the Teach-In)?

It was a wholly different affair when Lightfoot next played Ann Arbor four years later as the headline act at the kickoff rally for the University of Michigan’s week-long environmental teach-in.

After slowly gaining momentum throughout the ’60s, the environmental movement all at once exploded into the leviathan-like Earth Day 1970, a nationwide celebration-cum-protest in which millions of people participated. The Ann Arbor teach-in was one of the first and biggest of thousands of ecologically-themed events taking place that spring.

James Swan, a junior faculty member of the UM School of Natural Resources, was part of the teach-in’s entertainment committee. “We wanted Pete Seeger, badly,” he recalls, “but he had other commitments that he couldn’t get out of.”

As a replacement Swan suggested Lightfoot, whom he had helped bring to Canterbury House back in 1966. Lightfoot didn’t have the same name-recognition as Seeger or some of the other possibilities that were kicked around, such as Joan Baez; but his songs expressed a love of the land, of wide-open spaces and natural beauty, that resonated with the themes of the teach-in. The committee was especially pleased to learn that the Canadian was willing to perform for free, asking only to be reimbursed for expenses.

Lightfoot’s chaperone on the day of the concert was Bill Manning, a UM senior and one of the teach-in’s central organizers. When they arrived at Crisler Arena it was to find the nearly 14,000 seat auditorium filled to capacity – and beyond. “The place was jam-packed,” remembers Manning. “Not everybody could get in. We had busloads of kids show up from different parts of the state.”

Three-Ring Circus

In addition to Lightfoot, the evening’s lineup included UM president Robben Fleming, Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson, Michigan governor William Milliken, radio personality Arthur Godfrey, ecologist Barry Commoner, and the Chicago cast of “Hair.” “It was like a three-ring circus,” recalls Manning fondly.

As with much of the teach-in, the kickoff rally was a highly-charged, heavily-politicized event. The crowd was noisy and animated, and many speakers were heckled. But by most accounts Lightfoot’s performance received a good response, especially considering the wide diversity of the audience and that many were probably hearing him for the first time.

James Swan remembers the mostly-Michigander crowd reacting strongly to “Black Day in July,” one of the Canadian’s few overtly political compositions, about the Detroit race riots of 1967. “It upset some ecology folks because it was more racial protest than ecological,” he says.

“I loved ‘Black Day in July,’” recalls Gary Rothberger. “I liked that it didn’t blame the rioters, but condemned the politicians.” Not everyone was so pleased – released as a single in 1968, the song was banned from many American radio stations and reportedly got Lightfoot banished from Detroit for a while.

After wrapping their 11-song set with the perennial favorites “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” and “Early Mornin’ Rain,” Lightfoot and his backup band of Red Shea and Rick Haynes packed up their gear and prepared to depart. But not before handing the surprised teach-in organizers a bill for expenses totaling $2,000.

“We were a bit miffed,” remembers Manning. “I mean, $2,000, at that time – that was real money.” (Adjusted for inflation it comes to about $12,000 today.) Ultimately it wasn’t a significant problem, as the teach-in had in fact raised more money than its organizers were able to spend – all told nearly $70,000, or almost $400,000 today.

“It all worked out in the end,” says Manning. “But at the time it was a little off-putting to think that the expenses would be that high.” Still, Manning is the first to admit that their own lack of experience in the business side of the music world was probably a big part of the misunderstanding.

From Struggling Folkie to Soft-Rock Superstar

The next time Gordon Lightfoot came to town it was not as the struggling folkie he had been in ’66 but as a freshly-minted soft-rock ’70s superstar. His single “If You Could Read My Mind” broke out in late 1970, shooting straight to the top of the Canadian charts and becoming his first U.S. hit, reaching number five in early 1971. Flush with his newfound success, but going through a bitter divorce, Lightfoot returned to Ann Arbor in 1972 to play before a sell-out crowd at the 3,500-seat Hill Auditorium.

Gordon Lightfoot performing at a 1972 Hill Auditorium concert. (Photo courtesy Sara Krulwich.)

Opinion was divided over the quality of the show. In his review for the Ann Arbor News, Doug Fulton wrote, “I can’t remember when I’ve had a better time at a concert,” and noted that Lightfoot received a standing ovation after each of his two sets. But the review in the Michigan Daily, the university’s student paper, was less than complimentary, mocking Lightfoot’s “Dylanesque beard” and “see-through lace shirt,” and interpreting his typical studied performance as lifeless.

