Wednesday, March 31, 2021

March Exits

Closed out the month of March with an early Sunday morning paddle on the Nashua River from the Oxbow NWR.  Worked my way 2.6  miles upriver to where considerable trash was encountered...


Another 33 'nip' bottles.  This was the final haul for my old blue dry bag as the plastic closure snaps gave way.  Had the bag since 1994 and the seams were just about gone as well.

Noted there's till plenty of trash there awaiting a chance to jump into my replacement dry bag...

...yet to be placed into service.

Thanks to the efforts of my tech-savvy daughter in navigating the state's online COVID vaccine sign-up procedure, this trash paddler will greet April fully vaccinated.

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Finding My Center in Central Mass

 

On Monday I began my week driving down Route 31 on a mission to locate the approximate center of Central Massachusetts, and almost drove right by Paradise.  A pristine-looking waterbody caught my eye and fortunately for me the identifying sign caught my eye as well...

...resulting in my braking for "Paradise".  How could I not?  Shortly I had this whole pond to myself and paddled towards Crow Hills to the north (opening photo).  

Looking towards the southwest the pond's proximity to Mount Wachusett could be seen...

It looked like 'Opening Day' for these turtles of Paradise...
...while a beaver's homeward path served as a reminder that not all of the pond is open...

Paradise Pond is fed by Keyes Brook and the brook flows southeastward to the Stillwater River and eventually into Wachusett Reservoir as a branch of the Nashua River. 

Following my taste of Paradise it was back to Rt 31 and more driving towards the center of Central Mass.  My reason for seeking the center resulted from coming across this old (1793) map of Worcester County...
...which I stumbled upon while looking for more information on Captain John Peirce who'd served as a surveyor on Benedict Arnold's Expedition to Quebec City in 1775.  On this map he is credited as a co-cartographer with Charles Baker, and I was intrigued by the prominence the two men gave the many rivers, streams, and ponds.  At the same time I found the map a bit disorienting by not having north at the top of the page.  After turning the map 90 degrees I was struck by how many of the waterways seemed to be reaching their tributaries towards Mount Wachusett...

The map was included as a fold-out in Peter Whitney's 1793 book The History of the County of Worcester in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  I stumbled upon the map at Barry Lawrence Rudderman Antique Maps Inc.  Whitney's book in which the map was included can be found at Evans Early American Imprint Collection.

Hoping the cartographers, Baker and Peirce, wouldn't mind my messing with their creation I took the liberty of modifying it more to my liking (with north at the top)...

I needed to establish a center point in order to divide the map into quadrants similar to a surveyor's compass.  The concept of quadrants was fairly new to me having come across it in Peirce's earlier surveying work for the Arnold Expedition.  On that expedition he was tasked with plotting portage routes and posting them.  In Peirce's journal which appears in Kenneth Robert's book March to Quebec, is this example of one such posting: "1st Carring(sic) Place "W 23 degrees N. 9 perches on the Left hand the river.  Please let this Paper Stand that all may Know the Course and Distance and you'll oblige Gentlemen Yours to Serve." ( a perch = 16.5')  In determining headings he was most likely using a surveyor's compass that would've looked something like this...
...rather than today's usual 360 degree graduations. (Read above as N 28 degrees E)

It took me a while to understand why the quadrants are shown in reverse.  The surveyor would sight a line towards his direction of travel causing the only moving part of the compass, the needle, to point to magnetic north.  He would then read the number of degrees and quadrant he was heading towards at the tip of the needle.  Very simple.  As a math challenged individual I found this basic instrument strangely intuitive...so much so that I recently purchased a compass equipped with such quadrant graduations.

So, for the center point of my surveyor's compass I selected a location known as Summit Siding on the appropriately-named Central Massachusetts Railroad in the town of Rutland.  The Town of Rutland has long been known as the geographical center of Massachusetts and even has a "Central Tree" which I looked for but couldn't find.

Moving westward from Summit Siding one enters the Ware River watershed...
While moving eastward alongside the old railroad right of way one soon notices water moving in the opposite direction...towards Muschpauge Brook and the Quinapoxet River (a tributary of the Nashua River).

On Wednesday, I drove to a waterway lying to the southwest of my center point, the Quaboag River in Brookfield.  My intention was to paddle up to Quaboag Pond and explore two of the longest tentacles  reaching for Mount Wachusett as shown on the Baker/Peirce map.  The Five Mile River reaches up to Dean Pond in Oakham and the Seven Mile River reaches up to Turkey Hill Pond in Paxton/Rutland.  This 1665 map shows the confluence of the two rivers (on the right side) in relationship to Quaboag Pond.  Lake Lashaway didn't exist at that time...

I tried reaching this confluence five years ago but the river was too low at that time. 

Wednesday started out cloudy and warm with lingering fog...perfect for seeing my first red-winged blackbird of 2021...

Some multi-unit beaver housing in what must be their idea of paradise...

Nearing the confluence I approached what would have made an ideal island stronghold...

After landing on the island's north side I climbed the steep bank to a plateau where this crude shack stood...
...proving again that one man's trash is another's treasure.

Speaking of treasure, just upstream of the island and peeking out from the river bank was this old blob top J. L. Mulcahy and Co. soda or beer bottle hailing from the very town where it was found...
Perhaps it dates to the glory days of Lashaway Park either side of the year 1900?
  
