Introducing the Maze to M

It's been warm enough the last few days that I didn't feel like getting out in the canoe and melting.  Today, the temperature is down to a more reasonable 80F with a light wind out of the east.  M joins me.  It has been a couple months since we've been out. She wants to see the maze. 

We set out about a hour before high tide, perfect timing to go into the maze.  There is a minor current against us as we head down river.  This close to the ocean, the tide will completely reverse the natural river current.  We spot the Swans with the three white cygnets and one gray.  They are near the lowest bridge.

It's a usual mix of Snowy and Great Egrets as we head into the maze.  There we pass a dozen Swallows perched on the reeds, see an occasional Yellow Crowned Night Heron, some Ducks and some Willets.  Marsh Wren calls are a constant although we don't spot a single one. 

I find our way through the maze with no problem today.  As we get near the lower end of the island, we flush a flock of sandpiper types.  They fly in a tight coordinated formation.  The long bill and white streak up the back identifies them as Short Billed Dowitchers.  I spotted them last year at about this time. They are early migrators - nesting in the arctic, but heading south by July. We spot several flocks while in this part of the marsh - a total of 50 to 75 birds, and while I never get a chance to photograph one (same problem last year), the flocks fly quite close to us on several instances. In fact, I had seen a flock on my last visit, but didn't recognize them. 

We head down to Milford Point hoping for some other shorebirds, but come up blank on that.  We do get to watch a submerged terrapin rooting in the bottom for food.  It is duly surprised when it surfaces to find us about a two feet away staring it straight in the eye.

We head across to the east shore, and then into the central phragmites patch where we scare up three Black Crowned Night Herons.  From there we run out and back along the upper side of Cat Island, and then head back up river. 

Extra Credit

Menunketesuck - It is almost like I get extra credit just for paddling in a river with such a name.

It is the last day of a holiday weekend and the roads are busy with unhappy people who insist on hurrying from one place to another and back again.  I keep my travels short.

It is still cool when I set out from the usual place. The tide is high, although not so high as to flood the salt hay - the short version of spartina that grows in high salt marshes.  Turning the first bend, a Little Blue Heron comes flying straight up the river and lands in the shade on the right bank. At the next bend, there is a Great Egret out in the spartina 30 yards to the left.  A moment later, a Snowy Egret followed by a Glossy Ibis flies up the river and past me.  If I was a bird list check-off person, I would have done quite well in just a quarter mile.

There is a pleasant wind, which will be appreciated as the day warms. Except for the first four birds, it is rather bird quiet.

As I near Opera Singer Point, I hear the raspy whistle of a Bald Eagle.  Eagles often perch in a tree over the opera singer's abandoned house.  The Eagle comes out from the trees and crosses the marsh.  It is an immature without any white feathers. A few Blackbirds and an Osprey fly up to harass it - all have chicks in their nests at this time of year.

I head up the east fork and return seeing only one Great Egret, but enjoying the meandering trip.  On the way out, several Glossy Ibises fly past heading up the main branch of the river. A second Eagle, this one mature, comes in and circles over the marsh before returning to the trees on the east side.

Glossy Ibis and Great Egret

 

Mature Little Blue Heron

Then, I head down to the railroad bridge, turn and head up and into the west fork. I spot two more mature Little Blue Herons, and several Willets.  With that, I head back out. 

 

Timing

The 4th of July is not one of my favorite holidays, although based on my interest in history, it should be.  It has, unfortunately, become little more than an excuse to blow off huge amounts of fireworks while drinking large quantities of beer, and maybe a reckless driving of "the boat" - basically nothing more than a day off for too many people. A friend asked what I was doing for the fourth, and I told him that if there was a Reservation rodeo anywhere in the area, I would go, but there isn't.  The best and most meaningful 4th of July that I have ever had was attending a 4th of July Powwow/rodeo.  The actually had speeches!

A Willet in the maze

I start early and catch the last 20 minutes of the rising tide.  There are several boat trailers at the launch, which no doubt belong to fishermen who are already out wherever they think the fish are biting.  I head down river on a wavy glass surface.  In the mile to the marsh I see only one small fishing launch anchored near Pepe's Rock.

