Stayin' Local Where Depth Allows

 

While awaiting some helpful rainfall I've been paddling waterways closer to home such as the Assabet River in Gleasondale (above).

Started the week on Sunday paddling with Oz and Roger...

...on the Sudbury River in Wayland. On our way upriver we passed this sectional sofa...

...presently aground.  Removing it someday will present some muddy challenges to whomever takes it on. 

We paid a visit to the historical marker for Wayland's Old Town Bridge...

On Monday, my grandson John and I followed-up our recent paddling of Walden Pond by paddling the nearby Sudbury River above and below Fairhaven Bay...

A couple of deer sporting their winter coats...

On Wednesday the Assabet in Stow was found to be choked in places with mats of floating grass...

A great egret waited patiently at water's edge...

Ended the week Saturday on the Concord River where the Egg Rock inscription shows just how low the water levels remain...

...despite our receiving about a quarter inch of rain on Thursday night.

Things were unusually quiet at the Old North Bridge for a Saturday morning...

...perhaps due to some repair projects being underway...possibly in preparation for next April's 250th anniversary.

Trash was on the light side all week:

From the Sudbury River...

From the Assabet River (where most was found in the grass at the launch site)...

From the Concord River...

Came across an old Sawyer's Crystal Blueing bottle from the late 1800s or early 1900s in the Concord River...

The Concord River also had this throwback 1976 Falstaff Liberty Bell Bicentennial beer can...

The glass Sawyer's bottle likely over 100 years old looks good as new whereas the beer can is approaching 50 years old and looks a lot worse for wear. 

Encountered this steel or possibly cast-iron? tank (about 3' or 4' long) with a stainless steel valve on one end...

If not for the valve, it looks a bit like an old canon.  Heavy yes, under pressure...who knows?  This sleeping dog can be left as is.

Finding Deeper Waters

 

As a result of our long stretch of days without appreciable rain this past week I passed on visiting local rivers and instead sought deeper waters.   My search brought me to Salem Sound's Misery Islands, Lake Quinsigamond (photo above) out Worcester way, and Concord's Walden Pond.

On Monday I launched at Winter Island Park in Salem, MA and headed for the Misery Islands...

Came across this floating "Big Gulp" almost big enough to be mistaken for a lobster buoy...

Upon reaching the islands I chose Little Misery Island...

...rather than the larger "Great Misery" for making landfall...

Paddled around Great Misery where one section had the look of fall...

...around the next point of land was this white-tailed deer already wearing its darker coat...

The deer's visible ribs at this point in the year may not bode well for its chances of making it through the upcoming winter.

Thought about the Misery Island's name on my paddle back to Winter Island. According to the Trustees of Reservations website "In the 1620s, shipbuilder Captain Robert Moulton became stranded here during a winter storm- he described the ordeal as 'three miserable days' giving the islands their name."  Earlier in the season, back in May, I paddled to Saint Croix Island in Maine where Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, Samuel Champlain, and 77 other Frenchmen spent the winter of 1604/1605.  By the next spring 35 of their men were dead and many others still sick with scurvy.  Thus I'll always think of Saint Croix Island as being the most miserable of islands.  At any rate, I soon found myself approaching Fort Pickering Light and my safe harbor behind it...

On Thursday I got out on Lake Quinsigamond paddling it from end to end. With it being both post-Labor Day and a weekday, the lake was pleasantly quiet. The return trip offered this view of the Route 9 Bridge with Wigwam Hill further distant...

Retrieving a plastic bottle from the weeds I came across this very small snail on an arrowhead-shaped leaf...

...and realized that for him, on this day, this leaf would probably constitute his whole universe.

Back in the late 1800s Lake Quinsigamond was at its heyday as this  map from 1898 shows.

Wrapped up the week, Friday, on a moody Walden Pond in Concord, MA paddling alongside my grandson, John...

A coastal storm churning for the past several days off the coast of Massachusetts sent clouds, a northeast breeze, and occasional spurts of mist inland.  At some point we most likely paddled over the spot in the pond where Thoreau recorded a depth of 100 feet.  A United States Geological Survey article Hydrology and Trophic Ecology of Walden Pond by Paul J. Friesz and John R. Colman states "The maximum measured depth 100.1 feet was within 2 feet of that measured by Thoreau in the winter of 1846.  The article's author's also state "Walden Pond is the deepest lake in Massachusetts."

Trash for the week:

Monday on Salem Sound...

Thursday on Lake Quinsigamond...

Long Gone Passageways

 

Journeyed this week to Connecticut and paddled sections of the Connecticut River above and below the 5 mile long Winsor Locks Canal which once allowed vessels to avoid the Enfield Rapids.  While the canal still exists vessels are no longer allowed to use it.  On Monday I launched from Linear Park (mud galore) in South Windsor, CT on the river's east side just across from the Connecticut's confluence with the Farmington River...  

This area saw the first English settlement (1633) in what is today Connecticut with a trading post located near the confluence.
 

