LUMBERTON — The river swallowed Kevin Morazan in a splash of gold water. In a moment, he bobbed to the dark surface of the Lumber River, his yellow life preserver bunched around his ears as the kayak floated away beneath the overhanging trees.

Mac Legerton called for Morazan to head for the bank. Legerton levered himself out of his red canoe, stepping into the lukewarm water, and helped Morazan re-load himself.

Lodging their sneakers against the sloping bank, they flipped and tipped the kayak to drain it of the river water. Once a dripping Morazan had been re-installed, Legerton directed the group of kayakers and canoers to paddle up river.

The beavers and cypress trees were waiting.

The way of the river

“I love this river. It’s so peaceful,” Legerton said. “And it changes every time because of the level of the water and what you can see.”

Legerton is the executive director of the Center for Community Action, which owns and operates River Way, an outdoor adventure and education center opened in 2003. The center sits on a four-acre lot on the banks of the Lumber River donated and purchased from the R.M. Skipper family.

It strives to educate about nature and get people out on the river to experience it. A brochure about River Way, which is paid for by grants and donations, attributes the center’s name to its mission: “There is so much to learn about life from and through the river: Its beauty, mystery and power; its slow, plodding, ever-changing and external nature; and the diverse and amazing life that the river supports, protects and sustains. The way of the river is one of our most powerful teachers on the meaning and purpose of life. Thus, the name River Way.”

River Way guides often accompany groups, pointing out snakes, frogs, dragonflies, beaver dams, cypress trees, swamp grass, kingfishers, woodpeckers, submerged trees and elephant ear plants.

“Where there’s a lot of water, there’s life,” Legerton said, talking more about the 100-year-old cypress trees that line the river’s banks in places. “You can ask a tree anything about the meaning of life and if you really listen, they will tell you.”

River Way tours start at $10 a person for a two to four hours. Kayaks and canoes can be rented for $10 to $20.

“That’s because we want to provide the opportunity for as many people as possible to get out and enjoy the river ...,” Legerton said, “... to re-orient youth and adults to nature and recover their connection to the natural world. ... The Lumber River is a very sacred place.”

Last week Legerton and program Director Justin Caulder took their summer youth workers — Molefi Ramos, Miles Saulters, Keith Murchison, Kevin Morazan and Gary Love — out on the river with Christie Poteet, Chika Kusakawa and Emanuel Hunt from The University of North Carolina at Pembroke’s Center for Leadership and Service.

Legerton said a few of his teenage workers had been apprehensive about the trip, but fear fades quickly on the river.

“Either they’re focused on havin’ a good time or they’re too scared,” he said.

‘Experiencing the river’

“We live around the river,” Kim Pevia said. “We talk about the river. We know about the river, but being on the river is experiencing the river. ... I didn’t know that level of sanctuary and peace and respite was that close.”

Pevia traversed the river for the first time in July. It was a physical, emotional, spritiual and mental experience, she said. The trip was cathartic and reminscent of the “old ways.”

“It was the most enriching experience,” she said. “What I’ve been telling people about is the difference between owning a book and reading a book. ... I could feel the past and all the things that had been there and all the way into the future. The continual gift of the river.”

Pevia had talked about the river in her work as coordinator for the Southeast Entrepreneurial Alliance at UNCP, yet she had not gone. Now she talks differently about the Lumber.

“I can feel it,” she said. “There’s a deepening in my voice, a richer level. ... It’s not an amusement park. It’s natural. It’s organic. It’s our past, our future.”

For Caulder, the river is his past and his future. As he paddled a canoe down the Lumber River last week, he talked about the stress he felt in the past working at Lowe’s. He joined River Way as a full-time employee in September 2007 and he loves his work.

“I’m working right now,” he told the passenger of his canoe, gliding the vessel forward with slow, strong strokes of his paddle.

Legerton talked about similar feelings as he sent his canoe beneath the overhanging trees. Safely dodging branches is part of the adventure, Legerton said.