I head into the maze having met rule #1 (don't enter at low water) and checking carefully to meet rule #2 - don't let anyone see you enter the maze.  This isn't a selfish secrecy thing; I just believe that exploring should provide rewards and anyone else that figures out the maze will be duly rewarded for their curiosity.  I flush a couple Great Blue Herons and spot the usual several Egrets and Yellow Crowned Night Herons.  The Willets do a reasonable job of scolding me, and I scare up a mix of about a dozen Mallards and Black Ducks. More surprisingly, I pass all the way through the maze without making a wrong turn.  
 

An injured terrapin.  Able to swim, but unable to dive.  

From there, I zig and zag eastward across the marsh and then make my way back up the river, without seeing anyone else in the marsh.  I'm out before the holiday boaters are awake.

To the Logjam

It is a sunny Sunday - a perfect day for everyone who has not seen their kayak in the last year to put it in the water. The big water will be overrun with the Mai Tai navy.  S wants to go canoeing and I have to get slightly creative - shade would be nice, but better would be a river with no motorboats.

We put in on the Lieutenant River, at the usual spot with no issues other than Mr. Doofus who, most likely being a rookie, hasn't figured out that he shouldn't block the access with his car.  He asks me if I need help, as I carry the canoe from the far end of the parking area (I don't), and slip past his car, and set the canoe down in the water next to his rear bumper. "He will learn our ways," unless he drowns first.

We head up river, and the pleasant aspects of this route return from my memory. The boundaries are a little bit of cliffs and a lot of cattails. We pass a couple kayakers on the way up, but considering the weather, I would expect more people.  

The tide is up and Boulder Swamp is easy with all except the largest boulders submerged.  It takes me a few minutes, but I finally locate the Eagle nest.  It is quiet and hard to see when the trees are leafed out.  The parental units are definitely not up there, but I can't see well enough to determine if any young are at home.  We continue up the ever narrowing river.  
S asks, "How far are we going?" 
"To the blocking log jam."
This is only two or three hundred yards of narrow forested river.  A couple miles of this would be nice.

We return to the Boulder Swamp and take the other fork that enters.  Some maps call it the Lieutenant River, but I think they are in error.  The narrow section we were in is the actual river, running down from Rogers Lake.  Anyway, it is a meander through the cattails until it peters out.

We have a headwind on the return, but with the warm day the cooling breeze is well worth the extra effort. We have successfully dodged the barbarian horde, again.

Doing the Maze All Proper

The sky is overcast, the bottom of the clouds just high enough to not be fog.  It is calm and about 70F, there is a very light drizzle every so often.  The Mai Tai Navy will not leave port in such inclement weather and it is common knowledge that a jet ski engine will never fire up under such conditions.  The twice-a-summer plastic kayak drivers huddle in fear in their stately hovels at the thought of getting lost.  I have the marsh to myself.

 

The tide has been coming in for about 2 hours. It is still quite low and the current is not bad, yet.  I have limited choices in the marsh until the water rises some.  There are many Great and Snowy Egrets working the edge of the water near the top of the marsh.  I head up Beaver Brook, not having been in there at low tide for some time.  It is quiet and I am hemmed in by two or three feet of pre-peat banks topped by tall grasses and reeds.  I flush several Yellow Crowned Night Herons.  When I come back out, the water has risen enough to paddle the eastern channel to the lower end of the marsh.

I have no particular distance or place to reach today.  I wander the channels of the middle marsh as the water comes up.  Following a channel to a dead end, I back out and find the water a few inches higher, and the number of possible routes increased.  I eventually get over to Nell's Channel and paddle into the lower entrance of the maze.  After a couple hundred yards of known channels, I start exploring. Everything is going to dead ends - winding channels ending in small ponds with no exits.  I backtrack and try another unknown.  By the time I decide to head out, I have trouble getting back on track.  After dozens of forks and bends, the ones I need to recognize don't stand out.  Finally, I find the long deadfall that blocks one of the better channels. It is a rare and important landmark, but I am on the wrong side of it.  On the second attempt, I find a set of channels leading to the other side.  From that point it is fairly simple (for me) to get to the exit.  I have spent the long part of an hour in the maze and most of that time I was bewildered.  I keep thinking that the route finding will get easier, but it doesn't.  Maze is the correct word for this spot. 

