Reed's Island in the Merrimack

When I drove to Reed's Ferry Landing in Merrimack, NH early yesterday morning, my intention was to head in an upstream direction towards the falls below Amoskeag (Manchester).  It was a short trip.  Not even a mile.  After going around the first bend I encountered a rocky section that extended across the whole river...

  On the right or east bank were what looked to be the remnants of an old canal...

If so, it was one of many such canals and locks that once allowed boats passage around the many rapids between this point and Concord, NH.  The Thoreau brothers would've passed through this one  on their 1839 voyage (described in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers).

A great blue heron laid claim to the largest rock...

Since it was only 7 am, I elected to turnaround and head back downstream to Reed's Island.  Approaching the northern tip of the larger of the two islands, I saw that others had beat me to it...

The fawns were still wearing their spots...

Some believe that the great Native American sachem Passaconaway spent his final days on this very island. 

So, another mile was paddled down to where the Souhegan River and Baboosic Brook enter the Merrimack.  The crystal clear waters of the Souhegan drop down through the falls into a pool...

...where many grains of sand have been deposited over the eons...

 ...a natural swimmin' hole.

 On my return to Reeds Ferry Landing I saw my first Cardinal flowers of the year...

...a sure sign that summer is entering its later stages and August will soon be upon us.

At Reed's Island a paddler has 3 routes of passage.  I stayed far right as I passed the southern tip of the smaller island...

On the larger island (to the left) the Thoreau brothers boiled up a rice dinner and rested during the heat of the day.  After their rest, they raised their boat's sail for the first time to aid their upriver passage.

Approaching Reed's Ferry Landing on the Merrimack's west shore...

...and its tunnel allowing passage beneath the once busy but now sleepy railroad tracks.

The day's trash haul enjoyed some time in the sand...

There were 57 recyclable containers and 96 pieces of miscellaneous rubbish including 36 Hooksett Disks.  YTD = 3514

The "Hooksett Disks" are plastic bio-media accidentally released from the Hooksett wastewater treatment facility located 40 miles from the mouth of the Merrimack.  It is estimated that between 4 and 8 million of these disks travelled down the Merrimack River on a stormy night in March, 2011.  Some disks made it all the way to Cape Cod.  This is how the stragglers look underfoot...

 

Hooksett Disks to date = 1415