Section 7B: Lutz Park to Sunset Point Park

Launch:  Lutz Park, Appleton

Takeout: Sunset Point Park

Distance: 6.4 miles

Google map

We had planned a dramatic finish to the cannon fire of the tall ships in Green Bay. Instead, the end of Fox River Heritage Paddle 2010 is greeted by the oompah of a polka band in Kimberly, but the final group paddle couldn’t have been better.

The first really good forecast of the series of 12 day trips on the Fox River helps to draw 116 participants last Sunday for the paddle from Lutz Park in Appleton to Kimberly’s Sunset Point Park, the site of the village’s centennial celebration.

Sun and upper 70s accompany the paddlers on the trip through the living history of the four hand-operated Appleton locks, now restored to their 19th century glory.

As a bonus, we get a demonstration of another historic bit of technology.

The residual of the high water levels that caused the delay of this and two other segments of the journey reduced the clearance under the railroad bridge downstream of Lawe Street enough to prevent the 28-foot voyageur canoe from passing under.

The center-pivot bridge is designed to swing out of the way of boat traffic, and would have, if not for the whistle of the approaching train. So we sit waiting, part of the group having already slipped under, heads pressed to decks, and others still waiting.

When the engineer passes the rare sight of a river full of boats, paddlers wave and he waves back. The bridge swings open and on we go.

There is some drama as we approach lock four. A kayaker drifts too close to the water inlet to the hydroelectric generator there. The current sweeps him in and knocks him from his boat. The grate over the inlet stops him from going any farther, but the force of the water pins him there.

The call of “man down” brings the Appleton Fire Department and Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department rescue boats and paddle organizers immediately. Three men pull him free. Uninjured and undeterred, he gets back into his kayak on the other side of the lock and finishes the trip.

Segment 7A: Park-to-Park Paddle

Launch: Shattuck Park,  Neenah

Takeout: Lutz Park, Appleton

Distance: 8.5 miles

There’s a t-shirt they sell to kayakers and sailors at the park headquarters for the Apostle Islands in Bayfield. It says: “The lake is in charge.
 

Mark Hoffman photo

That was the story on Little Lake Butte des Morts for the ninth annual Park-to-Park Paddle. The 30 mph wind gusts sweeping across the lake convince a lot of people that the 4-mile route from our launch at Shattuck Park in downtown Neenah to the early out at Fritse Park in the Town of Menasha is good enough.

Others, determined to complete the full 8.5 miles to Appleton’s Lutz Park, scatter based on their approach to navigation. Some B-line down river to take the shortest path between two windy points. Others head straight into the west wind to get to the lee shore, where land and buildings will block the gusts.

This less pleasant section of the Park-to-Park comes right after the fun part – stuffing more than 100 kayaks and canoes carrying 150-plus people into the Menasha Lock and smiling for photos.

Google map

Our route from Shattuck takes us out the Neenah channel, into Lake Winnebago and around the point of Doty Island and into the Fox – and into the teeth of the wind.

The trip through downtown Menasha collapses the eras. Paper mills, a smattering of surviving retail and riverside retirement condos stand side by side. Then it’s through the lock and out into Little Lake Butte des Morts. Don’t be deceived by the “little” in its name. It can harness the wind with the biggest of them.

Directing the arriving traffic that morning, I could see trouble coming. A lot of the vehicles were packing small river boats. They’re made for going with the current and bouncing off rocks, not for tracking through a crosswind. The result was a lot of tuckered paddlers.

A few of them get wet. I heard stories of at least five boats capsizing.

Thanks to the certified instructors from Northeast Wisconsin Paddlers and patrol boats from the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department and Appleton Fire Department, everyone gets help quickly and no one is injured.

Despite all of the misfortunes I describe here, this was a good time, certainly for me and I think for most.

You can find out why from another t-shirt: “A bad day on the water is better than a good day at work.”