I head back out after three hours of paddling.  I have not seen anyone else in the marsh the whole time.

Surrounded by Significance

When I find a good place to canoe, I most often return there repeatedly. In part, this is to experience the area under different conditions and in various times of the year.  But, it is also to give me a chance to explore the surroundings and research features that I can see from the water.  

I set out for Rocky Hill where there is a nice stretch of the Connecticut River that I paddle a few times each year. But, I change my mind while on the drive and divert to the Salmon River, just because I find it a comfortable place to be.  I found this spot after crossing the Connecticut River from Haddam and being confronted with an absurd number of U.S. Government No Trespassing signs - about one on every third tree along the river bank.  It turned out to be the former site of a nuclear power plant, which had been removed prior to my moving to the area. Coming back and entering from the better located launch at the bottom of Salmon Cove, I found a large area of undeveloped forest land in an area that is prime property for the various concoctions of the infamous Mr. and Mrs. Moneybags.  More research turned up the fact that the spent nuclear fuel rods are stored onsite, but well out of view.  The entirety of the power plant property and some former private property remains as a rare no trespassing National Wildlife Refuge. Reading one day about Connecticut archaeology, I discovered that Dibble Creek, which tumbles, or dribbles, into the cove, if you know where to look, was the site of a hunting camp dating to 3000-6000 years ago. This same reading uncovered Venture Smith.  Smith's farm is on top of the hill overlooking the Salmon River as it enters the cove.  It is about a 100 acres. The interesting part of the story is that Venture Smith was captured in Africa in the 1730's and brought to America as a slave, eventually ending up in Stonington, CT.  His master allowed him to work odd jobs in his spare time to earn money, which he used to buy his own freedom.  He then set about farming and fishing until he could buy the freedom of his wife and children, after which he bought and began farming and fishing the land I paddle under.  His grave is in a nearby churchyard cemetery.  

The Moodus Beaver Dam

I end up talking too long to the State safety person - the state has a team of summer job employees that drive around to different state launches to check and educate people about such things as PFD's.  They're always interesting and pleasant to talk to and we both have some stories to trade. A second safety person shows up - she is a budding bird watcher, so I tip her off on some good places that I know of.  Then, I am in the water,

The Dibble Creek Dam

I head up the cove and into the Moodus River.  The lowest beaver dam is out of the water about 3 inches - I can slip over it without getting out of the canoe.  The next beaver dam, which is not maintained anymore, is submerged.  I turn back at the tight bend below Johnsonville, the wade to get by the gravel bar not being worth the effort for the last 200 yards below the old Johnsoville Dam.  Johnsonville is the lowest of 13 yarn mills that were on the Moodus.  I'm glad to be coming back out as the greenhead flies are excited.  They are a biting fly, although not as voracious or numerous as the black flies that NE canoeists are familiar with (I've never seen black flies in Connecticut).

The wind has come up, so it is a bit of work getting back down the cove.  I stop briefly at the bay below Dibble Creek.  There is an old beaver dam here that can be crossed at high water - actually, you can cross it anytime, but the other side of it is much too shallow except at high water.  Anyway, it looks nothing like a dam today as it is fully vegetated and camouflaged with shrubs and saplings - that's how I know it to be an old dam. 

From there, I head out.  It was not just a canoe trip, but a day out surrounded by and connected to a landscape of significance. 

A Day Like Ice Cream

It's been a busy and hot week - art opening, panel discussion, a closing reception, and then three 90F+ days in row.  Today, I hang some art and still have time for a short afternoon paddle.  The temperature has dropped overnight to the low 70's, and stayed there - a drop of 20F overnight.  It feels positively humane. On top of that, it is overcast with a 10mph east wind.

