{"id":25323,"date":"2021-08-15T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T08:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=25323"},"modified":"2021-08-20T17:38:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T00:38:22","slug":"river-warriors-anne-stevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2021\/08\/15\/river-warriors-anne-stevens\/","title":{"rendered":"River Warriors: Anne Stevens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fear. It\u2019s possibly our most primal emotion. It can immobilize or inspire\u2014push or paralyze. Fear is an emotion that whitewater kayakers have a unique relationship with, and everyone deals with it differently. While it may appear to onlookers that all whitewater kayakers have \u201cno fear,\u201d everyone who puts a paddle in whitewater negotiates a myriad of head games spiked with a tinge of fear. For Anne Stevens, fear is a big part of whitewater kayaking\u2014and she\u2019s not afraid to admit it! But she doesn\u2019t let fear stop her from progressing and living a life saturated in whitewater. Her ability to push past the fear and use it fuel her paddling, her professional life and her dedication to protecting rivers, makes the four-letter \u2018f\u2019 word, her ally not her enemy.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Vera Knook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anne grew up in the rainy flatlands of Northern Germany, where kayaking meant touring the flatwater channels. \u201cI wasn\u2019t a particularly sporty kid and, I didn\u2019t like kayaking at first,\u201d Anne says with her endearing, no-bullshit honesty. Born in the city of Jena and raised in Emden, water has always surrounded her. Like fellow German kayaker and close friend Marieke Vogt<\/a>, Anne\u2019s mom first introduced her to kayaking, when she, a former competitive flatwater kayaker in East Germany, took Anne on training runs with her in a tandem kayak.<\/p>\n

A few years later, Anne got her own kayak, met paddle-wielding kids her age, and started paddling adventures of her own with the local kayak club, including multiday kayak camping trips. Those first multi-days exploring the German coast and some of Germany\u2019s bigger rivers, like the Rhein, Weser and Elbe, bound Anne to water. \u201cEven though those trips were neither whitewater nor proper wilderness trips, I really enjoyed\u2014and do so, even more, today\u2014how rivers bring you to places that you can only access and experience from a boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an appetite for kayaking, camping, and river adventures, it was only a matter of time before the whitewater bug bit. \u201cI was 13 when I went whitewater kayaking in Tyrol with my kayak club, and I was instantly hooked,\u201d she says. \u201cSoon after, I think my mom regretted ever putting me in kayak,\u201d laughs Anne, alluding to her current life of non-stop travel and roughly 100 river days a year.<\/p>\n