Showing posts with label Mississippi River. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mississippi River. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
October 23: Portage key
I have been feasting on my can goods to try to make the portages lighter, since I am sure to hit a town at least once a week, and assuming I can resolve my banking situation I can buy a week's worth of food in each. What I do is grab cans from the bottom of the bag: stuff I don't like as much or has lost its label. Cook up a couple cans and if by the third I haven't hit my regimen of carbs and protein, make some mac and cheese, adding tuna if necessary.
Today's marked portage was at the end of Cass Lake, a recreational lake, and its Knutson's Dam a recreational dam. It turned out to be open and safe to shoot, saving me a 300 yard portage! This inspired a code for my portage page, OOO, for Open, 0 foot drop, and 0 issues.
What's a portage page? There are a lot of portages and to keep my spirits up I made a list of them in the back of my notebook, writing little codes next to each one; the final key becoming as follows:
Today's marked portage was at the end of Cass Lake, a recreational lake, and its Knutson's Dam a recreational dam. It turned out to be open and safe to shoot, saving me a 300 yard portage! This inspired a code for my portage page, OOO, for Open, 0 foot drop, and 0 issues.
What's a portage page? There are a lot of portages and to keep my spirits up I made a list of them in the back of my notebook, writing little codes next to each one; the final key becoming as follows:
- xT: x number of Trips
- xE: x number of Eggs
- xP: x number of People seen
- SG: Slid canoe on Grass
- DF: saw a Dead Fish
- OOO: Open 0 foot drop 0 issues
- S: Scouted ahead
- BP: lifted boat with Bungeed Paddles
- FLH: Felt Like Hell
- FC: Found Crack
- GP: Gouged Pavement?
- RR: Rest Room
- RN: ReNamed?
- xH: x # people Helped
Day 124 ended: a little spot of sand half covered in snail shells on the shore of Winnibigoshish, a mile north of the river.
I am betting strongly on no significant rain or wind tonight. All my stuff is close together very close to the shore, with the intent that I can get going very early in the morning. I hope this bet pays off.
October 22, Part 2: Staying dry
I don't know how other people do it, so I must invent as I go, Although it essentially rained all [the previous] day, spirits remained high until my hands and feet began feeling hopelessly cold and wet. The rest of my body was thankfully covered in Gore-Tex. It's a mystery that I can walk in the water in the Gore-Tex boots I had and my feet did not get wet, but a day of rain leaves them soaking.
My hands, though, felt warmer at the end of the day than at any time during it -- looking ancient, shriveled, wrinkled. It will be a while before I have a chance, but I simply must find a pair of gloves that will work decently, and then probably a couple extra pairs of socks. I currently have 5 pairs of socks, and wore 3 during the rainy day, leave only a couple of pairs for later.
I use a tent for the night, since it appears the rest of the campsites lack the 3-wall shelters. I hang my flashlight from the top of the tent by a string, and tonight several socks and gloves are tied up in it in hopes that swaying above me all night will help them dry faster. With every reason to expect continuing rain, if I remain stationary for even a day at this point freezing is the more urgent concern. I suppose other canoeists suffer the cold and wet much like I do.
The good news? I discovered my hair had grown long enough to lay flat in my Tilley hat the Kings gave me, which fit well again throughout the long rainy day.
Day 123 ended: Star Island campsite (by the lake inside the island inside the lake)
My hands, though, felt warmer at the end of the day than at any time during it -- looking ancient, shriveled, wrinkled. It will be a while before I have a chance, but I simply must find a pair of gloves that will work decently, and then probably a couple extra pairs of socks. I currently have 5 pairs of socks, and wore 3 during the rainy day, leave only a couple of pairs for later.
I use a tent for the night, since it appears the rest of the campsites lack the 3-wall shelters. I hang my flashlight from the top of the tent by a string, and tonight several socks and gloves are tied up in it in hopes that swaying above me all night will help them dry faster. With every reason to expect continuing rain, if I remain stationary for even a day at this point freezing is the more urgent concern. I suppose other canoeists suffer the cold and wet much like I do.
The good news? I discovered my hair had grown long enough to lay flat in my Tilley hat the Kings gave me, which fit well again throughout the long rainy day.
Day 123 ended: Star Island campsite (by the lake inside the island inside the lake)
Monday, April 22, 2013
October 22, Part 1: Wolf Lake
Before me stretched the shoreline. I searched carefully for the outlet of the river, but I was having difficulty, even when consulting the map. A forest stretched from the left to straight ahead, finally broken by docks and houses which continued to the right. A third of the way from the right side of that subdivision was a white house that had caught my eye as I approached. A road extended to the right of this, even beyond where the houses ended, and I had seen a car driving on this road vanish in the vicinity of the white house.