I put in about an hour after a very high tide peak.  Having been in the marsh quite often on recent trips, I cut across the river and head to the quad islands.  The current is already zippy.   

I head up between Carting and Peacock Islands.  The channel is 50 feet wide with the tide up.  At low tide, it is not passable.  I spot some Great Egrets, Yellow Crowned Night Herons, Red Wing Blackbirds and I hear a good number of Marsh Wrens back a few feet in the weeds.  

Out of the many times I've been here, my trips probably never coincided with this timing of the tide.  I just don't remember having such a stiff current.  I ferry over to Long Island, then Ferry from there to Pope's Flat. The current might be about 3mph, which is my distance cruising speed with this canoe. From the tip of Pope's, I head the rest of the way across the river.  I didn't expect it, but the current is slower over this stretch, which is also the main boat channel. 

I head up, side track to explore a channel, which turns out to be a backwater.  Then, I continue up and across to the Peck's Mill site, and return through the islands by the west channel around Peacock Island. 

Heron Yoga

I put in about 7am, the heat of the coming day making an early start advantageous.  One of Dante's circles of Hell is a calm, sunny, humid 95F canoe trip with mosquitoes.  It's not an inner circle, but it is there, for sure.

The tide is halfway in and I paddle against a current down to marsh.  It is calm and humid but still not much more than 80F.  Even so, a bubble of warmth envelopes me if I stop moving.

I head down Nell's Channel.  Quite a few Great Egrets on either side of the channel at the top of the marsh.  As I continue, I find Yellow Crowned Night Herons.  The Willets are laying low, but I hear their calls from time to time.

The tide is bringing in a trash stream of mostly aluminum cans.  It's only ten or twelve items, which I collect.  All of the cans have plant material inside - they weren't tossed in over the weekend.

I try the Nell's Island maze from the lower end.  On my last trip I passed through in the downriver direction, taking a circuitous side channel that exited at the side of the main lower entrance.  I did not notice on that last trip that there were at least three other channels.  I try a couple of them, but they dead end.  It's too warm to be messing about with this.  It's probably best to repeat the route and pay more attention... on a later day.

I head back up Nell's.  As I exit the marsh, I find a Yellow Crowned Night Heron doing yoga, or maybe just drying the underside of its wings.    

 

Questions

The fog has lifted, but it is still overcast and humid.  I put in at Pond Brook and head downriver, crossing to the far side until I get to the dam where I cross back over and return.  It is very quiet and very still. 

Tomorrow, I will be on a panel talk about forests.  I think about things to say.  I might not say them, but I will be prepared.

I keep going out (canoeing and hiking) because I have questions. But what really keeps me going is that I don't know what many of the questions are. 

Fog

It is foggy and fairly calm with an occasional light drizzle. I start out late in the day with the tide still rising for two more hours.

 It's hard to pass up a chance to paddle in the fog.  The visibility is something between a 1/4 mile and a 1/2 mile.  Finding my way in the marsh is not a problem. The beauty of the fog is that all of the various man-made structures and buildings disappear from view. 

I stay in the east half of the marsh, weaving through narrower channels that I haven't been in recently.  i can't paddle more than a hundred yards without seeing a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron.  Also in the area are a good number of Great Egrets and I flush a couple dozen Mallards, 

Housatonic Two

I put in at Indian Well and head up river.  This section of the Housatonic is a reservoir, held back by a 150 year old dam that lies about a mile and half downstream.  The old reservoir is narrow and just over 5 miles long. There is a steady flow of water that is good enough to keep the water fairly clean and free of the algae blooms that haunt the next stretch up from here.

A mile out, I am surprised by a Black Crowned Night Heron that watches me from the water's edge.  It flushes when I fumble with my camera, but it circles around seemingly waiting for me to leave the area.  I think it will return to the same spot when I am one or two hundred yards away.

I find the current at the Shelf to be easy.  The Shelf can be impossible to get past when the water is higher or when there is more water coming through the upstream dam. The Shelf is a bedrock ledge that runs all the way across the river.  At this water level, I am pretty sure one could wade the river.

