PORTAGE -- We stood there with clothes drenched and the rain beating down.
The landing on Swan Lake where we had taken a break for lunch offered no shelter, other than the mature trees. Still, I was defending the turtle.
I’ve told this story before. Early in the first season of the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Paddle in 2010, an Ottawa medicine woman spoke to us about native healing traditions. The weather was threatening that day as well, but she reassured us that she had turned over a figurine of a turtle and that would cause the bad weather to pass on either side of us. It did, and we have been turning over turtles ever since.Our perfect record of no rainouts was on the line.
Though we got doused pretty good last Saturday, the paddle from Indian Trails Campground near Pardeeville, on the headwaters of the Fox, did continue on to its completion after the storm moved off. Turtle exonerated.
We put in on a part of the river that is narrower than most of our kayaks and canoes are long. The twisty path and tight channel create some interesting currents, causing us to dust off some old paddling strokes.
Unlike any of our other trips, here we had to go down the river single file. A sandbar here or a downed tree there would cause a couple of paddlers to get sideways. It would take some jostling and pushing to free them of the current and get them -- and everyone behind them -- on their way. High water this time of year made the passage possible.
Our destination was Portage, one narrow channel, one lake and another less narrow channel away. I can’t tell you the distance -- multiples of what the crow flies -- but it took us better than three hours to paddle it.
We pulled into the DNR landing on Swan Lake as dark, thick clouds were gathering menacingly. One of our group leaders flicked on his weather radio and heard the robotic voice report that the storm would hit Pardeeville in six minutes. We secured the boats and the sky opened up. A pelting rain threatened to, but never did, turn to hail.
We waited about 20 minutes, checked the radar on a smart phone or two and determined it was safe to go on.
The rest of the lake crossing was uneventful. A couple of power boats only hinted at the hazard kayaks and canoes would face in mid-summer.
We slipped back into the Fox River channel and turned and twisted the rest of the way to Portage. It was odd to be with two dozen paddlers but only see a few at any given time.
Doug Klapper, who paddles a stand-up board, had the only view over the marsh grasses. A Portage alderman, he rightfully was surveying his domain.
When we arrived at our landing spot at the State 33 wayside, we celebrated the heritage element of the Heritage Paddles. Standing in front of a wooden marker describing explorers Fr. Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, we listened as Deacon Dennis Sutter read from Marquette’s journal a description of the landscape he found there and his determination to bring his particular understanding of the Almighty to its people.Later, we walked the 2,700 paces Marquette reported traveling on the portage from the Fox to the Wisconsin RIver, a distance of about a mile and a quarter. The Wauona Trail is just a narrow asphalt road running next to an athletic field, but it is a place of history nonetheless. At the far end, we found another marker commemorating Marquette and Joliet in front of a Dairy Queen. Nothing saying history can’t be sweet and enjoyable.
Portage also boasts two historic landmarks -- the remains of Fort Winnebago with its Surgeon’s Quarters and the Indian Agency House.
We ended our walk on the levy that separates Portage’s neighborhoods from the Wisconsin River, passing up the rest of the 3,000 miles Marquette and Joliet traveled by birch bark canoe.
History was never my best subject, but I might have connected better had I been learning with a kayak paddle or a walking stick in my hand.
NEXT UP: The White River Dam in Princeton to Riverside Park in Berlin June 22 and Winneconne to Rainbow Park in Oshkosh June 23. Details at www.wisconsinpaddlers.org.
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