Mapping - Day 2

For no good reason I alter my portage route down to the south lagoon. Half way there, I hear from behind, "something something canoe," and I know that I am being hailed. There is a woman, who has just run out of her house and would like to take my photo. Then we talk about my project briefly until the cold finally drives her back into the house.


It is cold and clear with the sky a true tone blue and a low winter sun vividly lighting the world that I can see. It is the inside of an unshaken snow globe with everything clear, crisp and in sharp focus. The thought, "too pretty to be natural" comes up, but I shove it back down to where it came from, a place in the past where we were taught that man and nature were separate.

A trail running up the tiny "rockpile"island draws me over, but the tracks are indistinct. From here, dark and dense flocks of ducks and coots stretch out northeasterly with the constancy of widgeon wheezing drifting across the water top.

Rounding the north point I find a hawk in tree. And, as I move along the north marsh, I hear the call of a river otter. I stop and I find four or five, three of which are adolescent pups (I don't see more than four at any one time).


I head into the NE lagoon to continue my survey. It is slow work, mapping another island which needs to be accurate as I will be sighting some long distances off of it. I also take time to remove some of yesterdays plastic survey tape, once that I am sure that I won't need to sight off of those points anymore.

When satisfied with the plotting of the lagoon entrance and the north railroad island, I head out finding two trumpeter swans on the dirtberg. They show up most often when the weather is particularly cold. I try not to bother them and continue out into the big lake and downwind to the Harrison portage.

Mapwork

I use the Harrison portage to get into the big lake on a gray day with a light north wind.


I paddle the mile and a half north and follow the east shore of Union Bay towards the NE lagoon (Yesler Swamp). The coots and ducks are positioned most of the way across the bay, and since it is still early, I keep a close eye out for the eagles. They should still be hunting unless they were very lucky. But, I don't a single eagle anywhere in the bay until one soars 30 feet over my bow. It is on a hunt and goes almost all of the way to the burial island where it makes two circles and gives up, returning to a perch in a nearby evergreen. I spot a second eagle farther up the shore, also in an evergreen, but with its head down quite often. This is not hunting mode and I suspect that it has something in its talons that I am unable to see from any angle that I try. There are no feathers in the water below, so it may be mammal.

I think that this is the male from the North nest. The first mentioned eagle was much larger. Females tend to be larger than males.

I brought my map making gear today, and I make a survey of the lagoon. I can only do this in dry weather, and so this is a rare day to spend a few hours getting the project started. With the low water, I first set up on the muddy island in the lagoon, plotting its edges and locating all of the old pilings from a long lost railroad pier. I find the remains of the dead Canada goose that I found a couple weeks ago. There are five concentrations of feathers mixed in with dozens of good quality raccoon tracks, who probably did most of the eating. Rusted iron parts stick out of the mud near the pilings. They are old railroad fittings. The few birds that were in here when I came have left and will not return until I leave. This tiny little pocket is a box canyon trap for birds, an easy place for a pick off as they can't just speed away, but have to climb up and over nearby brush.


Map making is a process of hyper awareness. Just the action causes the most minor of observations to be recorded in the mind as something important. I note that few of the pilings are in straight lines, although they should be. I find the carcass of a coot at one station, something that probably dropped from a nearby tree when the eagle had enough, and then was dragged here by something else. The beaver have been busy back in the usual corner, where there is a highway of beaver tracks leading to bare gnawed wood. As I leave for the day, an eagle comes in with something too small to recognize dangling from its talons.


It is late and I head straight across the bay for the east end of the ancient portage.

Peace

It's a gray and calm day as me and S portage to the south lagoons. I point out the houses of people that I've met over the last two years, people that have come out of houses or taken a break from whatever they were doing to ask what I was doing. I think that S is a bit surprised to see me recite names and point at their houses.

the ne lagoon (aka yesler swamp)

We start in a little spot that is unfamiliar to S and then paddle through the south lagoons and around the burial island. There are lots of buffleheads and great blue herons around, and I work with S on how to tell the difference (from a distance) between bufflehead and a hooded merganser. The water is quite low and it is a slow paddle through the east marsh, a few inches of clear water with about a foot of soupy not-quite-mud stuff below. With each stroke, the bottom half of the blade disappears into the soupy stuff without any indication of earth.