I make it up to the minor rapids below the dam, and pass through it with reasonable ease.  Getting upstream is a matter of hopping several eddies while not grounding out on submerged rocks.  This rapids was reconfigured by last year's flash floods.  There was a ravine on river left that I did not know about - well, I knew there was a valley there, but not that it ever ran with water. The rush of water coming down the ravine blew out the road and dumped a large amount rocks and gravels in the river.

I paddle up as far as a landslide on river-right, also from last year's storm.  I turn and head back.  The wind has come up and while it doesn't slow me down too much, if I pause my paddling, I quickly come to a halt. I find the Black Crowned Heron exactly where I first saw it.  Again, my camera is not ready.

Mapping Marshes and the Maze

I head out on a rising mid-tide with about 3 hours til peak.  It is under 70F, calm, and overcast - all in all, a pleasant day for canoeing.

I head into the Nell's Island maze, after looking around to make sure that no one is watching - there are rewards for exploring, and I think that the maze counts as one.  My first trips in here were at high tide.  I had been convinced, because the island is a named feature on the maps, that Nell's Island was something like an "island".  It is in fact, no more of an island than any other part of the marsh and the reason for potting it at all was probably because the navigable channel of the Housatonic is on the islands west side. 

At high tide, I found a path of open water channels that would lead me from one end of the so-called island to the other.  More recently, I started entering the maze during a rising mid tide.  I got lost.  The wider and straighter channels that I had used at high tide turned out to be shallow and not passable at mid tide.  Instead of backing out, I tried the remaining narrow and very twisty channels, which turned out to be deeper and to link together into another route through the "island".  It was a lot of fun.

The oldest maps of the area (in a usable scale for canoeing) date to ca 1850.  That map is one of a series of town maps for New England. That map does show Nell's Island, but not the rest of the marsh.  While trying to figure out what the marsh might have looked like, I had to consider what the purpose of that map was.  It is quite accurate as far as roads and basic shorelines, and it has the houses and names of homeowners.  It does not show property boundaries and topographic information is limited to hachures - a cartographic shading method to show hills.  It seems that the main purpose of the map is to be an 1850 "telephone" book if you want - in 1850, if you wanted to talk to John Smith, you had to go find him.

The first government topographic maps are from about 1890.  These detailed maps were produced by old fashioned on-the-ground surveying, a laborious process performed without the benefit of  aerial views of any sort. Nell's Island appears on this first topo just as it appears in the 1850 town map...suspiciously so.  If you study most any of the 1890's topos enough, you will find errors where surveyors just didn't go.

The next topo map of the marsh is 1951.  Overlaying this map on the most modern maps shows very minor differences. The detail of the marsh is impressive. The 1951 map benefits from aerial surveys that were performed starting in the 1930's.  

Having seen this jump in map accuracy and detail, I reviewed other river/marsh areas that I am familiar with (Chipuxet, Lieutenant, Mattebasset, Salmon, and East Rivers). In all cases, I found that the rivers on the 1890's topo maps were plotted incorrectly when passing through marshes, but lined up closely on the post-WWII maps, which all had aerial photo data to draw on.  While rivers do shift channels, these changes didn't line up with standard river dynamics. The big change was the quality of the available data.  Another thing to consider - all of the rivers couldn't all shift their channels between 1890 and 1950, and then not change significantly over the next 75 years.

There is a good reason for the errors.  On the ground surveys require a landmark or an assistant who holds a survey pole at the point of interest.  The surveyor can then sight and/or triangulate on that point and collect map data.  With a river running through a marsh, it was, most likely, just too much work to send an assistant out into a marsh to accurately plot an area that could not be farmed, logged, or built on.  

The reason the plotted river/marsh courses changed wasn't because of natural processes, it was because aerial photography allowed for an efficient method of plotting channels in a difficult to survey area.