Interestingly, the Daily reviewer also noted with some mystification that at the end of the show Lightfoot apologized to the audience for charging $2,000 for his appearance at the Earth Day rally in 1970. (“Good for him,” says Bill Manning upon first hearing of the apology 39 years later.)

Over the next decade Lightfoot would score his greatest successes – the million-selling “Sundown,” which went to number one in 1974, and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” which peaked at number two in 1976 – just as the countrified folk-rock sound he favored began to go out of style.

In the ’80s and ’90s he continued to tour and put out albums, stopping off in Ann Arbor every so often to sing for appreciative if aging audiences. When he played at the Power Center in 1981, the Michigan Daily compared him to shredded wheat – a far cry from a review in the St. Petersburg Times a decade earlier, in which adults were urged not to be frightened away from Lightfoot just because the kids liked him.

Goodbye Rat Race – Hello Canadian Idol

When he concluded his recording obligations in 1998, says Lightfoot, “I gave myself the day off.” Since then he’s released only one album of new material, and has no plans to do another. He says he plays only as many live shows as pleases him, exercises regularly, eats right, and is probably healthier than he’s ever been.

Ironically, though, since bowing out of the rat race he seems to be regaining a measure of his old popularity, especially with the younger set. In 2003 there was a tribute album featuring artists like Cowboy Junkies and the Tragically Hip. In 2004 he was treated (subjected?) to the honor of listening to the bubble-headed twenty-somethings of Canadian Idol do an entire show of his songs.

But Lightfoot hasn’t consciously attempted to curry favor with a younger crowd. He’s never really changed his musical style – unlike fellow Canadian and inveterate genre-hopper Neil Young – and remains much the same wand’ring minstrel he was when he first came to Ann Arbor more than four decades ago. He’s not much interested in the technology that so obsesses today’s youth – “I don’t even have a cell phone” – preferring instead to stick with his trusty 12-string acoustic guitar. He doesn’t use the Internet, and the rumors of his death that briefly swept through cyberspace last year bothered him not at all. Nor does the thought of his songs being shared illegally online.

“I’m actually pleased,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m glad people are still that interested.”

Gordon Lightfoot will be performing at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 21 at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. Go to the theater’s website for ticket information.

About the author: Alan Glenn is currently at work a documentary film about Ann Arbor in the sixties. Visit the film’s Web site for more information. While there you can contribute your memories of that time – and read those that others have contributed – in a public forum set up expressly for that purpose.

Misty Lyn & The Big Beautiful at the June 30, 2011 Sonic Lunch in downtown Ann Arbor.

This week, Misty Lyn & The Big Beautiful – including Jim Roll on bass, Matt Jones on drums, Carol Gray on fiddle and tambourine, and Ryan Gimpert on guitar – filled the plaza with a soulful, folk-rock sound.

But part of the show for these lunchtime events is always the crowd itself. The Chronicle was there taking photos, and spotted many familiar faces – how many people do you know, too? We’ve supplied fake quotes in some of the captions to help with the challenge.

Cracked slab segue alert: Readers who attended the Sonic Lunch on Thursday will probably have arrived there by foot, more specifically by walking along a sidewalk. Sidewalks are one focus of a very short survey being conducted by the city of Ann Arbor. Take it here: Sidewalk survey.

Misty Lyn & The Big Beautiful, from left: Ryan Gimpert, Misty Lyn, Matt Jones, Carol Gray, Jim Roll.

Jim Roll on bass.

1. "Why yes, one of the prices paid for celebrity is being stalked by paparazzi – and there'll be more of them at Top of the Park when I play tonight."

2. "The color on that guy's T-shirt back there reminds me: Need to revise maps indicating concentration levels for the spread of the Pall dioxane plume."

3. "I'm pretty sure we're not sitting in a brownfield ... but you can't be too careful."

4. "I don't think this plaza is zoned for balloons – they probably need a special use permit." "I dunno, they look like they're filled with helium ... my specialty is more water balloons."

5. "If this lettuce were grown on my farm, it wouldn't look so mushy."

