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The Canoe Commuters of the CIA (2019)
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y agoA friend of mine lived on one bank of the river and worked on the other bank a short distance away. She bought a kayak to commute with occasionally for fun.
- ethanbond 3y agoI spent some time in Basel, Switzerland recently where locals would travel via a lazy float down the Rhine. They'd tow along a floating "fish bag" which holds their clothes and equipment dry for the commute. Seems like a ridiculously pleasant way to start or end your day! I figure many cities in Europe do this, but I'm not sure I've seen it elsewhere.
- Caligatio 3y agoI had to buy a Wickelfisch after seeing them in Basel! I think the floating commute is a massive testament to the cleanliness of the river. I can't imagine swimming in a major city's river without feeling the need to decontaminate before heading into the office.
- jebarker 3y agoThis is cool to see. I used to run past that island all the time whilst doing long runs on the C&O canal trail. I noticed the little ferry and always assumed there was something of interest on the island itself. I also never realized I was far enough north from the city to be directly across the river from the CIA. On the CIA side of the river there's another trail (Potomac Heritage trail). I was always surprised that you could freely run in the woods there so close to the CIA but also that you could see no sign of their "campus" from the trail.
- marymkearney 3y agoFull disclosure, I lived on the island part-time for 10 years. There's a stationary rope affixed to the mainland and to a tree on the island. You get there (and back) by pulling the little ferry hand-over-hand along the rope. It was my commuter vehicle. There was a lot of unmediated information. :) Perhaps we passed each other on the trail.
- samstave 3y agoIs it a trail filled with tears?
- Animats 3y agoThe ferry dock.[1] [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@38.95800982,-77.13235337,18.82842418a,0d,60y,234.54530051h,85t,0r https://earth.google.com/web/@38.95800982,-77.13235337,18.82...
- RajT88 3y agoI am highly amused by this. I lived in downtown Chicago for a bit, and did indeed consider buying a folding kayak to commute to work, since I worked in the Merchandise Mart where there was river access across the street.
- ghaff 3y agoI've owned/own folding kayaks. The problem is that they're really not all that quick to tear down or (especially) build up. IMO definitely not the sort of thing you want to do day-to-day. (The other issue is that these companies go out of business and it's hard to make significant repairs without parts.)
- acheron 3y agoAdmiral Grace Hopper would talk about commuting by boat to Navy Yard, IIRC. Didn't know about this one.
- neilv 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2uls6iIEU&t=35s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE2uls6iIEU&t=35s
- TigeriusKirk 3y agoI was half expecting this to be related to the death of former CIA director William Colby, who was found dead in a marsh near his canoe in Maryland after a heart attack.
- isaidthis 3y agoSame here, having learned of the Colby story (conspiracy?) recently from a hacker news link posted about the 1996 PC game "Spycraft". https://www.filfre.net/2023/03/spycraft-the-great-game-part-1-or-parallel-spies/ https://www.filfre.net/2023/03/spycraft-the-great-game-part-...
- marymkearney 3y agoI'd forgotten this story. Apparently it spun up a lot of conspiracy stories and theories about not-natural causes. Thanks for flagging this, it's interesting.
- arminiusreturns 3y ago"An attempt to hire former CIA director William Colby to lead a state of Nebraska investigation of the Franklin scandal failed in a legislative committee 4 to 3 vote. Instead, the committee appointed attorney Kirk Naylor as its chief investigator. A major figure involved in investigating Franklin told WMR that Naylor was the most incompetent person the committee could have found to lead the investigation. Colby was a Vietnam War colleague of Nebraska state Senator John De Camp, one of major investigators of the Franklin scandal. Colby reportedly was ready to expose the CIA's own involvement in the use of child prostitutes for the purposes of political and diplomatic blackmail. Colby died in a suspicious canoeing accident on the Chesapeake Bay on April 27, 1996." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUxDbgGbm9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUxDbgGbm9w
- ticos 3y agoReminds me of this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-DLqc9Vplg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-DLqc9Vplg
- 226_ebro_treaty 3y agoHonestly, if I was that guy, I'd put a description of that commute on my resume/CV.