I spotted two  immature Yellow Crowned Night Herons - last year's fledglings, most likely.  Also, I saw a pair of Mute Swans with 4 cygnets, 3 of which were white.  A white cygnet is somewhat rare. Three in a brood must be very rare indeed.  The Willets were more perturbed with my presence than they have been this year.  That is their m.o. when nesting is going on. They flew around when I was near and made lots of noise so that everything in the marsh knew I was there.

East River

The water is still quite low even though the tide has been coming in for a couple hours, but I've done this enough times that I know exactly where the canoe will squeak through the narrow gaps between submerged boulders. It is about 70F and fairly humid with a light wind that seems to come and go.

Just before the first bend, I flush a Green Heron.  It lands nearby,  but I lose sight of it while digging out my camera.  But, I find it perched on the bank just around the bend, and it poses for a few photographs before the canoe drifts into scare distance.

I cross the Gravel Flats without wading.  There are a couple of Osprey and they are about as interested in chasing each other as they are in fishing. I spot two more Osprey as I near the Clapboard Hill bridge.

It is very quiet today with no one else in sight.  Below the railroad bridge, there isn't quite enough water to make  it through the sneak, so I continue on the East River.  By the time I get to the confluence of the East and Neck Rivers, there is enough water to return by paddling up Bailey Creek and taking the Sneak back into the East River. I spot an Oyster Catcher on the bank of the Neck River.

Up in the forest section, near the Goss house, a mature Bald Eagle drops out of a tree and flies a big circle, all the while hassled by black birds until it leaves the area.  

 

Terrapin Station

It is a calm and sunny day. I set out with about 2 hours of rising tide to go. 

I'm in the maze thinking about my success rate at getting through without having to backtrack, "about 4 out of 5 I suppose." Then, I find myself in a pond with no exit other than the way I came.  I spend the next 20 minutes wandering about.  There are no landmarks other than a couple of stands of phragmites.  Phragmites grows on slightly higher ground than the spartina that dominates the marsh, so it marks un-canoeable turf.  I decide to head for the west entrance and I find that channel via a smaller twisty channel that was quite nice.  Then, in the west entrance exit channel, I notice the upriver channel that I had been looking for all along.  That exit is still blocked by a big log, but the alternate path out to Nell's channel is open.  It was all quite a bit of fun.

Yellow Crowned Night Herons are well distributed throughout the marsh.  Just when I think there aren't any around, I spot the head of that bird with its dull yellow mohawk poking up out of the spartina.  The lower marsh, which is well flooded, is occupied by the white birds - Swans, Great Egrets and Snowy Egrets.  I see a single Oyster Catcher. 

There are a good number of terrapins basking on the remaining high points.  They slide off into the water whenever I get within 60 or 70 feet.  Then they poke their heads up out of the water - it looks like dozens of thumbs.  Going through the maze, I turn a bend and watch 30 to 40 terrapins all slide off the bank in unison.  

 

Clear the Head

I head out for a quick trip, a trip with the intended purpose of clearing one's mind.  Between an ankle that I tweaked a couple days ago and the political horseshit that occupies this country, a couple hours in the solitude of the marsh does wonders for the soul.

The tide is on its way out and by the look and feel of things, I've timed my start to catch a near maximum ebb current.  It is 70F, mostly sunny, and the wind is out of the east.  There are a lot of motorboat drivers around.  It is something like a middle class beach blanket bingo, without brains.

Once I get to the top of the marsh, I turn into the inner channels.  I see no one else for he duration.  

Yellow Crowned Night Herons are owning the marsh today.  There seems to always be one in sight as I make my way. I head in to check the Central Phragmites Patch, and that is the only place where I do not see any Night Herons.  I have to think about that, but later in the summer after the young have fledged, the patch will be densely occupied with Yellow Crown and Black Crowned Night Herons.

I run down the length of Cat Island before heading back. 

Whirling Derbish

I planned to put in at Indian Well State Park, but the town of Derby had other ideas.  Derby is an old mill town parked in between the Naugatuck and Housatonic Rivers where the rivers converge. In the good old days, it was also a good spot to put a bridge over those rivers.  So, that is how the roads are laid out, with a variety of arterials all aimed at Derby.  If a road crew so much as stops to scrape chewing gum off of a sidewalk, everything comes to a grinding crawl.

