A Thousand Mile Day

A guy wants to talk to me as I'm putting in.  In most cases I would stop and chat, but today I don't.  Not to be rude or anything, but I'm already a thousand miles away from where he is standing.  He's talking about my canoe, "is that a twelve footer?"  "No - sixteen - see you later."  I paddle off across the narrow cove and into the shadows of the forest,  I put five hundred miles between us like that. 

Fall is here and the low light and long shadows have returned along with cool nights. With the lower temperatures, the forest is getting a daily dose of dew and damp.  I tuck under the edge of the canopy and stay in the shadows where I can peer into the forest and where I can look out onto the water without being noticed.  Even though I'm in the canoe, I am a forest creature - one of the animals that you know are watching, but you seldom see.  Drifting down off the hillside is the scent of old smoke.  You know this smell if you've ever entered a cold cabin with an old fireplace, the smell of old smoke on damp rock.  But here, it's not old fire.  It's the things that come after old fires, the mold and fungi and decay of old wood.  It's a good smell because it is the forest re-energizing itself, it's the forest doing what forests are supposed to do... it's not just leaves and wood.

Green Heron

At the first point I find a Green Heron that tolerates me more than most.  It eyeballs me while walking up a leaning deadfall.  When I drift too close, it flies off.  I continue on paddling the shadows.  When I finally run out of shadow, I sprint in the sun across the river and around the next point, looking for shadow.

It seems to be a day for Great Blue Herons and I flush at least one every few hundred yards.  They are doing a good job of hiding in the shadows and I am often quite close before I spot them. In addition, I spot one Osprey, several Mallards and a total of eight Common Mergansers.  I hear one movie Eagle call (Red Tail Hawk).

I reach the cascades of the Shephaug in pretty good time. I've seen only four people on the water - two fishermen and two kayakers.  

After a thousand miles, I'm ready to take out.