To Newichawannock and the Falls

This past Sunday I returned to the Newichawannock River (aka Salmon Falls River) to resume the journey I'd started last Wednesday.  On that very windy day I had paddled from Dover Point on the Piscataqua upriver on the Newichawannock past the confluence with the Cochecho River and up to the Eliot Bridge (Rt. 101) in South Berwick, Maine.

Over the days following that paddle I found myself wondering about the Native American locale known as Newichawannock which is said to be only a few miles upriver from where I'd previously turned around.  Guess it's the eternal wondering about and wanting to know what lies around the bend in the river that drew me back.

So on a breezy and mild late Sunday afternoon with the tide approaching flood, I launched from the Maine side of Eliot Bridge (distant shore)...

 ...and began my ascent by picking up where I'd last looked upstream on Wednesday...

This section of river is patrolled by osprey such as this one...

About a mile beyond the bend pictured loomed the promontory seen in the opening photo.
Today its the location of the Hamilton House (built in the 1700s) and occupies a commanding spot on the river...

Known as Pipe Stave Landing it was head of tidewater (at low tide) and most likely would have been the perfect location for the 1630s trading post mentioned in historical accounts.

Being nearly high tide I was able to paddle still further upriver to where the Great Falls were once the dominant feature.  The first falls were the waters of the Asbenbedick River (today's Great Works River), which entered the Newichawannock from the east.  They were only a short distance above Pipe Stave Landing.  Today they've been contained behind this high dam...

 My boat and I are in the tame millrace.

The area just upstream from this point, while said to be a continuous rapid at low tide, could be attained at high tide for another half mile up to Quampeagan Falls.  Between the two falls a neck of land slopes gently downward and, facing to the southwest, would have been an ideal village location for the Newichawannock tribe during times of fish migrations...

A small island lies in the narrows between the falls...

...and yielded this old bottle...

Freed from the mud, it was still intact and may have been an ink bottle...

Beyond the island is the dam at Quampeagan Falls or the head of tidewater (at high water)...

 

 

 

 

In Russell M. Lawson's The Piscataqua Valley in the Age of Sail: A Brief History I found the following: "Every spring, the early seventeenth-century sachem of the Newichawannock tribe, Rowls, repaired to the point, which they called Quampeagan, that separated the Newichawannock from a tributary, the Asbenbedick (Great Falls) River.  At these falls of almost thirty feet, salmon was so plentiful that, according to one legend preserved by Sarah Orne Jewett, "one might walk across on the salmon, which wedge themselves into solid masses in their efforts to leap the impossible high fall near the mouth of Chadbourne's or the Great Works River".  Above the falls, the Newichawannock extends over thirty miles and the Asbenbedick twenty-seven miles.  From Quampeagan to the mouth of the Cocheco is four miles."

 

The Great Falls were, of course, tamed and put to work by Europeans creating much industry at South Berwick, and the salmon migrations are long gone.  Sitting in my boat where hardly a trickle of water gets past the high dam on the Asbenbedick I can't help but wonder about just how majestic these Great Falls once were...

 

 

Once back at Eliot Bridge, however, two horseshoe crabs were seen doing what they've successfully done for eons (in spite of human activities)...

 

 

 

Very little trash was encountered in these waters...

 



Paddling Piscataqua

Yesterday, a work-related seminar brought me to the neighboring state of New Hampshire and to the vicinity of Great Bay (a large tidal estuary I've long wanted to explore).  At the seminar's conclusion I headed to a boat launch near the big bay's western end where northwest winds were found to be blowing 15 to 20 mph and the decision was made to switch to Plan B.   This alternate plan originated from Phil Blampied's Two Dozen Great Places to Float Your Small Boat, and required driving to Hilton State Park at historic Dover Point (opening photo).

The boat launch there is located very near the confluence of the Piscataqua River's east and west branches.  The west branch connects to both Little and Great Bays by passing under the Route 4 bridge (to the right in photo)...

The sailboat pictured had just exited Little Bay and entered the Piscataqua's main stem.

With the day's strong winds and the strong tidal currents my plan called for staying away from both the bridge and the bay and going instead in the opposite direction north and further upriver on the Piscataqua.   The incoming tide would be doing the same for another two hours. 
  
Launching at Dover Point those pesky NW winds harassed me until some shelter was found in the lee of Huckleberry Hill...

  
The chart on my deck showed the river I was paddling as the Piscataqua, but older maps such as this one show this section as the Newichawannock which came down from Asbenbedick and Salmon Falls.

I would've liked to cross over to the Maine side of the river but the gusty winds kept me hugging the New Hampshire shore.

After a while I reached where the Cochecho River enters from the northwest or to my bow's left...

Crossing the mouth of the Cochecho had me exposed to the wind until I'd entered the Salmon Falls River (still Newichawannock on older maps).

I continued up to the bend in the river past Eliot Bridge...

 ...where both the tide and I turned about for the trip downriver.  Two miles or so above this point was said to have been a trading post where much commerce between the Native Americans and the Europeans occurred prior to 1675.

Paddling now with the wind at my back, I arrived at Dover Point in seemingly no time. Before going ashore I took in this look down the Piscataqua as it continues towards Portsmouth and the sea...

Trash wasn't bad...

My next challenge was getting my boat to stay on my car's roof long enough for me to get the straps fastened before the wind could carry it away.  With this challenge surmounted, the first lobster roll of the season was enjoyed at nearby Newick's Lobster House.  The day may have felt like autumn but to my stomach it was summertime.

Finding Fair Haven

Took a little journey up the Sudbury River this morning en route to Fairhaven Bay.  Given the splendid conditions encountered at Nashawtuc Road Bridge it seemed a capital idea.



