The View From the Canoe

child of nature

2012-02-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

I return to my canoe via the Harrison Portage. Too long, much too long has passed since my last trip. it has been almost 4 years since I could not remember my last day in the canoe. But, the short term unfamiliarity gives me thought - while I have always enjoyed the outdoors, I have never been so much a child of nature as I am now.

There are golden eyes and buffleheads in the big lake and just a quarter mile north of the put in, a harbor seal and I share a second's worth of surprise. It is tennis ball calm today - I can see them from a few hundred yards. It is also cloudy but sun comes through at times and in places. The water is cold, but the air warm enough that my fingers return to comfort, once they are in the air.

Crows are making a racket when I near the swimming beach. I move in closer to find a small hawk with a pigeon. A couple with a small child also nears and asks me what it is. I reply, "lunch." But, I get out and have a nice chat. The man has just returned from fishing in Alaska. Like most people one meets in Alaska, he knows that everyone everywhere is a bit crazy in some way...just get over it and have a talk.

At the big lodge, red wing blackbirds are trilling and an eagle sits in silhouette over the south nest some 400 yards off. I stop in the small patch of marsh that I call the sedge meadow. I stand in my canoe and admire the spot.

Geese seem to be pairing up already. They are getting noisy, but haven't reached full rambunctiousness, yet. So, I head out into midbay to look the new dirtbergs over. It still amazes me how the lake bottom rises up in the winter from gases trapped in the peat. While I'm doing that, I spot a motor skiff heading in my direction. I have to admit that I am always a bit suspicious of motorboats, but someone hollers my name and I know it is 3-Stars with a friend. The four of us (3-Stars has a blue-healer dog) sit and drift in mid bay for a half hour discussing the birds and animals that we see.

It was an important day.

Snow

2012-01-15T14:43:00.000-08:00

Far too much time has passed since I was last in my canoe. I have felt a deadness in my soul, a numbing of the heart and I've told myself that my other projects had precedence. But work, and everyone's for that matter, suffer when..........oh! jeez! a belted kingfisher has just missed ramming me in the head by no more than 2 feet! It was so close when it skreked its warning call that it was positively ear splitting. It is snowing and snow changes everything in the marsh. The birds let me get closer, they seem to have something else to mind. An eagle sits overhead while I write. That thought is gone and I do not need to return to it.


the west lodge

The large dark patches of migratories are out in mid-bay. They took their time getting here this fall, but they did arrive along with reports of snowy owls. Someone even spotted a ribbon seal over on the Duwamish River. That is a seal that should be on the pack ice in the Bering Sea. So, maybe there was something to my feeling that the ducks came late...because other things are amiss as well.

Slush is forming on the surface of the lake. The snow, which has been falling heavier since I put in, is not melting when it hits the water. It can be scooped up into the hand...heavy heavy snowball snow. When I paddle, it folds, tears, and curls - an almost felt like quality.

Portage Bay Lodge

Having circled Union Bay, I decide to continue through the crossing under place and to the bottom of Portage Bay. Large flakes drift down, flakes large than my thumbnail. the canoe is an inch deep in snow. It turns to sleet as I get to the drawbridge, but it returns to the big soft flakes again.

When I left the house the snow was a 1/2 inch deep. When I leave the lake it is 2 inches deep. When I get the canoe home it is almost 4 inches deep. It is spectacular.

Taking the Neighbor Kid

2011-11-30T16:06:00.000-08:00

J calls the night before. I'd offered him a trip and our schedules finally connect. We do the portage to the aptly named Portage Bay, although we are not using the portage that the bay is named for. It is a cool wintery day and while the wind is calm when we leave the house, it is coming up by the time we meet the water. We spend some time before canoeing admiring a very large alder that the beaver have cut during the last month. It is more than two feet across at the base, neatly cut in a cone a foot from the ground. Since they've taken it down they have removed almost all of the bark from 60 foot of tree. It is beautifully patterned with teeth marks over the entire length.

I show J the work trails that the beaver leave on the lodges when they do fall home repairs - the 3 or 4 obvious trenches leading from the water to the top of the lodge. It is how you know beaver live in the lodge even if you haven't seen them. Then we head over towards the bank burrow, but the shallow water keeps us well away. this winter the Corps of Engineers has lowered the water an extra 3 or 4 inches, which makes a big difference in marsh paddling.

Wind is still rising as we aim for the 'crossing under place'. We head up the west islands and stop briefly to look for tracks at one of the muddy shoreline spots. Lots of fresh raccoon. Then we make rounds through my usual places in the north end, then cut south across the bay after I make J promise not to tip us over in the under 50 degree water. We get out again in the east marsh where J teaches me a few things about mushrooms. He's spotted edible oyster mushrooms here, but I notice that while he's pointing stuff out they aren't so different from some poisonous ones.

In the south lagoons we find some northern shovelers, green winged teal and a northern pintail. Before taking out, we stop and chat with 3-Stars and compare notes with what he's been seeing. It is windy. The day has become raw.

Someplace

2011-11-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

It is quite calm, so much so that I can spot shed feathers on the top of the water from a couple hundred feet away. As I cross the mouth of the bay from Portage Point to Wilson's Point, two kayakers pass by just far enough away that a greeting would be a disturbance rather than a pleasantry. So, we all stay silent. They cut a route straight across the widest part of the bay, deliberate and purposeful as if they are en route to someplace. I paddle the shorelines, the edges of the landscape where most things are and most things happen, and I watch for something, anything, different. It seems as if I, too, am en route to someplace. But, unlike the kayakers I don't know where my someplace will be. I may even paddle right past my someplace without recognizing it. It may just be that my someplace is always someplace ahead of me. I find this uncertainty comforting.

Near the West Lodge, I stop to check the mud for tracks. I find beaver, raccoon, duck and some small mammal with sharp little claws. By the Workbench Lodge my ear catches a bird call that isn't quite in my memory. I paddle on, but catching a glimpse of it through the brush, I double back. A pileated woodpecker comes bobbing up in its stubby winged flight pattern from a dead birch. It is where I do not expect to see it.

Winter

2011-11-20T14:02:00.000-08:00

Winter has arrived in my marsh and frost and the first skimming of ice greet me at the water's edge. I spend little time here in the shade of Portage Bay but instead head through the 'crossing under place' to meet the sun in Union Bay. It is calm.

Across from Birch Island I spot 4 raccoons. I was just about to coast the east side of the cattails in hope of flushing a snipe or two, but the sighting of a mother raccoon and her 3 kits drew me over. They are as curious about me as I am about them. We watch each other for nearly a half hour. When the canoe drifts too close, they walk back into the cattails. When I back away a few feet, they return. They stand on hind legs trying to catch my scent in an almost windless day. One plays with an old skinless tennis ball.

I paddle north 75 yards and pause to write, just after flushing a snipe, in my notebook. I look back towards Birch Island and see something swimming across the gap. It is too small for an otter and not serpentine enough in motion either. Fortunately, I see it exit the water...it is a mink. I have traveled less than 400 yards in this bay and already I have seen 4 raccoons, a mink, a snipe, a cackler goose (a mallard-sized Canada goose subspecies I am told). I could go home right now and it would be considered a most excellent day.

This is the season in the marsh that few know about.

On #1 island I find a kill sight where an eagle has dismembered what probably was a coot. I find my bird expert friend, C, near North Point and she points out 2 swans that have come in with the cold (they usually only come here on the coldest of days) and warns me to watch for a bittern that she has seen recently. As we chat, I pull a 1950's whitewall tire from the cold water. They always look better propped up in the center of my canoe than in the lake.

I continue my rounds, checking the wild parts of the bay for change. I feel the winter cold in my feet, which is to be expected, but the calm makes the trip comfortable. The migratories are present, the teal, the common mergansers, hooded mergansers, widgeons, gadwalls, northern shovelers, and coot. Winter is back.

Pray

2011-11-13T14:59:00.000-08:00

I paddle up the big lake in a following wind and foot high waves. It is a grey day, but beautiful in its fallness. The moisture haze that dims the far shoreline still shows the golds and yellows and reds of autumn foliage.

I pass...well, no one actually "passes" a flock of buffleheads. Rather, they get up and circle forward when I'm 50 yards away. They do this once or twice until they finally get up and circle back behind. But, yes, that happens.

male bufflehead

At Potlatch point I spot a male common merganser, the first I've seen this fall. And, I wonder if the remaining mate from the south eagle nest is still around. I have not seen that bird for quite some time. I see two scaups among the buffleheads, coots and gadwalls, and a wary pied billed grebe nearby. I head straight to the big beaver lodge, and as I get near, the whistle of an eagle comes. I quickly spot it in the tall alder that overlooks that lodge.

I have a new project that puts me in the forest and shortens the number of days that I spend in my canoe. I am still a visitor with that forest project, although it is gradually taking on a homey feeling as I continue to work it. But this, here, kneeling before the world with a well worn paddle in my hands - a religious symbol for myself if there ever was one...this is where I am.

Postscript -
I stop for a long talk with 3-Stars who helps me identify a small gull that I saw in the big lake (Bonaparte's gull). On the portage home, I run into P. a climate scientist grad student that I met while making a collaborative piece about climate change. I see several of the "regulars" as I walk and I go a block out of my way to talk to the old man with the crutch and tiny lap dog. We always have a fun chat and I haven't seen him in some time. I tell him how the eagles pick out which coot to attack when they are hunting - It's the one talking on the cell phone.

Soul food

2011-11-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

I hem and haw my way into motion having a project that I should work on but knowing that my soul needs to visit the marsh. A minor head cold slowing me down sends me to the lake with the canoe in hand, walking the Harrison portage and paddling in a light chop caused by a low SE wind over the big lake. A brilliant fall sun warms my back when the clouds move aside.

I spy pied billed, eared and western grebes, buffleheads and Canada geese. Nothing great in numbers, just present and accounted for, everything important.

In the NE lagoon, I get out and check for tracks finding only one set, which may be from a opossum as one toe is unusually splayed out to the side, but it still might be a raccoon. The other tracks were erased in last nights heavy rain. The beaver aren't feeding inside the lagoon either. Instead, it appears that they are working the edge of the swamp just outside the entrance. Some of the cattails here are still green to the tip, which is odd as most cattails go brown at the end in early September. This little lagoon is protected from wind and a bit warmer, and it may always be like that....I haven't paid enought attention...the difference between science and art, yet they can compliment each other so wonderfully.

As I cross the north shore, I notice that there seem to be fewer ducks in the bay than I would expect. But, this may just be my memory not registering. I'll worry about it in a month if more don't show up. Just as I set my notebook down and take a stroke with the paddle, an otter appears near the tip of #1 island. It's wet head is shining in the sunlight as it dips under a drift log, surfaces, and disappears around the point.

Near Broken Island, an eagle perches watching either me or the 500 coots that float halfway over to Marsh Island.

I take out in the south lagoons spotting a solitary northern pintail as I unload the canoe.

The Bailey Peninsula aka Seward Park

2011-10-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

I meet J. on the west side of the big lake near Seward Park. The park is a forested peninsula and a favorite to canoe by because it is one of very few places in the city where one can paddle under big trees. This is the first time that J. and I have met in person. Within a minute of putting in, we spot several beaver just south of us. Eventually, we count five and get two good tail slaps. They are all solidly "medium" sized beaver. No matter what happens, the trip will now fall into the good category.

We coast along the shoreline, taking in redwing blackbird trills, widgeons, gadwalls, some Clark's grebes, and watching the lake bottom through unusually clear water. J tells me of seeing a beaver not long ago sitting on a float near the shore and when we get over to it we can see that it is covered with the remains of beaver feeding - trimmed branches and cattails strewn all over it.

We talk art, we talk plants and trees, J being botanically skilled and me being botanically challenged. We talk about floating trash, how people see and use the water, development etc. We are of like mind. We are confused by the same stuff.

It begins to rain and rain hard for a half hour as we stop in at another park just a half mile south of the peninsula. We briefly walk the park while the canoe collects rain water. J points out trees to me...his tree eyes are about the same as my bird eyes. Blue sky is coming and the rain tapers off as we get back in the canoe.

We return the way we came, only facing the opposite direction.

We find a pair of the strange ducks below near the fish hatchery. Large duck/small goose sized, it is probably a domesticated muscovy duck on the lam.

I believe this is an escaped muscovy duck

The First Buffleheads

2011-10-21T14:32:00.000-07:00

I put in at the south lagoon hoping for the arrival of the buffleheads. As I finish the ritual of getting ready, a guy paddles up in a shiny red canoe. He rams it onto the gravel beach, gets out and drags it free of the water. The brief exchange of "hi" and "hey" is all of the conversation. While we are traveling in the same craft, we are of two different minds. I lift my canoe by the gunwale, for even though my canoe has long since ceased to be a thing of beauty with the scratches of 500 trips on the outside, splotches of mud inside, and pink and tan foam glued down where my knees are when I am paddling in that posture, I lift my canoe and set it in a half foot of water, and then finish loading my ever heavier field pack. I set one foot in the center of the canoe, grab the gunwales with my hands and push off with the other leg gliding scooter-like out into the marsh. I drop to my knees and go away. My well-worn canoe has taken me to countless discoveries and adventures...his canoe is just a boat...he treats his canoe like I treat my car.

It is a sprinkling grey day. Some cattails have gone yellow and some remain green. The lotus pads are brown and torn at the edges and only the centers of the leaves try to stay on the surface. There is a cool and growing south wind. It is an archetypical fall day in the marsh. It matches all of my memories.

willow gnawed by beaver - in case you were wondering

I leave the east marsh and head cross bay to the north point. It is hard to see ducks at any distance due to the chop in the water, but every once in awhile, I read motion out there. At mid-bay, I spot a dozen buffleheads, the first ones of the fall. And, I drift with that, and I then catch the nasal wheezing of widgeons, who have finally arrived in force - I spotted a lone widgeon some 2 weeks ago in the south lagoon.

Not yet

2011-10-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

Harrison Portage...The city has removed the invasive plants from the put-in....this is just about everything except for the trees.

As I start north, a seagull some 100 yards ahead plunges straight into the water from 15 feet up. It climbs back up and circles for a few minutes, hoping for a second chance at its prey.

I pass a small Clark's grebe.

At the mouth of Union Bay, there are three western grebes, necks laid back along their bodies. Most birds are resting when they hold that pose, but the western grebe will often paddle across the surface in with its neck down on its back. It looks quite strange.

I break my paddling briefly as I head up towards the NE corner of the bay and when I do I hear the whistling of bald eagles. I find them on the diodar cedar that they prefer as a perch on this shoreline. It is probably the north nest pair. I have not seen them in perhaps 2 months, and I assume they were following a salmon run.

In the NE lagoon, I check for tracks in the usual spots and find raccoon and rat and something in between in size that I don't recognize. It has rained hard recently, so the blackboard is pretty clean.

I run across the north shore and down the western islands thinking that this is one of the nicest days that I have seen in some time. It is almost clear, low sky fall sun, blue sky, the yellowing of cattails and leaves, the shattering of summers lily pads, with a cool wind from the northeast, a long sleeve day.

I check with 3-stars in the south lagoon, as usual.

The migratory ducks have not arrived yet. I imagine that they have started on their way.

Signs

2011-10-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

A while back, my friend, L, who was visiting from our home state, asked me while we were out walking, " Do you ever think about what a beautiful place this is?"
I may have taken 10 seconds to answer, which is a very long silence if you think about it. When I looked her in the face, I probably had on my dumb question expression, but not because it was a dumb question, more that I was caught off guard. In fact, the simple question deserved thought and the ten second pause was one of gears turning in my head.
I answered, "Yes, I do."

As I walk the Harrison Portage, I wonder if all those people hurrying by in their cars on some schedule that may or may not be their own ever think about how beautiful this place is.

C, T and MP come riding up the switchbacks as I sit pause to write in my notebook. It has been a long time and they stop for a good talk. T even comes up with some good ideas for an art project of mine, his creativity probably unrecognized by most and untapped by himself, for that matter. The portage pays for itself, yet again. I thank him for clearing that creative tangle for me as they head off.

The big lake has that oddball chop going, a clunky chaotic wave that I can reconcile mathematically, but not in a natural common sense manner. It has something to do with the unnatural in the lake, I suppose. The chop labors the paddling, each stroke requiring a different amount of correction to maintain course.

Calm returns at Potlatch Point, as it usually does. With the onset of fall, the lake is low and I glide towards the Big Lodge over the sandy bottom that lies just 2 or 3 feet down.

I catch linseed oil scent
my paddle, hand carved
my paddle, well used
oiled after its last trip
the scent now in my hands
I will carry the trip with me
long into the evening

Signs -
I spot the some fresh peeled tree limbs in the water. The beaver are switching foods with the season from green plants to inner bark of trees.
I see the first widgeons of the fall, a pair in the south lagoon.
I flush a green-backed heron from the base of the workbench lodge. It might be the last green-backed heron that I see until next spring.
I find a lot of beaver scat on the east tip of Marsh Island. It looks like rotting balls of chipboard. There is more here than I have ever seen in one spot.
I find the leftovers of a crayfish claw nearby. A sign of raccoons or otter.

I stop and talk with 3-Stars, mostly to check on his well being, but also to see if he has observed anything that I have not. Then I continue on to the bottom of Portage Bay.

Free Lunch

2011-09-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

It rains. I am glad that we have gotten this summer thing out of our system.
It's been several months since M and I have seen each other. Former workmates, we are now restricted to being canoe partners...it is better, at least for me...he still works "there". We don't rush off to the lake as I normally would, instead, M, S and I all catch up some. There is so much.

We head to Portage Bay. It rains hard enough that I stop once to bail a half gallon of water out of the canoe well before we get to the lake.
At least it is warm.
I do the math in my head.
50% of our canoe time has been in the rain.
On the Yakima, it rained on us for 24 hours straight. That was in terrain that is classified as arid.

M has not seen the beaver bank burrow on the west side of the bay, so we work our way in through the shallows...really only 3 or 4 inches of water on a foot of soupy mud. A clear beaver channel can be seen in the lotus pads where the repeated swimming and dragging of branches opens a path. These lanes are also slightly deeper for the same reason. We paddle in on the lane and up to the burrow. M spots a raccoon in the cattails.

We head next through the 'crossing under place' and clockwise around the bay, stopping at most of the beaver lodges, examining the marsh wren nests. The beaver are just beginning to do fall home repairs. It has been a while since M was out here, so I point out where the cattail berg drifted to, and when we get to it, where it drifted from.
It rains the whole time...heavy rarely, misting often.
There is a fresh breeze.
When we paddle into it it feels on the face, it just feels...not really a word for it.

I introduce M to 3-Stars.
We trade pied billed grebe stories.
3-Stars might be the only one I know that can match me in pied billed grebe stories.
I suppose it is not such an important bird to others.
We know.

Now I give M the choice, "where to?"
It has been a long time.
I have no reason to stop now.
The south end of the dead lake is the result.
We cross Portage Bay with nothing to note except that,
for the very first time ever,
the policeman in the police boat waves to us.

The dead lake presents a head wind.
Mist and wind on wet skin.

M takes care of the Portage home.
His head down, he finds a $20 bill.
Lunch at the Canterbury...the name sounds grand
It is a pub decorated in some time that no one is familiar with, but the food is good.
S comments that the Portage pays for itself.
I feel it an honor that someone should spend so much time with me in the canoe.

A New Paddle

2011-09-25T12:26:00.000-07:00

I met SB at the east end of the ancient portage on a morning that was nicer than I expected to find. Wind and rain had woken me during the night, the trees still well leafed calling out the wind speed. By dawn, the wind was down, the rain had stopped, and the air was wonderfully fresh.

SB had purchased one of my canoe paddles in an Artist Trust auction several months ago, a deal that came with a canoe trip. I offered him a trade for a custom paddle, which he took me up on. I carved one in 1/4-sawn ash with a map of Lake Pend Oreille, his home turf. Today would be the first time it met water.

one side

and the other

We stopped first to talk with 3-Stars, and then we continue into the south lagoon on a beaver oriented mission, SB remarking at the enormous size of the Workbench Lodge, I pointing out the canal network created by the Hidden Lodge Colony and the collection of scent mounds that divides territory between them and the Big Lodge Colony. We cut across the bay with a stiff tailwind breeze and find a Clark's grebe near the south railroad island, a bird that is not normally found right here and probably came in to hide out from the night wind storm.

