Wildlife and plant life are plentiful on the Wood River, as South County Regional Editor Alan Rosenberg, right, learned during a recent sojourn with Denise Poyer of the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

The reaction when I announced I would be kayaking down the Wood River was not exactly what I was hoping for.

My boss laughed when she heard it. And she wasn’t the only one.

“You’re kidding me,” my wife said. “You’re not exactly … the kayaking type.”

Well, okay, I’m not. I’m not an outdoorsman; I’d rather exercycle than try to ride a bike. And though I enjoy seeing the water from a good-size motorboat, the last time I’d tried to paddle anything was about four decades ago, at a YMCA camp in Lake Villa, Ill. I was in a one-person canoe and got hopelessly stuck in the reeds at the edge of the lake.

But when I met Denise Poyer, program director of Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association, while on a tour of Hope Valley this winter, and she invited me to come back in the summer to paddle the Wood — well, how could I say no?

In fact, I was looking forward to it –– enough that I made a note in my calendar to phone Poyer when the weather got warmer and set up a date when she, a Journal photographer and I could take on the mighty river.

OKAY, SO THE mighty Wood is about a foot and a half deep where we put in, two miles north of the Watershed Association’s headquarters at Barberville Dam. And the water does not roar; it slips silently toward its meeting with the Pawcatuck, on its way to Watch Hill’s Little Narragansett Bay.

But I am nonetheless dressed for the occasion. Not just in a swimsuit and T-shirt, with a baseball cap and all the SPF 30 sunblock I can slather on me. Poyer, who has been taking people out on the river for a dozen years, insists on life jackets being worn by everyone who goes with her.

“I’m a stickler for that,” she says. People go out on boats and insist that it’s enough to have the life jacket nearby, she says. But if you need it, you’ll need it in a hurry, and there won’t be time to put it on.

Poyer pulls the sides together tightly enough that I begin to have an inkling of what it was like to be a woman in one of those 1890s whalebone corsets. But it’s not too uncomfortable — and I’m pretty sure I won’t come out of it if I happen to overturn the kayak.

Which is a possibility.

Poyer gives us a quick overview of the Wood-Pawcatuck watershed — it encompasses an impressive 300 square miles, which means that all the rain that falls on 25 percent of Rhode Island eventually ends up in these rivers. And then she offers an equally quick lesson in paddling, with emphasis on how to hold the paddles; how to turn your torso to get added power; and what to do when you encounter a low-hanging obstacle.

You don’t lean out of the way, because that’s how you will upset these sturdy boats. Instead, you duck.

I promise to try to remember.

THE WOOD RIVER starts in Sterling, Conn.; changes its name to the Falls River when it crosses the state line into Exeter; then meets the Flat River in West Greenwich and turns back into the Wood. Thirty-eight miles from its source, it joins the Pawcatuck — which has started its own 50-mile journey at Worden Pond — at Wood River Junction. Together, under the Pawcatuck name, they head for Little Narragansett Bay.

Of the Wood River’s 38 miles, Poyer has initially suggested we paddle 4, which should take a couple of hours. Once I have fully briefed her on my kayaking abilities, however, she decides that half as much, a tour lasting perhaps an hour, will be ample.

Danielle Aube, the group’s program assistant, drives us to the Arcadia Management Area, bouncing along dirt roads until we reach The Pines, where there are steps down to the water. The steps — both a way to get to the water and a device for controlling erosion that might be caused by too many people walking to the water — were built by Lawson Cary, a longtime volunteer environmentalist and enthusiast for the river. Cary died only a few weeks ago, and Poyer is still emotional as she talks about him, her eyes welling with tears.

We carry our kayaks to the water, which is brown — the result of tannin from fallen trees and leaves, Poyer says — but beautifully clear. The Wood is pristine, Poyer says, which doesn’t mean that its water is drinkable — you shouldn’t drink any untreated surface water, she says — but that it has the ability to support all of its native plants and animals, and has very little human contact. About 20 years ago, she says, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the Wood had a greater diversity of species than any other river in New England.

We glide along, and the paddling really isn’t too difficult. There are logs sticking into the river — trees fall, and sometimes humans remove parts of them, and sometimes not; the logs are part of the river, too. But you can make your way around them without too much trouble.

Oddly enough, the first species we encounter that inspires me to remove my notebook and pen from their plastic bag is man.

MORE PRECISELY, fisherman — a retired police captain from Woonsocket named Jack Samek.

Samek, 59, is standing in the river with his fishing pole, the water up to mid-thigh. He’s not wearing waders, though the water temperature is probably in the 50s; on this hot day, he’s enjoying the cold water. And he’s glad to talk about the river.