The inscription at Egg Rock showed water levels having dropped another half foot or so since my last visit on May 5th...

Not everyone had this Sunday morning off from work as this Keolis crew working on the railroad attests...

  
The absence of fishermen, other than two I saw fishing from Heath's Bridge, surprised me as it seemed fish were leaping clear out of the water all over the place.

Once past Heath's Bridge I had the river...

 ...Fairhaven Bay...

...and the bay's Brooke Island all to myself...

 
On my trip back downriver I encountered some newbies at Clamshell Bank...

Trash was very light consisting of plastic bags, a deflated soccer ball...

... and the first beer can I've encountered with an image of a car-topped canoe...

Reminds me of the opening scene in a certain 1970s movie which featured some great banjo playing.  The canoeists in that movie didn't find the Fair Haven that I did.

In the Company of Musquash

Spent the best part of yesterday afternoon paddling the Assabet River from Ice House Landing in Maynard to the village of Gleasondale in Stow.


Aside from 2 other kayakers, the critters mostly encountered were many mushquashes (aka Muskrats).  They were here, there, and everywhere.  Some patrolled the shoreline...

 ...while others passed like ships in the night...

This recently returned eastern kingbird regally watched over the proceedings...

Clear passage up and downriver was impeded by two fallen trees at the same location...

The view (above) is looking downriver about a half mile below Route 62.  On the left side is a submerged log with barely enough water above it to allow my boat to slide across.

Route 62 and the Gleasondale mill building basked in the afternoon sunshine...

Thoughts of ascending Fort Meadow Brook ended with this view of the box culvert...

Trash gathered up along the way...

Still more Scope bottles.

Whitehall Reservoir Respite

Yesterday, having both morning and afternoon jobs in the town of Hopkinton allowed a paddle to be sandwiched in between.  It was my first paddling of a very nice body of water that for some reason had never crossed my radar before.  The boat launch is at the north end of the reservoir near the village of Woodville and as boat launches go it's a good one.  Only thing missing is a porta-john.

Signage at the ramp spells out the rules...

In my time on the 592 acre reservoir I saw only 2 power boats and one other kayaker.  Given that Whitehall Reservoir was once considered a backup source of drinking water for greater Boston, its waters are sparkling clean, with islands and a shoreline that have seen little development. 
 
The view heading out from the launch...

Before Whitehall Brook was dammed to enlarge the original Whitehall Pond in the late 1800s the upper portion of the reservoir was a large swamp.  Small islets (such as below in foreground) may indicate the way the swamp looked before the dam...

The outlet to Whitehall Brook which ultimately flows into the Sudbury River near its headwaters...

On a website concerning the Old Connecticut Path I came across this link explaining the earlier pond's proximity to the historic path.  It also mentions the Native American name for the area being "Quansigamog". 


Whitehall Reservoir was found to be relatively pristine from a trash point of view...

More Nibbling on the Nashua

Buoyed by yesterday's 3 mile upriver paddle from Still River Depot Rd., I decided to give another try to a downriver trip from Rt. 117 Cartop Boat Access in Lancaster.  I launched late in the afternoon of what was an absolutely beautiful day.  

A tree across the path to the river from the parking area was not a good omen.  Sure enough, no sooner had I launched and headed downstream than I encountered this bank to bank blockage...

Being the eternal optimist that I am, a muddy portage was undertaken with hopes it would be the only one needed. 
Back in the water things looked good for another quarter mile or so until after rounding this bend...

...another bank to bank blockage loomed...

Here I pulled my boat out and scouted a possible portage.  It didn't look good with no path, tons of poison-ivy, and some feisty mosquitos putting in their first appearance of the season.
So, I turned around and backtracked to the first blockage where ample plastic trash was available for the taking...

Only made a small dent....

Drove home while the sun was setting...car windows were down and with a temperature of 79 degrees F. thoughts of our horrid winter were fading fast.

Another Nibble of the Nashua

In June of 2012 I tried paddling downstream on the Nashua River through the Bolton Flats section, but was stopped after only one mile by a fallen tree which spanned the river from bank to bank.  So, this morning, equipped with a hand saw, I decided to tackle the same stretch of river starting instead from downstream and working my way up.
 
After launching at Still River Depot Road in Harvard, MA  my little adventure began under cloudy skies.  Things were peaceful and quiet...until a freight train was heard approaching from the north. I'd passed under the RR bridge (opening photo) just a short time before, so I turned about and made it back just in time to watch two CSX locomotives slowly pull a long train across the river on one of the last active sections of the Boston and Maine Railroad's former Worcester, Nashua, and Portland division...

 

 

Trains on this line move at only about 10 mph.  Once the train had disappeared, a pickup truck adapted for riding the rails followed in hot pursuit.

 

With quiet restored I resumed my trip and encountered these wood ducks in a slough...

 

Believe I heard wood thrushes for the first time this year in this same vicinity.

 

Passage upriver was allowed, thanks to the tree cutting work of others, until I reached this obstacle approx. 1.5 miles above Still River Depot Rd....

 

Thanks to the current being manageable my saw and I were able to prevail...

 

This spot is at a bend in the river and has become a repository for flotsam of all kinds...

 

 

There's enough trash here to fill several boats.

 

About 3 miles above the boat launch, and sure that I'd passed my 2012 ghost,  I turned about and headed back downriver under much improved skies.

 

Around this bend at a high bank...

...a blue heron enjoyed the view from up on high...

 

 

 

Sporadic bursts of gunfire erupted from the west side of the river...probably related to the Fort Devens military facility.

 

This small stone structure was nestled in the woods on the river's east side...

 

 

Trash and recyclables that went on to a better place...