Father’s journals recall camping a century ago

By David Horst, sandhill7@gmail.com

DE PERE -- Author Martha Greene Phillips is extraordinarily attached to history.

Her father was 79 when she was born. She is just one generation removed from a man who was alive as the Civil War was ending and served in the Spanish-American War.

Martha Greene Phillips

There’s an even stronger connection -- eight leather-bound journals of canoe excursions her father took with a group of friends, his sons and his sons’ friends. She turned the journals into Border Country, the Northwoods Canoe Journals of Howard Greene, 1906-1916, University of Minnesota Press. The 408-page history includes 366 photos, plus maps and sketches, and fully reproduces six of Howard’s journals, with summaries of the other two.

She described the book and her father’s adventures in a presentation at the North East Wisconsin Paddlers annual meeting Saturday (Jan. 27) at Legends in De Pere. NEWP (www.wisconsinpaddlers.com) is a nonprofit dedicated to advancing paddle sport education and safety and the sponsor of kayaking instruction and an annual series of public paddles.

Howard Greene

Park-to-Park paddlers must portage

NEENAH, Wis. — A strong showing is expected for the Park-to-Park Paddle, launching at 9:20 a.m. July 23 from Neenah’s Shattuck Park and organized by North East Wisconsin Paddlers.

Paddlers received plenty of help when the P2P participants had
to portage around the Menasha Lock in 2014.

Kayakers, canoeists and stand-up paddlers will travel 8.5 miles along the Fox River, out onto Lake Winnebago, through downtown Menasha and on to Lutz Park in Appleton by way of Little Lake Butte des Morts and the Fox River. For the second time in three years, paddlers will have to portage around a closed Menasha Lock.

“In 2014, the lock was closed for mechanical repairs,” Jeff Mazanec, president of NEWP said. “This year the lock has been ordered closed by the DNR in an attempt to prevent the round goby from getting into the Lake Winnebago system.”

The small, highly invasive fish was discovered in Little Lake Butte des Morts by two Neenah High School fishing team members late last summer.

Paddle series ready to launch year 7

A trip on the Wolf River through downtown New London to Shaw’s Landing on May 7 will open the seventh year of the Heritage Paddle Series. 

Presented by North East Wisconsin Paddlers, with partner the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Parkway, the eight paddling trips for kayaks, canoes and standup boards will feature a return to the Peshtigo Flowage and the Tall Ships Festival in Green Bay, a beautifully rural stretch of the Upper Fox River and the popular annual Park-to-Park Paddle and Appleton Locks Paddle. Two of the weekends feature paddles on both Saturday and Sunday.

The 7.5-mile Wolf River trip will launch from the New London Electric Utility property at 400 E. Water St., near where the Embarrass River enters the Wolf, at 11 a.m. on May 7. Paddlers are to arrive at the utility starting at 9:30 a.m. to unload their boats and gear, take their vehicles to Shaw’s Landing and be shuttled back to the launch. Good weather last year drew 90 participants to the season-opening Wolf River Paddle.

Paddlers must complete a registration form and pay $10 to cover insurance, transportation, printing and other costs. Details on the paddle schedule are available at www.wisconsinpaddlers.org. People who want to take part but don’t own a boat can book a seat in the Fox-Wisconsin Heritage Parkway voyageur canoes for most trips by calling 920-707-2965.

The rest of the series includes:

• Upper Fox Paddle, May 21, meet at 9:30 a.m., launch at 11 a.m. from the White River Dam near Princeton to Berlin (16 miles) and 11 a.m. May 22 from Berlin to Omro (14 miles), with camping in Berlin’s Riverside Park.
• Peshtigo Flowage near Crivitz, June 25-26, meet at 9 a.m., launch at 10 a.m. from landing No. 13 on the Caldron Falls pool Saturday (6.5 miles) and Landing No. 6 on the Big Falls pool at 10 a.m. on Sunday (5 miles), with camping at Gov. Tommy Thompson State Park and a shared camp meal Saturday evening in the Woods Lake Shelter in the campground.
• 15th annual Park-to-Park Paddle, July 23, meet starting at 7 a.m. for a 9:20 a.m launch at Shattuck Park in Neenah to Lutz Park in Appleton (8.5 miles). Expect to have to portage around the closed Menasha Lock.
• Tall Ships Paddle, Aug. 6, meet starting at 7:30 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. launch from Bomier Landing in De Pere, through the center of the river channel in downtown Green Bay where replica historic tall ships will be moored along both banks, to Green Bay Metro Landing (8 miles).
• Appleton Locks Paddle, Sept. 24, meet starting at 7:30 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. launch from Lutz Park in Appleton, through the four historic, hand-operated Appleton locks to Sunset Park in Kimberly (6 miles).