Segment 9: De Pere to Green Bay

Launch: Bomier Boat Landing, De Pere

Takeout: Green Bay Metro Marina

Distance: 8 miles
See larger map

Google map

Tall ships bring out lots of low boats on what was to be the last segment of the Fox River Heritage Paddle 2010 kayak and canoe trip.

Clear skies and warm temperatures don’t hurt either.

We expected that the reproductions of old wooden sailing ships in Green Bay for the Baylake Bank Tall Ships Festival would make for a good turnout for the victorious conclusion of the series. But because heavy July rains and the resulting high water caused the rescheduling of three earlier segments, the end of the route was not the last of the journey.

It seems like there are boats everywhere at the Bomier Boat Launch in De Pere. A roll call in the De Pere lock tallies 98 paddlers in 74 boats – a record for the lock tender.

The lock is also the setting for a freak mishap. One of the kayakers drifts back against a recessed steel ladder in the interior of the lock. When the tender opens the valves to draw down the lock, the front of the kayak lowers with the water level but the back end – hooked onto the ladder by its rudder – stays up high.

The boat is approaching a 45-degree angle when Bob Kriese of Waupaca, one of the more skilled paddlers in the group, jumps into the water, swims to the ladder and frees rudder from wrung. The boat drops with a splash, but its calm occupant stays upright.

We are quite a sight, as boats of every color spread out down the Fox. As always, their occupants range from teens to 70s. We have in common a love of open water and the camaraderie of those who share it.

As we approach downtown Green Bay, spectators on the bridges turn from the tall ships to the curiosity of the low boats. Kriese and Jake Stachovak, the Portage-to-Portage paddler, entertain them with a show of rolling. Jake stands up in his boat and waves to the crowd.

The tall ships, 12 in all, give us another history lesson. We keep our distance, as the U.S. Coast Guard has required, but paddle slowly through gawking. A blast of cannon fire makes us jump in our boats – not enforcement by the Coast Guard but a show for the people on shore.

We leave the colonial era for the modern powerboat haven at the Green Bay Metro Marina, back on shore and back to the present.    

Segment 8: Wrightstown to De Pere

Launch: Wrightstown Boat Landing

Takeout: Bomier Boat Launch, De Pere

Distance: 11.4 miles

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This segment of the Fox River is much further away from the Upper Fox than even the nearly 200 miles that separate them.

The mansions on this stretch of river are a sight to behold. The boathouses would look highfalutin next to homes upriver in the likes of Endeavor or Montello. Sprawling, manicured, limestone-terraced landscaping here costs more than entire homes up there. Though you wonder whether their owners enjoy the river any more.

Our trip starts at the Wrightstown boat landing with a couple of guests. A steamer launch right off the screen from African Queen greets us at the landing, but its travel plan takes it upstream.

Our other guest is Jake Stachovak, the Wausau man whose “Portage to Portage” kayak journey around the eastern United States has made him a celebrity in the silent sport. He paddles along with us – unusual for him – with the current. He is enjoying the company before resuming his one-man, 5,000-plus-mile circular trip from Portage, down the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, into the Gulf, up the Atlantic seaboard, through the canals of New York State, through the Great Lakes and, finally, up the Fox River back toward Portage.

Jake tells of the incredible outpouring of support he’s received on his quest to show people that we’re all linked together and how paddle sports allow you to find adventure in your own town. He encounters kindness again during the Wrightstown-to-De Pere segment.

At our planned lunch stop at the Little Rapids Lock, the shore proved too rocky and steep, so we locked on through and headed for Lost Dauphin Park just downstream, only to find equally unwelcoming conditions. Down a few houses, a homeowner named Tom was weed-whacking his yard.

“How’d you like 37 guests for lunch?” I asked him. After hearing what we were up to, Tom invited us to lunch on his lawn. He and daughter Kate got a kick out of the voyageur and talking with Jake.

Well fed and rested, we climb back into our boats and paddle on to the upscale city of De Pere and the very accommodating Bomier Boat Launch, which is tucked into a neighborhood along the Fox River Trail just south of the downtown bridge.