6. "My job is to be hard-headed about parks. I don't need no stinkin' hard hat on top of that." "Sorry, gotta go ... cement mixers are music to my ears."

7. "Mmm, tastes like frozen art!"

8. "If I grow up to be a lawyer, I'll have to wear a tie when I go to work. If I grow up to be a journalist, there won't be any work to go to. Either way, my neck feels itchy."

Purely a plug: The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs – and the occasional playful photo essay. Click this link for details:Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

Musician Dick Siegel in his home on Ann Arbor's near northwest side. (Photo by Mary Morgan.)

A strange and fortuitous connection exists between the local musician Dick Siegel, myself, and The Ann Arbor Chronicle. Last May, I wrote a tribute to Ken King of Frog Holler Farm, who passed away after battling a brain tumor. I knew that Dick had played music with Ken, and I thought he might have some insightful words for the tribute.

Just before finishing that article, I ran into Dick at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market, and one of his quotes completed the piece for me. The column ended:

Dick Siegel had this final thought about the death of his long time friend, Ken King.

“He just took one foot off the earth… just now.”

Dick told me that after reading the column in The Chronicle, and considering further what Ken meant to him, he wrote a song about Ken that he then performed at Ken’s memorial service. It is a slow, deeply moving ballad that pays tribute to an extraordinary man, captivating and also hopeful. Expanding on the imagery quoted in the memorial article, the song is called ”The Man Who Fell Into The Sky.”

Dick himself is no less extraordinary. This internationally recognized singer/songwriter and performer is playing at The Ark on Saturday, Jan. 9 as Dick Siegel and the Brandos. This is the latest partnering for Dick – playing with Brian Delaney and Dave Roof – and perhaps one of the ensembles most likely to showcase his immense talent. The three men have also been spending time in the studio, with a new album expected this summer – the tribute to Ken will be on that album.

I had the opportunity to talk with Dick recently at his home on Ann Arbor’s near northwest side. In a wide-ranging interview, we touched on everything from the process of writing his tribute, to Ken, to his childhood growing up in New Jersey, and how his upbringing instilled in him a strong sense of community.

The Power of Community

Dick and I have spoken a few times since our unusual connection through The Chronicle article last spring, but I was just a silent fan of his music before this all took place. And he had no idea who I was. It was a nice connection, the kind that can take place in our small, intertwined community.

In fact, one of my great interests is in community, why Ann Arbor is special, and how it is that we have so many extraordinary people in our midst. So I asked Dick about his experience of Ann Arbor.

Like so many others, he came here for the University of Michigan, and he stayed. His wife Karen teaches at Ypsilanti High School in both theatre and debate. His daughter attends Mack Open, just a few blocks from their home, and Dick was enthusiastic about her work with Sarah Randazzo doing tap, ballet and jazz dance.

Dick’s own childhood was spent in West Orange, New Jersey, where community was important to his family. Dick’s grandfather ran a corner soda shop in Nutley, New Jersey, and was able to cultivate a diverse and vibrant community of regular customers. Dick’s father passed on that appreciation for small town culture. Dick talked about the time spent with his father that included visiting people his dad knew in the course of doing errands or even buying gas, and being part of a town where connections mattered.

He has found that same sort of opportunity to get to know people, to be a regular, here in Ann Arbor.

“I love the small businesses here,” Dick said, “knowing the proprietors, having friendly relationships with them, being part of a network that works with and for each other.”

I asked Dick if the current resurgence of support for local businesses, local food, and locally produced goods could apply to local musicians as well. He agreed that is it important, though he feels that supporting local music is in some ways different. A number of times during our interview, Dick repeated the idea of his songs being a part of the culture and essence of the community. Especially as a songwriter, his role is that of a chronicler or troubadour of our lives and experiences.

Yet he must, and does, have a larger appeal. He relies on the connections and support within our small city, which has also launched his international career. There is something of value in supporting an artist in your community, he said. These artists “share a lot of your culture and they are chronicling your experience. But they’ve got to be good. To do that effectively, you have to hone your craft – no matter what your medium is.”

“My career feels very comfortable and rooted to this place and the life that I live here,” he added. “Although I do travel and perform other places, I’ve never been a performer that is primarily on the road performing. I do know that … living in a place and living among friends … is very important to me.”

