Got out on the Sudbury River in Wayland on Wednesday and found much improved water levels from Monday's rain storm. Though a paddle into Heard Pond looked doable, I decided instead to see if the old mile-long oxbow further upriver close to Saxonville would be navigable. At each successive potential obstacle I found enough water to allow passage. Past Heard Pond a well camouflaged duck-blind stood where the river takes a sharp bend...
Next came the "hot dog bridge"...
Finally I reached the entrance to the oxbow and left most of the river's current upon entering. This photo shows the point of entry to the left while also showing the river's present day course on the right while looking upstream...
Once in the oxbow large rafts of ducks and geese appeared as did this 5-nest heron rookery...
A vocal pileated woodpecker was seen...
I worked my way further upstream not knowing if I'd find clear passage or need to turn around.
This spot showed the original bank...
Exiting the oxbow and returning to the river's main channel required briefly exiting my boat and pulling it over the buildup of mud and silt at the oxbow's upstream entrance.
According to Ron McAdow's The Concord, Sudbury, and Assabet Rivers the neck was breeched in 1957. McAdow also mentions Henry David Thoreau having boated through this area in July of 1859. On the Walden Woods web site I found Thoreau's actual journal entry for July 31, 1859. Some of his comments:
"At about one mile below Saxonville the river winds from amid high hills and commences a great bend called the Ox-Bow. Across the neck of this bend, as I paced, it is scarcely twenty rods, while it must be (as I judged by looking, and was told) a mile or more round. Fishermen and others are accustomed to drag their boats overland here, it being all hard land on this neck. A man by the bridge below had warned us of this cut-off, which he said would save us an hour!"
In the paragraph before his comments on the Oxbow Thoreau stated "For refreshment on these voyages, (we) are compelled to drink the warm and muddy-tasted river water out of a clamshell which we keep, - so it reminds you of a clam soup, - taking many a sup, or else leaning over the the side of the boat while the other leans the other way to keep your balance, and often plunging your whole face in at that, when the boat dips or the waves run." Interesting even for 1859 as I suspect the water quality was already being compromised by discharges from the many mills.
The Sudbury River's Oxbow as it appeared on a 1951 topo map (before the breech) and perhaps close to how it was in 1859...
Thoreau ended his July 31st entry with "This sixteen miles up, added to eleven miles down makes about twenty-seven that I have boated on this river to which may be added five or six of the Assabet." This was less than three years before his death in 1862.
On my return trip back downriver the upcoming observation of the Thanksgiving holiday during this Pandemic was in my thoughts. This hawk's steady forward gaze reminded me that we have little choice but to do the same...
...and like the beavers within this lodge I'm thankful for having a warm home awaiting my return...
The increased flow had trash on the move...
...a feline-themed balloon...
The day's haul...
No comments:
Post a Comment