More Nashaway Neck

Yesterday I picked up where I'd left off last Saturday in paddling a bit more of Nashaway's "Neck".  Finding a Canoe Launch sign on Main Street (Rt. 70) in Lancaster I pulled in and soon realized the dirt road from the parking area led to a reasonable (though muddy) launch under the railroad bridge.  Before launching, though, a historical marker directly across Main St. from the canoe launch caught my eye...

To the marker's right is this vista...

The story of Mary Rowlandson's captivity is one I continually run across in my travels.  I've crossed her path on the Ware, Millers, and Connecticut Rivers. Now here I was launching into the Nashua's North Branch very close to the spot where her ordeal began.  Once launched I headed upriver and paddled past the meadow where the Rowlandson Garrison once stood.

The day was a beauty and the river provided me with occasional challenges in finding a course around shallow bends, sandbars and blowdowns.  It also offered a few stretches of deeper water where the current slowed. 

After traveling about 2 miles I reached the Route 117 bridge and turned about for the much faster return trip with the flow.

Trash of a mostly plastic nature was plentiful and had probably drifted down from the upstream communities of Leominster and Fitchburg...