From there I headed upriver passing the site where Bissells Ferry was operated for 150 years by the Bissell Family.  The ferry's long gone but this Bissell homestead remains on the river's eastern shore...

Just a bit beyond the ferry was the mouth of the Scantic River...

On the day of my visit the Connecticut River was very low...the Thompsonville gauge measured 3450 cfs and resulted in my running aground fairly frequently.  I found it hard to believe that boats laden with freight could have navigated through such shallow water up to Warehouse Point.

An air mattress hanging from a tree attested to how high water levels can go in the other direction...

My northern terminus was Curtis Island where I got this view towards the Rt. 91 bridge...

...and the southern end of the Windsor Locks Canal (below the rapids).

The following day I'd considered paddling around King's Island, but after seeing how low the water was I headed up to Thompsonville, CT instead.  There, above the rapids and the canal's northern end, I launched from the Donald Barnes Boat Launch on the eastern side of the river.   It's an excellent boat launch that checks all the boxes.  After launching I headed upriver passing by old bridge abutments that once carried a roadway across the river...

Passed where Longmeadow Brook enters...

After entering Massachusetts I had the Six Flags amusement park on my left...

...where, with it now being post Labor Day and a weekday, all the rides were motionless and quiet...

Stopped for lunch at Willy's Island...

...before heading back down to Thompsonville.  Arrived there just as a southbound New England Central Railroad freight train was passing through the town...

Wildlife seen over my 2 days on the Connecticut:

Green heron...

An egret...

An eagle...

I ended my paddling week on Friday with a visit to the Merrimack River in North Chelmsford, MA.

This year our 2024 calendar exactly matched that of the year 1839, the year John and Henry Thoreau traveled the Concord and Merrimack rivers up to Hooksett, NH. Not being sure how long it will be before the calendars coincide again I made it a point to paddle some of the Concord River on Saturday 8/31, the day John and Henry left from Concord, MA.  Likewise, with this Friday 9/13 marking the day their trip came to its conclusion, I decided to paddle to a spot on the Merrimack that they'd passed through on their way home.  The last day of their trip began Friday before 5 am near Reeds Ferry in Merrimack, NH and they made good time coming downriver with the help of a tailwind.  I picked up their route where they were approaching the entrance of the Middlesex Canal in Middlesex Village (North Chelmsford back then, Lowell today) at around mid-day.

Looking downriver at their last stretch on the Merrimack...

Shortly after taking the above photo I was passed by a silent electric-powered craft...

...leaving a wake without the usual noise of an outboard engine.  I wonder what the Thoreau brothers would've thought of the whole evolution of boat propulsion-from the simple oars and sail they employed, to steam, internal combustion, and the recently introduced electric power.

Shortly after passing under the Rourke Bridge...

...I began looking for the spot where long ago vessels would've left the Merrimack and entered the Middlessex Canal via several locks.  According to an article The Hadley House by Albert J. Welcome which appeared in the Middlesex Canal Association's Towpath Topics (Vol 27 No 2 March 1989) the entrance and the locks were filled in by the Lowell and Nashua RR in 1860.  Therefore it's tough to find the actual spot.  I used the steeple of the Shri Swamianaryan Hindu temple as an approximate reference point...

...which is on the river's south side.  Old maps show the canal locks being located just a bit east or downriver from the temple between present-day Baldwin and Pratt streets.  Passing through the locks at noon the Thoreau brothers still had to pull their boat six miles through the canal to Billerica and then row another 11 miles up the Concord River to their home port in Concord, MA.  They covered 50 miles that day arriving in Concord after dark.  BTW, could the operator of the locks at Middlesex Village have been Samuel P. Hadley (mentioned in the Towpath article), whom H.D.T. described as "a serene and liberal-minded man" as well as a "lover of the higher mathematics" in his book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers?

 

Earlier in the week, on Sunday,  Mrs.Trashpaddler and I participated in OARS annual river cleanup.  We worked the Assabet River's shoreline between the Powder Mill Dam in Acton and the Waltham St, Bridge in Maynard.  Near the dam were thick mats of algae...

Things got better above the impoundment area where the Assabet began to look like a river again...

Trash encountered during the week:

Sunday on the Assabet...

Monday on the Connecticut...

Tuesday on the Connecticut...

Friday on the Merrimack...

While searching for information regarding Windsor Locks and the Enfield Rapids on the Connecticut River I came across an article William Pynchon, the Agawam Indians, and the 1636 Deed for Springfield by David M. Powers which appeared in the Historical Journal of Massachusetts (Summer Vol 45 No 2 2017).  In reading the article I learned that in addition to being a successful business man, William Pynchon was also a free thinker who didn't accept the so-called vacuum domicilium argument - a "nobody lives here" view - namely, that if there were no residents to be seen the land was up for grabs.  In his dealings with Native Americans Pynchon recognized the Native Americans as the rightful "owners" of the land.  Wikipedia mentions Pynchon in 1650 writing a book on religion The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption that was both banned and burned in Boston.  As a result of the controversy Pynchon had to leave Springfield and return to England.  Free thinkers were not to be encouraged back in those days.