Somewhere ahead had to be the river. Here's a one-question quiz to see if you've understood everything I've written so far about navigation. Where did I need to go? Where was the river?
a) Left of the houses
b) Near the white house
c) Right of the houses
The answer is after the break.
Somewhere ahead had to be the river. Here's a one-question quiz to see if you've understood everything I've written so far about navigation. Where did I need to go? Where was the river?
a) Left of the houses
b) Near the white house
c) Right of the houses
The answer is after the break.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
October 20, Part 2: I am a spaceship
I am a spaceship hovering over some alien planet. Below me is a foreign geography composed of black forested continents stretched in light sandy oceans. The atmosphere of this place is seen to have an intricate web-like pattern of light and dark clouds, illuminated by the constant showers of meteors which falling into the planet's air, join it, leaving only ripples on the surface. Occasionally some black mass of life rises up off the sea and floats, speeding across below me -- a true flying island.
Black holes and nebulae burst out like living boils thrust upward from undersea currents, and in the deep space of exploding stars, cosmic spiders scour the surface for unlucky prey, as the naked boughs of trees drape over my head. I am a canoe, and the water is dark, large, and living.
Day 121 ended: ???
Black holes and nebulae burst out like living boils thrust upward from undersea currents, and in the deep space of exploding stars, cosmic spiders scour the surface for unlucky prey, as the naked boughs of trees drape over my head. I am a canoe, and the water is dark, large, and living.
Day 121 ended: ???
Saturday, April 20, 2013
October 21: Stump Lake
Is it any wonder why they called it Stump Lake? Not really. A hundred beavers the size of bears had once roamed the place, taking down the biggest trees first and schewing the sides, face-up, flat as a board. If someone were to come in and rotate these board 180 degrees, they'd chew the other side too, then you could ship these to a hardware store and sell them.
I wandered through the wreckage forever looking for the "Stump Lake" camp site that showed up on the map somewhere around the bend. I decided I was intelligent, but just not intelligent enough to solve the riddle of the lake -- until a couple bends later I finally found it just before the sun set, and froze my fingers writing about the experience so you could read it.
The thing is, the real beaver story comes later.
Day 122 ended: Stump Lake Campground
I wandered through the wreckage forever looking for the "Stump Lake" camp site that showed up on the map somewhere around the bend. I decided I was intelligent, but just not intelligent enough to solve the riddle of the lake -- until a couple bends later I finally found it just before the sun set, and froze my fingers writing about the experience so you could read it.
The thing is, the real beaver story comes later.
Day 122 ended: Stump Lake Campground
Friday, April 19, 2013
October 20, Part 1: The grocery portage
Plastic bags just love to loose my food all over the ground. I want to carry less food, not more. More towns, more portages, less need to carry three weeks worth. I'm not sure I can afford it, anyway. Pick up a tin, put it in a different bag - bit more than shreds of plastic. Hold my new fuel can in one hand, a barrel of oats under the arm. When the first bag ripped, it was easy enough to redistribute to the other three. When the second one fell apart -- obviously I was having difficulty but no one was going to just pull over and help. With the last hundred yards to go on my mile trek back from the grocery store, under the unthinking gaze of Paul Bunyan and Babe I dumped it all on the shore and walked to the canoe.
I came back in the boat to pick up my things, when a woman came running out of her car.
"Excuse me, do you need a plastic bag?"
"Oh, thanks!"
"I tried giving it to you earlier, but..."
-- but I knew no one was going to help.
Day 121 continues.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
October 19, Part 3: Drinking and shooting #2
After I'd been there a while a hunter and his girlfriend dropped by the campsite, dressed in camo and day-glo orange -- a combination I have yet to understand. The boy had a rifle, and he said he was hunting for grouse.
I told him about the litterbug I'd seen when he mentioned that he often stopped by this site to cut wood and clean up trash. Around when I said "the good people in the world outnumber the bad," he finally put his gun down, laying it against the shelter. They talked with me for a couple more minutes and then left, the girlfriend smiling at me.
It wasn't until later I realized I may have interrupted something a bit more serious than grouse hunting.
Day 120 ended: Fox Trap campsite.
I told him about the litterbug I'd seen when he mentioned that he often stopped by this site to cut wood and clean up trash. Around when I said "the good people in the world outnumber the bad," he finally put his gun down, laying it against the shelter. They talked with me for a couple more minutes and then left, the girlfriend smiling at me.