As we continue, I talk about the landfills, the ten foot lowering of the lake level...all the weird things that man does to "improve" stuff...and how the natural environment continues to push back and put things back to equilibrium. I watch his new paddle. I got the length just right. It's clean. He likes it. I tell him how to wipe some boiled linseed oil on it...each or every other trip for the first dozen or so, then when it needs it, and how the shaft will get smoother to the touch the more it is used (the opposite of what happens with a varnished paddle).

He enjoys the trip. I suppose that I enjoy it as much as he does. I invite him to go out next time he is back here, "...don't forget your paddle."

The first fall bird

2011-09-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

I put in at the bottom of the Harrison Portage where a lone pied billed grebe dives while I load my canoe. As I paddle downwind and up lake, a duck sized bird floats a 150 yards ahead.

There are no buffleheads, the season when the bay is decorated by thousands of the most beautiful of waterfowl is not yet here. There are no geese at this time either, so change is in the game, fall is just here.

The duck sized bird dives sleekly and elegantly in a manner that shows it can only be a grebe. Too small for the "western", it is probably a Clark's. It flies off as I near, wasting no effort gathering altitude and following a path as near perfectly straight as I have ever seen any bird fly, never more than 2 feet above the water until my eye can no longer resolve it against the steel gray water. This bird is fall. It is a recent arrival.

At Potlatch Point, something dark and about the size of the palm of my hand watches me approach. It surfaces twice and then is gone.

I head back into the big dead end of the east marsh only to find that the Corps of Engineers must be trying to reach new record low lake levels. The final 50 yards is too shallow, the water perhaps 4 inches lower than I have ever seen it.

As I leave the south lagoon, 3-Stars calls me over for a chat. We watch a competency-challenged yatchsman fumble his "ship" into some state of mooringness for the pre-football-game act of drunken piracy and high-fiving while we discuss the recent and far more interesting natural events of the marsh. We are now on a first name basis.

Wildlife tour

2011-09-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

Today I am guiding a wildlife tour through the north end of Union Bay. The plan is to head north from the canoe rental dock and then east across the top of the bay into Yesler Swamp. But, a plan is only a plan.

east channel of the burial island

The great noisy bridge is closed today, so I head down to the marsh early to enjoy the relative quiet, which is only interrupted by occasional airplanes. It is windy and possibly too windy for beginners. The bay doesn't get large waves until the wind is at ridiculous levels, but canoes do get blown around, especially in the hands of the inexperienced.

Cattails are turning yellow, although perhaps it is more that the green is fading away rather than a donning of fall colors. Fall is not so much about a coming of color as it is about a leaving of color. In the wind, the cattails rustle creating a most comforting sound. I stop south of the sedge meadow, the low water making it seem to much like work to enter that spot. The wind eddies here in the east side of the burial island and it pushes the canoe one direction, and then back, and then it spins me, and it does it some more. I sit and wait to see where the wind will leave me and which direction it will decide I should face, but it seems as indecisive as I am, and if I add up the distance I have traveled in those few minutes, it comes to zero. I am where I started.


Coot - the favorite winter food for bald eagles

I meet up with the tour as planned and we discuss the trip. It seems pretty windy and I am concerned about the crosswind stretch. It's not that there is any danger, it's just that people could end up going in circles if they cannot get a handle on the canoe. But, the man in charge (not really me) wants to do it. So we do. But, the schedule, now I am not very good at schedules. There are things to see and I will point them out, and we will fall behind the clock. This is the cost of going somewhere with me and my canoe.

I point out beaver canals in the cattail islands, and at the marsh wren nesting spot, I stop everyone and announce, "let's see if we can find a nest". I part the cattails with my paddle and there one is (the male builds 15 to 20 - only one gets used). Even I am surprised. We stop at the west lodge to talk about beaver colony social stuff and what to watch for to see if a lodge is begin used (home repair work in Oct-Nov). When we get over to north point, I find some scent on one of the territorial scent mounds and everyone gets a sniff. Then over to the railroad islands for a little history lesson and into Yesler Swamp for a rest and some Q and A. One canoe has two people who teach nature classes to kids...they have pretty good questions. When we leave they stay behind to search the mud banks for animal tracks, which I am sure they will find unless the last nights rain washed them out (I forgot to mention that the rain might have done that). Everyone has turned out to be fairly good at canoe handling and the trip has gone well.

Summer no more

2011-09-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

I put in at the nameless lagoon and head north, crossing the ship canal as a huge barge is pushed my way. Today is a dry run for an upcoming wildlife swamp tour and I need to see what can be seen. Summer vegetation is still thick and so this is not the best time of year to view wildlife and wildlife signs. Unfortunately, the ideal time for that is between late fall and early spring when the water is dangerously cold and not a good combination with beginning canoe skills.

Coots appear to be returning, there are quite a few near the west tip of #1 island. I spot a green-winged teal in the mix as well. Cormorants have been back for almost two weeks and there are more ducks out in mid-bay than there have been for several months. It is no longer summer.

3-Stars waves me over as I get near my exit point. He confirms my observation about the new beaver lodge on the east end of Marsh Island. He has seen the beaver swimming to it several times. We both laugh about the amount of castoreum that the beaver have sprayed there. As usual, we chat about wildlife and the marsh for more than a half hour.

Industrial

2011-09-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

S declared a few days back that we will go canoeing today, so we do.

She hasn't decided where to go, so, as we start our portage, I ask, "industrial or nature?"
S replies, "industrial, we haven't done that in awhile."
So we turn left at the end of the block and head up and over the hill to the dead lake. The Lady Washington, a replica of a 1840's sailing ship is in and that is our first stop. We sit a few moments under the bowsprit and I field a few questions about sailing ship rigging...it was something I memorized when I was 10 years old. Sometimes, I can pull that stuff out.

Then we head up lake and out the ship canal toward Ballard. This takes us through Foss Tugboats and puts us under numerous fishing boats of various purposes...crab boats, seine pursers.... Work boats fascinate me...they do stuff, they have purpose. I see my canoe as a work boat. It certainly shows the wear of a work boat. It seems to have a purpose.

It is a sunny warm day and being at the end of a summer without warm sunny days, it brings all shapes and sizes of visitors to the water. We bounce in wakes and keep our eyes on the motor boats knowing that the level of seamanship is inversely proportional to the amount of horsepower in the vessel. Back at the dead lake, every possible rental kayak seems to be on the water. It is like canoeing on the midway at the state fair...weird, but okay if you don't have to do it all of the time.

We head for the south end of Portage Bay to take out. The last 15 minutes of the trip is remarkably peaceful as we exit the ship channel and paddle towards the shallows.

The two of us very much enjoy the two mile portage up the hill to our house.

Light

2011-09-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

I use the Harrison Portage and talk with a swimmer when I get to the big lake. She will swim up lake 3/4 of a mile and back. Perhaps I am dawdling (I am, a bit), but by the time I am kneeling in my canoe, she is a surprisingly long ways out. I won't catch up with her until the turn around point.

I think of Smoke Farm while I make my way up lake. This is good because it tells me that I am transitioning from this project to that. Mostly, I think about why the farm works so well. It has something to do with the terrain, but it has everything to do with the people that meet there. It adds up to more than one.

At Portage Point, I cross over and up the built east shoreline, but I stop in the middle of the channel. The skyline of the burial island has changed. It is a minor change that no one would notice, except with my familiarity, it stands out, almost alarmingly so. I can see a snag that I never saw before, so a tree has come down somewhere in there. The eagle perch tree stands just a few yards north of the new shape, and an eagle comes in to land as I watch.

In the NE lagoon, the recently exposed muddy shoreline is full of animal tracks (the only advantage that I can see for the Corps of Engineers lowering of the water). I find and cast a somewhat small beaver hind print. And, I get to just sit for a spell as the plaster sets up. A tiny woodpecker comes and works over a willow tree a few yards from me.

Near Broken Island, I find a 3/4 full 55 gallon drum floating in the lotus pads. It does not belong here. I tow it to the closest boat ramp, as it should weigh about 280 lbs and I will need to roll it out of the water. I dread running into the guy that runs the ramp. We've had words before. And, when I finally get the beast to the ramp (full barrels do not tow easily) the guy is there. I just go about rolling the pig up the ramp. Either he doesn't recognize me, or he realizes the value in the action. He asks where I found it, and I point (out of breath). He asks what I will do with it and I tell him that I will leave it out of the way for the groundskeepers to figure out. He asks what's in it and I tell him that I know enough not to open and sniff such things.. He understands that. He goes back his work and I do my job and go.

Note to self: In the last week, the light quality has changed dramatically from washed out summer to intense fall.

New Guy in the Boat

2011-08-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

P, an evening person by nature, arrives at the house at 6am. And, we begin the portage.

Marsh Wren Nest

I met P, recently at a Smoke Farm event. He had never been canoeing and, by chance, lived just a few blocks from me. It was arranged. The plan for a 6am start is to get to the water early enough to find beaver out swimming around. It has always worked. Today it doesn't. We not only don't see the usual 6 or 8 that I might find as the evening feeding winds down, we don't see one. We don't see one in the little lagoon that belongs to the Workbench Lodge, so we head over to the lodge itself and, there, we don't see a single one returning to home. So, we head to the hidden lodge where we find zero, and up the east channel of the burial island, where I give P a good sniff of a scent mound, which he declares to be bad (in winter when they eat tree bark, the scent is pleasant, but I must agree that mid-summer castoreum is fairly rank). I show him the new muskrat lodge and then we head over to the Big Lodge, where we find no beaver and actually little sign of recent activity. By now, we can forget about finding beaver. It is too late in the morning.

But, a green backed heron rises up - all dinosaurish and gawkiness. It settles behind the lodge and we circle round to view it perched, where it is a deceptively small and graceful looking bird. Then it unfolds itself into something ill proportioned and flies off.

We cross the bay to take a short walk to see the north eagle nest. We discuss the reality of Seattle's eco-imagination while looking over Yesler's pilings next to the former Seattle dump site. I have a low opinion of the founding fathers who for some reason thought that it was a good idea to dump any and all garbage, refuse and debris in the water. Following the north shore, we spot three very small raccoons running along the shore.

We stop again near the West Lodge. P is up and out of the canoe and before I can get out he has declared the felled alder trees on the shore to be cool. In fact, they have continued to work on some of the trees, although not with such vigor as in the winter when they have nothing else to eat.

We continue on, paddling without break into and through Portage Bay and down the dead lake passing the shipyards.

Waiting Time

2011-08-29T14:56:00.000-07:00

S and I walk down to south lagoon on a cloudy and windy day.

To look at it one would think that it is a cold one, but it is not, and a sweat is breaking under a bit too much shirt for the weather.

The water is low, and it seems as low as it ever gets during the winter, when the dam guys bring it all the way down. I must admit that while I do understand the need for extra water in the summer, I do not understand their timing. We go through the east channel of the burial island, noting which beaver scent mounds have been freshly splashed, and then down the big dead end. A trail of bubbles runs ahead of us and the new resident muskrat surfaces once before moving off. There is a new muskrat lodge in here, a conical pile of cattails and other plants built up on a bit of bog stuff. It's a bit of a mess, but it's a house and it's the only muskrat house that I've seen, although I do see muskrats every so often.

We are in no hurry to go anywhere or do anything, so we stop here and there and just look at what is around us. Then we cross the bay to the NE lagoon. And we sit there for awhile and look at what is around us. Then we come out and crab our way along the north shore, a moderate south wind always trying to push us sideways. Near the north point we inspect what appears to be one of the temporary islands that rise up in winter - dense peat layers buoyed by trapped swamp gas. But, this is a raft of bog stuff some 8 x 15 feet. When we get close we can see that it undulates with the waves.

It is near the end of a very brief summer and not much is happening. This year's brood of ducks is mostly able to fly, except for the latest of hatchings. This year's geese are flying well and can not be easily recognized from their elders. Otherwise, it is a time of waiting - waiting for the return of birds from the north.

No more hoopla

2011-08-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

What I notice most this morning is the silence from the redwing blackbirds and marsh wrens. Since April their voices have been an almost constant in the marsh, but for the last 2 weeks they seemed to have gone still. I suppose, their mates chosen, nests built, eggs laid and hatched, they are just getting on with it - the big hoopla having subsided. I put in from a lesser used spot on the burial island. A few of the scent mounds have been freshly splashed and as I exit the east marsh, I find a male redwing blackbird picking bugs off of the lotus pads and silently confirming his existence. The water is very low now, and the canoe moves laboriously, the physics of a bow wave meeting a shallow bottom with no place to dissipate.

immature sora rail

Along the north shore I find an immature sora rail, a bird I've never seen before. It is walking close to shore on the lotus pads and does not hurry away when I stop to watch.

I continue on to the south end of the dead lake.

Change

2011-08-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

I stop first to herd ducks. I spot a mother following two ducklings as I move down the open channel between the dense floors of lily and lotus pads. I catch four more ducklings lagging behind to my right, stumbling through the jumble of giant green leaves, the mother stopping to look back at a them. I pull up and wait, although I finally get impatient with the last two, who are dawdlers for sure. I nose the canoe into the pads behind them and they pick it up some, all swimming off together.

It is a warm, cloudy and windy day with a sense of coming rain. I start in the dead lake and paddle downwind, my paddling more for correcting my heading than for power.

Changing weather seems to cause me to think of changes in general, changes in my life. But here, I'd rather just look at what is now.

The cattails are not yet tipped in yellow.

The late arriving lotus and lily pads have come in just as vigorous as always...just late.

The birch trees seem to be just a bit more yellow than I remember, but there is no proof of this.

The Hidden Lodge (beaver) is truly living up to the name that I have given it.

The water level is low but I can still get into the dead end in the east marsh. In unison, I surprise a muskrat, a green backed heron, and a heard but unseen great blue heron as I enter. With the low water, the mud bottom of the beaver forest is finally exposed.

I sit still in the canoe for quite some time. The canoe does not rest but instead drifts with the wind that penetrates the marsh, first one direction and then back, and then with a little twist. I find my way by going along for the ride. I feel like sleeping.

I lay down, by shoulders on the gunwales, my feet up on the center thwart, my head on the blade of my paddle. I no longer want to sleep, but I do not want to move. I am waiting for the rain.

The rain comes. I can go.

The duldrums

2011-08-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

I get a late start, walking the harrison portage, setting out in what is mid-day heat for the northwest. As I pass the swimming beach, the lifeguard bullhorns me to stay 25 yards outside of the swim zone. She has good depth perception...I am only 4 canoe lengths outside...21 and 1/3 yards, or so.

The birds are napping, and not much is going on except for people playing in the water. It amazes me that more people don't drown, really. At the north end of Union Bay a man paddles a rental canoe while his 6 year old son trails a stick in the water, his head hanging over the gunwale, his eyes watching the patterns in the water. It is the best thing I see today. Even on a great day, it would rate pretty high up there.

August 10, 2011

2011-08-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

I get K into the canoe this morning and we head straight away out to the seals on the large rock to the north.
Then, we tour the bay. K and JP, our hosts, don't have a boat other than a tiny dingy, so they don't get this view often, and when they do, they don't get it from the intimacy of a canoe. K enjoys seeing the houses of the neighbors from the water and knowing what is down those winding drives that head into the woods from the road. Oddly enough, we don't see the otters, which have been so present over the last couple days.

Later -
I take S out for a tour up to the seal site on the northern rock.

Then, we head south to the seal beaching site near Active Pass, just to prove to myself that there are seals in both spots at the same time.

Early afternoon -
Finally, I get JP to join me. We are both solidly built old guys, not fat, but tall and sturdy, although JP is 4 inches taller. This is a bit much for my 16 ft. canoe (If the two of us paddled together regularly, we would be using a 17 or 18 footer). So, I don't say anything until after the tour is done, but it is a twitchy ride for me, as I am use to paddling solo or with flyweights like S. We follow the shore closely and I avoid the half mile open crossing to the seal rock. We do go down to admire the boatbuilders shed. JP would like to have one of the builders jolly boats - the boatbuilder specializes in making replicas of Bligh's jolly boat. After the Bounty mutiny, Bligh sailed his overloaded jolly boat over 1000 miles of ocean losing only one of his remaining crew.
Then, we head up north and into a little inlet that finally has enough water to let us pass.

August 9, 2011

2011-08-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Galiano Island
I slip out by 7am to an overcast sky with a glow of an earlier sunrise in the east, where I can see through the islands. My trips alone are always so different than when I share the canoe. With the occasional bowman, I steer the canoe to see the sites, to see the sights. Alone, I have no agenda and seem not to care about getting anywhere other than where I am.

This morning, I ease along the edges of the rocks at the lowest of the day's tides. I spot a few river otters with ease on the calm waters. 2 guillemots, well scattered from each other are in the bay. On the larger island at the north end of the bay are 2 dozen seals, again mostly mothers and pups. I begin to disturb them from about a hundred yards, so I watch them from that distance.

Returning, I circle around the rocks in some pattern that might end up as a figure eight, or not. A mink runs along the edge of one island.

Afternoon -
I paddle up past the government dock and back, edging along the shore in a bit of mid-day wind. When I return, I spot the 3 small otters at the most substantial of of the rocks. They leave a trail of wet splashes as they exit the water and clamber up over the sandstone and into the brush.
I get out on the far side of the rock to explore. This side marks the passage into the government dock and I find a few pieces of fiberglass boat hull in the water. I collect 3 specimens - a thin slab of sandstone, a bent iron fitting, and a deer leg bone. On the south tip of the island I find a sand patch with otter tracks all through it - with the signature esses of the tail sweep.

Evening -
S and I head out for a quick paddle. I stop first at the big rock and send her up to the sand patch to see the array of otter tracks. Then we head across bay to look at two seals that are beached alone on another rock and to look at a beautiful old classic cabin that sits on the far side of the bay.

It is a fine example of form and function, particularly at an age when so many people insist on building waterfront homes that make a statement... primarily about their outsized egos.

August 8, 2011

2011-08-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Galiano Island
It is barely a hundred yard portage down the hill from our friend's house to the Whalers Bay. 12-year old B joins me for a pre-breakfast circle of the bay. Both the tide and wind are low. Gossip Island, to the east, cuts the bay off from the great expanse of the Salish Sea. There are several rock islets in the bay that for the most part, nearly disappear in high tide. They make the bay an uninviting place for large vessels while create interesting places to visit for with canoe.

We scare an immature bald eagle from the nearest island and then swing north to explore a couple of inlets. As we return we find 3 young river otters watching us. They appear to be this year's pups, now separate from their parents, but still staying together as a set.

Near mid-day
S and I head out for a bit more extensive paddle. We drop down into the tidal cove where the government dock is. Farthest in is a boat builder who, from the dory that he has moored in the cove, is a true craftsman. His open air work shed is worth envy. Then we come back out and round the point to continue south towards Active Pass. Here, exposed to the Salish Sea, there is some wind and, with the tide rising, a bit of tidal chop, which at this spot is no more than some waves that are larger than they should be, considering the wind. Twenty-some seals are beached on an island - mostly females and recent pups and adolescents.

We get up to Sturdies Bay, where the ferry docks before turning back. 2 otters exit the water and run up onto the first band of grass, occasionally stopping to roll in the dirt. After we pass the seals we spot a trio of young otters, which may be the same ones that I saw in the morning.

Settling of the marsh

2011-08-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

The morning is an overcast of marine gray clouds, the effect of living so near the ocean. I do the Harrison portage still sleepy enough to leave my best paddle at home, but conditioned enough to routine that my extra paddle is in the bottom of the canoe.

My spare paddle is a good paddle by store-bought standards, but as my skills at paddle carving steadily improve, it is no where near what I can make in my hands. The T-grip works well in whitewater and at afternoon tea parties, but it lacks all of the grace that lives in a hand smoothed pear shaped grip, a form that rests in the palm as if it was an extension of the hand. I am a person that is attuned to the marriage of man and simple tools, which is why I make canoe paddles instead of canoes. The direct connection between myself and the environment is in the paddle. I build them with a great amount of thought.