“I’ve got some strong feelings,” he says. “This is a real treasure. And it’s fantastic that the state has acquired it.”

The Nature Conservancy of Rhode Island not so long ago bought the river’s headwaters, 1,040 acres in West Greenwich, with a combination of state and federal funds, and money from the Champlin charitable foundation and the Town of West Greenwich. But that’s not what Samek is talking about. He’s just thrilled with those who, long ago, created the Arcadia Management Area.

“The state was so wise when they acquired it,” he says. “This place would all be developed. There would be roads and cul-de-sacs everywhere.”

Samek brings his Labrador retriever, Samantha, with him when he’s just walking the river, but he leaves the dog at home when he’s fishing. “Fishing and Labs don’t mix too well, with hooks flying around and all,” he explains. “She sees a fish and she thinks it’s something she’s supposed to grab.”

Samek is a dedicated fisherman, and the Wood this day has been freshly stocked with trout, which are what he’s seeking. But, he says, like most who fish the river, he does it not for food but for the sport, what’s known as “catch and release.”

Attracted by the river’s natural beauty, he often takes photos of it, too.

“It blows me away every time I come here,” he says. “What a place to relax.”

AND, IN FACT, I find that kayaking really is relaxing. You can paddle for a while, then drift for a few moments while you take in the sights, sounds and smells of the river.

There are birds — a family of wood ducks swimming, another of black ducks, a belted kingfisher in flight. Catbirds, too, whose whining call we can hear, even if we can’t see them.

There are flowers — white swamp azaleas; the yellow blossom that signals the health-food-store staple, St. John’s wort; and sweet-smelling swamp roses, as fragrant and red as their florist-shop cousins, but growing wild along the riverbanks.

There are turtles, sunning themselves on rocks and logs. “They climb up on anything,” Poyer says.

There are hovering dragonflies, like little helicopters, one of whom takes a few seconds to sun itself on the prow of my kayak.

There are plants, in and out of the water — soldier-straight reeds, wafting water celery, and the trees that make the first part of our journey wonderfully shady, my sunblock for the moment unnecessary.

Poyer, who says she can identify about 200 of the 2,000 plant species you find in Rhode Island, tells a story that links the plants of modern world with the landscape the early American colonists knew, and to the era of the dinosaurs.

It seems that in Colonial times, the best, tallest white pines were reserved for the king of England. Marked with the king’s “broad arrow,” they were known as the “king’s pines;” the practice of keeping them from the colonists, she says, was one of the factors that led to the American Revolution.

In the shadow of the king’s pines grew smaller “prince’s pines,” really plants called lycopodium ferns — unchanged from 65 million years ago.

As we paddle, those “prince’s pines” are visible all around us.

FROM TIME to time, Poyer reminds me to duck, not lean, out of the way of trees, so I don’t end up overturning the boat. At her suggestion, I dip a finger in the water. It’s cold — probably about 55 degrees, she says.

“That’s a good reason not to try to fall in,” she says. “But it would refresh you.”

It’s good for the fish, too, because cold water has more oxygen. The Wood’s cold water is part of what makes it such a good environment for fish, especially for trout.

The river, which has been between 12 and 20 feet wide for most of our trip, now begins to get wider and deeper as we leave the Arcadia Management Area, heading for what Poyer refers to, with a certain resignation in her voice, as “civilization.” Houses appear on the shores, and there’s far less shade; I’m glad for my cap and sunblock after all.

The influence of people on the river, in fact, is seen in its very size, about 6 feet deep and 30 feet across. The increased size is caused as water backs up behind the Barberville Dam.

“It’s still very scenic,” says Poyer, “but to me there’s a jarring difference.”

WE REACH our destination, the Watershed Association headquarters just above the dam. And I feel triumphant.

I haven’t overturned the kayak. Other than a few twinges in my lower back, I don’t feel any strain (and I won’t feel it the next day, either). And I’ve had a great time.

True, our “one-hour trip” has taken 2½ hours, in part because I’ve stopped paddling every so often to take notes, but mostly because I’m, shall we say, a little slower than the kayakers the patient Poyer is used to leading.

But I’ve kayaked the Wood, and lived to tell the tale. And I’m just a little envious of Poyer.

As we’ve paddled along, she’s pointed out places where a sandbar has shifted, a tree has fallen, a plant’s flowers have already bloomed or have not yet blossomed. “Next week, that’s going to be a sea of white lilies,” she said at one point.

The river, she says, is a living thing, never the same week to week, let alone season to season or year to year. And she gets to see it in all its moods.

I may just have to come back some time for another look.

For more information about the Wood River, call the Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association at (401) 539-9017, or go to www.wpwa.org.

arosenbe@projo.com