Point Lodge Rehab

The winds of November someone said.  It is windy again, as it has been for many of the previous days.  My last trip was the result of a 6 hour calm that came unexpectedly.  The weather for the day is - mostly sunny, temperatures in the 40's, and wind at 15 to 20 mph with gusts of 25 to 30 mph.  

Too windy to be out in open water or a unprotected marsh, I head to one of the few forested rivers in this area that makes for good canoeing.  Most of the narrow forest rivers in these parts are too thin, to shallow, or blocked by too many deadfalls to be worth the effort.  For the most part, calling many of them a river is ambitious. 

I put in on the Mattebasset.  The wind in the parking lot is enough that I have to make corrections as I portage the canoe down to the river.  But, it is close to calm at the river.  I head down river.

It is an easy and pleasant paddle with a bit of current from the falling tide. At the first wide spot, where there is a small open marsh, the wind penetrates.  This trip will not go out into the big marsh below.

The recently winterized Point Lodge

I spot a fresh gnawed tree and one small scent mound about a 1/4 mile above the abandoned Point Lodge.  There is no other beaver sign, until I get to the Point Lodge.  Surprise - the Point Lodge is being winterized.  While there isn't any newly cut wood on the lodge, it is freshly packed with new mud and there are a couple trails leading from the water onto the sides of the lodge.  The reason for no new wood is that there was a very plentiful supply where the former residents had built a protective tunnel for their entrance during last year's drought.   I suspect that a new beaver has moved into the lodge, just because there is so little activity (gnaws, drags and scent mounds).  I find another fresh gnawed tree about a 100 yards down from the lodge.

This is where the river starts to open up and a couple of gusts invite me to return upriver into the trees.

I continue past my put-in.  This area is not only treed, but also set down in a valley.  I don't quite make it to the train trestle.  The river is running shallow and there is a blocking log jam.  As I usually do, I pause at the log jam contemplating my options.  The jam would be a mess to climb over.  I did not bring my saw, which could handle the 4-inch tree that blocks a narrow end run on the jam, but that 4-inch tree is weighted by a second substantial tree. I'm not sure I would make the cut even if I had my saw as I'd rather not get pasted while sitting alone in the canoe by unexpected motion of the weighted log.  So, I sit, and then a deer wades into the river about 75 yards upstream.  It is a healthy looking 6-point buck.  It wades across without noticing me.