Building a Musical Career

While developing his craft, Dick worked as a builder and carpenter. His house reflects that background. In the less than 10 years Dick and his family have lived there, they’ve transformed a neglected yard and vinyl-sided home into a place that’s inviting, clad in the original and more attractive wooden exterior, with restoration of wooden floors, new walls and mechanicals, landscaping in the backyard, a renewed and welcoming front porch, and many other details blending modern, functional, and antique.

While Dick felt some pressure to devote himself full-time to music, he said he liked the work as a carpenter and builder, the friends that he made, and the opportunities it gave him. But now, he spends all his time on his musical career – writing songs, recording, and performing.

Dick has found Ann Arbor to be an accepting place to have a non-traditional career. The town is “a gentle place, very open-minded,” he said. “People are allowed to be who they are without getting a lot of flack from other people. That is one of Ann Arbor’s messages. You can be yourself. That is why you live here.”

“And it’s a supportive community for artists and musicians. They are valued in this community. When I started out, I could devote myself to playing the guitar and writing songs … people didn’t look down, it was a respected pursuit.”

Now, his career is being recognized in traditional ways as well. This semester, he’ll be the Helen L. DeRoy Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan’s Honors Program, teaching a course called, “Sing Out of Our Minds: The Art of Songwriting.”

“Angelo’s” – a Love Song

His own songwriting is grounded in his sense of place. While Dick now lives in the near northwest side of Ann Arbor, he spent many years living near Delhi Park. “It was a tiny little community before all these grand houses were built there,” he recalled. “When I was just beginning to be a songwriter, that was where I lived and I began to look at the world in a larger way – take pictures of it and put the pictures into songs.”

Which confirmed one of my suspicions: that my favorite Dick Siegel song – “When The Sumac Is On Fire” – was inspired by the Staghorn Sumac near the Huron River. “There is a lot of sumac out there,” Dick said. “The song is one of my favorites as well. It is transporting.” He recalled playing the song in Italy to audiences who didn’t speak English – they loved the song without understanding a single word.

But “When The Sumac Is On Fire” isn’t the song that most people recognize from Dick’s repertoire. At this point in his career, he’s best known for “Angelo’s” – a reference to Angelo’s Restaurant in Ann Arbor. The song plays every Saturday and Sunday on the WCSX-FM “Over Easy” program, and over the years it has been heard by tens of thousands of people around the world. It also sells well on iTunes. I asked Dick what it was like to be so well known for a particular song.

“It’s great!” he said. “So many people know the song … many more than know me. When they discover the connection they say, ‘That’s you!? … That’s your song!!??’ They’ve been my fans without realizing it.”

Dick has appreciated being associated with the song, and the fact that it provides an introduction to his other music for new fans.

I learned that “Angelo’s” came on the heels of Dick working very hard on a different song, “a love song that was convoluted and difficult,” he said. “As a vacation from that song, I started making up this one. It came very quickly and captured something romantic, light-hearted and optimistic. Sometimes you struggle with a song and sometimes they pop into your head.”

“I’d been listening to Louie Jordan music. Swing chords, jazz chords … I could use these new chords in a way that made sense to me. They seemed right for ‘Angelo’s.’ When a song is so easy to write … there is no time for it to wither as you are writing it. It comes out ready to jump around.”

The Writing Process

During our interview, Dick also described the process of writing his tribute to Ken King, and from that discussion I was able to gain some insight into both what songwriting means to him as well as how it sometimes unfolds.

“There is always the listener in mind: Am I writing well enough? Am I being clear?” he explained. “I put songs together to be vehicles for something that I can communicate to someone else, something they’ll be able to understand and experience themselves when they hear it. Writing the song about Ken – I went to places that were very sad with the purpose of making something beautiful. I needed to do it for my own relief, with the idea that if I did it right, it could be a relief and comfort for others as well.”

I have been a fan of Dick’s for so many years because of his rich voice, and as a guitar player myself I enjoy listening to musicians who are far more accomplished than I am. I have found so many of the songs he has written simply mesmerizing. The word evocative may be overused, yet that is a fine description of songs that share experience, transport you to other times and places, and stir feelings inside of laughter, love, sadness, happiness, and more.