- CrampusDestrus 3y agoFor a SRE that's not a very reliable way to get to work
- omnibrain 3y agoOh, this is fun. Not familiar with the area I tried to check it out via Apple Maps on my IPad Air (3rd Gen) with iOS 16.3.1 and as soon as I switched to the satellite view my Apple Maps App closed. :)
- decafninja 3y agoReminds me of the occasional stories about people commuting into Manhattan by canoe/rowboat/paddleboard because they're fed up with the poor public transportation. Something I've noticed more often these days is people commuting from New Jersey into Manhattan via electric scooter. This is done by first going to Fort Lee, crossing the George Washington Bridge, then down the Hudson bike path to wherever their office is. They say it's faster and less stressful than doing the traditional bus or train + subway commute. I believe them. There is also the financial benefit which is you get to avoid paying to cross the Hudson River, which is expensive whether you cross by car, bus, train, or ferry. Granted even before electric scooters became common, you could do this via traditional bicycle. But you'd arrive at the office all sweaty, and most people don't have the luxury of being able to shower at the office, not to mention rampant bike theft. Plus there is an abomination of a steep hill going up to the outbound George Washington on your way back home.
- samstave 3y agoI lived on a boat in the SF marina for a year... There was a guy that would commute into SF via a MASSIVE zodiac with (4) 600-HP engines and would do ~80MPH across the bay from Saucalito to the ferry building. He had a full time boat pilot, who he paid ~$100K/year (I asked) and he would make it from saucalito to SF in ~15 minutes. He was a hedgie in FiDi... As someone who has made the GGB commute all the way down to Sunnyvale for a time... I was super jealous of the fact this guy had that luxury.
- urthor 3y agoThis is brilliant innovation. Minus the need to pay the pilot, surely you just diy.
- samstave 3y agoToo much [re[ and tear-down, then re-prep etc... That guy probably made $100,000 in a day.
- kristjansson 3y ago
- brunosan 3y agoDown the river, right after DC its the Naval Research Laboratory, in front of Alexandria. I worked there, and some crazy folks from Alexandria sometimes crossed the river in canoes to the NRL pier... That got terminated after 911, so they had to bike or drive all the way up around DC and down through Anacostia Air Force Base. Quite a much longer commute.
- cafard 3y agoWhen an aunt worked there, in the 1950s, there was a boat from National Airport or thereabouts for NRL employees from Virginia. The boat wasn't very nice. It was an open boat, and in rainy weather, a sheet of plywood served to shelter the commuters. They were always glad when the boat was out of service and an Air Force boat replaced it.
- dangerboysteve 3y agoI had a chance to canoe to the office for 4 months. The place I was staying at was on the river and they owned canoes. I would pop out at the park, chain up the canoe, then a 3 minute walk to the office. Going to the office was downstream but going home was a workout at times.
- stronglikedan 3y ago> going home was a workout at times Like going to the gym after work to relieve the stress of the day!
- samstave 3y agoDid you ever Canoe to work and then it started raining during the day and you had to Canoe home in the rain? Yeah, thats what biking to work daily for over a decade was like. LPT: Check your bike into a hotel baggage check with the bellhop, tip them $20 and they will protect your bike in their storage for at least a week, longer if you build a report with them. I used to lock my bikes up at various high-end hotels in SF. 1. The millenium tower : ring the guard button in the valet port coche and they buz you into the garage near the dumpsters and they have a bike-rack-tree to lock your bike to, and its behind cams and security doors. The intercontinental and the W hotel allow you to store your bike for a week. (make sure you tip well, and get the name of the host) sometimes you need a bit of social engineering when you arent staying at the hotel - like a good tip... but also its just being amenable and friendly, and you talk them up first and tip at the end of the convo.... but you can do this with any large hotel, and so long as you tip well... So come in and say things like: "I am in town for a conference, and only need to store this here a day or two" "I am checking into the hotel later, but I have to go to an interview right now" (Tip this one good (($20)) as it will make him less likely to get upset if you dont return the same day. I have had so many bike components, and whole bikes stolen from me in SF, Santa Rosa, San Jose ubtil I learned this trick.