The logical choice is to use the stuck-in-traffic- time to actually go someplace, and I end up at Pond Brook, where I can set out for a trip up to the cascades of the Shephaug. It is warm with a hazy sun and calm. I am surprised that no one else seems to be around on such a nice day.

On the way, I pass a fisherman in a kayak, a bassboat going the other way, and one runabout.  I see a few Great Blue Herons and a mother Common Merganser with a few ducklings.  Carp are the main show however.  There is always a couple carp splashing about in the shallows.  I see a few that are on the order of 2 feet long.  Last week, someone caught a State Record 45 pounder in this body of water.

There is less water coming down the Shephaug than on my last trip and I can paddle right up to the base of the cascades (I think this is called, Roxbury Falls, but it's really not a waterfall). At the 2nd bend below the cascades, I hear a Bald Eagle whistling somewhere above me in the forest. When I pause to look for it, the Eagle quits calling, and I never see it.

I turn and head back out... a very peaceful paddle.

 

Back to Dibble Creek

We're in the car heading east and S keeps asking, "where we going?"  
I keep replying by asking."Where do you want to go?" 
I  throw out several options, and she picks Salmon River. It is a good choice even if I was just there a couple days ago.  The Connecticut River is still running high and extra water in the Salmon is good for opening up smaller inlets and passages behind islands.

Dibble Creek

We put in at the bottom of the cove.  The day is predicted to be in the mid 80's and sunny, but the sky is completely overcast with high smoke from the Manitoba and Saskatchewan wild fires.  It is thick enough that there are no shadows being cast. We cross the channel and follow the river-right side into the corner of the cove.  Then I turn us into the Dibble Creek bay.  S has never been in here and I want to show it to her.  We pick up speed and aim for a narrow gap in the brush that grows out of the top of the old beaver dam.  The water is a few inches lower than when I was last here, so it I have to finish the crossing by putting a foot on the dam and pushing us through.  Then, we weave our way up as close as we can get to where Dibble Creek tumbles in. S is impressed by the solitude of this little hidden place.  

There once was a cabin up in this area

We cruise the full length of the dam before heading out, stopping up against the hillside for a moment. Old maps show that there was a cabin on the knoll above us.  It would have been an exceptional spot for a hideaway cabin. Nothing is visible and no doubt the structure was removed when the power plant was built about a 1/4 mile away. Of course, the power plant has also been removed.  

We push out through the dam and head upstream.  We pass a few people, mostly in the vicinity of the State Park. Four tubers* are portaging the dam by dragging their plastic kayaks across the ground.  
"Not a life jacket in the entire group. Let's put some distance between us and them," I sez.  We turn and head back down the river, down the cove, and out.

* Tuber is a subclass of humans that are capable of nothing more than floating in an inner tube, often with a six pack of cheap beer. They tend to be slightly less intelligent than a potato and frequently are seen wearing tube socks.

Short Trip

I set out from under the highway bridge and head down to the Wheeler Marsh.  The tide is all the way out, the temperature is in the 70's, the sky is sunny, and the wind is almost nothing.

The plan is a short trip. With the tide out, it is impossible to circle the marsh or cut through most any of the interior channels.  The main river, Nell's Channel, and the bottom of Beaver Brook are the only places with enough water to float a canoe.  

The cut banks of Nell's Channel are fully exposed at this tide. The height varies but the maximum is about 5 feet, and it dwindles to maybe 2 feet at the lower end of the channel.  This means, with my current estimate of 50 years/foot for soil build-up, that the bottom of the cut bank might be in the early 1800's, but my oldest datable bottles are from about 2 feet of depth.  Today, the only thing of real interest that I find on that theme is a cut tree, and it is right at the lowest level of a 5 foot cut bank.  Firmly in place, it does seem to be protruding from the bank as if it was buried there. The cut was at a 45 degree angle and may have been done with either an axe or a saw.  I wish I had access to a dendrochronology analysis.