I was able to listen to a few of his songs with Dick. I loved watching him listen to his own recordings – attentive, fully present, and also frankly intense. I hesitated to say anything to break the mood and his concentration. Yet of course he has heard these same songs countless times, considered each note, and then the synergy of the performance.

A New Direction

Dick described to me why he’s so very excited about the evolution his music has taken with his new trio, the Brandos, and with his help I could fully appreciate that something very special is happening.

The name is taken from another popular song of his, “What Would Brando Do” – a song that struck me strongly when I first heard it. I can recall where I was and who I was with, even though that was a few decades ago. (Both “Angelo’s” and “What Would Brando Do” are on the CD “Snap” – you can here audio clips from the songs on the CD Baby website.)

While Dick had a brief “Brandos” band for a Top of the Park performance, that previous band only played together a few times. “When I started playing a lot with Brian and Dave and realized there was something important with the music we were making and I became committed to the endeavor, I thought the Brandos would be a cool name,” he said. “It made sense.”

I’m not a music reviewer, or critic. I’m just learning how to write about food – something beyond “yum,” “awesome” and “tasty.” So writing about music rather than just singing and enjoying it is a bit of a further stretch for me. But not surprisingly, Dick is articulate when describing his own music, the musicality of his partners Brian Delaney and Dave Roof, and what’s so special about this phase in his long career.

Dick describes Brian as “a musical omnivore,” beginning his career as a classical pianist, and then moving on to the guitar and creating a group called The Royal Garden Trio.

”When he plays a song with me,” Dick said, “he comes up with a part that is very much a part of that song, and expands the entity that the song is. We started getting together just to enjoy ourselves, and some of the stuff we were coming up with was so powerful and amazing and we’d be sitting and playing for a while and after a while we’d say, ‘That’s amazing! Fantastic!’”

Dick and Brian share many of the same roots regarding their musical inspirations and the inventiveness of their styles. When Brian started playing a Shorty – a short electric 12-string guitar – Dick said he was further captivated. The instrument, as Brian played it, fit into the spaces in Dick’s music in a new and wonderful way, providing support and yet not overpowering the basic melodies and imagery created in the lyrics.

“The voice of that instrument melded with my guitar,” Dick said. “The space that my guitar occupied totally melded with the space of that instrument. There was no redundancy in the tone and tenor and pitch of the sounds. It was a very complete-sounding picture of music. That was somewhat of a revelation. Suddenly I could imagine that this sound of this guitar was complementary to my guitar. That it could be used on any song and it would enhance the sound.”

And when I had a brief chance to hear one of their recordings, I could hear what he meant. The Shorty has a mandolin-sounding tone, and the two instruments together sounded more whole.

With no drummer, the contribution of slap bass by Dave rounds out the trio.

“Dave is one of my favorite bass players ever,” Dick told me. “He knows my music. When the three of us started to play together, the sonic space we inhabited, the bass the way Dave was playing it, there was room for him – so it filled it up. With Dave playing and adding percussiveness and drive, there is a complete sound. There is no need for any other instrument. We can perform like this and record like this.”

“The more we began to perform,” Dick added, “the more that feeling was realized. It allowed me to perform songs with these two guys that I could only [previously] play in a rock band. But they allowed a certain pulse to come alive. With the voices and their instruments, powerful rhythmic entities could be performed with a lot of drive.”

“There are some songs where I can sit back,” he said. “I can just sing, with old songs that I’ve sung hundreds of times – I’m free. I’m not trying to make everything happen, and everything is happening. In terms of the total musicality of the endeavor, the level is so high for me.”

And what can you expect for the Jan. 9 concert at The Ark, as well as for the upcoming album?

The trio is breaking new ground, Dick said, “pushing the boundary of what a string trio can do.” And with this new incarnation, “the performance of those songs is so high. I’m excited about it. I look forward to every time that we play.”

Ticket information for the Jan. 9 performance of Dick Siegel and the Brandos is available on The Ark’s website. Siegel’s albums are available online at CD Baby, and individual songs are also sold on iTunes. Additional information about his career and more – including where you can order the Siegel’s Smoky #40 sandwich – is on his own website. About the writer: Linda Diane Feldt is a local holistic health practitioner, teacher and writer. You can follow her foraging and herbal tips on twitter.com/wildcrafting.