Paddle locks up season three

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

See photos on Flickr

Check on plans for Fox-WIsconsin Heritage Paddle 2013 at www.wisconsinpaddlers.org

Season three of the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle ended last Saturday (Sept. 29) on about the most perfect day you could order up.

With the temperature in the low 70s and the wind just a whisper, kayak and canoe paddlers launched from Lutz Park, passed through all four Appleton locks and landed 6.5 miles later at Kimberly's Sunset Point Park.

I was the member of the Heritage Paddle organizing committee who questioned whether the locks paddle had run its course. People may be thinking, been there, done that. Cars with boats strapped to their roofs started arriving early, and kept coming. In the end, 147 boats took to the Fox River. So much for me having my finger on the pulse of the paddling community.

The perfect weather had drawn them all out. The woman with the pristine wooden boat. The two boys with matching recreational boats. The guy paddling his young daughter and her two stuffed dogs. They all paddled with a smile.
We hang river right for the first stretch out of Lutz Park. A cable strung with large orange balls define the line between good sense and an unplanned ride over the dam.

While the turnout means we’re succeeding im getting people out to appreciate the river, it poses a problem. We are within a whisker of our record of 169 canoes and kayaks stuffed into a lock, and the prospect of waiting for two lockages at all four locations.

Included in the group are two 18-foot voyageur canoes borrowed from the DNR and rescue boats from the Outagamie Sheriff's Department and Appleton Fire department. People take to heart the request to jam in like sardines and we fit them all in.

The locks are a marvel, watching from the inside. A man walks around in a circle pushing a giant crank to close the gates. He flips a few levers, opening valves and dropping the water level at an amazing rate. All 147 boats feel the pull toward the downriver gate.

Do this in all 16 operating locks on the lower Fox and you drop nearly the height of Niagara Falls. This from a system built in the early 1800s.

This marvel never did much commercially, not once the railroads rolled through. Tourism may be its second chance.

On this day, it would be an easy sell. Branches painted red and gold hang over Appleton lock No. 1, blending nature with history.

One of the two downriver gates opens, leaving us searching for enough water between the boats to dip a paddle. In a slow, orderly progression, kayaks of every color file out of the lock only to reassemble a few minutes later in lock No. 2, which shares a canal with one and three, tucked beneath Telulah Park.

We paddle on past a swinging railroad bridge, positioned within snearing distance of lock 3 of the system it subdued. We pass under E. College Avenue and into Lock No. 4. From there, it's an open shot to Kimberly.

But first we pass under State 441, its steady line of metal cruising at 65 mph, and then some, above the water highway of old. On this fine Saturday, I'll take the slow lane.