WOODFIN, N.C. (AP) - Matteo Williams, 14, hated kayaking as a kid. But he said his mom “made me do it” and now “I love it.”
His big brother, Dominique “Dom” Williams, 16, used to love kayaking but has found it hard to get back in a whitewater boat the past two years.
Both brothers were kayaking with their mom, Maria Noakes, when she died March 3, 2018, in an accident on the Cheoah River.
The sudden, tragic death changed them, and their whole family and circle of friends, said their father, Nick Williams.
But as he reflects on the two years that have passed since Noakes, 50, who was an expert kayaker and New Zealand whitewater champion, died doing what she loved, Nick believes his wife’s spirit lives on his boys and has led them to where they are today.
The brothers are doing well in school and in athletics, like their mom. Dom is the Onewheel World Champion and an accomplished standup paddle boarder, and Matteo is an expert downriver and freestyle boater who is planning to compete for New Zealand - both brothers hold dual citizenship - in the Wildwater World Championships this April at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.
In a tribute to Noakes, her dedication not only to her sons but to army of friends and classmates they had at the French Broad River Academy for Boys, the school’s co-founder and executive director, Will Yeiser, decided to name a new outdoor center at the new girls’ school campus on the river, the Noakes Center.
“It’s hard,” Nick Williams told the Citizen Times about life since his wife’s passing.
Now a single father of two teenage boys, Williams has his hands full. He runs Smoky Mountain Jet Boats, which builds the New Zealand-style boats, out of Bryson City, and lives part time in Asheville so he can be with the boys. Dom is a junior at Carolina Day School and Matteo is in eighth grade at French Broad River Academy.
And he’s doing it all without his best friend. He and Noakes were married for 17 years.
“I’m thankful for my community and friends and very honored the French Broad River Academy would name the outdoor building for Maria. It’s an incredible building,” Williams said.
The Noakes Center
The French Broad River Academy Girls School, which opened in the River Arts District in 2015, moved closer to the boys school in November, in Woodfin, on the banks of the French Broad River. In a three phase approach, the school has gone through the first phase of site prep, and the school now consists of modular buildings while a fundraising campaign is in earnest to build permanent buildings, including the Noakes Center, the second phase.
The center will be part of the new sixth-through-eighth grade girls’ school. The boys school opened in 2009. The mission of both schools is to “build character and integrity in young men and women for a lifetime of learning and service,” Yeiser said.
The private schools promote a rigorous academic curriculum and life skills, with a priority on hands-on learning, outdoors and high adventure. Spanish language classes are mandatory, as is a yearly trip to Costa Rica.
The Noakes Center will be an integral part to the girls’ school, Yeiser said. It will house trailers, canoes, paddles, a boat repair facility, storage space for camping gear and a staff locker room, which will encourage and promote staff and student bike commuting once the greenway is complete. The new Woodfin Whitewater Wave, expected to be under construction in the next couple of years, sits in between the two schools.
The third phase will be construction of the main building.
Yeiser said the 7,500-10,000-square-foot Noakes Center, partially covered and uncovered, will also be used for summer programming for elementary school students and potentially for rental to the public as a space for weddings or other outdoor events.
“We very quickly decided after Maria’s accident that we wanted to capture and honor her legacy for what she did for our students and our school community,” Yeiser said.
“We had this thought of the number of students that would ask, ‘Why is this called the Noakes Center?’ and thought of the opportunity to share her story generation after generation and her share her enthusiasm, not just for the outdoors, but her love of life and children and getting children hooked on to the things that made her life so wonderful meaningful.”
Yeiser said school directors met with the Williams family to make sure they were onboard with the idea, which they were.
The school is in process of fundraising through an online campaign and individual asks, and hope to begin construction early-to-mid-summer, Yeiser said.
So far they raised a little more than $55,000, but need to secure another $750,000 for the center.
“We have our work cut out for us,” he said. “It will be a wonderful way to honor Maria and her legacy.”
Who was Maria Noakes?
Noakes grew up on the beach in Northland, New Zealand, with her parents, John and Sue, two brothers and a sister. At age 13, she attended boarding school at Saint Cuthbert School for Girls in Auckland. She later earned a degree in occupational therapy from the Central Institute of Technology.
Williams said Noakes was a world traveler and adventurer but didn’t pick up kayaking until age 25. She learned in Nepal, where the two met in 1994.
“The first thing I noticed about her was her vivaciousness, her sparkle, her attitude,” Williams said. After a “seven-year date,” they were married.