It wasn't until later I realized I may have interrupted something a bit more serious than grouse hunting.
Day 120 ended: Fox Trap campsite.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
October 19, Part 2: Mazes
When I was young and the grass was tall, my dad used to mow mazes in it for us kids to run around in. The grass was never so tall that I couldn't see ahead of me; in fact, the hardest was when it was short already, and the height difference was too subtle to see much further than my feet.
The marshes of this early Mississippi are like a giant grass maze -- except here the consequences for making the wrong decision are greater than in my old back yard. The river is black and the walls are silver-gold, to high to see far at any fork.
As long as I follow the current I should eventually find my way down the face of America. But even a weak wind obscures this, and I must rely on other clues. If I can see plants beneath me, these usually point in the direction of the seepage, being unaffected by the air above me. Since the water is low, some plants that normally would be submerged stick up just above the surface and testify to their history.
Such strong clues are rare. Often I try to watch tiny seeds and bubbles on the edge of the channel to see which way they float. They are stuck to the water and even in an opposing wind stubbornly drift against the waves. I have to be careful, though, because if these marks lay in some subtle eddy they lend the wrong impression -- and if I get too close, I affect the flow.
The windborn waves have subtle differences depending on whether they flow with or against the water. When these forces are in sync, the surface flows smooth, but pit them against each other and it grows rougher. This can best be seen at the corner of a sharp meander where you can look out and see both effects at once.
I even try to observe the tiny V-shaped ripples that form around a blade of grass; the wind stretches these into lazy U's or obscures them altogether.
Despite all the clues in my detective kit, the channels in the marsh are not well-defined and offer many decisions. I do not always make the right one. At one point I was sure of having made the wrong one: the same log, the same dead trees -- and yet a little later I found myself bursting out into another marsh where the mallards had hidden, flushing one and two and ten at a time until over a hundred raced away, flying to (and yelling about) places I could not follow.
Day 120 continues.
The marshes of this early Mississippi are like a giant grass maze -- except here the consequences for making the wrong decision are greater than in my old back yard. The river is black and the walls are silver-gold, to high to see far at any fork.
As long as I follow the current I should eventually find my way down the face of America. But even a weak wind obscures this, and I must rely on other clues. If I can see plants beneath me, these usually point in the direction of the seepage, being unaffected by the air above me. Since the water is low, some plants that normally would be submerged stick up just above the surface and testify to their history.
Such strong clues are rare. Often I try to watch tiny seeds and bubbles on the edge of the channel to see which way they float. They are stuck to the water and even in an opposing wind stubbornly drift against the waves. I have to be careful, though, because if these marks lay in some subtle eddy they lend the wrong impression -- and if I get too close, I affect the flow.
The windborn waves have subtle differences depending on whether they flow with or against the water. When these forces are in sync, the surface flows smooth, but pit them against each other and it grows rougher. This can best be seen at the corner of a sharp meander where you can look out and see both effects at once.
I even try to observe the tiny V-shaped ripples that form around a blade of grass; the wind stretches these into lazy U's or obscures them altogether.
Despite all the clues in my detective kit, the channels in the marsh are not well-defined and offer many decisions. I do not always make the right one. At one point I was sure of having made the wrong one: the same log, the same dead trees -- and yet a little later I found myself bursting out into another marsh where the mallards had hidden, flushing one and two and ten at a time until over a hundred raced away, flying to (and yelling about) places I could not follow.
Day 120 continues.
October 19, Part 1: Drinking and shooting #1
I floated lazily past a site covered in beer cans, deep in remorse over the loss of my wheels. Around the bend I realized that although I had little choice but to go on, I could atone for the environmental impact by cleaning up garbage on the way. It was already too late for the beer cans I had seen, but not too much further I saw a can of Mountain Dew in the river, so I scooped it up with my paddle and dumped it in the canoe.
Further on I heard motors, and thought there must be 4-wheelers in the woods nearby. Nope. Three camouflaged boats were stopped, pulled up in the grasses as their motors scared the birds away and a man threw beer cans in the grass while two boys, bones lost in flesh, looked on.
"Hey!" I shouted, and the man, face all pinched in under the bill of his cap muttered something in a manly mumble. He had already undone my good deed for the day, but I didn't have much hope of changing the mind of a man who'd been drinking and hunting and paddled on.
