As I drive between the darkening banks mounded along Highway 15, I’m not seeing snow. I’m seeing future river water.
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| 2010 Tall Ships paddle |
The red-winged blackbirds are trilling. The sandhill cranes have returned to the sand hill we call home. Winter has held us in its grip long enough.
Already, the creviced ice is receding to narrow frozen ledges along the shore and diehards are sliding canoes and kayaks over them to get back to the water.
The small but interesting band of paddlers I keep company with spent the off-season planning year number four of the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle series.
These about monthly paddles started in 2010 with a journey down 190 miles of the upper and lower Fox River. Not all of it -- but enough to see the river’s varied faces and the many moments in time suspended along its banks.
A highlight was cruising amid the tall ships -- wooden replicas of historic sailing ships that visited Green Bay in 2010.
For Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle 2013, the tall ships are back. But that’s in August and I’m getting ahead of myself.
The season kicks off with a weekend on the lower Wisconsin River. We’ll paddle 11 miles from Arena to Spring Green on May 18, camping at Wisconsin Riverside Resort and then do the 12 miles from Spring Green to Gotham on May 19.
June 1 will find us launching at the Indian Trails Campground near Pardeeville for a trip on the narrow ribbon of water leading to the lower Fox and to two historic landmarks in Portage -- the Fort Winnebago Surgeon’s Quarters and Indian Agency House. We’ll see Revolutionary War re-enactors as part of Portage’s Canal Days, a celebration of the canal that almost connects the Fox with the Wisconsin, in the area traversed by Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet.
June 22-23 is another weekend double-header. That Saturday we’ll travel the nature-blessed 12 miles from from Princeton to Berlin, camping at Berlin’s expansive Riverside Park. The next morning we’ll pack up and head for Winneconne to paddle around the impoundment known as Terrell Island. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is attempting to bring back native aquatic plant, fish and bird species, and has succeeded with pelicans beyond their intentions. Paddlers can choose to pull out after six miles at the Lake Butte des Morts Landing or have lunch and journey on another six to Rainbow Park in Oshkosh.
July 20 is the granddaddy -- the 12th annual Park-to-Park Paddle. You and two or three hundred of your closest paddling friends will travel 8.5 miles from Shattuck Park in Neenah, around a corner of Lake Winnebago, through the open water of Little Lake Butte des Morts and on to Lutz Park in Appleton. At Lutz, the Northeast Wisconsin Land Trust will offer entertainment and a speaker on a water conservation topic.
Finally, we are back to the tall ships. Launching from the Bomier landing in De Pere, our low-riding boats give us a dramatic view of the modern reconstructions of the ships that ruled the seas. The five ships revealed to be coming so far are the Appledore IV, S/V Denis Sullivan, Flagship Niagara, Hindu and the Windy (I hope not an omen for a repeat of the gale we faced paddling that segment last year.)
We close out the season with the increasingly popular Appleton Locks Paddle on Sept. 28, the day of Appleton’s Octoberfest. On a near perfect fall day last year, 147 boats hit the river at Lutz Park for the slow 6.5-mile trip to Sunset Point Park in Kimberly through the four historic, hand-operated Appleton locks.
Snow shoveling must be good training for paddling. If so, we’re all well conditioned for this season on the water.
Old business: Thank you for the dozens of emails, cards and comments offering sympathy and relating stories of your own losses in response to my column on our loss of our dog, Houdini, to nasal cancer. We’ve adopted a new shelter dog -- a lab, retriever and something hairy mix. But Houdini was such a character, he still holds a big place in our hearts.
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