The forecast was good, the day sunny, the wind almost non-existent. It was time to wet the canoe for the first time since November 8, 2010. Oh, those five months were so long!
We planned on parking my car in the parking lot at Highway 156 west of Navarino, but when we got there we found the Wolf River had flooded over the banks, making the lot a pond. We parked my car across the river on higher ground at another lot that fishermen use.
We took the canoe on Gary's van to the next boat landing on Highway CCC. That lot wasn't entirely flooded, but the shrub area where I usually relieve myself before our trip was in water. Oops, I shouldn't have had so much tea or cappuccino before we left.
The Shawano County park ranger was there, repairing the fee station. For the last two years, we had been unable to pay because someone had broken into the tubular vault where the $3.00 payments were to go. Since he was there, we filled out the envelope with our fee right away so he could take it away without someone stealing it. He told us about conditions, admired our canoe, told us about his, and then he was off to his next stop at Hayman Falls. Hayman Falls? It's a beautiful spot we haven't visited for a while. We jotted that down for a hot summer's day cooling off place.
Then we were off, down the flooded river through the Navarino nature area, over twelve miles with few dwellings and nobody around. The entire trip we only encountered two fishermen but we had plenty of company. Flickers pecking on old trees told us they were back. Flying high above us, sandhill cranes were calling to the sun. Mallards quacked warnings as we approached then took off downriver to do exactly the same thing fifteen minutes later. Red-winged blackbird males warned us, too, but seldom moved off their perches. The robins, crows, tree sparrows, and chickadees ignored us completely.
The river was fast, so there was little paddling to be done, just a bit of steering and quick strokes of the oars to avoid branches hanging over. Gary took care of that. I observed he liked close calls and stopped ducking every time we approached what looked like disaster. Me, I leaned back, put my feet up on the bow and did very little at all but watch the shores go by.
The trees were budding, giving a slight tinge of mint to the shores, but mostly the banks were beige and brown. The river changes by the week. By the beginning of May, the forest will be lime green, by summer the green will be deep and lush, by late September, we'll be in autumn glory.
If this section of the Wolf River were in a city, there would be sandbags everywhere, but the critters don't find that necessary. The cranes, who are not nesting just yet, moved to the higher ground. The songbirds nest in the same trees, even if they are in a flood plain surrounded by water. The ducks didn't mind at all. The muskrats happily paddled around. In a week the water will be gone and everyone will go back to where they started. None of them have the problems we civilized folk have.
We stopped so Gary could fish but almost immediately something took the bait and his lure. That was 4 pound line, so it must have been sizable. This happened twice. We debated what it could be. A sturgeon? Probably not. A turtle? No, Gary said, they wouldn't be up yet, though later we did see a painted turtle sunning itself on a half submerged log. It probably was a northern pike, he thought. He caught nothing at all, so we'll never know.
The world was waking up. The cranes crooned, a belted kingfisher complained when he didn't get his fish, the song sparrows gave us their best tunes, and the leopard frog chorus let us know that they were all piling on each other to mate. Frogs originated the sex orgy.
We canoed in and out of the forest, gliding across the swampland below. We ate our sub sandwich on a bit of high ground that was today an island. A rivulet poured into the base of an old tree and came out gurgling a miniature waterfall. It was a perfect picnic spot and included a bit of brush that served me as an outhouse. Ah, relief and lunch!
A garter snake zigzagged his way across the river, fighting the current. It hesitated when it saw the canoe, then with renewed vigor kept going. I thought we should give it a ride, but Gary thought not. Why does the snake cross the river? It looked the same on both sides. Maybe there was a snake of the opposite sex over there.
And so our day went. The white throated sparrow sang. A little hooded merganser darted in front of us. The river carried us on.
Finally we came to Pearl Flats where we have twice guarded sturgeon. Not this year, the cabins and house trailers are surrounded by water so no one could get in there except by water. The vacation homes are on stilts, so they will be fine. The rocks where the giant fish spawn are under water. Unless the water subsides soon, there will be nothing happening there.
Gary dropped me off at the place I'd parked my car, but he paddled over to the boat landing, mostly so he could say he canoed through the parking lot.
We packed up and ended the day taking another look at my crane counting site. We figured out a better way to get to it in the dark next Saturday.
We came home with the beginning of our summer's tan. I put away the Vitamin D3 and St. John's wort capsules until November's gray days.
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