“I’m lovin’ this. Working with people stresses me out but this relaxes me. ... The wind feels wonderful. I’m not paying attention, starting to enjoy the environment,” Legerton said as he pushed the canoe off a log he hadn’t noticed. “I love the way the river widens up, then narrows.”

River Way has had more than 15,000 visitors in six years.

Mickey Gregory lived in Robeson County for 27 years before meeting the Lumber River. River Way and a leadership class through the Lumberton Area Chamber of Commerce sent her paddling recently.

“I think that’s one of the best ways I’ve spent a day in a long time,” she said, lamenting that no one had told her to bring along her fishing pole. “... What a cheap way for wonderful entertainment. It’s almost like taking a trip back in history.”

Gregory said she thought about her ancestors coming to the new world and guessed the river would have looked much the same in the 1700s as it does now.

“It’s so pristine and quiet,” she said.

She also saw some of the river’s snakes during her tour.

“It’s kinda interesting to go along and see how they blend into their surroundings,” she said. “... That was a great day, just filled with natural beauty. Just made you appreciate our county and city.”

Gregory said the river makes its travelers forget everything. It gives peace, and it takes — mostly Legerton’s glasses. He’s lost two pairs to the black water. Now he secures them with a string.

Sarah Freeman is another river traveler who loved the trip she terms “quite delightful.”

“It was very interesting ...” she said. “It’s something I would encourage outdoor people to do.”

She especially liked the information guides give about animals and plants that live along the water. Freeman grew up in Robeson County and spent hours on, in and near the river.

“I learned how to swim in the river,” she said, remembering that there were no pools for swimming lessons.

A river runs through it

For 115 miles in the Carolinas, the Lumber River flows through Montgomery, Moore, Richmond, Scotland, Robeson and Hoke counties. Nineteenth-century poet John Charles McNeill said the river’s original name was Lumbee, meaning “black water.”

The river is actually a gold color, Legerton said. Decomposing leaves on the bottom turn the river into one of the few black water rivers in the natural and scenic river system.

“It’s a slow-moving, black water river,” Legerton said. The river’s velocity is about two to four miles per hour.

In 1809, the North Carolina General Assembly changed the river’s name to the Lumber. Currently, the Lumbee Tribal Council is asking the state to change the river’s name back to Lumbee.

The Lumber River was once jammed with floating logs and barges moving lumber to Georgetown, S.C., Legerton said.

The river is designated as a natural and scenic river under the North Carolina Natural and Scenic Rivers Act. The law protects and preserves rivers that have exceptional faucets of education, recreation, history, wildlife, culture, science and scenery for the benefit of North Carolinians.

The Lumber joins the Little Pee Dee River in South Carolina, then the Great Pee Dee River which flows into the Winyah Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Floating to the ocean would take eight or nine days, Legerton estimated.

Sharing the river

“Why is everybody not coming to Lumberton to take advantage of that?” said Gregory, who is the executive director of the Lumberton Visitors Bureau.

The bureau is working to place more emphasis on what the river has to offer county residents and visitors. They are re-designing brochures, working with the county and a tourism group, mentioning the river in advertisements and sending letters to tour directors.

“There’s like 55,000 vehicles that travel down 95 each day and out of those 55,000 a lot of those are bus groups and we see them stop at our restaurants all the time,” she said.

What if the groups stopped and saw the river, too?

“We already have people spending the night in Lumberton so they can get out on the river,” Legerton said.

Legerton said about 20 percent of River Way’s visitors come from outside the county.

“It’s nice to get out in an area that seems to belong entirely to nature,” she said. “I think that’s something that people are looking for now. They want to get back to basics. ... We can offer that to visitors with our river.”

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If you go ...

— Tours start at $10 a person for a two to four hours. Kayaks and canoes can be rented for $10 to $20. Overnight camping trips, eco-river tours and medicinal native plant walks are also available.

— River Way also hosts gatherings, field trips and reunions.

— River Way is located on Kingsdale Boulevard near Chippewa Street in Lumberton.

— Call (910) 736-5573 or (910) 736-9352. Or e-mail Mac Legerton at mac_cca@bellsouth.net.