- ghaff 3y agoIt would have been utterly impractical given, as I recall, the distance was about 40 miles and would have involved a few portages around dams. (So probably more than 12 hours even at a pretty good clip.) But I live within about 1,000 feet of the (North Branch of the) Nashua River which joins the Merrimack River in Nashua NH and, for about 8 years, I had an office right in downtown Nashua.
- pge 3y agoThese guys were well known in the DC paddling community. Back then the Potomac also froze over regularly, so they couldn't commute year round by canoe (now you could). Security restrictions eventually stopped the practice.
- marymkearney 3y agoThe river did freeze solid in January 2018. Skating from MD to VA was a peak life experience for sure. And seeing a guy ride his bike down the middle of the river.
- cafard 3y agoThere was a solid free ca. 1982 also.
- bookofjoe 3y agoAn enduring mystery: former CIA director William Colby's death in a canoe https://apnews.com/article/b383af025d66de91e4688caf602e7253 https://apnews.com/article/b383af025d66de91e4688caf602e7253
- marymkearney 3y agoWow, there's a lot of CIA boating lore. This article also mentions the prior disappearance of CIA operative John Paisley from his sailboat in 1978, 18 years earlier: "Paisley’s decomposed body was found in the bay a week later, weighted down by two diving belts and containing a gunshot wound to the head. Authorities said it wasn’t clear if he was murdered or committed suicide."
- flycaliguy 3y agoThey have access to the best maps.
- bookofjoe 3y ago>The Missing CIA Man https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/07/archives/the-missing-cia-man-his-suicide-was-bizarre-the-nature-of-his-cia.html https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/07/archives/the-missing-cia-... https://archive.ph/hOhjA https://archive.ph/hOhjA
- marymkearney 3y agoThat's a really freaky story. Merits a thread of its own. --He was a senior CIA analyst of Russian nuclear capacity during the Cold War. --Ruled a suicide, but shot in back of head. --Not positively ID'd as him. Bunch of funny business with the fingerprints. --Cremated, but the FBI kept his hands. Grisly. --Had a high-powered CIA radio rig on his sailboat, and "documents." --Good friends with a senior KGB defector. --Live 9mm shells scattered about. No big deal nowadays, but it was back then.
- bookofjoe 3y ago
- swalling 3y agoThe Silicon Valley version of this is the SF2G (San Francisco to Google) bike route. https://sf2g.com/ https://sf2g.com/ Instead of riding miserable Caltrain or driving the 101, biking 40 miles with friends is an absolute pleasure, even if you have to start pre-dawn to get in the office on time.
- hammock 3y agoSadly the Potomac River is not the cleanest place to be swimming anymore
- marymkearney 3y agoInterestingly, there's an app for that now. Back in the day, the canoe commuters had to take their chances. https://www.potomacriverkeepernetwork.org/community-science-volunteer-water-quality-monitoring-program/ https://www.potomacriverkeepernetwork.org/community-science-... The CIA's location upriver is non-tidal, so it's clean-ish compared to the tidal waters of DC proper. DC's 19th-century sanitary sewers overflow into the storm drains when it rains. Yes, this is as gross as it sounds. DC Water is working on it. https://www.dcwater.com/css https://www.dcwater.com/css Edited to add: One of the sewage outfalls runs directly from the White House into the Potomac River near the Kennedy Center. Make of that what you will.
- hammock 3y agoCombined sewers is one thing.. I am also thinking of waste from industrial, military and paramilitary sites nearby
- marymkearney 3y agoYeah, ew, good point, that's nasty. Like the Avtex superfund site upstream in Front Royal VA. https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0302606 https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0... Makes you wonder about the CIA itself, doesn't it? I doubt they have EPA oversight.
