Good Company: Sage Canyon River Company
Happy rafters: seven smiles signal a happy afternoon on the lower Deschutes.
A Guiding Life
Sage Canyon River Company is a family affair. Aly and Jeremy Ensrud run the river rafting company. Son Ethan, 20, guides too, a job for which he seems to have been preordained. “When he was like, 3,” Jeremy recalls, “we kind of doctored this photo of him gripping the oars and used it that summer for advertising and promotion.” Seventeen years later, he’s doing the job for real.
For better than 30 years, Sage has been taking clients down the lower Deschutes on half-day, full-day and multi-day adventures. It’s a daily occurrence outside Sage’s headquarters on Maupin’s main street to see day adventurers enjoying ice cream, available inside the shop, and perusing photos after splashing their way down the river.
The ice cream is a Sage tradition that signals to clients: please enjoy yourselves to the maximum extent possible. The company emphasizes the well-being of its younger clients, which is no surprise, given Jeremy Ensrud’s other job. He’s currently the Athletic Director at Canby High School. For twenty years prior to that, he served as a biology teacher there. And he’s still coaching wrestling. “We want to get young people out on the water,” says Aly, “and we want a pristine river for them to raft.”
Nothing to Sneeze At: Warmer Water, More Algae
On that front, both Aly and Jeremy have their concerns. “The most dramatic change has been the water temperature,” says Jeremy. “In recent years, I’ve seen steelhead belly up in the river because it’s just too warm for them. And the steelhead runs we used to have, we don’t have anymore.”
The algal growth is a concern for Jeremy for at least two reasons: as a former science teacher, he knows well that excessive aquatic plant growth signals a river system out of balance. Secondly, he’s susceptible to allergic reactions after being exposed to it. “When I see the green on Lake Simtustus, I know it’s coming down the river and it makes me think twice sometimes about swimming. My kids grew up every summer, plunging in the water, and we’re concerned about its future health.”
Sage Guides Rep Their Water
Concern for the future is part of what motivated several Sage guides to come to a screening of The Last 100 Miles: The Fight for the Lower Deschutes River that the DRA hosted in early July.
The dismaying situation with the Tower seems to have been taken to heart by at least one of Sage’s guides. “Yesterday I was running shuttle for a day trip,” Aly recalls, “and I heard one of our guides talking to our clients about the need for colder, cleaner water in the river.”
That’s music to Jeremy’s ears. “We want the river to be clean, pristine, and our clients want that too.”
Aly agrees. “We just want everybody to come back from the river happy.”
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