Around the next bend was the confluence with Seven Mile to the right and Five Mile to the left...

The Five Mile River (these days known as the East Brookfield River) continues with very shallow conditions past the Boston and Albany Railroad Bridge towards Lake Lashaway...

The Seven Mile River got shallow a short way above the confluence, with some of the water seen cresting a beaver dam having come from as far off as Turkey Hill Pond...

These waters will ultimately enter the Connecticut River via the Quaboag and Chicopee rivers.
  
Then the sun began to break through with temperatures reaching the seventies. It felt almost like summer as I returned across Quaboag Pond...

...and past this sentry...
...back to my takeout at Rt. 148.

Trash gathered up along the way:

Most of it from the boat launch.

Trash from Paradise Pond on Monday...

Most of it from along the Rt. 31 shore.

As I headed homeward on Rt 62 in Lancaster preparing to leave Worcester County, this CSX freight train was heading northeastward to a location about 6 miles east of Paradise Pond and Mount Wachusett...
...a fitting end to a pleasant day.


 

 


Thursday, March 18, 2021

A Bit of Green Amidst the Debris

It was only appropriate that a bit of green decorated my boat's hull yesterday...

...as it was Saint Patrick's Day.  Got out on the Nashua River from the Oxbow NWR in Harvard, MA and headed downriver.  

Encountered a wee bit of rubbish along the way...

In addition to the fire extinguisher, plastic bottles, and cigarette lighters were another 60 "nip" bottles.

An Irish proverb that fit the day: "God is good, but never dance in a small boat."

Sunday, March 14, 2021

Snowmelt Boost

 

Though it hasn't rained a drop of late, the Assabet River and its tributaries enjoyed a little boost from our recent snowmelt.  The photo above shows the combined flow from Nashoba and Fort Pond brooks as it passes under Commonwealth Avenue in West Concord.  This is some of the same water I  snowshoed on last month alongside Fort Pond Brook.

The additional water allowed upriver travel on the Assabet up to and into the mill race at Damondale...


Trash was a fifty-fifty split between plastic bags and plastic bottles...


The morning's gusty winds had diminished by early afternoon on this last day of Eastern Standard Time.  Bring on those 7pm sunsets!


Thursday, March 11, 2021

Karaoke on the Nashua River

 

Enjoyed a real taste of spring while out on the Nashua River in Harvard and Bolton yesterday.  Launched at Oxbow NWR and worked my way 3 miles upriver to where this bank-to-bank wall of tree limbs/debris (pictured below) became my turnaround point...


At a spot where lunch was taken I came across this footprint in the snow...

...seen next to my booted foot.  While I'm no expert in animal prints, it looks to me like a black bear's footprint.  If it is the print of a bear, it indicates they're out of hibernation and that's yet another sign of spring. 

This slough still has a wintry look...

Quite a bit of trash along this stretch of the Nashua...lots of plastic bottles, 47 nip bottles, a Mylar balloon, and more than a few cigarette lighters.  Pictured is what was gathered up along a 1.5 mile stretch...

 One less usual item was a case full of Karaoke CD's...
...which hopefully has the party going strong inside the dumpster!
 


Monday, March 8, 2021

Ice in a Form I Like

 

While I'm not a big fan of ice I did come across several crystal-like formations yesterday that I couldn't help but appreciate. They were on the Assabet River in West Concord and I suspect they won't hang around much longer.

These seemed too heavy for the bark strands they appeared suspended from...


 Some like these formed over riffles...


Meanwhile overhead this hawk was outnumbered (7 to 1) by a raucous mob...

...but remained unfazed..

Came across this log-skidding tong that was too heavy to take aboard...


It may be related to some work done last year removing trees from the river.

Trash was of a mostly plastic nature...


Derby's Bridge (Main Street)...

...on a cool but pleasant Sunday on the river.



Saturday, March 6, 2021

An Almost Ice-Free Assabet

 

Approaching Crow Island while paddling downstream on the Assabet River this past Wednesday I wondered if things would still be iced in between the island and Ben Smith Dam.  Alongside the island I found remnants of ice clinging to tree limbs...

...but otherwise it was clear sailing to the dam save for one spot where ice nearly spanned the river's full width...

...leaving a narrow gap on the river's sunny side.

An open-cockpit helicopter briefly hovered overhead...

...before it touched down and then immediately took off again from the Crow Island airport.

Though the river was open to the dam...

..."Ice House" Landing remained, appropriately, iced-in...
...so I landed just east of the Ben Smith Dam and stretched my legs while checking out the falls and short portage trail.

The dam and falls looking back from the downstream side...

This long dead tree below the dam has witnessed more than a few gallons of water pass by...


Great Road Bridge (Rt. 117) as seen from the end of portage put-in...
Perhaps one of these days when the river is about a half foot higher than the 3' it was at on Wednesday, this mostly flatwater paddler will float down under the bridge and cover the distance down to Waltham Street.  However, this not being that day, for me it was back upriver to Magazu's Landing where a couple of fishermen were preparing to try their luck...more signs every day of spring taking hold.
  

A small bit of trash gathered up along the way...