Turning a cold shoulder to forecasters

By David Horst  sandhill7@gmail.com

We had a very nice paddle Sunday — a small, intimate group, strong flow in the river and the wind at our backs.

More on that, but first, I have to let loose of some rage.

Last Thursday — 48 hours before a weekend with two paddles scheduled on the Upper Fox River — the forecast for the Princeton area was unequivocal. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, between 70% and 90% chance of thunderstorms. I’d never seen such a dramatically certain forecast telling padders to stay off of the water.

As organizers of the North East Wisconsin Paddlers public paddle series, our course was clear. We needed to call off Saturday’s trip for the safety of the participants and to give ample notice to people traveling from farther away. You don’t argue with 90% certainty of thunder and lightning. We posted the messages on web and Facebook and sent emails to everyone we expected to come.

I joked with fellow trip organizer Jeff Mazanec that by canceling the trip we probably guaranteed Princeton would see no thunderstorms Saturday.

My prediction turned out to be the only one that was correct.

Horicon Marsh holds bird life and history

Horicon Marsh is a huge pool among the nation’s fresh water marshes – the largest, in fact. But it also holds a tremendous volume of history.

See more photos.

Few are better equipped to recite that history than Bill Volkert, who retired after 27 years as a naturalist in the state portion of the marsh. Why there is state and federal sections is part of the difficult history of the place.

We retained Volkert to talk about Horicon’s twisted history and lead North East Wisconsin Paddlers’ first public paddle of the 2017 schedule on May 6. The trip drew 67 paddlers, many on their first NEWP paddle.

Volkert told of a visitor to the marsh who remarked on how wonderful it was that we – the royal WE – had preserved all of this wonderful wetland. That’s when Volkert recited the list of attempts by WE to make the marsh knuckle under.
Known now for its Canada goose population, Horicon of the early 1800s was prime duck territory. The first assault on the marsh was hunting clubs with shotguns of such a low gauge that a single shot could bring down as many as 50 birds. Understand, this was after centuries of Native American habitation.