Williams said Maria took to the wild river life quickly, winning three whitewater rafting world championships for the New Zealand national team, and was also on the country’s freestyle team.
“Not only did she love kayaking, but equally she loved travel. Before she became a kayaker, she hitchhiked from Poland to Cape Town and traveled extensively all over the place,” Williams said.
“That was a big part of her life. She was trained as an occupational therapist in New Zealand, worked in London for six months out of the year to make money, then traveled for six months, through Africa and South America.
“She worked at a resort in Chamonix, France, for a season as a valet girl. She cooked and cleaned, served breakfast and dinner, then went skiing. She went to Nepal after that. The kayaking really gave her the impetus. She paddled, Europe, Africa, Asia, Laos and Cambodia, Peru. She had a group of clients she would take every year.”
The couple moved to Bryson City to raise their family, run their business and spend as much time as possible on Western North Carolina’s whitewater rivers.
Both sons attended the French Broad River Academy, where Noakes quickly became the de facto outdoor coordinator, Yeiser said.
“There was rarely was a weekend where she did not pull up with her truck filled with kayaks, gear, and a gaggle of French Broad River students and would take off to West Virginia for three-day kayaking trip or to Cataloochee to go skiing,” Yeiser said.
When the girls school opened, Noakes donated her time there as well.
“She was not only a mother, but an inspiration for a lot of the aspiring young female kayakers. They don’t kayak as much as males do, so she was a real inspiration, to get behind the stereotype. What she did for female kayakers was phenomenal,” he said.
Maria the mom
By all accounts from those who knew her best, Noakes was also a phenomenal mom.
Dominique said he was a little lost after his mom died and wasn’t sure he wanted to get back in a whitewater boat. His father said he “went around to grieving aunts and uncles at Maria’s celebration of life, asking for donations,” and bought his first OneWheel – a type of electric skateboard he had seen at SUP events and was always curious about.
Dom said the sport is similar to kayaking in the need for balance. He took to it so quickly, he became “World Champion” at the OneWheel Race for the Rails in Lake Tahoe.
He also won a race at last year’s FloatLife Fest at the Oskar Blue’s Reeb Ranch in Brevard, the largest gathering of OneWheelers in the country.
“I’ve fallen a lot. I broke my elbow and had to get surgery, I got hit by a car and got a concussion. It’s so fun,” he said.
Dom also stand-up paddleboards in races across the country, in everything from Class 1-4 whitewater. He won the men’s SUP division at the Glacier Breaker March 1 on the Nantahala River.
“My plan is to go to college in New Zealand and get an engineering degree. These sports are so small and I hope they grow, but right now they’re not a big deal,” Dom said, as far as making a career out of them.
He has become quite handy with the electrical parts of OneWheels and enjoys buying old ones and fixing them up.
“I think my mom instilled an idea that if you’re not good at something, work until you’re good at it. She instilled a good work ethic,” Dom said. “Her passion set an example for me. She was a very loving and passionate person about the things she loved.”
Matteo said he started kayaking with his mom at age 5. Growing up minutes from the Nantahala River, where the Freestyle World Championships were held in 2013 on the Nantahala Outdoor Center campus, freestyle - in which paddlers maneuver a short boat in a whitewater “wave,” doing tricks such as going vertical and flipping over and over - became his expertise.
“I compete a lot. I’m going to try to do the Freestyle World Championships in England next year,” said Matteo, who turns 15 this year. “
“I learned from my mom. I used to hate kayaking and she made me do it and now I love it,” he said. What he learned most from his mother, he said, was “her positive mood. She was always in a good mood.”
The family started a “Live Like Maria” fund through the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, to honor her indomitable passion for life, directed into causes close to her heart, including paddling instruction and outdoor experiences for youth, river conservation and access, and empowering women in outdoor adventure.
Williams said he couldn’t have made it through the last couple of years without an army of help.
“Keeping everything together is a challenge,” he said. “The community has been amazing. I have ‘sister moms,’ friends like Julie Porter-Shirley who picks up Matteo every day and takes him to school and makes sure he’s getting his homework done. Her husband Ken is an avid paddler and biker and takes the kids paddling.”
He said each boy is handling their mom’s death in their own way, but being in the small class settings at Carolina Day and French Broad Academy, where they get a lot of attention, has been a lifesaver.
“Everybody processes it differently at different times. It’s not like, this month we’re going to process mom’s death,” he said. “They both realize they’re independent and need to make good choices. Their peer group is really good. It’s hard to go off the rails when you’re paddling or riding a OneWheel all the time.”
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