- snowwrestler 3y agoIt’s fine for swimming upstream of Little Falls. People swim in it all summer (and occasionally by accident in colder months). It’s mostly fine below Little Falls as well, unless there has been a ton of rain recently. Edit: here, in case you don’t believe me https://www.potomacriverkeepernetwork.org/robert-dreher-urges-dc-city-council-to-lift-ban-on-swimming-in-the-potomac/ https://www.potomacriverkeepernetwork.org/robert-dreher-urge...
- mncharity 3y agoNot a commute, but fwiw: My freshman college dorm was across the street from kayak club storage, and a block from a river dock. Supermarket was two busses plus several blocks walking... but across the street from a river park. The river being one side of a bus-bus-river triangle. I needed paddling time anyway, so picture a kayak with a row of inflated garbage bags towed like ducklings.
- zahma 3y agoI’d go running up the tow path along the canal out of Georgetown and always wondered what the hell this random cable connecting to a barrier island (as seen in the photo) was for. I figured it was a camp or club of sorts. I knew I was approximately abreast of Langley but definitely never guessed at this. At last I have closure. It’s a very pretty area, and I imagine made for one gorgeous commute.
- BubbleRings 3y agoParticipate in the annual Potomac Downriver Race, then you will get to have fried chicken and ice cream on Sycamore Island after you complete the race in your kayak, canoe, or paddleboard. It is a very fun day!
- walrus01 3y agoThis reminds me a little bit of the main character in KSR's "science in the capitol" book series who goes semi feral in WA DC for a while, living in a tree.
- ehnto 3y agoThis depends entirely on your city, but it is a rare joy of mine that my 20km cycle commute into the CBD has a national park, a reserve, farm land and if I stretch my legs an extra kilometer, a ride next to a river. I can resonate with many of the stated benfits from the canoe commute, but I will say that even just the city sections are a huge boon to my feeling of connection over taking a car. Too many car commutes to an office can feel a bit surreal, like your world may as well be fictitious.
- ElfinTrousers 3y agoIt's great that these commuters were able to have a rich spiritual experience and a little exercise and fresh air on their way to the Dulles Memorial Society For Sociopathy.
- Grustaf 3y agoI used to commute in a tiny rowboat, it’s the best start of the day you can imagine.
- marymkearney 3y agoThis quote from the original article by Robert Sinclair, the CIA analyst, is one of the most profound things I've ever read. "What do I get out of all this? For a moment, I get to evade modern man's almost complete dependence on secondhand information....We have come to rely on what others tell us about the world beyond our narrow boxes. "The canoe commute does give me a first hand glimpse of what is going on beyond the various manmade containers I inhabit. I benefit from regular access to information that clearly is unmediated." PDF of original article embedded here: https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/09/history-of-the-cia-essay-on-the-agency-s-canoe-commute-club.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/09/history-of-the-cia-...
- dpflan 3y agoAh, so being outside in nature...
- zdragnar 3y agoEven "nature" can be deceiving. Lots of "green spaces" in big cities are equally planned, groomed and manicured into a vision that is projected into the space, as much as if not more so than their concrete and steel counterparts.
- realce 3y agoObligatory paranoia quote "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director
- frankfrankfrank 3y agoNow ask yourself if that is not the case. Or I can tell you it is. The answer remains the same.
- Scubabear68 3y agoAgree on the quote. I love that our house is bounded on three sides by 100 acres of undeveloped wilderness in Western NJ. In a two minute walk I can get away from houses, see the mountain park across the valley, hear the coyotes and owls, maybe spot a fox. At night, the stars are bright because we have no street lights here. Humanity can intrude, but even that can be sounds from a bygone era, like the steam train blowing its whistle as it’s leaving the New Hope station across the Delaware from us. There are few sounds more warming than a train whistle echoing off of valleys. By comparison it takes some getting used to driving into even moderate suburbs.