I pause briefly at the Big Lodge for no reason other than it seems a shame not to stop and admire this beaver built island. Two kingfishers get up and leave as I near, but not so much for me as much as it is feeding time. While I sit, a cluck-cluck to my left and I see the dinosaurish flight of a green backed heron. It settles in the beaver forest, which with the water down a foot, I can no longer enter. But, that lower water level also means that the marsh if fixed for the season. Which takes me to my second stop, the open water in the SE corner of the east marsh. This open patch is marks the origin of the cattail berg that I have tracked since May in 2010. One could still measure the size of that berg by tracing the open water, if one wanted to. Last year, it settled in the NE corner, blocking off a long open channel that was 70 feet across. This April, it moved again, opening the NE channel, before lodging itself in the NW corner, blocking the other entrance. A good piece of it calved off (I actually watched that happen) and that finally settled a mile north in the mouth of Ravenna Creek. The original route into the dead end in the east marsh has also closed enough so that a canoe will not pass. That too will remain so for the season.

Just over the bow of the canoe, I spot a bumblebee pollinating an invasive plant.

beaver trail - east marsh

The marsh is awake, but not hurried.

Paddling in the mourning

2011-08-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

It is the first day in over 3 months where I cannot enter the beaver forest. The water has dropped a few inches this week, the narrow gaps that I had squeezed through are even thinner, the shallow spots where I just cleared beaver felled trees are now land bridges. I can come back in nine months.

I stop among the lotus pads - something I more often complain about because they restrict my paddling during the summer, but today the pads are alive, or I should say, today I notice how alive the pads are. Bees move among the blossoms and rest on the pads themselves, dragonflies are all around, and something stirs under the pads as I move. I don't mind them much today.

The surviving female adult eagle from the south nest flies by. Her mate was killed yesterday by a vehicle on the stupid bridge that passes through this beautiful area, a dead scar, an obscene gesture of progress. I have no response to it other than my own verbal obscenities. So, the sunny warm day has a certain somberness to it. I saw their eaglet in a tree two days ago... "so it goes".

Coming out party for a bald eagle

2011-08-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

I put in on Portage Bay to clear skies, brilliant sun and a east wind.

Coming up the inside of the West Islands, I find ducks sunning themselves, collecting the warmth of a new day after the damp of night. There is one male wood duck in the mix and he is just getting his beautiful breeding colors back after the dullness of nesting season. A bald eagle comes in and perches above alders 1, 2 and 3. I've surveyed the alders, hence the names. They were felled last fall by the West Lodge beaver colony. This has not disturbed the eagle's nature experience one bit, nor mine for that matter.

"Sedge meadow" - the planned SR520 bridge will wipe this away

In the NE lagoon, a wall of green has completely hidden the North Lodge. No one would know it is there unless they have seen it before. I decide that this lagoon would be a fine place to hide from the world.

The wind is picking up. I should start my crossing of the bay.

As I enter the sedge meadow, a Virginia Rail (above) stops me for a few moments while it complains about the intrusion. But, with it positioned in such good sunlight, I stay and watch it for a while.

there is an immature bald eagle in this photo

In the east marsh, I spot a raptor settling to a perch above the big dead end. It turns out to be a very young bald eagle and has probably left the nest not too many days ago.

Estuary

2011-07-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

It is a day when I need comfort and escape, which contradictory as they seem, I find them not so. I rise early, brew coffee and bake a coffee cake. It is a recipe from Mrs. Olson, who lived down the street when I was a kid. I watched the first moon landing on her television. That cake and my canoe will feed me for the entire day.

The tide is falling to a minus 2 ft. level today. So, the trip to the Snohomish Estuary needs to be somewhat scheduled.

When I put in I find a stiff, but do-able current to work against as I make my way the mile upstream to the the top of Smith Island. The osprey are active on the far side of the river where they have a couple nests, but I have to keep paddling to make any headway. My schedule isn't and can't be planned to avoid upstream paddling - the idea is to minimize it. When I round the point and head back down Union Slough, I still have a current to work against even though I am heading towards the sea. This is the tidal flats of Smith Island draining and taking the path of least resistance. It is no big deal.

At the first slough exiting the island's center, I stop on a sandbar for a moment. Swallows are whirling about for their breakfast. I have a cup of coffee. It is a fine day.

It is a pleasant paddle down the slough with banks of primordial ooze - dinosaur words out of context come to mind - eocene, cretaceous, brontosaurus. This has happened before. It is triggered when I see drift logs and trees encased and pasted with silt and mud. They might be only a year old, but when they are painted and washed in fresh silt they look ancient, they look very ancient. They require interpretation. I wish I could do something with them. They photograph poorly. "It" doesn't translate. They have to be seen. They are fascinating.

At the bottom of the slough, where it meets Steamboat Slough, 2 harbor seals are swimming. They keep their distance from me.

I cross Steamboat Slough over to Otter Island and decide, for no particular reason, to head counter clockwise around it. I have to head a half mile up Ebbey Slough to start and the current in Ebbey is, currently impressive. There is a grounded boat laying on its side and there is another where I turn off of the main channel. While there is very little trash anywhere in the area, there are a lot of abandoned boats.

I stop and watch a red tailed hawk. The red tailed hawk stops and watches me. Otter Island does not have the ghost trees that Smith Island has. Otter was never farmed, never had a levee on it, so the trees that are here are trees that belong here, unlike Smith where trees took root behind man-made barriers, which are now broken - hence the dead ghost trees.

It's about 2 miles around Otter Is. back to the main channel. I turn back preferring to paddle the back channel again. There were many tracks along the shore, although most of them had been washed once with the tide. I turn a bend and find two deer on the bank a hundred yards up. When I get there, they are gone, of course, but there are fresh raccoon tracks on the bank.

I decide to head back up Union Slough, the way I came. This time it is shallower. Low tide is nearly here, but this narrow slough is more pleasant than one of the larger options. I have to wade for much of a half mile in the middle portion, but there is a layer of sand over the primordial ooze that makes it go okay if I don't stand in one place too long.

There is a head wind on the main river for my last mile, but with low tide, there is a strong current and the going is easy.

Scents

2011-07-26T18:52:00.000-07:00

Osprey pooping

Coming from the big lake, I near the Big Lodge smelling the odor of decay and mud. That this summer has been a cool one is well told by the fact that today, the 26th of July, marks the first day of the summer that I can pick up that swampy smell of decay. I remember it all the way back to my youth - it is a smell that sticks well in the sinuses - and how hard it was to get off after mucking about in a pond.

I don't need to, but yet, I do need to go down the big dead end in the east marsh. It is the only route into the backside of the beaver forest and this year, with the high water staying for so long, the cattails are moving - spreading and colonizing new water. The original channel closed up this spring and the alternative is just barely wide enough for my canoe. Fewer people than ever are coming in here now - the beamy rental canoes are barred from making the passage. By fall, I probably won't be able to make it. Today, there are quite a few ducks, undisturbed more than usual. But the action is the red wing blackbirds, hopping and picking at bugs on the beaver cut stumps. As I leave, I catch the other familiar smell of summer, that of warmed freshwater lake, a complex smell that reminds me of the stinging that happens when water goes up ones nose while swimming.

A little breeze comes up and with the puffs of cumulus clouds and the humid cool, I am reminded of thunderstorms - it is that humid cool, the signaling of a front. But, that is also a memory from long ago and from another place.

Estuary

2011-07-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

We put in on the main channel of the Snohomish River. This is ish river country - most of the river names, at least those with something like their original names, end in -ish. The Skykomish isn't far away and neither is the Stillaguamish. We are just a bit over a mile upstream from the Salish Sea. This is a tidal estuary. We are starting on a flood tide, but the once it is in there will be little change for the next twelve hours. With a predictable current and water level we stand less chance of having to portage out. Less than a mile into the trip we spot two osprey nests, both with young inside.

I have often driven past this place, but not taken the time to paddle here until today. The main channel of the river is broad and was once more industrial than it is now. It is slowly sliding back to a more natural place, but it will be a long time for the evidence to disappear. When we get to the upstream end of the island that we started from, we find a few channels to choose from and the main channel is the least interesting. A wrecked fishboat draws us up Deadwater slough. This is still a place where things are abandoned and no one comes to remove them. We find the remains of three large boats in the slough, but there are probably more.

We return back down the slough and follow a fairly wide channel, which leads us to a smaller channel, which draws the curious in. The island that is on the map in this place was once farmland, but is now being reclaimed to its former saltwater estuary status. It is a maze of narrow channels. Some go through, some don't, and some go through at higher tides. We follow one that was once the drainage for the farm. It still flushes in either direction with tides, so it remains deep although it is a narrow and intimate route with grasses, reeds and the tops of logs that were driven in to support the bank. (Unlike a river marsh, route cannot be determined in a tidal marsh just by watching the flow of the water - it can go in either direction, and sometimes it is just filling or emptying a basin with no outlet) This channel brings us to a broad flooded area, an area of shallow water that would be mud flat at low tide. The channels that lead in and out of this place can be tough to find. We take one that dead ends, return, and have to bust up a fast current for 10 yards through an old levee to try another route. We wind along that and come out to the east channel of the river.

We follow the east channel towards the sea, not intending to get to that open water as the wind has come up. This is a new place to me and my location is estimated by bends and inlets. After a mile, we enter another inlet back into the island that we had come from. This leads to another broad flooded area. The effects of returning to saltwater estuary can be seen. There are stands of ghost trees - silver-grey in death, killed by the return of the brackish water that belongs here. A pair of bald eagles uses one as a perch. We follow a deep channel through the shallows and find ourselves back at the same gap in the levee that we had gone through an hour and half ago. We meet G. here, a fellow that comes in here often and we have a talk. We are of the same mind about places like this.

And so it continues until we find our way back to the main channel. As we round that point, we spot a 30 foot cedar dugout canoe. It is part of the annual canoe gathering that the area tribes take part in. The Swinomish are hosts this year and they live a long day to the north by canoe.

We meet up with G again at the take out. I have met my match in talking...but he has good stuff to say.

Disengagement

2011-07-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

The wind blew most of the night and morning, but there came a time when heavy misting drizzle filled the view and the air stopped moving so rapidly.

It occurred to me as I portaged down to the south lagoon that I have, without clear intention, been disengaging myself from the city that I live and most often paddle in. Sometime ago I began to give names to marsh and shoreline features that had no official names, and I began to rename the few places that did show on maps giving those spots names that fit logically and emotionally...the burial island, the crossing under place, the workbench lodge. It was me engaging the marsh on my own terms. It was me creating my own geography, which was at least, devoid in name of the past sins and errors of the pioneer land barons, who matter little in the world that I travel.

The birch swamp of the burial island

I am far from being a hermit, even if I did write that down as a career aspiration on a middle school aptitude test (I actually used those tests as a role-playing game, seeing how far towards weird I could peg the results). In fact, I have quite a few friends, the numbers of which, have increased since I became an artist. So, while I disengage from the city, I retain a tendency to take almost anyone that is willing to show them the marsh from the canoe...taking friends along on my disengagement journey.

As I cross the bay northward, the misting rain returns with passion. It threatens to bring out "giant duck syndrome" - when the mist becomes heavy enough the ducks look far more distance than they are - but, knowing their size, it tells the mind that they are 2 or 3 feet tall.

This is a summer without summer. It is mid-July and we are still having weather that we would normally experience in April or May. It has been windy, cloudy and wet. Only the temperature informs on the actual date. It begins to shower heavily and for a moment, I wonder if, while politicians and self-styled leaders are bickering about how to not do anything about climate change, nature is crying.

I squeeze myself past the cattail berg that guards the mouth of Ravenna Creek. I don't go here often, but in inclement weather the man-made ditch always appears to be more of a creek and I find it pleasant.

Return to the water

2011-07-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

It isn't long
no more than perhaps
one hundred strokes of the paddle
I hear the whistle
the wavering call of the bald eagle
and I look
usually able to spot the bird
my eyes sharp and trained
at watching wildlife
keen to pick up the horizontal where it should be vertical
wary of the oval where it should be random
I see it not. I don't need to.

I set out from the Harrison portage on a heavy overcast gray day. It is typical of winter except for the warmth of summer and the extra green that the deciduous plants add to the landscape. A light breeze, a very light breeze comes mostly from the north. My first pause is at the Big Lodge, which is now green in summer growth and appears more to be a hill than a house. I can still get into the beaver forest because of the high water, so I do. I find a heron feather floating. It is very soft, almost limp, kind of delicate.

The big dead end in the east marsh is continuing to close itself. I collect the old redwing blackbird nest, which I had left alone for others to discover, but now that the channel next to it is closed, no one will go that way and it won't be missed. I find a mound of cattail and brush that some animal has assembled. It is a lodge, but I don't know for what.

The parks department has cut away the big deadfall in the east channel of the burial island. At almost 2 feet in diameter, I was never going to clear it myself, although for a bit longer I would have enjoyed the technique of crossing it, the same that one uses when crossing a beaver dam as the top of it was just at the water level. It did keep the traffic down some.

The water in the bay is still quite clear. Typically, the algae has bloomed some, but today I find that I can see the debris field at Marsh Island with ease. It is amazing what people used to just toss into the lake.

I just keep going and work the headwind to the southeast end of the dead lake, where I take out and walk up over the hill.

Field Trip

2011-07-09T13:57:00.000-07:00

I'm taking my nephew J canoeing. I overhear my hip wife, S warn him that "when Scott is ready to go, he goes, so you need to get ready to go."

We do the Harrison Portage, finding my cold weather swimming friend who comes up to shake hands. He did two miles today. The first time we met he had just finished swimming a bit over a mile in 47 degree water....tough stuff.

It is a beautiful summer day, sunny with some clouds and still cool. I chat about the before and after of the big lake as we go....what it would've looked like a 100 years ago when it was 10 feet deeper.

The big lodge is now well camouflaged in summer growth and can be missed from a 100 yards if one doesn't pay attention. A lot is missed from a lot closer in the marsh if one doesn't pay attention. We chase the call of a marsh wren when we get to the east marsh and just when I am about to give up on seeing it, it pops up to the top of the cattails for us.

We do the full circuit of no-man's land in Union Bay, but in this fine weather the wildlife has already began to lay down. Things are quiet. We head through the crossing under place into Portage Bay. There, we take out at the south end and have a short chat with a guy with a kayak who lives near me and has seen me portage past the house. My friend A, the retired archaeologist wanders into the park with her dog F who is a D. F proceeds to chase a golden retriever while A and I talk. We are planning a future trip to watch the beaver in the marsh. F is having fun, but a D is a poor size match for a golden retriever.

Then, we march up the hill.

The Best Things in Life Aren't Things

2011-07-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

A friend posts a photo with that line painted on a cracked wall in neat block letters with the shadows of trees running through the image. I write it on the back of my life vest in neat block letters.

I am going canoeing. My big show is ready and worrying about it won't make it readier. I pack my gear (or rather, I grab my gear that is always packed and ready to go). It begins to drizzle, and I grab my gear faster. I love the rain. If I ever move from here I will probably miss the rain as much as I miss the snowy winters of the place where I grew up.

At the big lake, a woman arrives for her mile swim as I am getting ready. She is happy. Just like me with my canoe, she is happy by swimming in the open water of the big lake. I can tell. We exchange just a sentence or two. She is in the water and on her way.

The drizzle closes down the lake, the distant obstructions of the city disappear just as the even more distant peaks of Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier do. The world softens, it eases up and lets the imagination stretch.

A favorable wind blows me in my desired direction as I put my paddle down across the gunwales and write in my notebook.

The first bird of note is a female common merganser. It is a rare bird to see here at this time of year, although they are plentiful in winter. I suppose there are a few near the mouth of the Cedar River at the south end of the big lake. Rivers suit there carnivore tastes much better during summer.

At Potlatch Point an eagle with something in its talons flies by. It is on a beeline for the south nest. I am on a beeline for the NE lagoon. As I near, I find one of the north nest eagles at the lunch counter. It gets up when I am still some distance, but it is clearly the huge female.

While circling the bay, I find an immature bald eagle in a birch on Birch Island. A lot of Canada geese are right below it. The geese do this fairly often and it always looks odd to me. But, it is a foolish eagle that will mess with a full-grown goose as a goose is capable of breaking an eagle's wing...a fatal injury.

I run once through the east marsh and south lagoon. I leave the water at the west end of the ancient portage. On the way home, I run into the man with the crutch and the little lap dog, right at the steepest cobblestone section of the portage, where I have always found them. It has been some time since I've seen them. I stop and we talk for a minute or two.

An osprey day

2011-07-05T18:43:00.000-07:00

The first bird of note that I see is an osprey that comes down the big lake from the north, head on at me. I identify them from a distance where there is nothing to gauge their size by the flapping of their wings. They fall somewhere between a heron and a bald eagle....and I always go through the process of thinking, "that is not an eagle, that is not a heron."

When it passes, I spot a dark object ahead 100 yards. It moves and it moves not like a duck, which makes it a mammal. It dives and the bight of its smooth tapered tail lifts clear of the water for a second before disappearing....an otter. I stop when I get closer and get a few glimpses of that otter, but it is too busy to stay on the surface for more than a few seconds. But while I watch, a second osprey comes my way, perhaps drawn in by the otter's activity, which it may see as a signal of fish in the area.

I continue another couple hundred yards up the lake and a third osprey (or is it one of the others returning) overtakes me, and I watch it fly a mile ahead while I paddle.

A middle school class of Canada geese come by chaperoned attentively by two elders. Sometimes, people wonder how they can fly such precise vee's while migrating, but when you watch them from the day they hatch, you realize that their whole life is carefully ordered. They are continually guided and watched until they become part of the flock.

East Marsh
In the east marsh, I paddle the long dead end to see if anything has changed. The original route in is now closed to the narrowest of boats, but the other way still goes. The light is good at the edge of the beaver forest, the strong sun of today casting contrast on the thousand beaver gnawed limbs that come up out of the water. An agonizing piercing "skreek" announces the coming of a green backed heron. It almost lands in a branch before seeing me and continuing away.

And, I continue away, paddling the crossing under place, Portage Bay, ducking the NW wind in the dead lake until it suits me...when it is a quartering tailwind. It pushes me down to the south end and I walk up over the hill to home.

The river

2011-07-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

It is a pleasant day, warm and cloudy with sun coming through now and then, here and there. S comes along with me to the north end of the big lake where we put in for a short trip on the Sammamish River. They call it a slough, but I think of it as a river, which doesn't matter as much as the fact that S knows that I need to get out.

There is a stiff wind, which is the reason we head towards the river instead of more open water. But, the wind is out of the north, so even as we do the 1/4 mile or so across the big lake to the mouth of the river, we are protected from the brunt of the weather.

Four eagles are busy here. Only one is mature with a white head and tail. A kingfisher is working the shoreline where we put in.

The Sammamish is a mixed bag for wildlife. The mouth has a small marsh that hosts herons, wrens, ducks and blackbirds. Then we pass through area where houses and building were allowed to be placed far too close to the river for anyone's good.

A pair of plastic swans pooping polyethylene

Then, once again some open wetland, although it is wetland with little stewardship - too many blackberries, which means that there are other unhealthy invasives in the mix. It's this second area, where the river bends to the right and a stagnant creek joins in on the left that confuses me. It is a large enough patch of land that it should have a reasonably good amount of wildlife diversity, but it never does. S comments that something seems wrong even though it looks right.

We get up to the golf course, a rather unfortunate area that crowds the river and turn around.

While exploring the stagnant creek, we find a bit of beaver gnawing, but it is a small amount. This seems like a good place for beaver, but they too are not here.

Marsh wren nest (real, authentic and genuine)

At the mouth, more eagles come in, challenging each other in the air. There might be six total. I spot a fine wren nest in the marsh and stop to show S. As we cross the end of the lake an osprey circles high carefully watching a bald eagle circling below it. The kingfisher is still working the shoreline where we put in.

Touring Seattle

2011-06-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

My friend C joins me. She has driven all the way from Atlanta on a round the country tour to deliver artwork from a huge collaborative exhibition on the Iraq war that she organized...and did pretty much everything. People made gloves, 6 for each week of the war. No one knew that so many gloves would have to be made. C did hundreds herself before asking for help.

