When I float down a river, especially a river in canyon country, the timelessness is visceral. Time takes on entirely new dimensions. I look up and the walls I see could easily be those of 100 years ago, or 100 years from now. Or they could be entirely different tomorrow, changed entirely by a flash flood or rockfall. As I look at the scene around me as a float, ever frame of every second is different. The perspective constantly shifting as my boat glides along, the splashes of droplets and the sun’s glint on the water constantly dancing, never still. But this feeling only exists on rivers that are protected and run free. When a river is dammed, or built upon, or diverted, it becomes just another part of our structured, human world. And time on the river feels plain