It is quiet in the bay, eagles nowhere to be seen although we stop when we hear two calling from a distant unseen place. It seems that they have eaten, as the ducks and coots are as calm as ever in a big wide flock of a thousand that runs through the center of the bay.

We stop in the NE lagoon and explore a bit of new trailwork. I get a scolding from a steller's jay and we talk to a couple that has walked in from the road.

A modest wind comes up, chilly, and we paddle along the north shore and through the west islands diverting only to let S see some common mergansers up close.

It's Christmas, and I love having S in the canoe with me.

Long Day on a Short Day

It will be a long day if the weather doesn't say otherwise. A long day leaves little time for reflections, so much paddling to do and darkness not far enough off.

I do the Harvard portage to the dead lake, and then make a straight crossing for the Fremont canal, noting only that there are no birds on the lake except for a flock of gulls in the center. It is calm enough that I can see their preened feathers from a 100 yards.

a block of wayward foam and the Fremont Canal

At the canal I think about how the next 3/8 of a mile was once a narrow creek dropping 12 or 15 feet to the salt water of Salmon Bay. I spot two male common mergansers and a flock of 90 scaups.

At the end of the canal I enter the fresh water portion of Salmon Bay, now home to several large shipyards. I find the working water interesting, unlike the wastefulness of the boat parking lots of the dead lake. There is a reason for these shipyards to be here.

The weather is holding, so I head for the locks, positioning myself in plain view near the stop signal and waving my paddle a few times to make sure that I've been seen. A sailboat is coming up the lock. When it passes I am called in and I wait only 10 minutes for a toyship to enter. Then they lower us both, the lock tender warning me of the current that I will find when I exit.
A guy looks down asks me what I am hunting for...he is goofy, and disappointed when I tell him that I am just canoeing. He doesn't get it, but I doubt that his shoes ever see mud either. We are a world apart.

In the salt water, I immediately find several golden eyes, one of my favorites. An eagle sweeps past, a hundred gulls get up and fly as the current pushes my canoe past their bulkhead. At the mouth of the canal I find some red breasted mergansers, then the heads of two seals are spotted out in the kelp beds, and I find a second eagle perched in an a alder at the top of the bluffs that define this shoreline.

West Point

As I near the lighthouse at West Point, I spot a baby seal resting on the shore, waiting for its mother to return. It begins to move toward water, so I turn and paddle a great circle around it, never getting any closer than I already was, which wasn't too close anyway, and it stays put as I paddle away. I am orca sized.

I spot some buffleheads, some more golden eyes, and then, a dozen harlequin ducks near four mile rock. A third bald eagle, a very large one at that, soars past never beating its wings once in nearly a half mile. A fourth eagle sits in a tree.

I take out at interbay and portage north two miles to Fisherman's Terminal. It's late afternoon and the light is fading, the camera stays in the box from now on. Cormorants are returning to their night perches in the tall poplars that line the Fremont Canal. It is some entertainment to watch these gangly fliers land on thin, whippy branches with their webbed feet. They circle, and having picked a branch, come in for a landing, then more often as not, change their mind at the last minute, veering off and repeating the process. When they do land, its as if the heavy bird is sitting on the end of a fishing pole, the branch bowing and bouncing under the new weight.

Dusk comes as I cross the dead lake. Night comes as I do the final portage. Sleep will come all too easy.

The One That Stands Alone

I start late, running the Harrison portage to the big lake and setting out in brilliant calm and clear conditions. It is tempting to make the two mile crossing to the far side of the big lake, but I decide not since there is not much to see along the way...it's just big water.

I paddle north enjoying the speed at which the canoe moves through the flat water, light playing off of the small wake that arches out from the bow.

As I near the bay, I notice the smallest of rippling on the water out farther on the lake. In another hundred yards, the ripples have become the smallest of waves. When I reach the entrance to the bay, the waves are eight inches high and whitecaps have begun to form out in the big lake. I do the quarter mile crossing to the north side of the entrance, and the waves have grown to a foot tall, rolling under the canoe from the bow right quarter. It's very rare for weather to shift so quickly here in the northwest. Clouds and mare's tails behind me to the southwest show where the weather is.