We portage down the hill to the east end of the ancient portage. C's dog, EJ comes with. I have never canoed with a dog. It is a cloudy, warm and calm day, an ideal summer day, a truly peaceful summer day. A heron sits on the dead birch that sticks up out of the Workbench Lodge...I've never seen one sit there in 3 years of steady paddling.

This time of day is not a busy time for the marsh, but there are many herons around and they are always a wonderful bird to watch. EJ enjoys the trip, having never been in a canoe, I can tell it is exciting and the dog is well alert to everything that goes on. When we get back in the dead end of the East Marsh, the backside of the beaver forest, EJ launches herself from the canoe in a ridiculous attempt to outswim a few ducks. We haul her back in and clip her leash to my backpack. EJ can now launch herself all she wants, but she will only swim two more feet once she hits the water.

The little pile of "salad" at the water's edge in the center of the photo is the nest of a pied billed grebe. As we approached, she quickly covered the eggs with vegetation and then slipped off of the nest and submerged herself without a ripple, as only pied billed grebes can do. We hurried past so that she can get back on the eggs as soon as possible.

We cross to the NE lagoon, and skim the NE shore to the mouth of Ravenna Creek. There are a great many great blue herons today. I find and point out one of the marsh wren nests near the osprey tree and we are lucky as the hole in the side is facing us. EJ launches herself a second time somewhere in here and then decides that it is best to sit on my backpack and watch the world slowly go by.

I have so much to show C, a visitor to this town. My tours of Seattle have a tendency to take on adventure/epic proportions....and my visiting friends sleep well. We pass by Dale Chihuly's little shack and head down the dead lake to show C some of the working boats.

Evening Paddle

2011-06-26T22:11:00.000-07:00

Our friend B joins S and I for an evening picnic paddle. We portage down to the south lagoon for a put in. A late start, or an early start is best on a warm summer day when the lake is full of toy ships and aluminum rental canoe mayhem. Everyone is heading for home by the time we start, but I know that the life of the party is just getting its legs. We put B in the middle of the canoe. A fully loaded canoe is really a pleasure to run, it carries its momentum so much better than a light boat.

We paddle up to the Workbench lodge, and while I point out some features, a beaver slaps its tail behind me...nothing makes a splash quite like that. It isn't long before we spot another. It's still a little busy here, so we head across the bay up to #2 island to show B the wren nests. Then, as we sit near the West Lodge, S spots a lone beaver swimming back from where we just came.

We skim the north shore to the NE lagoon. Again, S spots a beaver swimming right next to the North Lodge, while a heron feeds on the north shore where the heron always seem to be feeding. The female bald eagle flies past on its way to the nest and a moment later the smaller male flies by on its way to the bay.

We eat our picnic.

When we leave, we find the male eagle on a drift log at the north marsh. It gets up and flies low, just 3 ft off the water, out across the bay. I tell the others to watch - it is flying as if it is hunting. A half mile out it dips to the water and comes back, passing us and heading for the nest with something small in its talons.

We see two beaver as we near the Big Lodge. Then, as we head to the take out, we stop back in to see where the beaver from the Workbench lodge are. We find one sitting almost out of the water eating lily pads...one after another.

We saw beaver from the Workbench, West, North and Big Lodges.
The pied billed grebe is still tending its nest in the north end of the east marsh. When we come near, it hastily covers its eggs with vegetation and silently dives. We hurry away so that it can return.

Visit to new wetland

2011-06-23T14:37:00.000-07:00

I wake to the dripping of water and the day brings a heavy sprinkle or a soaking mist, depending on when you are out in it. I have finished a couple of projects and fell unburdened. The calm day gives me a chance to explore some new wetland that I located on the far side of the big lake.

I head out for the portage in my red wool jacket, an old item that sheds rain as well as most raingear, an old item that my dad gave me. I wear it on special occasions, such as anytime I am in my canoe or outside. It always brings me an inch closer to my dad, a foot closer to the forest and lakes of my home state, and it moves me well back in time.

At the lake's edge, the rain stops and I pack the wool jacket away. I have a 2 mile crossing ahead under calm grey skies. The wetland is another mile. When I looked at it on a map, I saw the potential for a healthy spot. It is a "patch" and not just a transition zone, so it has the possibility of having a vibrant interior with a fair amount of plant and wildlife diversity.

There is an inlet that penetrates the shoreline. It is guarded by some cattails and a shallow mud bar, but the canoe passe by with ease. In my layman limited knowledge, it appears to be quite a healthy spot. There are cattails and the appropriate shrubs and alders. No blackberries....and lots of birds. The inlet ends in a high grass wet meadow, the continuing passage too twisty for the canoe. As I paddle back, I hear running water up a brushy opening to the right. I can get in, but not far enough. It appears that there is a beaver dam ahead, although it may not be well tended.

I have seen some trimmed branches on the way in, but no evidence of a lodge. Then, I see a large mammal serpentine swimming. But, I only get a glimpse - otter most likely, but maybe a beaver. A second later, a muskrat swims towards me (no confusion here, a muskrat is much smaller than either an small otter or a small beaver).

I spot a Virginia rail and a cedar waxwing, neither of which I've ever seen in person before.

The wind stays down and I have a calm crossing back to my home marsh with little to note other than an osprey passing overhead as I neared Wilson Point.

2nd Trip of the Day

2011-06-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

My friend W arrives not long after noon and we set off on a portage down to Portage Bay. The day is in the 70's and sunny. I don't need to show him the main lodge, as you can't miss it from where we launch the canoe, but the bank burrow on the west side needs explaining. W probes the water depth as we near the burrow and finds the deep canal that the beaver keep open to access the underwater entrance.

That chore accomplished, we paddle through the crossing under place for a clockwise tour of Union Bay. There are a good number of heron still out, maybe one every 200 yards. An immature bald eagle passes by and a mature one circles high. When we are cutting across the bay from north to south, two herons fly towards us in a single file, veering away when they get near. But, the 2nd one circles tight and dives to the water catching a fish. It sits in the water, 8 or 10 feet of depth, while it swallows the fish and then flies off. This is the first time that I've seen a heron hunt in deep water let alone land, float and the take off. When we get to the Big Lodge, there is a heron on a dock hunting. It leaps off and into the water catching a fish just as the previous one did, floating a few seconds, and then flying off from deep water.

I find the homeless man with the rowboat in the south lagoon and we stop for a good long chat. We have mutual friends. He is much more knowledgeable about wildlife than he was the last time we talked. I am impressed. He is learning about wildlife the same way that I have, by watching and carefully observing what goes on. He recently saw the pied billed grebes mating dance. I have not seen this although I saw a nest and both of us are familiar with the unusually loud whooping call that many people are unaware of (the bird is so small that I suppose most people cannot believe the call comes from it). Then W and I take out at the ancient portage.

On the way back, we divert a few blocks to visit our friend A, who is a local archaeologist. It has been too long since any of us have seen each other. While we are there, G, another friend and archaeologist as well, shows up. It is a splendid 45 minutes or so. The canoe parked on the sidewalk amuses all.

Just short of the house, a woman does a U-turn in her car to ask us what we are doing. She has seen me many times go by with the canoe. It turns out that she is a neighbor and we have a good short talk. The portage remains one of the most important parts of any canoe trip.

Beaver Watch Tours

2011-06-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, S decided that she would like to go see the beaver. I get her up at 4:30am and she looks at me and says, "you suck." But, she laughs that line out. We put in on the west edge of the Workbench Lodge territory after a very quiet portage. We don't paddle much more than 50 yards before I spot one, then another, and then the first one surfaces 10 ft away and slaps tail. Now, S knows what a beaver looks like in the water (a moving log) and she starts spotting them on her own. We stop near the Workbench Lodge after the first two beaver have disappeared on us. A newborn kit, perhaps one or two months old is in the safety of the workbench, a tangle of semi submerged trees. An adolescent comes in towing a lilypad. They don't need to eat bark at this time of year as there is plenty of green vegetation available. By the time we paddle away from the Workbench, we've seen six or seven beaver. They all come from this same lodge.

A heron waits on the recently downed tree in the east channel, which we cross as if it was a beaver dam, getting out and standing on the log and pulling the canoe over. It only takes 30 seconds if you do it correctly. You get wet if you do it incorrectly.

There are a lot of marsh wrens and red wing blackbirds calling in the east marsh.

As we round the bend to go to the Big Lodge, we sneak up on a Big Lodge beaver that is eating a lily pad. It submerges and we watch the lily pads wiggle and tug as it swims direct to the cattails. It doesn't surface and I figure that it has slipped under the floating cattails and come up in a safer spot. We sit behind the Big Lodge for a half hour watching two, maybe three beaver watching us. It is getting near the time when they retreat into the lodge. The last one to watch is quite large and when it no longer shows itself we set off down the big lake in calm water under a fine sun.

The Wilderness Goes Quiet

2011-06-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

I wake early, planning to reach the south lagoon in time to watch the beaver finish their activities. But, rainfall on the roof changes the plan. I roll over and sleep another hour and some.

I start again at the unnamed lagoon. It is 7am and there are no beaver to be found. But, I see my first green backed heron for the season, flushing it from a branch on the Workbench. It pauses on a snag on the nearby lodge and then gets up and flies a big circle all the way around the lagoon, following the edge of the trees.

Sedge Meadow

The highway that penetrates my wilderness is closed today and it is comparatively quiet in the marsh. The carp have begun their mating thing and the big fish root around in the shallows with a stirring of their back fins and frequent explosions of water. I visit many of my favorite spots just so that I can listen to them without the din of automobile. I go out of my way to get into and sit in the sedge meadow at the north end of the east marsh. It is a beautiful spot that receives the full blast of the highway noise but today is quiet except for a steady wind blow through the cattails. This beautiful spot has not long to live. Sometime in the next few years, the state will build a retarded bridge here and wipe it away. I try to record it in sound and image as often as possible.

I cut straight across the bay in a steady tailwind with the light sprinkle of rain moving almost horizontal but at my back. An eagle sits on the lunch counter. It has been a very long time since I saw an eagle there. The mate is at the edge of the north marsh watching the commotion that the carp are creating. It's rather cat like...the fish are way too big, but the eagle can't help but watch.

Dawn Patrol

2011-06-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

I leave the house before sunrise and briskly walk the portage down to that unnamed lagoon that lays between the ancient portage trail and the Workbench Lodge.

A homeless man shouts unseen, unintelligible from the shadows, back under a bridge and reminds me of my most dangerous moment in 400 days of canoeing - when I faced down a man of criminal intent on one of my portages. I would rather face a grizzly bear than go through that again, the grizzly being much more predictable than the man. This preoccupies me as I set the canoe in and load my gear.

No sooner than taking up my paddle for the first stroke do I spot a beaver swimming past. I am on the west end of the Workbench Lodge territory and starting here means I traverse the area that they claim. A second smaller beaver is grazing in the shadows next to two mallards. A tail slap is all the notice I receive of a third. And, finally reaching the 100 yard point of the trip, a fourth slaps its tail back in the felled trees that line the point. As I near the lodge, a fifth beaver clambers over the submerged workbench island from which the lodge gets its name.

I continue into the south lagoon, towards the hidden lodge. I saw several beaver here the last time I was down here so early in the morning, but today there are none, until I head into the east channel of the burial island. A beaver comes swimming straight at me. I stop and it swims esses back and forth, raising its nose clear of the water at times to catch my scent. Then, it dives quietly and I sit still waiting for a minute. I watch the water beside the canoe in case it swims under and past. After a minute I spot it 10 yards behind me. It has passed under without showing any wake on the surface of the still water.

The East Marsh is spectacular in the sunrise, as it always is, the cattails flaming to the sounds of redwing blackbirds and marsh wrens while a great blue heron silently hunts (it makes three catches) in the shadows. The main channel in the big dead end is only a half canoe wide today, cattails on the move again. The dead end is in the shade, so it has not yet woken up so I head around to the Big Lodge.

I pass the two resident dead beaver along the way and park myself just southwest of the lodge. A large beaver slips off of a rootball and there are a couple of tail slaps announcing my arrival. A mother wood duck herds her brood back into the safety of the beaver forest. The beaver return to their business after I sit still for a few moments. They keep an eye on me, but don't seem to be overly bothered. Two nuzzle each other in passing and I hear one let out the clicking chip of their call.

An osprey flies overhead.

I head down the big lake.

Summer Snow

2011-06-14T15:43:00.001-07:00

I stop at the north end of the big lake but decide that this is not where I want to start my canoe trip. The mouth of the Samammish River is a bit over a 1/4 mile east, but I do not want to be on the big water today, even for that short distance. I want to be hugged by the land, with only forward and back as my choices of direction. I want the comfort that comes with two near banks, green and lush with the spring growth. I want to be held within.

I set in at Bothell Landing and head upstream. Here the river is rarely more than 30 yards wide. I find mallards and quite a few Canada geese, and like other trips here, I find a great blue heron every couple hundred yards or so. The current is light with the big lake being held high by the dam masters, and the water is sifted with the seeds of cottonwood trees - it is the summer snow and the water reminds me of early ice when the dark water of depth shows through the transparency and the first scatter of snow is strewn in windblown designs.

As I go, I watch the banks closely for wildlife sign. Occasionally I spot some beaver marks - two felled trees, some gnawings, a possible drag or two, and a large old scent mound. But this is over a few miles of river. It shows that they are here, but it doesn't say if there is an established colony. Anyway, the river suffers from encroachment. There is no place along the route that could be described as a patch of nature - it is just a narrow meandering transition zone boardered by some houses, some sport fields, business parks and at best, a farm or two.

But still, it serves my need. It holds me closely by the land. And I feel that I am held in the arms of the earth.

Summer?

2011-06-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

S portages with me to the Harrison put in. It is a summery day, warm and calm, and as a Sunday, it has brought the toy ships to the water more than any other day this year. But, we expected that. So, we bob on rounded dying wakes as we paddle our way north.

It was a late start, so the time has come when the wildlife lays a little low. I take S into the beaver forest behind the big lodge for the first time. She gets a kick out of ducking as flat as possible to pass under two low trees, her pfd clearing them by no more than a half inch. Irises are in bloom, cattails are up but not producing the signature seed pod, yet. A pair of woodpeckers, black, red and white, flit in and flit out. A few herons rise up out of the brush. I tell her that I need to come in here someday for dawn. Dawn is when the marsh explodes with life.

We explore the east marsh for awhile and then cut straight north across the bay, where the waters are always a bit less crowded. We find a cinnamon teal. I show her the marsh wren nests near the osprey tree. I watch a heron eat a small bluegill and S misses that.

A Transcript

2011-06-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

I recorded my blog today, in the canoe while I was busy paddling into a light headwind.

"whoa! that was a seal, really close.
I set out today, off of Magnolia, in Elliot Bay. I was thinking about how I had done this trip when I had rediscovered canoeing. That was some three years ago. I hadn't canoed for almost 30 years, and I kind of wished that I had, and I'm kind of glad that didn't, in the same way that reading 'Moby Dick' in high school because it is required, is a waste of time, while saving it and reading it as an adult, when you're more mature, seems to make more sense.
That seal has just come up behind me to my left, not more than 15 feet away. I'd spotted him earlier and I thought it was a bit of drift log, bobbing in the waves, before it decided to submerge. Then I spotted a second one farther out, maybe a 150 yards. This one is watching me quite carefully...I don't know where he is...oh, there's the mate right now. I think I need to get my camera out.

When I rediscovered canoeing, this is one the first trips I did here in the salt water. I remember how my wrists hurt. My shoulders and arms were fine, but the constant pull on the wrists....There he (the seal) is...oooh he is camera shy. It took nine months for the pain in the wrist to go away by steady paddling, 3 or 4 days a week.

Western red cedar stump. 7 feet in diameter at the right end. The rectangular notch is for the lumberjack's springboard - They stood on a board stuck into that notch while cutting the tree.

This is a great place to come and paddle. Today there is a rising tide. And, the wave action on the rocks is just enough to really damp out any city noise. Even the houses here don't bother me much, they slip into the trees and hillside, into the woods. There's been some landslides out here this winter, like there always is. A pretty good sized one is back in Elliot Bay and there's another under a fine piece of sculpture at the last house on Perkins Lane. Their two neighbors...they're gone now, the remains of their houses are on the beach. I stopped and picked up a pump rotor from an appliance, something I'll put into some artwork. It's always amazed me that the city didn't make those people come and clean up their mess. They built their house on view property that has long been known to be landslide prone, expensive as hell, dumb as hell to build on, dangerous as hell to build on. The city gave them approval...they probably sued the city for giving the approval after they sued the city to give them approval and now their whole shitpile of house is on the beach and they just leave it and walk away. For a couple of years I'd be walking the beach north of here and I'd find window frames, pieces of clothing...and I'd wonder where it came from, until I started canoeing and found exactly where it came from."

Island Time

2011-06-09T16:12:00.000-07:00

As much as I love the marsh, today I need new waters.

I put in on the NW end of Mercer Island, a good sized chunk of land in the southern half of the big lake. It should be 12-13 miles around. I know most of this island by land, having ridden a bicycle around it about 200 times, but only a few sections of the shoreline are familiar.

I find the west side quiet. It is actually quite peaceful, especially compared to the highway noise that invades my marsh. It is houses all the way, but here in one of the older neighborhoods, some of the residents have let hedges and trees grow between the lake and their windows. A few have even let reeds grow in the shallows. Many of the houses are painted dark earth tones, so that they blend in to the side of the island. There is not much for wildlife, a heron every mile or so, a kingfisher, and a northern flicker. Trees and hedges or not, there's simply not any space for a diverse wildlife experience. But, whether they know it or not, the homeowners here have made this a pleasant stretch where I can easily ignore their houses and imagine myself somewhere more remote.

In the newer neighborhoods, especially down in the SE end of the island, the shore is choked with the absurdity of McMansions with seemingly more money spent on "look at me" than on creating a home. I just watch the bow of the canoe and paddle steady when I see that stuff.

On land, the east side of the island is a couple of miles of wooded ravines, the road essing in and out. I always dreamed that those ravines would run down to the shore, wooded valleys with seasonal creeks draining the rather tall island. But, it's not that way. It is so tightly developed that from the water there is no hint that those ravines even exist. There's no shoreline park land. Frankly, it's a shit hole of wealth.

I stop after 3 hours for a break and take time to write in the shade of a towering bridge. I held off on writing until now. It seemed a better idea to let my thoughts come and go without treating them as something precious. I often think that such unrecorded thoughts will come back so that I may experience them again. It is a hopeful something to look forward to, even if it does not always come up true.

After the pause, I am along familiar shores, although it has been a couple years since I was last here. I pass the house with the bronze Native American statue. They now have an art collection, a crap load of bronze, most of which is, pretty much, crap. Their neighbor still has the 100ft. beast of a yacht parked in front of everyone's houses...look at me...look at what I got.

I get to paddle the full length of Luther Burbank Park (probably more than a mile). Here, the city is doing something really good. Rather than build seawalls to protect the shore from boat wakes, they have installed LWD...large woody debris, a process of cabling drift logs and fallen trees to the shore. It's a technique that can be used in rivers to not only protect the bank, but also to improve fish habitat. There's even some hints of a wetland or two. I paddle close because they have "beaver wrapped" the trees, but I don't see any fresh sign.

It was a nice trip, but I didn't see anything worth taking a photo of, so I didn't.

School time

2011-06-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm playing guide today in the marsh. S and I portage the canoe down the hill to the east end of the ancient portage. It is windy and before the class of 7th graders arrives, we head up north a 1/4 mile to the marsh wren nesting at number two island. It is stiff work coming back, so I change the route to avoid a long paddle into a stiff headwind with beginner paddlers.

We have ten canoes (mine is eleven), each with an adult and two kids. S. has to leave my canoe to substitute for a missing chaperone. The kids have paddled before, but not in a while. In calm weather it would be much easier, but the wind, in the upper teens, redirects them. There is a subtleness to paddling in wind and current that only comes with time, the catching of the canoe just as it goes awry, the little twist of the paddle that keeps the corrections minor and gentle. If you sense the motion at the first instant, it looks effortless. If you don't detect the yaw as it starts, you play catch up. The kids zigzag wildly, as they should in such difficult conditions. There's not much I can do except keep them out of trouble. A sense of control will come with time.