A small flock of Tundra Swan, five, were in the air, and other birds were in the water. It was strange, it had been awhile since I'd seen any Canada geese, but there was a lonely one sitting there in the water, right by a mallard drake in breeding plumage, and a female as well, and more birds all around me. There was something very odd about these birds. They were grouped oddly. And they weren't moving. I was surrounded by a flock of 20 waterfowl, placed randomly by someone with an eye for variety but not the natural behavior of birds. I escaped before I was mistaken for a live one -- an all too likely possibility, given the hunters I'd seen along the river so far.
I picked more cans out of the water until I made up for the drunk hunter's waste, though not yet mine. When I got to the camp site there was a bird there -- it didn't move, although it was real; it was dead and its retinas were peeling from its bloody face. I scooped it up with my paddle and dumped it in the water.
Day 120 continues.
Further on I heard motors, and thought there must be 4-wheelers in the woods nearby. Nope. Three camouflaged boats were stopped, pulled up in the grasses as their motors scared the birds away and a man threw beer cans in the grass while two boys, bones lost in flesh, looked on.
"Hey!" I shouted, and the man, face all pinched in under the bill of his cap muttered something in a manly mumble. He had already undone my good deed for the day, but I didn't have much hope of changing the mind of a man who'd been drinking and hunting and paddled on.
A small flock of Tundra Swan, five, were in the air, and other birds were in the water. It was strange, it had been awhile since I'd seen any Canada geese, but there was a lonely one sitting there in the water, right by a mallard drake in breeding plumage, and a female as well, and more birds all around me. There was something very odd about these birds. They were grouped oddly. And they weren't moving. I was surrounded by a flock of 20 waterfowl, placed randomly by someone with an eye for variety but not the natural behavior of birds. I escaped before I was mistaken for a live one -- an all too likely possibility, given the hunters I'd seen along the river so far.
I picked more cans out of the water until I made up for the drunk hunter's waste, though not yet mine. When I got to the camp site there was a bird there -- it didn't move, although it was real; it was dead and its retinas were peeling from its bloody face. I scooped it up with my paddle and dumped it in the water.
Day 120 continues.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
October 18: Amusement and despair
The early Mississippi is an amusement park ride. I began the day by packing my things and saying goodbye to the people who had gathered at the hostel -- despite shyness that came with the impact of human contact and minor celebrity that came from the bicycle portage.
I rolled the canoe down the hill from the hostel, trying to maintain control by pulling from behind, first from the left, and then from the right as the boat scurried to the lake. I put it in the water. The wind was blowing northward, quite dangerously to my land-lubbin' eyes. The dock was supported by steep pipes of varying heights which whistled as the waves crested.
I made a quick call to my parents to tell them I was going, but the connection was cut short and after a minute of un-answered "hello"s I hung up and got in the canoe, for the first time in ten days.
My canoe reached the artificial line of rocks which marks the official beginning of the Mississippi River. Immediately, I asked those gathered at the point to help me portage around the ceremonial rocks, as well as the log that had been added later on to allow anyone to easily cross the river here. About seven men immediately grab the bow and we struggle forward a couple yards before I drop it, saying, "Could we have maybe one or two people back here with me?"
The source of the Mississippi was carved by man to give a more "noble" appearance to the headwaters of the great American river. So I think of it here as some awesome theme park ride. First you wind around a bit, and quickly come to a low bridge, its lower edge covered in gum placed for luck by previous adventurers. You must duck this. Then come a series of wooden footbridges, filled with admirers and questioners trying to get their words in before you float around the next bend. Next comes the culvert which runs under the main park drive. It is a tunnel carved through the road, just tall enough for your head, and just wide enough for your canoe, which chutes through with the water rushing and your heart rushing as well.
This chute ejects you back into the manufactured wilderness for a time before the channel enters into the marsh which is the true face of the upper Mississippi. Here you can get lost in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike in the autumn grasses as you flush mallards and the beautiful white snow geese.
The marshes are broken briefly by a tiny "dam" built by loggers one hundred years ago. Now, it does not appear to be anything but a rather bad rapid, heavy in logs and rocks. It must be portaged, and unlike most Canadian portages I did, my wheels were useless here due to the slope and growth around the path. I carried over everything except the canoe, which I dragged.
Then there is a series of rapids which would not be so bad except it is continuous for 4 miles, during which there is barely time to think with all the weaving through current and dodging limbs straining the water. I was wondering how long this would last, and turned around for my pack which held my map. Something was very wrong. On top of this pack had been my portage wheel; on top of that my expensive new jacket, just purchased in Winnipeg. I had taken it off when the weather got warm, and just laid it there behind me. The wheels were gone, nabbed by some grasping tree as I weaved the waters, and with the wheels, my jacket.