Two eagles soar hundreds of feet above the the ridge that forms the east shore of the bay. Scattering ducks, a half mile out in mid bay might signal an eagle that my eyes can't detect.

I stop on the railroad island to watch a kingfisher, and both eagles from the north nest fly over. They are busy with the daily hunt, repositioning, scanning and figuring out their angle.


While eating my lunch, letting the wind push me into the north channel, I spot a lone cattail rooted on a small bog island, it's single brown pod standing tall and isolated. Always cheer for the one that stands alone. This is a different creature than the the one that stands apart and calls for others to join. This is the being that has a path, a purpose, and a reason. It stands alone not because it seeks solitude, but because the determination in it's path leads at times to places that others have not found.

A Mile

I met four people on my portage to the south lagoon. The first, a nice guy walking his dog talks with me for a good fifteen minutes. The second, I come across on the trail and he keeps his eyes down, says nothing, and his body language says that I should do the same. The third compliments me on my canoe, but we don't talk, so I don't know if he knows what he is talking about. The fourth nods as I nod and we pass. That gets me to the lagoon.

It is a windy day, but with a south wind the marsh is fairly calm.

There is 3 or 4 extra inches of water here. The heavy rains of this week fill the massive lake system faster than the dam in Ballard can release it. But, this little extra water means that I can go into some of the little passages and beaver canals that run through the marsh.


I stop in the portion of the east marsh that is attached to the burial island. I've never seen anyone else in here, and when there is enough water, I will bring friends in. It is a push and wiggle to get the canoe through the cattail barrier. I even push with one foot scooter style. I want to document this place, but feel totally inadequate for the job. This little cattail island is a secret garden...most people only see the cattail wall that forms the outside.

They might notice the beaver lodge, which is the lowliest hovel in the neighborhood, really not a pretty beaver lodge. Once inside, in the center, one finds that the cattails have given way to a beautiful patch of sedges, which are lower than the cattails and for some reason make me think of the place as a peaceful spot. There are a few struggling trees, subsisting on soil that can't quite be called earth.

The beaver come in here and gnaw them down, so that there are dozens of foot high rounded stumps all lined up on the root system as if they were someone's garden gnome collection. Soon, the state will build a poorly designed and expensive bridge through here, a short term solution for a society in deep denial. It will make it temporarily convenient for someone to live forty miles from where they work. No one can argue with thinking like that...

When it is time to go, I work my way out and skirt the edges of the islands so closely that I bump the submerged logs several times.

After about two and half hours, when I take out at the east end of the crossing over place, I have traveled less than one mile, on the map.

Among the Workboats

I run the Harvard Portage to the dead lake. But, before I even leave the house, I talk with a woman who tells me how her and her sister built a wood and canvas boat kit and paddled it for years near their home in Montana. I trade her some Yakima River stories from this spring. I love how my canoe can trigger long held and powerful memories and how willing so many people are to share them with me.

The newspaper lady at the drugstore greets me with the usual hoarse laugh and giant smile. We are both busy, but have time for a better than casual greeting, and then I move on.


I cut northwesterly across the lake with a light wind on my left. Breaks in the dark clouds make for a dramatic sky backdrop when sun strikes the sides of boats in the water. Amazing, it always amazes me, how little bird life there is on this lake.

When I get to the Government Canal (Fremont Canal), I find a current flowing west at a full 1-1/2 knots. Three inches of rain from the past days draining into many square miles of lake has turned this placid canal into a minor river for the time being.

I spend a good hour at Fishermen's Terminal, capturing video for a project. There is a distant rainbow to the north while I photograph the fishermen's memorial. I love the sight of the working boats, masts, poles, lines clutter the near sky above their decks and superstructure. There is nothing casual, nothing superficial, nothing clear or easy to understand about them. They are complicated working boats. When I showed them earlier to friends from the midwest, I could explain only the basic purpose and operations. So much of the details are on the job training only.
The current in the canal makes for a energetic return trip. Near the Foss shipyard, a drydock has been towed out in mid-canal and the safety boat sends me to the north side, away from tugboat prop wash and the lines that hold the massive structure in position. As I paddle away, the drydock has settled far enough into the canal that the fishing boat inside can be pulled out.

The portage home, back the way I came, is in a light rain. The front has arrived.