Mid-Winter Paddle to Brooke Island?

Ordinarily a late January paddle down the Sudbury River to Brooke Island in Fairhaven Bay wouldn't be very realistic due to thick ice.  But given this year's prolonged "January Thaw" the idea seemed perfectly reasonable. 

I launched at Sherman's Bridge in Wayland which sports a new kiosk (opening photo).  The 3.5 mile paddle downriver was under a dark and threatening sky culminating in a brief rain shower just before I landed at an ice-free Brooke Island...

No sooner had I gone ashore than the Bruce Cockburn song "If a tree falls in the forest" started playing on my shuffle listening device.  I'd heard the song yesterday on my favorite radio station, shortly after reading that a "gag order" had been imposed upon the Environmental Protection Agency.  This was something I would only expect from some far-off country suffering under a repressive regime...not my country.  I loaded the song onto my device last night and, to be honest, forgot about it until it popped up randomly. The song is from the late 1980's but is still relevant today.

It was a treat to experience Brooke Island via boat at this time of year...

...and it proved a great spot for enjoying some hot cocoa.

Fairhaven Bay was mostly open water with some ice remaining in the shallowest areas, particularly the southwest corner...

 

 

The slough leading to the Lincoln Canoe Launch was still iced-in...

 

While paddling back upriver the sun began to break through the cloud cover and it was worth turning around to admire Lee's Bridge... 



Our recent snow/rain event raised water levels almost to the point where one could paddle into the Pantry Brook Wildlife Area...

Near the mouth of Pantry Brook a beaver was snoozing atop his almost submerged lodge...

A little further upriver another beaver was found in deep slumber though he did open his eyes...

Wonder what they might be dreaming about.

Weir Hill provided a good spot for another cocoa break...

Rounding the next-to-last bend provided this view of the day's fickle skies...

 

 

Some riverside saplings are displaying a reddish tint...

 

 

Back at Sherman's Bridge a fallen tree was straddling the bridge piers on the upstream side...

 



 

 

Higher water levels resulted in more trash than expected for this stretch of river...

 

 

As a fan of the Blackburn Challenge, the annual paddling/rowing race around Cape Ann, I find myself thinking about how it was this very time of year back in 1883 that Howard Blackburn and his dorymate Tom Welch were in the midst of a life or death ordeal.  At daybreak on January 26th, following a wild storm, the two dory-fishermen realized their mother ship the Grace L. Fears was nowhere in sight and that they were alone on the ocean some 60 miles south of Newfoundland.   Blackburn further realized that he'd lost his mittens while bailing the dory the previous night.  Quite a predicament to be in.  Time for me to revisit Joseph Garland's book Lone Voyager.