They are having fun.

We stop at a spot of beaver felled trees where I explain and point out that every piece of wood in sight has been gnawed off by beaver. I tell them that the trees have fallen into the water, stabilizing the bank and in time adding land. I point out that all of the branches from the downed trees have been dragged away to a safe spot where the beaver can eat the inner bark. Next we stop at the workbench lodge to discuss the colony. Even here, the wind blows us around. I find it a bit hard to control my own canoe in this breeze.

Herons stand and let us come pretty close today. They are plentiful and busy walking and hunting in the shallows.

We stop for lunch at the west end of the burial island channel. A large tree has fallen across the channel and blocks passage, which turns out to be okay as it is time to return after the break. By foot, I take a few parties over to the bank to show them the territorial scent mounds that the beaver make, explaining that there is a big powerful lodge a quarter mile east that enforces its boundaries. A northern flicker drills away at the big dead snag in the south lagoon.

As we head back, I hear, "help!" I turn and after a second or two figure out that the last canoe must be about half full of water. It is. I join another canoe and we stabilize it while the passenger in the middle bails and bails and bails with my bailing scoop ( a bottomless bleach bottle). They're wet, but not too wet.

The rest of the trip back is uneventful. They are beginning to get it.

I take no photos. There was never a moment.

Mosaics, Patches and Transition Zones

2011-06-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

Here comes the science, but first...

I head down to Portage Bay armed with scientific explanations for one of the nagging observations that I've made during the past three years. I even woke up last night thinking about what I could now articulate.

My first few strokes leads me to a pair of pied billed grebes. One dives while the other seems reluctant to follow suit. I take my camera and turn the canoe quietly to follow their motion. The second grebe dives, but only for a brief moment. Coming to the surface, a tiny head pops up on her back, between the wings. She has a new hatched grebe (and probably more than one) riding on her back. Baby pied billed grebes are amazingly small, not much more than sparrow sized, the smallest that I've seen of the water fowl, so small they are hard to spot, and I don't get a photo.

Pied billed grebe - the babies are on the back under the wings

Mosaics, patches and transitions
Several times I have written about the differences between the wetlands in Portage Bay and those in Union Bay. From my canoe, Portage Bay has always appeared to be a healthy, although much smaller marsh. But, size for size, it never seemed to have enough wildlife, particularly in winter when so many migratory ducks are in Union Bay.

The Portage Bay wetland is a 1/2 mile long strip along the south shore with the rest of the bay choked by houseboats and marinas with some working shipyard areas on the north end. It is rarley wider than 50 to 70 yards, a quick transition from lake to shallows to marsh to trees to mowed grass park land.

Portage Bay transition - lake, marsh, trees, mowed grass park, in 50 yards

Union Bay wetlands are either fairly large areas of cattails and beaver forest or narrow strips of wetland with a large nature area attached. In the south end of Union Bay, the east marsh is over a 1/4 mile E-W and a bit more than that N-S and its west side is a forested island with more marsh on the other side.

Landscape Ecologists view land as a mosaic. You have a patch of farm field, then a patch of forest, a patch of marsh land, a patch of urban area. The patches can be any size or shape, but each of them has a border area - a transition zone. Wildlife have preferences. Many like the transition zones, some like the middle of big patches, and some like transition zones attached to big patches, etc. So, as a patch gets larger, it will have increased diversity of wildlife, up to a point, and it will have numerically more wildlife. If a patch gets too small, it loses its core and all that remains is a transition zone. This is what the Portage Bay wetland is, all transition zone, no core. So, the diversity as well as the numbers are lower than one might expect given the appearance. The large patches and rich transition zones in Union Bay are the reason that almost 200 bird species have been sighted in Union Bay. It is why there are a few thousand ducks there in winter while only a 100 are found in Portage Bay.

So, I pass through the crossing under place, the water route from Portage Bay to Union Bay, because like some wildlife, I prefer to be in the transition zones of larger patches.

As I take out, a woman cruises up to me in a kayak and asks, "are you the guy that looks out for the beaver?" I have to think about this a second, stunned by a reputation that seems to have gone farther than I knew. But, it must be me. M and I have mutual friends and it turns out that M helped with the fine restoration of a strip of public land that leads up to the Big Lodge. She is worried about disturbing the beaver, so we chat a bit and I assure her that they will not mind her presence. I also take a moment to fill her head with lots of beaver facts that will keep here busy on the look out as she returns home. I liked, especially, the way her eyes lit up when I mentioned the musky odor of castoreum...she was already familiar with the scent but did not know where it came from.

Notes - lots of marsh wren activity today. Nesting in action at #2 island, across from #2 island, by the osprey tree, and new nesting in the east marsh at the entrance to the big dead end.

Return

2011-05-31T16:07:00.001-07:00

It is raining as I start my portage, a mile east and 400 ft down. But, at the lake the sun comes out and the rain stops, the wind that I felt on my skin as I walked is gone and the day takes on a humid quality that takes me back to the place where I grew up. I pass the big lakefront houses with their always vacant docks and I think of the one that ran out into the lake in front of my grandmother's house. It was white painted and had to be taken down before winter and put back up when the ice went out. It is hard to remember not being in the water or on the dock or shore whenever I was there. It seems that me and my brother and my cousin were in the water during the summer from dawn to sunset. We got our money's worth.

I can still get into the beaver forest behind the big lodge, the extra snowpack of this winter helping the dam keepers to maintain high water. It is not fully green here, yet. That is a week or two ahead, a time when the marsh becomes so vivid in spring growth that the feeling of sitting in it can't be described, at least by me. Now, the yellow irises are out and the beaver forest has taken on a somewhat more civilized appearance.

As I sit, I start to see the stories. A feather in the water leads to the splashes of bird droppings below an old bent tree trunk. A hawk or owl has probably sat here. I notice that things are floating by in the water. There is a light current. This means that the beaver forest is doing one of its most important tasks. It is filtering water, which is one of the greatest benefits of beaver ponds. Whatever water comes this way leaves cleaner, the mesh of the marsh holding and breaking down most of what gets trapped.

Going Someplace

2011-05-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

I put in on the big lake as I have done so many times before. This is the shortest route to the water but I don't ever seem to get bored with it as I always take out an some other spot - no matter how many times I traverse the same waters, I in my head, in my heart, I am always going someplace. As familiar as I am with this place, I never find it the same any two days in a row.

I stop first at the mouth of the NE lagoon (Yesler Swamp). An eagle sits high in one of the trees that stand behind and over the north beaver lodge.

A low soft chattering semi-quack comes from the narrow opening that I call the summer sneak, and a cinnamon teal shows itself. I sit until it moves off on its own accord, then I slip into the lagoon.

The north lodge

In this tiny spot, I move as quietly as possible, deep smooth strokes of the paddle and then letting the boat move as if it is drifting. The head of a turtle, no bigger than my thumb, watches me and then slips below to safety. I decide to paddle into the little forest swamp behind the lodge. I find two ducklings hiding in the grass beneath the eagle. But the crows show up right then and after harassing that big bird for a couple minutes, it moves off.

Over on the west side of the bay, I stop in the unnamed inlet by the osprey tree to check on the marsh wren. It is bird silly here this morning. I can hear three different marsh wrens and at least a half a dozen redwing blackbirds. A heron perches in a tree, just visible to me over the tops of cattails. I hear a twirping whistle and look up to see an osprey. Another twirp and I spot the second osprey.

Across from #2 Island

I find the #2 island marsh wren again. So, he is not gone after all. And he must be building more nests as I catch him grabbing a mouthful of cattail fuzz, the primary ingredient of a well built wren nest. There is now a second male wren just across the channel. They are becoming my favorites...I find their activity fascinatingly deliberate. I take out at Portage Bay, and as I begin my portage, I run into M and D again, which of course, only makes the trip that much better.

Love-hate

2011-05-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

Putting the canoe in at the familiar spot on Portage Bay, he thinks about the love-hate relationship that his city has with the water. It is a love-hate that most never realize exists. Here, he paddles out and turns at the beaver lodge and follows the low mud berm on his right. It is well grassed and shrubbed with a beaver drag coming to the water every 10 yards or so. A bridge, jammed with cars, stands to his left, the combined sound of it all imitates that of rushing water. He explores the wooded inlets that are not accessible in the low water of winter, and he waves to a man on a tractor who seems happy just to see him. The man on the tractor is "fixing" something that the thick layer of peat below this area wishes to reclaim. He turns back, passing the lodge once more, enjoying the near textbook perfect example of beaver architecture. Again, he paddles in places that he cannot during winter. He incurs the very vocal wrath of a female redwing blackbird who seems to have chosen a nest site, and he spots last years nest as he moves out of the blackbird's threat zone.

While there are beaver and birds in this spot, the man knows that something is not quite right. It seems that there should be more, especially in winter when a thousand ducks should be in this bay, but aren't. The love-hate of perpetually parked yachts and the pseudo-green-ness of a hundred houseboats deck over, for luxury sake, the places that the wildlife need for survival.

The man paddles through the crossing under place, the replacement for an ancient portage. He stops at Broken Island to check the last goose nest on the bay and finds it hatched, except for one egg which lies a couple feet from the nest. He collects this.
Then, he stops in the little wet area by the osprey tree, the area he never named, a calm little nook. The call of a marsh wren draws his eyes to the nest. He knows this wren from a month ago. He is glad to see him still here.

He puts his notebook away and keeps the rest of his thoughts and observations to himself.

Postscript - I carefully opened the egg with a fine saw. The egg had stopped incubating not long after being laid. There was nothing inside other than a broken yolk and runny egg white.

Finding Lodge #6

2011-05-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

I turn the point, coming in off the big lake and heading toward the big lodge, which I tempted to pass by because I was there two days earlier, but I am also tempted to explore behind it because something might have happened. It is a piece of bare blonde wood that I do not remember back in the green of the beaver forest that draws me in. I catch the scent of death in a different place than before, most likely a beaver. Closer to the lodge is a pile of a half dozen limbs all cleanly stripped of bark and scattered about a grassy hummock. Something always happens.

two swallows doing a mating thing

The day is grey and at times a few tiny drops of water land on bare skin. But, it is only bad enough to keep most of the people off of the water. Anyone that ends up here will find it to be a fine and peaceful day.

In the south lagoon I stop briefly to talk with a family in a rental canoe. They are watching goslings and I tell them where the nest was, on the workbench lodge. They are surprised that the beaver lodges are active...people are always surprised. They came looking for birds, but now they know there is much more.

I find a new lodge on the east tip of Marsh Island. It is small, only 3 ft high and 15 ft across, but I had seen activity in that spot last fall and the brush pile is new. I'll have to watch it for awhile to see if there is a colony established.

The nest on the Rockpile has hatched. I think that it is the last nest, so I then paddle through the break in Broken Island, but I find one more tended nest in the center. Fortunately, she stays put because I am too close when I spot her.

the last nest

I paddle the outer edges of #1 and #2 islands looking for missing cattail masses. There is a cattail berg blocking Ravenna Creek and I have wondered where that "berg" might have come from. #1 island looks as I remember it, but the east side of #2 may very well be missing some bogstuff. With one more close look at the "berg" in question, it does look to be about the right size to have come from #2.

The male marsh wren at #2 island is nowhere to be seen or heard. That is three trips in a row when he has been missing. I think that he has gone off to find a better nesting spot.

Lodge Tour

2011-05-19T14:07:00.001-07:00

My friend C. joins me on a sunny morning for the portage down to Portage Bay. I show her some of my beaver lodge drawings before we head out, so I opt for Portage Bay because it not only has a fine beaver lodge, but also a beaver bank burrow. We find a dead beaver near the bank burrow, which is probably a spring adolescent. They are kicked out of the lodge when they are about two years old and this is a very vulnerable time for them. Beaver are very territorial and finding new territory is not easy for an inner-city beaver. I probe the entry channel to the burrow with my paddle to show her how the beaver have kept it 3 to 4 feet deep a good 30 feet from the burrow itself while the rest of the water is more like 18 inches.

Once through the crossing under place, we head north, visiting the marsh wren nesting site, which is silent again. I wonder if the wren has moved to a better location. There didn't seem to be enough cattail here for the dozen dummy nests that he needs to build to attract a mate.

Ravenna Creek blocked by a cattail "berg"

We plan on heading a ways up into Ravenna Creek, but find that a cattail island, perhaps 20 x 50 feet, has blocked the mouth entirely. I have no idea where this came from and I will now have to go looking for missing pieces from the islands. I can't imagine that any of the missing pieces of the floating cattail island in the east marsh could have worked their way into this spot.

We head across the north shore. There are herons all around today and we see a couple of the beautiful cinnamon teal. We are also seeing turtles everywhere, this being only the second good warm basking day in quite some time. They are stacked up on logs like plates leaning against each other. There's also a couple sets of goslings near the north point.

We go south to the big lodge, which always impresses. It deserves it's title and it somehow appears even larger to me today. I point out the goose nest, which C. finds more mimimalist than expected. Then we squirm back into the beaver forest. It is the first time that I have taken anyone back here, the water being the ideal depth for two of us in the canoe.

Lunch

Then through the east channel of the burial island to witness the scent mounds and beaver drags. In the south lagoon we pause to watch a heron hunt. It is very deliberately following something in the water, turning then holding still, then turning and holding still. When it strikes, the heron goes full into the water, not just the usual darting of the bill. It brings up a 7 or 8 inch long fish, which it slides down its throat. It takes just 20 seconds from catch to swallow.

Feel

2011-05-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

As I pack my gear, the last thing I hear on the morning radio -
"...this is what America is about, making money," -Senator May Landreau.
It will stick in my craw for quite a few paddle strokes, that anyone capable of being elected in this country could be so crass and so bastardize "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," or "united we stand, divided we fall," or "with justice and liberty for all."

Inside #1 Island

Greetings along the portage are envious for this is, in most people's mind, a day they envision for a canoe trip. I think about my last 350 trips over the last three years and can't remember one that I did not enjoy to the fullest. Cloudy, windy, raining hard enough that I had to bail the canoe at times, frozen fingers wet from water that didn't quite know enough to freeze, I never regretted going out, not even when I shouldered the 100 lbs of canoe and gear and carried a mile up and over the hill to home after breaking my portage cart. I always came back with more than I had gone out with.

Spotted Sandpiper in breeding plumage

I'm in the big lake by half past 6, a bright sun skimming light westward across the water. A lake crossing is tempting on a cloudless day, but I expect wind to arrive with the warming of the air and the return might not be so enjoyable.

I pass Potlatch Point and head to the NE Lagoon (Yesler Swamp) where I sit for the longest time and drift on the morning's cool breeze. The Lagoon has leafed out, an circular room of green with a scattered dapple of lily pads and a dozen bird calls coming from the unseen. There is a chill in the breeze and my neck and shoulders feel the discomfort, but I decide to leave off my jacket, I decide to feel.

And, as quickly as that, the expected wind has arrived.

Cinnamon Teal

Notes:
Saw a half dozen cinnamon teal along the north shore.
The north point nest has no sign of egg remains. Possibly, it was not a nest.
Two spotted sandpipers in breeding colors at the north point.
The nest at the north end of the east marsh is a fine nest, but shows no signs of ever having eggs. The two geese are still quite territorial and make their presence known while I photograph the nest.
The floating cattail island has sealed the west channel, again.

Spending time with the wren

2011-05-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

I run the Harrison Portage on a day that promises to be something like spring with a seasonally delayed warmth and a thinly filtered sun.

There is a north wind on the big lake but the waves are small, smaller than I would expect. Rounding Potlatch Point I have to fight a headwind and I think that I cannot remember ever having to fight anything here. Usually, this is a point of calm, my first spot for a short break.

A pair of rental kayaks lead me to the big lodge and while I examine the goose nest one last time, they paddle into the beaver forest. It is one of my favorite spots, so I leave it to them to explore on their own terms while I squirm into a passage farther south. I find a beaver canal heading west where I must stop, a canal for beaver but not for canoes. With the others gone, I work my way circuitously through the stumps and humps of the beaver forest. I pick up the faint smell of death, a frequent odor in the marsh, and I wonder how much this has to do with people's negative views on swamps. I eventually catch the smell full force and find a dead beaver some 20 feet upwind. I find a lot of dead beaver in the spring and I think that this might have something to do with the adolescents being kicked out of the lodge. They are territorial and all of the bay has pretty much been taken. So much of the other shorelines are sea walled that there is almost no place for them to go.

In the east marsh, the north wind has moved the floating cattail island a bit to the south and east. Now, the west channel is open again. I hang onto the island for awhile to see if it is moving, but it seems stationary, so I paddle off.

I spend some time with the male marsh wren on #2 island. He is once again singing a storm, seemingly so proud of his 6 nests.

As I head out, I hear voices. I know these people, although not by name, yet. I stop to talk. We talk about more subjects than you would imagine. I have seen M and D walking around town during the last 20 years. I have always been amazed at the sphere of peace and gracefulness that they seem to exude. It is so nice to talk at length with them. They are, pretty much, what I imagined them to be and I look forward to bumping into them again.

On the portage home, J. stops on her bike to admire and talk with me about my cart. It turns out that we have mutual friends. I think about how much I would miss if I used my car to get to the water.

A river not a river

2011-05-13T13:18:00.001-07:00

I put in on the south lagoon after a nice portage where I ran into and talked with B and E again.

But, something behind me tells me that I am on a slow moving river and not in a wetland in a bay. The scene of cattails and marsh plants and a nearly drowned birch forest is correct. The current comes from the light wind and when I sit I drift downstream watching it all pass.

I find four week-old goslings with their parents as I paddle over to the workbench lodge. The nest there is vacant and the goslings may be the result. The timing is right. The high water has taken two birch trees from the burial island. They have fallen towards the water, their rootballs pried loose from the minimal earth of the marsh. They will provide easy food for the beaver come fall and they will serve to extend the edges of the land a few inches farther into the water.

The scent of beaver castoreum is heavy in the air as I enter the east channel of the burial island. I am still 50 yards from the first scent mound. I wander the narrow passages of the east marsh, my eyes sharp for redwing blackbird and marsh wren nests, which should be starting soon. The cattails are shoulder high to me kneeling in the canoe, but it is still a green and tan mix of the old and new. I go down the long winding dead end channel, just wide enough for the canoe, and at the very end, just around the last slow bend, I find a mallard sitting on a nest.

How can one not believe in something?

I cross to the NE lagoon (Yesler Swamp), where I spot a pair of cinnamon teal.
An eagle flies by, circling once before continuing to the north nest.
A sharpshin hawk streaks by at eye level and weaves through the forest as it goes.
At the north point I find a goose nest still tended.
Thirty feet north of the nest is a large beaver scent mound.
A pair of northern shovelers is on the north side of #1 island. I thought they would all be gone by now.
I remove a 50 year old tire from the side of west keg island.

Marsh wren nest

I hear the marsh wren at the same place on #2 island as I did before. There was one nest there, but I though it to be an old one. Now I find six nests. He might need to build ten more to attract a mate. He has staked a claim right next to the beaver canal that leads into the island.

I talk with some school children as I take out. We exchange our animal sightings.

The Grand Tour

2011-05-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

It is a grey and calm day. I start my portage to the big lake, a plan that will take me through the marsh so that I can check on the goose nests, but at the first corner, I turn west instead of east. I will go to the dead lake and from there to the salt water. It has been a very long time since I have paddled in the Salish Sea.

I cross the dead lake and paddle down the Fremont canal without much to comment on except for the stillness of the water. The canoe always travels fastest in calm water. An occasional seagull pin feather, sitting on the dark water is the beauty of this stretch. At the west end of the canal I enter the fresh water section of Salmon Bay, a half mile of industrial water with Foss tugboat and their drydocks on the south and the dozens of the fishing fleet all around. As much as I miss the wildlife habitat that could be here, this shipyard/working fleet use of the shore is palatable to me, unlike the massive pleasure craft and houseboat moorage back in the dead lake.

I arrive at the lock just as two boats are exiting at my level. The Yachts are directed into the big lock and I, after waiting no more than two minutes, am waved into the small lock alone. Passing through a lock is a transformation. Not only do I drop from one level to another, but I go from fresh water to salt. I go from beavers and mallard to seals and sea lions. I go from small water to wide open expanses.