At the end of the channel, I squeeze through an inner channel close to Milford Point, round that small island and return back via Nell's Channel. 

Dibble Creek

I left home not knowing where I would paddle, making last minute decisions and ending up at the bottom of Salmon Cove. I set out from there not knowing exactly where I will paddle to. Goals and ambition does not seem to be part of this day. 

The water is higher than expected (later I find out that the Hartford gauge is about 5 or 6 feet higher than normal).  I paddle up the river-right side of the cove and into the tiny bay in the outside corner where the cove bends away from the big river.  It is in the upper 60's with sun and a light cooling wind.

Towards Dibble Creek

I cross the old beaver dam that guards the bottom of Dibble Creek from the typical visitors. The dam is old and stable.  It has been here for awhile and will not be going anywhere in the next hundred years.  Beaver dams can last a very long time.  This one is stable enough that saplings have taken root.  The beaver cut the saplings down every so often.  I imagine that most people looking into the bay see the wall of plants on the dam and assume it to be the shoreline. Beyond the dam are a couple acres of very peaceful marsh of sedges, pickerelweed, and pond lilies.  It is bounded on the north and east by steep forested hillsides, and on the west by lowland trees.  

Upstream of the old beaver dam

The creek enters from the north, tumbling down 20 feet of bedrock from a small marshy valley where an old hunting camp once was.  And by old, I mean 3000 to 6000 years old.  But, I cannot go any farther up the creek than where I am.  The dry land here is a no trespassing National Wildlife Refuge.  There once was a nuclear power plant about a half mile away.  This is a good news/bad news kind of thing though.  The plant is completely removed except for a building containing spent fuel rods.  But the good news is that this side of the cove was saved from people coming in and building much bigger houses than they need in a place that is much better left to be wild.   

The high water lets me access the backsides of marsh islands that normally are mudflat.  I go as far as Pine Brook, where I spend some time in one of those back channels.  I hope the wild rice returns soon.  Mid-summer high water killed off a large patch of rice at the bottom of the brook - it was unable to produce seed because the plants were submerged. On the backside of another island, I look ahead an find a deer standing chest deep in the river.  It retreats back into the cattails, and I hear it splashing ahead of me.  We make eye contact again at the bottom of the cattail patch.  There are two deer.

I head back, taking a detour up the Moodus, as I almost always do. 

The Contrast

Today, I moved upriver to the section above Lake Zoar, where I paddled yesterday.  I put in at the four span truss bridge.  It is calm, cloudy, and close to 70F, a pretty fine combination for canoeing. 

This section of the river was reservoir-ed in the 1955 with the completion of the Shepaug Dam. It differs greatly from the downstream Lake Zoar and being a much better experience, I paddle here fairly often.

It is not particularly good for wildlife viewing. As a reservoir that was flooded up the steep sides of a valley, there is a lack of marshland or any extensive shallows that might support a variety of waterfowl.  But, I can expect to spot an Eagle occasionally as well as Hawks, Vultures,  Great Blue Herons, Mergansers and Wood Ducks.  

What does make this section interesting is that it has large sections of forest and much less and much better planned development.  A good amount of the valley sides are State Forest or private forest preserves.  As to the housing, minimum lot sizes are quite large and most houses are set well back from the water's edge. In fact, there are several docks with boats where the owners house is not at all visible - just a trail from the dock leading off into the woods.

Entering the Lover's Leap gorge

I head upstream, following one side until I get the urge to cross to the other... no real reason.  There are few boats, mostly bass boats.  They are the best of motorboats as they speed by, disappear quickly, and spend a good amount of time parked near shore while the owner fishes. 

I pass through the  Lovers Leap gorge and continue a short way until I remember why I usually turn at the gorge.  There is a busy road right nest to the river and the upstream side of the gorge, quite the contrast with the peacefulness that is found downstream. 

Historic 1895 iron bridge that spans the gorge

The wind comes up on the return, but it is not steady and comes from pretty much any possible direction at different times. I guess it, looking at the clouds, to be tiny weather systems that don't have enough energy or moisture to become rainstorms.