I could not see them behind me.
There was a portage trail around a bridge that is probably low in very high water. Here I docked my canoe and hoped to go back and recover my loss. But there was simply nowhere to walk on the banks of the early Mississippi.
I returned to the canoe and, heart heavy, continued on through the five miles of marsh that lay before my campsite. There was a notch in the bank where many canoes had been pulled up before, up to a mowed lawn with a fire pit, a three-walled shelter, and a latrine. A footbridge crossed the river to another maintained campsite, with a pit and water pump.
I felt sick to my stomach about the loss, the unintentional pollution and the thought of making the 200-300 yard portages further down the Mississippi without any wheels. I was by no means as carefree as when the hitch broke: but I recognized I could not go back for them. I couldn't walk the non-existent banks, and couldn't wade or swim up 4 miles of rapids in October.
The sun set by the time I ate my meal, cooked on the pre-gathered firewood. What should have been a day of exhilaration and triumph felt sad and uncomfortable.
Day 119 ended: Coffee Pot Landing
I rolled the canoe down the hill from the hostel, trying to maintain control by pulling from behind, first from the left, and then from the right as the boat scurried to the lake. I put it in the water. The wind was blowing northward, quite dangerously to my land-lubbin' eyes. The dock was supported by steep pipes of varying heights which whistled as the waves crested.
I made a quick call to my parents to tell them I was going, but the connection was cut short and after a minute of un-answered "hello"s I hung up and got in the canoe, for the first time in ten days.
My canoe reached the artificial line of rocks which marks the official beginning of the Mississippi River. Immediately, I asked those gathered at the point to help me portage around the ceremonial rocks, as well as the log that had been added later on to allow anyone to easily cross the river here. About seven men immediately grab the bow and we struggle forward a couple yards before I drop it, saying, "Could we have maybe one or two people back here with me?"
The source of the Mississippi was carved by man to give a more "noble" appearance to the headwaters of the great American river. So I think of it here as some awesome theme park ride. First you wind around a bit, and quickly come to a low bridge, its lower edge covered in gum placed for luck by previous adventurers. You must duck this. Then come a series of wooden footbridges, filled with admirers and questioners trying to get their words in before you float around the next bend. Next comes the culvert which runs under the main park drive. It is a tunnel carved through the road, just tall enough for your head, and just wide enough for your canoe, which chutes through with the water rushing and your heart rushing as well.
This chute ejects you back into the manufactured wilderness for a time before the channel enters into the marsh which is the true face of the upper Mississippi. Here you can get lost in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike in the autumn grasses as you flush mallards and the beautiful white snow geese.
The marshes are broken briefly by a tiny "dam" built by loggers one hundred years ago. Now, it does not appear to be anything but a rather bad rapid, heavy in logs and rocks. It must be portaged, and unlike most Canadian portages I did, my wheels were useless here due to the slope and growth around the path. I carried over everything except the canoe, which I dragged.
Then there is a series of rapids which would not be so bad except it is continuous for 4 miles, during which there is barely time to think with all the weaving through current and dodging limbs straining the water. I was wondering how long this would last, and turned around for my pack which held my map. Something was very wrong. On top of this pack had been my portage wheel; on top of that my expensive new jacket, just purchased in Winnipeg. I had taken it off when the weather got warm, and just laid it there behind me. The wheels were gone, nabbed by some grasping tree as I weaved the waters, and with the wheels, my jacket.
I could not see them behind me.
There was a portage trail around a bridge that is probably low in very high water. Here I docked my canoe and hoped to go back and recover my loss. But there was simply nowhere to walk on the banks of the early Mississippi.
I returned to the canoe and, heart heavy, continued on through the five miles of marsh that lay before my campsite. There was a notch in the bank where many canoes had been pulled up before, up to a mowed lawn with a fire pit, a three-walled shelter, and a latrine. A footbridge crossed the river to another maintained campsite, with a pit and water pump.
I felt sick to my stomach about the loss, the unintentional pollution and the thought of making the 200-300 yard portages further down the Mississippi without any wheels. I was by no means as carefree as when the hitch broke: but I recognized I could not go back for them. I couldn't walk the non-existent banks, and couldn't wade or swim up 4 miles of rapids in October.
The sun set by the time I ate my meal, cooked on the pre-gathered firewood. What should have been a day of exhilaration and triumph felt sad and uncomfortable.
Day 119 ended: Coffee Pot Landing
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