No sooner than leaving the lock do I find two harbor seals moving in to watch me. To see one at distance is to see a marine mammal. To see one from a few feet is to look into eyes so black and bottomless. One could fall endlessly into those eyes and the selkie becomes believable.

I pass a few goldeneyes and a few buffleheads. I stop around the point and stretch my legs finding what look like faint river otter tracks with their odd pairing of prints. As I continue I spot another seal up ahead. I see it once again as I near. It comes up again, very small. It takes a moment and I now realize that it is actually a very large river otter.

Brant

Near West Point I spot a flock of 15 brants. They are an understated goose, less noisy and less flashy than their Canada Geese cousins. They pass through this area in spring and fall. I know where they are going, which is why I like them so much. They will continue north flying all the way to the arctic islands off of northern Canada. Of all the birds we see here, these will go the farthest north.

I spot a harlequin duck sitting on a boulder in the water as I reach the turn into Elliot Bay.

There are many new landslides all along this bluff. The people with the excellent sculpture collection have tempted fate. My favorite piece of their collection still stands having missed tumbling to the sea by no more than a few inches. It is all bubble wrapped and prepped to be relocated, a mummified stone standing a hundred feet above.

I am getting tired. I portage the two miles across the lowland to Fishermen's Terminal. Then back through the Fremont Canal and the dead lake. It has stayed calm. I do my final two mile portage up and over the hill. I occasionally smile or nod at people as they pass, but I am too tired to talk.

The First Hatch

2011-05-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

I stroll the Harrison portage to the big lake. For some reason, it seems a leisurely and casual walk and I savor whatever it is that is in today's air. My conversations along the way are brief and not much more than a nod or a greeting of just a few words.

A southeast wind blows on the big lake and I paddle north with a moderate wave and chop that comes to me behind my right shoulder. It goes well and I round Potlatch Point and move up to the big lodge to check on the goose nest. It has not yet hatched - it should be a few more days, but all is well and the female rolls her eggs while I am there. Then, I just poke around in the back corners of the east marsh. The floating island is still where it was on my last trip, sealing the west channel. I find a scent mound (beaver) in the center of the north patch, just a splatter of mud on top of a grassy hummock, but with my nose down to it, I can pick up the odor of castoreum.

I head out and around the bay, a survey to see what is changing in the May marsh. There are very few ducks left. I spot a few buffleheads, a few ringnecks, and. up north, a small flock of common mergansers. Most of the winter migrants are well off and the bay is Canada geese, and the resident ducks. When I get to the South Railroad Island, I find that the incredibly wealthy asshole that lives nearby has view pruned city property once again, in nesting season. It's not enough to have a ten million dollar property... f-ing pig.

As I enter Yesler Swamp, I find two Canada geese herding four golden goslings. This the the first hatch of the year and it was the first nest that I found. The nest looks like it was abandoned within the last day or two (once the goslings hatch, they have no use for the nest...and goose nests are pretty primitive at that). The big female bald eagle from the north nest is perched nearby.

I wonder how many eggs hatched. Anyway, those two adults are not giving the young much room. Crossing the north shore, I find another 75 lb block of foam. As I wrestle the pig into the canoe I stand in a soup of foam pebbles that have crumbled off. This junk should be banned from use as floatation material. I dispose of it in the usual spot where the grounds keepers can get at it.

I exit at Portage Bay. Just as I come to shore, I catch a serpentine dive out of the corner of my eye. I pause, and while watching, catch a second brief serpentine dive, again out of the corner of my eye. This time I spot the bubble trail and I sit still until a small river otter pops up all too close to the canoe, as they often do. Then, it's gone. And soon, a mother duck with a large brood of ducklings takes to the water. They were most likely on shore while the otter was near, as otters do eat baby ducks.

The Finest of Days

2011-04-29T14:57:00.000-07:00

On my way to the south lagoon, I stop to talk with a man, J, who lives not far from me. At first, by his opening question, he does not comprehend that I am portaging "all the way to the lake" - as it is so often phrased. We have a very nice chat. I think, as I continue, how likely it is that this will happen again before I get to the water.

Three blocks further, just below the steepest part, T stops me. He has seen me before, so he already has in mind what is going on. We too have a very nice talk about the things that I see on my journeys. But, we talk long enough for me to tell him how important the portages are. How, without the portage, I would not meet so many people and get a chance to tell them about the wonderful things that happen in the marsh.

I was here not long ago, the winding dead end in the cattails, in the place I call the east marsh, because it is east of something. The sky is bigger today than it was then, last years cattails continuing their descent to the water as this years cattails rise up. They are knee high, if I could stand where they are, but if I tried to do that, they would be chest high. A mated pair of mallards weedled through as I reached this point. There is the ever present trilling of redwing blackbirds, two chickadees pull fuzz from the head of an old cattail - nesting material, no doubt. I saw an eagle by the south nest on the way in, but the sky in this place will never be open enough to see it. A crow calls, a marsh wren does likewise, and a dozen more noises are there that I have no name for.

I exit the cattails to find the floating island all rearranged yet again. The calved off south section has now drifted all of the way to the west, sealing off that channel, which I know has been open for over 20 years. Now, the eastern channel that closed last May is open to its original width of some 70 ft.

I head over to the Big Lodge to check the goose nest. I sit for quite awhile and the goose rewards me by standing up and rolling her eggs. She then sits back down and repacks the edges with plants that she can reach with her long neck. The eggs well protected once again from the drafts of this unusually cold spring.

the middle of the east marsh beaver forest

Then, I find myself lucky. The water level is such that I can enter the east marsh beaver forest. Two inches higher or two inches lower and the way is blocked. Only twice before have I been able to go the hundred yards into the tangled wood to the point where passage is blocked, no matter what. I have yet to take anyone in here, but only because the canoe will not make it with the extra person on board. With all the time I have spent in this area, this is still the most special and the most beautiful. There is no creature that could do better with this place than have the beaver.

Exhibitions in May

2011-04-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit under the weather with the chest cold stuff that's going around here.
However, I have artwork from the View from the Canoe Project up in two Seattle galleries during May.

The Time Between Memories
a group exhibition at West Seattle's ArtsWest gallery.
Zanetka Gawronski, Rebecca Deren and Emily Cooper with my work in the alternative media platform (AMP). I'll be showing a 9 minute video loop and fourteen hand-carved functional art canoe paddles from my View from the Canoe Project.
April 26 - May 21 with a reception on May 12 from 6 to 7:30pm.
artswest.org for more information

E4C Gallery -
And, a custom four screen piece based on my video, 'The Drydocks', begins showing at the E4C gallery at the King County 4Culture space in Pioneer Square in Seattle. The E4C features the work of several artists, rotating all day long. The gallery turns on at 7am and runs until 10pm. The screens face the street and are viewed from the sidewalk.

There are also 4 View from the Canoe photographs on James St. between 3rd and 4th avenues. There up for a few more months and since they are 4 x 5 feet, or so, you can't miss them.

Two Canoe Day

2011-04-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

I rise early, too early for the head cold and raspy throat that yesterdays canoe trip extended. But, I have a meeting in the marsh to attend. I have to be at the big lodge at 7 to meet up with B and MA, two local activists working on having the ridiculous backwards plans for a new SR520 bridge redesigned (I often refer to the current bridge as the stupid bridge, which is an accurate statement - the new bridge plan is stupider) .

I put in about 6am at the east end of the ancient portage. It is still and grey but the clouds are not a solid blanket, a sun event may happen as the morning progresses. Two heron fly overhead and I notice them by the reflection in the water to the left of my canoe. A brief glance and I decide that I prefer the reflection. I watch carefully the surface of the still water. Moving animals such as beaver and otters are easy to spot on an unbroken surface. As I near the workbench lodge, I see nothing and I disregard the workbench itself as it is now under a few inches of water. I pass by listening to the zip of my paddle as it recovers submerged. A splash. I didn't see it, but there was a beaver near the workbench although all that remains is the expanding ring of waves from its tail slap.

Castor Canadensis - The North American Beaver

At the next point, now between the workbench lodge and the hidden lodge, I spot a beaver in the water, then a second and eventually a third. I sit. They spread out and then return. One swims directly to and into the hidden lodge. One swims behind me, near the point, slapping a tail every few minutes. Another disappears behind the point and then, if it is the same beaver, comes to the shore and rips a dry cattail out at the base and swims off with it. The tail slapper slaps again. I stay as long as I can, checking my watch and heading off around the burial island towards the meeting spot.

wind up for a tail slap

note the webbed hind foot

As I turn the cattail point near the big lodge, I find a large beaver ahead of me, swimming with a cattail, which it abandons as it slaps its tail 15 feet from me. It moves into the cattails, unseen now except that it slaps its tail three more times as I continue, the noise turning my head to see the last of the fountain of water as it falls behind the cattails.

Near the lodge, I find a big block of foam, a 75 pounder for sure and I just herd it to land with the canoe. I see the big beaver once more as it approaches the lodge. At the same time, a canoe is approaching and I am sure it must be B and MA, who I do not know, but who impressed me so much by their willingness to be in the marsh so early in the morning.

We chat some of the politics, the concerns, an exchange of information. Then we head off on a tour.

My new friends both have canoe experience, so the tour is mostly me pointing out the things that I have been noticing and watching, the things that I track on 3 or 4 days a week, a frequency that few get to experience. I point out the brand new goose nests and we find the scent of castoreum on the beaver scent mounds between the hidden and big lodge. They've not seen the hidden lodge before. I show them the feed spots where the beaver have left cleanly stripped branches and we head north where I show them the fine stand, or partially standing stand of alder trees that the west lodge beaver have been eating. At the NE lagoon I send them in first, knowing that they will flush any ducks. A dozen common mergansers come out as they go in. We sit here awhile and talk history. 150 years of so called progress has altered this area so much. Then we head back, finding more wind as we reach the main bay. I bid them farewell after a final talk at the ancient portage. My cold has the best of me and I need a nap, but I wouldn't have missed this morning for anything.

Guided Trip

2011-04-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

SC joins me this morning. It is a grey and calm day. Rain woke me early in the morning, but that has let up although the heaviness of that event remains in the air. Before we leave the house, I show SC some of my drawings and maps for the area. He is a bit a bit of a nature boy, like myself, but we will be looking at some stuff that he is not so familiar with.

We walk the Harrison portage to the big lake, and as we paddle north, I point out how the lake is 10 feet lower than it was in 1915, how the seawalls prevent good habitat from forming, and I identify the various ducks as we go. SC spends time on salt water, so the fresh water birds are less familiar to him.

Our first stop is the Big beaver lodge. The goose nest looks great. We push back into the edge of the beaver forest behind the lodge. SC is quite verbal, so I know how much he is enjoying this. I point out how every bit of wood has beaver teeth marks. We find a branch with a crop of false pixie cup (lichen). This is a great trip going on here for sure.

The floating cattail island is rearranged yet again. The small 10ft sq pad has disappeared to who knows where. I can't really tell whether the new calved island is present or not. The south island is still off 35 feet by itself. Stuff is just all pushed around, the lines are unfamiliar. If there weren't immovable landmarks here, it would be an unknown place. We explore the nooks of the east marsh. I show him the redwing blackbird nest that survived the winter, the beaver scent mounds in the east channel, the hidden lodge and the workbench lodge. SC has nature eyes, eyes that spot things moving, trained eyes through experience, and now that he knows what beaver workings look like he finds them on his own.

We head up to the west lodge, checking the marsh islands as we go for new goose nests. One is on the Rockpile. Two pair of geese are still arguing over sites at Broken Island. Sc is duly impressed with the tree cuttings near the west lodge. We get out for these, they are so "textbook". Then across the north shore (where SC finds a duck nest and a scent mound that I had never noticed - #1 island) the north marsh... lots of mergansers out today...the NE lagoon. The nest there is also doing well, the goose holds still head down...come no closer.

Then, back the way we came. As we near a rental canoe, SC goes into race mode. His kayak ability translates easily into the canoe and we speed past.

We finish the trip in Portage Bay where I show off the beaver bank burrow, the other type of shelter that they build besides the more familiar lodges. And near the take out we check over the main lodge, as are a pair of nearby geese, who may decide to nest on it soon, or maybe not.

Time-motion study

2011-04-12T16:34:00.000-07:00

I run the Harrison portage out to the big lake. 1/2 way there, I run into G, who I've not seen for several months. G and his wife headed up a really fine restoration of a piece of public land that runs out to the Big Lodge. We talk for a good half hour. A 1/4 mile later, I meet D, who passed by us earlier and wondered what I was doing with a canoe. We have a delightful little chat about canoes and marshes and stuff like that. I have not even reached the water and it is a wonderful day.

Finally in my canoe, I paddle 75 yards and spot it...a loon. It's not rare, but not a common sighting either. As I grab my camera, it dives, coming up a hundred yards south, then diving again and repeating. A wonderful bird, a wonderful day. A pessimist would go home, right now.

The gap in front of the bow is new...today.

As I round Potlatch Point, I find the 10 ft. sq. cattail morsel up against the shoreline. It is a good 1/4 mile from its origin. I stop to write at the Big Lodge. A call from inside the beaver forest needs to be explained. So still it was, I did not see it until I began to dip my paddle. There is a new Canada goose nest on the SW side of the Big Lodge, a good spot for a nest.

I move west to locate the floating cattail island. It is clear that it has completely reconfigured itself in the last 3 days. It appears to be breaking up. A piece is already over by Potlatch Point, a new "berg", maybe 20x40 ft is now east of the main. The south "berg" is back to being 35 ft south of the main. There are new fissures and nooks all around.

I fasten myself to the new "berg" and sit. It is moving. For the next hour I drift with the berg, watching it rub through branches, watching it drift east, watching it rotate clockwise. I end up 200 ft east of where I started and on the north side instead of the southwest. Wonderful stuff, wonderful day.

I head through the south lagoon, letting my original planned purpose drift away. There is another new goose nest, this one on the Workbench Lodge. I wave to my homeless friend as I pass at a distance on my way to the east end of the ancient portage. And, I meet two more people as I portage home. A most wonderful day.

The Moving Island

2011-04-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

I portage down to the east end of the ancient portage stopping as I near to talk with the homeless guy who lives in a rowboat out in the marsh. We've talked many times before. I always enjoy his strange interpretations of nature, the names he gives to various birds and animals and the personal relationships that he tries to form with them. He's from the south and doesn't know many of the animals by their correct names... but he is always learning and he does note their habits.

I cut straight across the bay to join in a work party that is grubbing out invasive blackberries and replacing them with native plants. On my last trip to do this we planted osoberry (indian plum) and something else (I am very much horticulturally challenged). Today, they put in fifty oceanspray plantings at a little higher elevation where the soil is dryer. A class of freshmen from a UW environmental science class make up most of the team.

Returning to the canoe, I watch a female common merganser in the NE lagoon for quite some time. The nearby goose nest is doing fine, so far. Then I paddle the headwind straight south to the east marsh.

As I enter the east marsh, two kayakers exit. (I do not know this yet, but they will miss the action).

The moving cattail island has once again moved (refer to the last few entries). Today, the small 10x10 foot patch of cattails is jammed under the bridge and the large (1500 sq ft) south chunk has rejoined the main. The opening on the east side has closed, although it is only a 10 foot bridge of cattail that seals it off. I hear cattails breaking and get out my camera, ready for whatever is coming my way. But it is not what I thought. It is not mammal or bird. Instead, it is the cattail island coming my way and the cattail snapping is from the two masses of bog rubbing against each other. I can actually see the island move. I try to catch this with the camera and when I finally stop peeping through the viewfinder, I see that there is now a 10 foot wide gap to paddle through. I watch and the gap closes to 5 feet before I move off. It was always interesting to watch this movement on a day to day time scale, but I never expected to see it move as I watched.

I head west, checking a dead end beaver canal as I go, teaching two passing canoeists how to hold their paddles (and telling them that without their pfd's they stand a good chance of drowning in 45 degree water - they don't put them on, they never do), then further west, through the south lagoons, through the crossing under place, and down Portage Bay to take out. A young bald eagle, sporting new white head feathers is sitting over the main Portage Bay beaver lodge when I arrive.

Rearranging the Map

2011-04-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

I'm up before dawn, driven by my wife's early start. It is heavily overcast and my plans for an orange sunrise watched from the marsh are postponed. I think about paddling somewhere different, for a change. Saltwater sounds like a good idea. But, as I'm packing my gear, I think to myself that I don't need to go somewhere else to see something new. The idea of portaging my canoe through my neighborhood on my portage routes seems so fine. I know well enough that I will see something new, I always do. And I know that I will meet someone new while I do the portage, I always do.

The new design for the east marsh

East Marsh -
As I turned Potlatch Point coming in from the big lake, I spotted change right away. A small piece of the floating cattail island, perhaps 10 ft on a side, has broken free and floated north some 20 yards. This island is a good sized marsh island that started moving a year ago. It is anchored by sedges and tree stumps in the NW quadrant, but the rest of it is floating mass of cattails. Over ten days last year, in early May, the island moved and sealed off a 70 foot wide channel that I had known for more than 15 years. 2 days ago, that channel opened up to 20 feet. Today it is 30 feet. But today, the southern third of the island has broken off and drifted south about 35 feet. It is a remarkable change in my eyes. I wonder where it will all end up.

I paddle into the bottom end of the east marsh to photograph a redwing blackbird nest left over from last season. They rarely survive as they are usually built on cattail leaves and fall away as the cattails do. This nest was built in a tripod of willow saplings. As I near, a female pops up out of the nest. I did not think that they would reuse the nest, but then again, they almost never have one to reuse.

As I leave the south lagoon, I find a goose sitting firmly on the workbench lodge. It might be a nest sometime soon, but at this point there is nothing to protect and the goose doesn't lower its head like geese sitting on eggs.

I continue on, west and then south into the dead lake on what has become a fine spring day.

My new portage cart design - tows better, takes less space in the canoe

The dominant mammal

2011-04-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

On my portage, and not far into it, I meet two new (new to me) neighbors, E and B. They are active in their neighborhood with green things and such and we have a delightful long chat.

I put in at the south lagoon, a strategy to hide from today's wind. The festivities start with a survey of the hidden lodge. Few people know of its existence, cloaked in a blackberry bramble in plain site of anyone with a canoe. There is much more here than I thought when I get out an look at it from different angles. The beaver have excavated three channels that run into the low birch forest. This lodge probably started life as a bank burrow, but is gradually becoming a semi-attached island lodge.

the hidden lodge

I head east into through the long familiar "east channel of the burial island", yet it is always different. Somewhere on one end or the other lives a large and powerful beaver, one who marks the territorial boundary with surprising regularity. New scent mounds appear often, and today the scent of castoreum drifts in the air, with fresh trails, a dozen of them, running up the bank to a food supply that lies just out of my sight. This is the dominant mammal here, if one disregards our own species. I wiggle the canoe into the flooded beaver forest of the east marsh. It is gnarled trees, cattails and small hummocks topped with brilliantly bright green moss. But, there is a lot of wood, misshapen and twisted, bent and stunted. Nowhere is there any wood that doesn't show the distinctive teeth marks of the beaver. And, it's these same chewed trees regenerating for the umpteenth time from some old rootball that hold this marsh together. These are the anchors against wind and wave, at least until firm ground develops. It is construction where human eyes often only interpret destruction.

It rains as I sit wedged into a dead end, some 200 yards from open water. I write and because I am so quiet, unseen birds begin to creep back, moving closer, unaware of my presence. While redwing blackbirds trill, I hear a grunting call that I do not know. Then, a deep chortle laugh that I am not familiar with. A heron flies over, neither of us seeing each other until the last second. The deep chortle laugh calls out again, but from a different direction. The south nest eagles whistle at each other as they near their nest, some 300 yards distant. It hails for a few seconds, a noisy moment in the marsh, ice pellets hammering dry cattails. The sun comes out. The blackbird trills. I do not need to go anywhere.

Notes - the floating cattail island has become an island once more, opening a 20 ft channel after 11 months of being connected to land.

First Nest

2011-04-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

After 24 hours of rain, a cloudy and pleasant day arrives, and just as after a spate of weather, wildlife behaves differently, so do humans. All down the two mile portage to Portage Bay, people stop and chat with me, asking what I am up to. I talk ducks and beaver to them, as usual, and they are often surprised that such nature is so near. This is the city at its finest and I am so fortunate. I drop off an 8x10 print for J. at the community center (see yesterday's trip). His hospitality went far beyond his job with the parks dept.

Note - the entrance to the Portage Bay beaver lodge is on the NW.

I am surveying beaver structures today, data for series of drawings that I am making. As a friend told me, my maps are the outside of a nesting Russian doll, the drawings are the inside.

You find the entrance to a beaver lodge by probing the depth with a paddle. Beaver excavate an underwater canal so that the entrance comes up into the lodge from below.

A bank burrow
Dug into the bank, branches piled above for protection and to hide the vent hole. There is a maintained 3 to 4 foot deep channel leading to the entrance. The rest of the water in this area is about 18 inches deep.

After photographing and sketching the Portage Bay lodge and the Portage Bay bank burrow, I head out east. Entering the crossing under place, I look up to see ten white motor yachts coming through in a double line. It looks like the British Navy circa 1910. For a few minutes I paddle without making a foot of progress, just bouncing up and over their wave and wave echo.

I head up and over to the NE lagoon to survey the north lodge.

But, as I am about to enter, I spot two bird watchers, so I hold off and drift until they leave knowing that I will flush whatever they are photographing as I come into the tiny lagoon. There are quite a few common mergansers here in the north end, and with the water as high as ever this spring, I use the "summer sneak" instead of the main channel. I can paddle almost 2/3 of the way around the lodge in the high water. This lodge was built on land, probably starting as a bank burrow, but as the beaver continued to drag and excavate, they lowered the ground around the lodge. Eventually it may become a tiny island.

On the little island in the lagoon, I find the first definite goose nest. She has stuffed nest material around and under her and holds her head low and motionless, watches me intensely. I stay back 50 feet, take some quick photos, and leave them to deal with more important matters.

The video of this nest looks the same as the photograph...no motion at all.

As with the "portage to", the portage back is one of short talks and waves with strangers.

April Fools

2011-04-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

It's near dead calm and raining...but I don't mind the rain...and I love the calm. I planned on a salt water day, but haven't gotten my act together. Instead, I set out to Portage Bay to record and measure two beaver lodges. At the water, as I empty my pockets into the drybag where valuables are kept while on the water, I come up with two sets of keys. I have my wife's keys and she will need them soon. I find a fellow, J. at the nearby community center and he lets me use his phone. S. will drive down and meet me, saving me a 2 mile portage home. Then, while I wait, J. brings me a chair. Then he brings me a hot cup of tea. But, my wife never shows. I'm sure she can't find me, so I load up and portage home, knowing that she will feel worse than I do.

Once everyone is all back on level ground, I head back out the door and run the Harrison portage, which is just a mile. It is still raining. Finally in the water, the big lake is very calm and it is raining a light misting sprinkle that deadens the city noise and filters out the details of distant shores.

I spot a ring neck duck and this, as always, reminds me of my old boss, Frank Bell. He died a couple years ago at the age of 91. He wasn't particularly duck-like except that when the two of us were toiling away at some dirty work in the bowels of the machine shop, his hair often got messed up, rising in the back and matching the shape of the feathers on the top of a ring neck duck's head. The reference is purely geometric, but it is a blessing to find something in nature that reminds one of old friends. Frank always seemed to know more than he let on. I always knew that he fully understood my youthful wildness and misdirections and I guessed that it was through his own experience, as we never really talked about it that much. He did let stuff out at times though. He knew far more about Harley Davidson motorcycles than any other guy who rode a 3 speed bike 6 miles one-way to work...in steel toed tanker boots. He told me once how while riding some old type of moped, a car handle, the old lever style - the ones that hooked forward, snagged his glove and flipped him end over end. I remember when he became the shop foreman and rated a parking spot amongst all the senior professors (this was at a university). He showed up in a beater $300 AMC Pacer. I always loved seeing that car parked next to the BMW's and Audi's. I'm pretty sure that Frank knew me inside out and backwards.

The ring neck gone, I decide to make rounds...just a survey to see what has changed since I was last here. At the alder stand near the West Lodge, I find that the beaver has nearly cut down another tree. It won't be long before it falls. That one change to the marsh seems to satisfy. I have paddled until I am just as wet as if I had fallen out of the boat. It is a wondrous day...a day that most will moan about. A day for screw-ups and ring necked ducks. A day for thoughts in the calm of a steady rain.

Slow Dawn

2011-03-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Today's dawn comes slowly to the marsh. Heavy clouds will prevent the sun from showing, even at the horizon where there often is an orange glow for at least a few minutes.

I spot a heron against the cattails, it's back turned to me, an unusual stance and perhaps one brought about by the safety of early morning darkness. I flush a snipe from the north end of the east marsh, a goose bobs it's head, a warning to me as I pass by it's mate. I note that even in the gray calm of this morning, the dead cattails still glow in warm tones, looking warmer than I would actually find them.

I head north, up the west islands, grabbing a big block of foam as I pass through broken island, passing the west lodge, and paddling up Ravenna Creek. It is only a very few days each year that I can make it up this creek. It is choked by wood with downed trees laying bank to bank. If the water is too high, I can't get under what I need to get under, and if it is too low, I can't get over or around what lays in the water. Even here, because it is a bit of a ditch, there are things to see. I pass a flicker nest, some ducks, and all along the creek are beaver trails and gnawings.

False Pixie Cup - from the east marsh beaver forest

Morning has arrived bringing a south wind with it. I head back south and not yet ready to end, I go east to Potlatch Point, just to see if I can make it down the big lake. The tall waving poplars hint that it might not go, but I make the trip anyway, just to see if there is a wind shadow for me to paddle in. But, the big lake is whitecaps, and I can't use the wind shadow, I can't paddle 10 ft from shore or wade the bank like I could in a remote lake. Not here where a long dock is required to keep pace with the Jones'.

Calm, rain, wind, birds

2011-03-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

It is a calm and gray day and I arrive at the wet end of the Harrison portage without a thought on my mind. I suppose that I do not need to have a thought on my mind.

western grebe

I paddle north, noting that the long necked western grebes have returned to the fresh water, a sign that they will soon migrate to their nesting grounds. I pass quite a few goldeneyes and some Canada geese, not stopping until I reach Wolf Bay, a former Native American village site now occupied by a private park for the wealthy neighbors (It's no longer a bay for that matter). There is no one here, unless you count the two bald eagles perched in a tree above me - I do. They may be the north nest pair, or they may be from somewhere else. The north nest is not far by land from here.

goldeneyes

Past Wolf Bay, the shore of ridiculous scenes of wealth gives way to a wooded shelf below steep bluffs. A few houses are tucked in here, but when the lake was lowered in 1916, I figure that this shelf wasn't large enough to build on. It is well treed and pleasant. I stop and retrieve a 55 gallon drum. It has fluid in it and I can't take it with, so I roll and shuffle it to a somewhat secure spot under the landowner's dock. Maybe they will do the correct thing.

At Sand Point I stop for lunch, and continue north, which turns out well. I find a ringnecked pheasant at the waters edge and many swallows, which I did not expect at all. When I come back, I find an immature bald eagle in a tree, and a large flock of scaups that have flown in behind me.

It is raining now and a south wind has started. I have almost 3 miles to go to get back to Union Bay, so I just put my head down and paddle steady, a game of making as much distance as possible should the weather get worse. It does rain and rain, but rain is not wind and wind is always more of a problem. Today is a long paddle, maybe a dozen miles with a couple miles of portage and it seems that thoughts come in the inverse of the distance. I just watch the sweep of my hand past my face with each stroke.

I circle up through the north end of Union Bay. Of note, there are many common mergansers about in groups of 5 or 6. It's not a big surprise since I saw a flock of 69 a couple weeks earlier on a dawn paddle.

I'm hungry and I finish at the east end of the ancient portage, because the portage home from here takes me right past a grocery store. More portages should have grocery stores.

Level Ground

2011-03-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

I meant to start early but, I didn't, reading the world news instead, war, earthquake and greed. More greed than one could imagine could exist. It threatens to spin me into the abyss, and so it is time to go, because the canoe always returns to level ground.

As I head out northwesterly across the dead lake, I think of my spiral metaphor for life. The idea that one can spiral in, or one can spiral out. The broken people that one meets in later life are often the spiraling in variety. The world is against them as they spiral into a dark place. They spin off friends, they soon cannot be reached. It is a place of hate and fear. Spiraling out, on the other hand, is a constant exploration of life. One picks up friends like a magnet, friends who are also spiraling out. The world expands, the wonders never cease. It can be a scary place to go, but it is, in the long run, always a rewarding trip.

I'm heading to the salt water today. A trip planned, as much as I ever plan, through the locks and around the peninsula. I pass under two drawbridges and the wind begins to blow from the west. It is enough wind that out on the open water of the Salish Sea, I would be put to hard work, and maybe too hard.

the black one is the Speedwell, a ship of age

And so I turn around, because there is always something for me to explore back where I came from. Always something to learn in the smallest of places. The weather service predicted east winds (the reason I headed to the salt water) arrive as I cross the north end of the dead lake. Portage Bay, a body of calm in almost any wind, is not. The crossing under place is worse. It takes at least 20 minutes for me to force my way through that concrete canal while people walking on the shore easily outpace me.

birches of the beaver forest

It seems that the weather is blowing me homeward. Weather has a good sense of timing, for when I get out of the canoe, in the south lagoon, I find the ground as level as could be.

Curmudgeon

2011-03-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at home trying to find a reason to put the canoe in the water and looking at journal entries from the past few days when something I wrote goes visual. My wife approves enough that she adds to the whole idea with her own two cents.

At the big lake, at the east end of the downhill Harrison portage, I find the lake calm and sunny. A pair of shoes and a bag left on the beach are just signs of the swimmer that I see a quarter mile north. We talk when he arrives...but it is not a completely coherent chat. I am a ways ahead of him, which is to be expected as he just got done swimming a half mile in 44 degree water. He leaves and I go, heading north.

A slow moving motorboat comes my way, a fisherman, and I ask, "seen any reindeer?" There's no answer except a laugh for such nonsense and it doesn't matter, so fine a day it is.

Along the shore of the big lake are the typical mixed flocks of ducks - some goldeneyes, some buffleheads, and maybe a common merganser or two. The goldeneyes fly off first and the mergansers last, as is also typical.

I pass potlatch point, the big lodge, find a dead beaver floating in the middle of the east marsh, find a few too many people for so early in the season and head out towards the west islands. I see someone standing on the north shore a half mile away, where I often see one of my bird watching friends perched. So, I head that way, but don't get there in time.

The wind has come up. I drift the north channel with my camera in hand. A kingfisher accommodates me...by spinning its head backwards.

Then I head over near the west lodge for the purpose of the trip. I measure, photograph and sketch the details of the beaver felled alders. Seemed like I had it all thought out when I was at home....don't know what I'm doing....but, I just do it.

Some geocachers come by (dad and two boys). I've met the dad before and I remember that he is a nice guy, but we are so out of context that neither of us can put it together. But, like most geocachers, they have no idea where they are or what is going on around them. Still, a quality time for them. I point out the beaver workings...which couldn't be more obvious if they had neon lights on them. They don't find the box. I don't think it is here anymore, as I would've tripped over it sometime in the last month or so. Dad's way overestimating the accuracy of that gadget anyway. I must look like a dinosaur standing there with my compass (but I know exactly where I am and what is around me).

I take out at Portage Bay. Going up the hill a guy comments about my portage. I don't quite catch what he says, except that he says, "portaaaage"... like a French Canadian might. That stuff always scratches me a bit...like a fake Oxford accent...not sure who that is supposed to impress...I mean, I'm portaging (pord-idging) a very well used canoe up a 400 foot high hill...not like I'm drinking high tea or watching the footman wax the Rolls-Royce. So, I reply, "if yer not pordidging, yer not cnooing", my standard reply when someone doesn't reach the bar of proper canoe talk.

Dawn

2011-03-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

I wake early, wide awake, and with calm air outside the house. I grab my gear and make a fast portage to the south lagoon, setting in just as the sun begins to leave the horizon behind, rising up into layered clouds that filter warm tones in swirls and broad bands.

I have forgotten how magnificent the marsh is at dawn. Blackbirds are trilling, geese honking and ducks are just coming out of their night beds. It is as if the entire planet is waking up, as if a dormant garden burst forth all of its blooms at an instant. It is the beginning of the world.

In the east marsh, it seems that the floating cattail island has rearranged itself. I can't quite say for sure, but it appears farther north and the opening of the sometimes calved off south island is wider. It just looks different...maybe it is the dawn.

As I reach the main bay I spot a flock of 69 common mergansers, 52 males and 17 females. I have seen them flock together, but usually just before they migrate off later in the spring...maybe it is the dawn.

I get out in the NE lagoon to walk the new trail out to the road where I can get a closer look at the north eagle nest. As I walk the soft ground, a silent hummingbird stops me in my tracks for a moment before allowing me to continue. It's a wonderful trail. The eagle nest is smaller (and closer) than I ever thought.

When I return I am reminded of what some of the trail restoration volunteers said about this place (Yesler Swamp, to them), that it is a patch of nature hidden down below the road level, out of sight from the hustle, a surprise for anyone that cares to walk down and take a look. I remember how the volunteers that I took out in my canoe were so happy to see their project from the water and I realize that I have never seen their project from the land. It's very good...and it is not the dawn.

As I return, I find a sheen of oil in the NE lagoon. It smells like home heating oil, something I've run across here before after heavy rainstorms. I find a larger and heavier, but odorless sheen in the west islands south of the mouth of Ravenna Creek.

Out with Z

2011-03-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

Me and Z do the portage down to the south lagoon on a windy but, so far, dry day. Two days of blowing rain have kept me out of the canoe, the rain not bothering me so much as the wind did, although that rain was heavy enough that I would have been bailing the canoe a time or two.

It is quite windy, so I keep us in the protected spots. Out on the main bay, which isn't prone to large waves, a bit of white is breaking off of the crests, a sign that in open water the wind is 20 to 25mph, a wind that is more than enjoyable in a canoe. We stay in the calm, paddling up the east channel of the burial island, where I point out a dozen beaver scent mounds, some still fresh with castoreum. We spot one of the south nest eagles while heading over to visit the big lodge...identifying ducks as we go...hooded merganser, bufflehead, wood duck, widgeon...

As we cross the north side of the burial island, a large flock of ducks takes flight out in the bay. I tell Z to look for an eagle, but neither of us see one. Maybe it is just spring.

We cross the ship lane northward, herding a flock of coots as we go and I point out a few common mergansers, a cormorant, and some geese at the first of the west islands, standing about where they may put their nests in a few weeks. At the west lodge, we nose into the shoreline to look at the textbook beaver tree cutting that has been going on this winter. They have taken down 5 medium-large alders and it looks like they have studied a naturalists drawing to figure out how to do it correctly.

In the north channel, we see that the trapper has not been tending his live traps. In fact, I doubt that he has been here in 10 days and his live traps are 1/2 submerged. This is not good.

We can't continue past the shelter of #1 island due to the wind, so we return the way we came.

We do a bit more exploring in the south lagoon, visiting the secret garden since the water level is up, and workbench lodge, where the workbench is living up to the name being covered in fresh trimmed branches. We spot a kingfisher - a treat for Z as she is from the midwest and hasn't seen one before.

On the portage home, we stop to watch a couple of steller's jays, another new bird to Z.

The Fall of the Osprey Tree

2011-03-11T14:41:00.001-08:00

On the Casa del Taco Portage - When I have my head in a book, is is most often a factual journey for me, whether the book is fact or fiction. It is with my face in a map that my imagination runs. I look at the lines, the geographic code (that many never figure out) and imagine the appearance, the comings and goings, where the game crosses a creek or where I might pitch a tent.

The NE Lagoon (aka Yesler Swamp)

As I portage northward toward the bay, I reach a place where I can look down from some 350 feet and see, a mile distant, the cattail islands in the NW corner. #1 Island merges with the north shore, its north channel obscured by cattails and rushes, but #2 stands out, a ring of clear water around it. From here I can see the oddly angled shape of its shorelines, which I recently surveyed and then put down in ink. I can see the brushy alders and willows in the center of the island and I no longer need to imagine what is there. I know that the ground has been trampled by the low bodies and webbed hind feet of several beaver who come there during the winter to feed on bark. Looking at a map and then going to that place is so different than going to the place and then making a map of it. I can't say that one or the other is better. But, they are, satisfyingly, different.

I set out from the east end of the ancient portage meeting a light rain and stiffening breeze as I reach the shore. I need to see the marsh today to see what changed in the storms of the last few days. I find a 8 foot square floating dock section wedged into the break of Broken Island. It came from a long ways off as I would recognize it if it came from inside the bay. I let the wind blow me up the west channel, watching the scene pass by without effort. It is, still, crazy time for the Canada geese. There are also many herons about, but they are well scattered and instead of standing at the waters edge, they are back 5 or 10 feet in the cattails. The water is a few more inches higher than my last trip and a few of my survey stations are now just submerged.

The Osprey Tree

As I drift in on #1 island, I notice that the 40 mph gusts of yesterday have brought the top half of the osprey tree to the ground. It is a familiar landmark, on a corner of land that I must pass by regularly. One summer, an osprey used it for a perch, until a winter storm broke off the perch. But, the name stuck and the landmark still remains although the silhouette has changed and the tree no longer meets an osprey's needs. I suppose that, in years to come, the silhouette will finally disappear, but somehow, the landmark will remain.

When I get to the north point, I find that the two dead snags that I used in my survey have both crumpled, breaking at their bases. One has fallen into the water. I stop in the NE lagoon and return back the way I came, but continue into the south lagoon.
The high water lets me work my way through the fissures in the cattails, exploring areas that I have not seen for 5 months. The wind has even moved the moving cattail island some, although the water is not yet high enough to really set it in motion, but I can tell.

By land and by water

2011-03-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

I set out in the south lagoon, spotting one eagle in the burial island perch before I reach the main bay and pass over the Bathtub Graveyard (thank you A for the fine name). I head for the west islands, a break-through sun behind me and a good sized flock of coots and widgeons in front. An eagle passes over to the west taking a perch 50 yards north of its mate. It is hunting time.

The north marsh

I stop briefly at the east tip of #1 island. My memory is short of the details that need to go into a new map. I need to stare at the shoreline, look at my compass and sketch a couple small islands that somehow escaped me when I surveyed this area. I definitely need the location of the diving board log, a favorite spot for ducks, where more often than not, a common merganser is king of the hill.

I meet up with the Friends of Yesler Swamp work team. A dozen of us grub out blackberries and replace them with Douglas Hawthorn and Indian Plum. Blackberries, here in the northwest, are horribly invasive and crowd out native species in no time, creating a monoculture that isn't good for anything or anyone except berry pickers. I've brought an extra lift jacket and L volunteers to go out in the canoe following the work. Volunteers deserve perks.

We start by heading across the NE lagoon for a tour of the beaver feeding ground, a small spot of well chewed trees, but we also find fresh tracks of both raccoon and beaver. Then over to the north lodge and out of the a lagoon, edging along the north marsh where we flush a heron. We have time to circle #1 island, which will show L west lodge, a very industrious group comes out of there. As we follow the shore of #1 island, it is heron spotting...there's two, no three, two more behind...they have congregated again on the west tip. I tell L to just put her paddle down and keep shooting photos....by the time we start heading back we have seen about 20 in about 150 yards. I think that it has been a pretty good half hour trip for L.

Maybe she doesn't know it, but L was connected to the marsh by land, and now she is connected to the marsh by water, because marshes are no man's land, the place where land is not land and water is not water. It may take more trips (it certainly took me more than one), but she has seen it from both sides.

I drop L off in the NE lagoon and head back across the bay. It is warm and calm, mostly cloudy, and I can just sit in mid bay and write for awhile, the nasal wheezing of widgeons coming from all around.

the south nest and the south nest eagles

Big tour

2011-03-03T16:58:00.000-08:00

A. comes over to the house, a new friend that I met at meeting about a trail that leads into the NE lagoon through a place more commonly known as Yesler Swamp. She volunteers with the Friends of Yesler Swamp and volunteers get perks, if canoeing with me is a perk. I figure she more than deserves to see her project from the water.

Standing on bouncing land in the hidden "meadow" east of the burial island

We begin with the portage west to the dead lake and for the last 1/2 mile she handles the canoe on its portage cart, I think her way of getting into the trip, which is not any different from how I start trips...with a portage. A. has no shortage of enthusiasm. This will be a fun trip for me.

We set out and sneak in and amongst the shipyard of Drydock 8 and 9, a working area more interesting than other built up areas with cranes, beams, machines, and supplies constructing a visual mess that is worth stopping to study.

The wind is gradually increasing, so I steer us north up the lake. The dead lake catches the full south wind, and with the houseboats and marinas choking the shoreline, one is forced to paddle in deep water, exposed to the weather. I'd just as soon like to be around the point in calmer water should the wind increase much more. But, wonders of wonders, Portage Bay is windy, a very rare occurrence where so often the hills shelter the water. But, this is not our destination.

Once through the crossing under place, the fun begins. I point out beaver cut trees and we find that the highway department has taken down the tall alder that the beaver had aimed at the highway (and it would've reached). We pass by the workbench lodge, stop to explore the beaver trail on the west side of the burial island and we pick up the scent of castoreum while returning to the canoe. We cross back over the lagoon and I show her the eroding "artifacts" from the Miller St. landfill. By the time we enter the east channel of the burial island it is lunch time and we sit in full site of several beaver scent mounds. The channel is rather silly with the mounds, must be 15 of them...some beaver is being very territorial to say the least. It is also clear that the water level is up a good 10 inches.

Then, it's into the east marsh, showing off the cattail island that moved a 100 feet last May, the big lodge, and the swamp "meadow" that lies hidden in the north end behind walls of cattails, a place that few know exists. We even haul an old tire out. Then a squall comes in, dark clouds, a flash of distant lightning, and a dumping rain which we miss out on by hiding under a bridge. When it passes, we continue north with an amazing rainbow spanning the entire north shore of the bay.

We pass Marsh Island, stopping long enough for me to point out the bathtubs, which A. aptly names the "bathtub graveyard". It is a name that will stick.

We edge up the islands, hoping to flush a snipe, but they have taken better shelter today. At the west lodge I point out the stand of large alders that have been coming down all winter. Then, approaching #1 island, we spot herons, and more herons. It's a game of, "there's three, no four, no, there's a fifth, there's two more there. It's at least a dozen congregated in a short stretch of shore on the two opposing points.

And then, it is to the NE lagoon, the water portion of the Friends of Yesler Swamp project. We get out on the south shore, the beaver dining room (the north lodge is in this lagoon), and now A. is convinced that the lodge is in use.

As we leave, the wind comes up again and I am most fortunate to have a bow paddler. If I was solo I would probably not be able to make headway. We part at the east end of the ancient portage in a full on rainstorm. Even now, A. continues to remark on what a fantastic day it is. I can't agree more.

Frozen bogstuff

2011-02-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

The setting: It is a cold and gray day with a raw east wind.

I put in at the east end of the ancient portage, but only because I realized as I did my portage to the lake that I take out there, but almost never begin from that spot, and one should do things differently as much as possible.

The frozen north channel, #1 island to the right

Today is designed for continuing my map project. Cold weather over the last couple days has frozen the boggy parts in the marsh. This will make it easier to set up my plane table and take sights from places where my feet might be more likely to punch through. It is #2 island that I want to have outlined completely while catching the south side of the large #1 island.

With the east wind, I am exposed to the full rawness of the wind. I grew up in cold weather, colder than this, but still, this is cold. Exposed finger tips sting along with my ears.

#2 island - this is a well used beaver canal with a major feeding zone 10 yards to the right

After a couple of hours of map work, paddling back and forth to spots, setting up flags, taking sights, getting back into the canoe, and doing it over again, I head down to the south lagoons. There, as I pass the workbench lodge, I spot a pair of woodducks. I've been wondering where they had gone to, it had been many trips since I last saw one.

Like the north channel, the south lagoon is frozen, but not impassable if one wants to work at it. But, everything in the marsh seems to be laying low, conserving energy and waiting out the cold. I think that I should do the same.

A son of the northland

2011-02-24T16:13:00.000-08:00

I will, forever, no matter where I should find myself living, be a son of the northland.

I wake to an inch of snow, a cold day with the sun leaving not long after it climbs over the horizon. The day becomes gray, but snow has a way of making the gray better.

I meet a couple of people as I make the 2 mile portage to the dead lake. They are nice meetings, as they almost always are. Snow flurries come as I begin the 400 foot descent, down steep hills and over the freeway bridge towards the shipyards. The flurries raise my emotions and the portage is effortless as skating on a frozen lake.

male common merganser

On the dead lake, I pass my wayward friend, the Speedwell, a flat black fishing vessel of indeterminable age. Then, I have a headwind to work against all of the way up the lake. Rounding the point, I can pause for a cup of coffee before heading through to Union Bay.

There, I run up the west islands. Birds are nearby everywhere, the cold weather and chance of storm bringing them out to feed longer, bringing them to the shore. Eight great blue herons are at the gap between #1 island and the main shore. Sandpipers are running along the north shore. I find a beaver in a live trap. It escapes while I watch. It is scared and I don't know if beaver can exhibit anger, but it looks damn angry. I shoot video of it as it enters the water and dives with a big slap of the tail. The only sound recorded being the splash followed by my whispered voice, "thank you". I watch it's wake, a vee spreading out behind it, as it hightails it to the west lodge.

castor canadensis houdini

There has been meaning and purpose to the trip, and everything else is unimportant.

the wind up

the wind up

slap!

Blog #266

2011-02-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

It's a gray day, a cool day with a south wind that, with the lack of sun, combines to make the day feel appropriately winter like. I start from the Harrison portage after extinguishing a beach fire from last night that someone has left burning. There are the usuals on my way north, buffleheads, goldeneyes, and common mergansers. An eagle sits in a tree 1/2 way to Potlatch Point. Nothing special, yet everything special.

one merganser and six goldeneyes

From near the big lodge, in the east marsh, I head straight over NW to #2 island to continue working on my map. I work my way down the channel, plotting the main shore and the west sides of #2 Island and Birch Island.

a beaver scent mound - a territorial marker

At my last tripod set, which is in about 6 inches of water, I find the heavy musky odor of castoreum coming off of a scent mound next to my beached canoe. I also discover that thrashing about in the blackberries has ripped open my left boot. I don't have the fire to keep working, don't feel like fighting the wind to work the far sides of the islands. It's best to go home and ink in the work that I've done.

As I get to the shipping channel on my way out, I spot a gomer doing 20 or 25 knots across the bay, coming my way. It is a 7 knot no wake zone...all of it. He slows down when I point my camera in his direction, recording his registration number, WN 6020 RL. He waves sheepishly as he passes. He does not read lips. I don't know who he thinks I am, but he drives very slowly through the cut.

On the portage, a cyclist stops and we talk for 15 minutes. It is a fine exchange, it puts a spring back in my step, reminds me that others are interested in my project, for no particularly good reason that I can come up with at this time.

Where is Keg Island?

2011-02-18T15:42:00.000-08:00

It's a day to work on my map, sunny, calm enough and crisp. Even during the mile portage I'm working out the survey, where to put flags, where to pace off distances, where to flag as I paddle into my start point. It always goes best if you have the game thought out a few steps ahead.

A woman rolls down her car window and with a huge smile says, "have a fun day!" Stuff like that always brings the day up just a notch.

The plane table (a drawing board mounted to an old camera tripod).
The aluminum gadget is a home-made alidade for sighting.

I put in off of a mud bank in the westernmost of the south lagoons. It is calm with sunlight shimmering on the trees. A pair of ringnecked ducks are with me. I've grown to really like the design of the males head, quite a bit. Even with the traffic noise, this little spot seems serene.

The west beaver lodge, about 20 feet in diameter

I start my survey work just southwest of the west beaver lodge. I flagged many of the points and little islands as I paddled in so that I can just do a bunch of plane table work from shore. But, after a couple hours, I find a huge error in the work, something that can't be reconciled as much as I try. I start over with a fresh sheet of paper.

This time it goes smooth. Points line up when sighted on from several positions, it would be an efficient job if I hadn't shot two hours. The little islands near the lodge need names. Where I found and removed the rusty keg becomes Keg Island. To the north is North Keg Island and to the west is West Keg Island. The hundreds of UW rowers that pass by will never know this.

While shooting sights off of Keg Island, I notice that there is a lot of slag in the soil. Someone, sometime ago has dumped the bi-product of a furnace or smelting operation here. Next time I hear someone bitch about the EPA, I'll have half a mind to shove a jagged hunk of slag up their ass. I also find a discarded syringe, but as a bonus gift for answering all of today's questions, I find a fine beaver skull with its incisors and molars still in place (that's all that they have). Their incisors definitely look up to cutting down a tree and the molars with their s-shaped pattern of enamel look like they could grind rock to dust.

Nature.

Required Paddling

2011-02-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

There's too much for me to do today, but a quick trip to the west end of #1 island is necessary. On my last trip out, it appeared that the great blue herons were about to congregate. For two years running, they have collected in a heavy concentration on #1 island, about 2 dozen in just 50 to 75 yards of shoreline.

I take the shortest portage down to the south lagoon. There is a stiff and cold wind out of the south although the precise direction is never clear in this spot. The wind curls and passes over and around the hills of Seattle to get here, so it can finally arrive from unlikely directions. It will be a short trip, that is for sure, as any paddling into the wind will be hard work indeed.

This is the osprey tree, although no osprey sits in it anymore, ever since the osprey perch fell off in a wind storm. But, it is a good landmark with a name that stuck. It's been standing dead for a long time and can be seen from a long distance.

When I get up to the west lodge I find 15 Canada geese milling about on it. Crazy time for the geese, they seem to be staking out turf even though they won't nest until May.

crazy time for geese

A few more yards and I reach #1 island finding only four herons which fly off well before they should. Nervous, I suppose. Maybe they congregated during the weekend when I was away, or its possible that it hasn't happened or is happening somewhere else. Nothing to do but come back again.

I grind my way back south so that I can paddle a little while longer in the lee of the beaver forests. Not much happens other than a quick chat with a man who was exploring the rougher edges of the marsh by foot. We both agreed that it was a fine day.

The huldre and heavy metal

2011-02-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

I woke up in the middle of the night, deep in the darkness with thoughts of the huldre, one of the hidden people of Norwegian folklore. The huldre appears to young men as a beautiful maiden and lures them away never to be seen again. One can tell if a woman is a huldre by looking at her back where she will either have a tail or appear as a burned out log. Hidden people inhabit all the Earth and cultures that are still connected to nature know them by many names and forms and shapes that best fit their geography.

There's no reason that I can't find a huldre in the marsh, except that I am no longer a young man. Age and wisdom, such as it is, keeps my course and prevents me from the sideways wandering that makes one easy prey to the charms of the huldre. There is, in Norwegian folklore, a story of a boy who escaped after being lured by the huldre into a den of hidden people. He rode away on bronze skis. It is, of course, only a story.

I start out from where I ended yesterday, my tracks in the mud still fresh. There are few ducks in the south lagoon these days, perhaps the feeding is better to the north. But, it is still a fine bird day with redwing blackbirds trilling more than I can recently remember. In the east channel of the burial island, I watch one feed on the moss of a leaning alder tree. An eagle sits on the northern ugly sculpture and an immature eagle is in the burial island tree that the resident eagles perch in, although it sits on a different branch and looks out of place.

As I move north up the east shore, another eagle crosses my bow to take a spot in an evergreen on shore. It's whistling chirp makes me look again and I find its mate nearby.

The NE lagoon is empty except for a Steller's jay and a northern flicker that is busy hammering away at the top of a street lamp. The dead goose that I found here is gone now and good raccoon tracks are all around.

At the north point I stop and point out the eagles and the two nests to some bird watchers. As I describe what to watch for when an eagle hunts they ignore me...because, as I turn and look over my shoulder, they are watching an eagle hunt.

The annual great blue heron congregation seems to be just starting. There are no herons down on #1 island, the usual spot, but there are at least ten standing on the top of a nearby building.

At the small island near the west lodge, I retrieve the old rusty barrel that I had set up to drain a few days back. I was going to tow it to the main shore, but I find that I can lift it into the canoe, although it is very top heavy. It weighs more than my canoe and sits quite high. I have looked at this thing for a couple years and it is most satisfying to remove it.

The wind comes up strong as I return to the canoe. The 3/8 of a mile to the east end of the ancient portage is an arm breaker.

The Fee

2011-02-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

At the end of the Harrison portage, the end that meets the lake, I find calm and clear winter water under high clouds, a gray day with a horizon rim of orange and yellow from the north, through the east and down to the south.

In the clear water, just 3 feet from shore, I find an old iron water tank. I find these every so often all around in the lake, but this one, I find it hard to believe that people have let it stay for so long. It's jagged rusted open side must have scratched and cut countless swimmers and waders. I can't budge it by brute force, but a drift board from the shore lets me work Archimedes on it. I get it loose and roll it to dump the gravel and sand contents and then drag it ashore for the Park folk to haul away. It is a very good start to the day, my entrance fee paid in advance.

The big lake is nothing but normal today. Buffleheads, goldeyes and a few common mergansers are seen as I head north. These are the diving ducks - ducks that do not mind so much the fortified seawalls of the wealthy neighbors. Their food is in the depths. There is no place here for the the dabbling ducks, the redwing blackbirds....it's just a hint of what nature could be.

I round the point into the bay and decide that the point needs a name, so often is it on my journeys. It is, now, Potlatch Point. Until the 1850's there was a Duwamish potlatch house somewhere nearby. Perhaps as approval, a beaver swims toward me precisely at this moment. It is pretty big and it dives and passes under me. I follow it, hoping to get a tail slap, but it won't comply. Probably because it is alone and it knows exactly what I am, which makes one of us.

northern pintail

The Canada geese are entering the rambunctious period, honking, flapping wings, posturing, more honking. It's entertaining as hell and although it has real purpose, from the human eye it is total lunacy.

I head north to #1 island to check for the heron congregation, but it is not yet. At Broken Island, I scare four snipe from a single spot.

Remarkable

2011-02-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

Today, I head out just to make my rounds, just to keep track of the goings on in the marsh. I have a couple of brief chats with folk as I make the two mile portage down to Portage Bay. There, I take in as much of the "natural" shoreline as the shallow water will allow. All of the beaver lodges seem to tower in the low winter waters. I find several clear beaver trails east of the Portage Bay lodge.

Once in Union Bay, I head north, getting out on one of the tiny islands near the west lodge. There is an old metal barrel here, been here for years, and I'm tired of it. I roll it and stand it on end so the water inside can run out of a small hole. I'll move it on the next trip. A piece of firmness under my right foot disappears as I fetch my camera from the canoe. I go thigh deep. Now my pants need to be washed as much as I do.

The west lodge

The alders 50 ft south of here, on the main shore, are getting a workout. The beaver have cut two large ones and are working on two more. It is a natural clear-cut of sorts. I find it nice to see them taking on such big projects. I hear two eagles whistle/chirping at each other 200 yards south.

Back in the canoe, I find and pull a very old truck tire from the water. It is model T vintage, 3 feet in diameter and skinny like a motorcycle tire. It's possible that it has been in the water for 80 years or so. These old tires are strange to handle. They feel organic, with a gumminess to the touch. They are pre-nylon/rayon/dacron, so the cord fibers have rotted leaving a limp circular mass. This one dumps a quart or two of swamp water into the canoe as I wrestle it. (Brand - United States Tire)

When I reach the north point, I decide to head home across the bay. The sun comes out, brilliant and warm on my south facing side, even warmer feeling with a cold breeze from the north. The contrast in temperature is invigorating, somehow.

#1 island

There has been nothing remarkable about the trip, unless one finds the shear beauty of the marsh and all that goes on there remarkable.

The Red Jacket

2011-02-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

I've returned from a trip to my home state where I savored the best winter in 30 years. Knee deep snow, freshened almost daily to maintain its brilliant whiteness combined with an equally white cold, crisp and dry, the slightest wind stinging the skin. I walked my favorite hikes through the gray deciduous forest and along the banks of a frozen over Mississippi River.

Thoughts come fast as I run the Harrison portage. Each step a thought, each ten steps a change in theme.

My friend, Richard, writes of "losing the light" in a fine story that merges his father and their experiences in the outdoors. It is a rich metaphor for so many things. When I arrived in Minnesota, my dad handed me his old red wool jacket. It's RCMP red, really red. He's had it for forty years and I wondered what had become of it. I've wanted it for some time, but would never go so far as to ask. How did he know? It fit perfectly and I wear it today. It will get worn many more days. "Losing the light" brings that all to mind. Losing the light.

So much has happened in the ten days that I have been off the water. I don't know what any of those things are, I just know, and I am here often enough to recognize them when I see them. I set out on the big lake calm under gray skies. The hills that rim the lake have little color left in them, the greens giving way. A thin mist falls at times from the sky, although fall may be the wrong word. A thin mist occupies the air. There are some common mergansers, some western grebes and many goldeneyes, the latter two, birds that come here more often in bad weather.

At the big lodge I retrieve a tire from a foot of water. It is an arm breaker releasing it from the bottom with the mud that has packed its entirety. Turning into the east channel of the burial island I find a pair each of northern pintails and green winged teal. The channel is very shallow today and choked with deadfall from nearby alders. I take and hour and cut and haul wood clear of the channel with a rope and saw that I packed today.

Work done, I head north to seek out the changes that I know have happened, for they are not here. I am rewarded spotting a merlin on the north shore. Change 1 - the 75 foot long dirtberg that laid off of the north point has sunk. Change 2 - the "chop top tree", a landmark in my maps of the bay, has been cut down. It was ugly as hell, the owners long ago having butchered its limbs so that it was nothing more than a 20 foot tall stump.

I get out in the NE lagoon to check animal tracks, finding many good raccoon prints and good beaver sign. I find a second dead goose that scavengers have just started to eat. I cast some raccoon tracks but ruin the casting when I lift it some ten minutes too soon.

As I cross the bay to my exit, I spot an eagle to the left, then two more and finally a fourth. They are disturbing the coots and ducks something fierce, but there is no hunt going on here. They are circling and whistling and interested only in each other. I've seen this before and I believe it is a territorial discussion. When eagles moved into the south nest I noticed that the north nest pair changed its hunting and eating perches. All this commotion is occurring just about where the imaginary dividing line is between the north and south nests.

As I portage home, a woman stops and tells me that they have my postcard from this project. She says her husband wants to go out with me sometime. I tell her that I'm up for it.

Exploring

2011-01-23T17:00:00.000-08:00

I set out from the south lagoon wanting, no, requiring a visit to this end of the bay as I stayed up north all day yesterday. The water is high for winter, runoff from recent rain filling this large lake faster than the dam at the saltwater can release it. This means that the tiny passages in the marsh are deep and wide enough for me to paddle. I can explore. It is gray but calm. It would be cold if there was any wind.

Small birds bring me to a stop in the east channel of the burial island. It is a northern flicker poking it's head deep into a cavity that catches my eye. There are robins all around and a tiny golden crowned kinglet comes within 3 feet of me. I've never seen one so close... It is quite beautiful, very colorful.

Some northern shovelers are in the east marsh along with some mallards.

As I paddle a small gap through the cattails, heading back to the edge of the beaver forest, I spot a red tailed hawk high in an alder, it's back to me.

I next squiggle the canoe into the northernmost part of the east marsh, the entrance which is just east of the 520 lodge. I get just to the edge of the sedge meadow that lies inside the cattail wall and then the channel becomes too narrow to pass without getting out of the canoe.

I back all of the way out, then round the north end of the burial island and reenter the south lagoon where a young male northern shoveler sits unusually still for me. I photograph the heck out of him.

Then, I collect some specimens, potsherds from the Miller Street landfill, a somewhat unknown dumping site from a long time ago. Maybe the park should have a display showing what kind of shit people used to pull on nature (and still do for that matter). The bank where the stuff erodes out is also loaded with broken glass, so I step carefully.