It was Wednesday morning, June 1st. The sun was shining, the air still, and the temperature nearing 70. I had just entered the slow current of the river to begin my 8-day paddle of the Upper Fox, anticipating a great day.
There were many downed cottonwoods and other deadfalls along the shore. None completely blocked the river, which ran clear and some 60 feet across a sandy bottom. The banks were mounded to the height of four or more feet with dredge spoils, blocking most views inland. Cottonwoods and silver maples predominated along the higher ground. Cattails filled the marshy land.
It was fish that I first saw. In the clear water, two carp swam along the edge of the sandy, deeper channel until the passing of my baidarka spooked them. They shilly-shallied into the weed beds. A long-snouted pike swam under the boat. Later, in the silty, reedy shallows, carp twisted and snapped sending up splashes that I could hear far up river. They writhed together until I was almost upon them. Then, in an explosion of water, they would scatter in every direction. Later, in the afternoon, a walleye leaped twice.
Birds were plentiful. There were three foot-tall great blue herons. With the approach of the kayak, each solitary heron flew downstream, but not far. In four or five minutes I would catch up, disturb its solitude, and we would repeat the process. Lots of kingbirds, looking very black, darted out over the river after insects. There were others - a red-tailed hawk and several kingfishers. Kingfishers have comically enormous heads and sit on bare branches above the river’s edge. I love the kingfisher’s rattle-like call as it swoops from one perch to another.
Sandhill cranes were trumpeting in adjoining fields, and at mid-morning I surprised a pair with their chick. They were drinking from the river along the sandy edge of a spoil-bank. The adults fled up the bank, but the chick, neither fledged nor wise to the world, stayed. It was a ball of brown fuzz on stilt-like legs, with a head snorkeling up on a long, thin neck. The adults stalked the bank-top calling excitedly, but the chick remained disobediently below as I passed.
Robins and red-winged blackbirds were everywhere along the Fox. At Packwaukee Island, black terns hovered before diving headlong into the river. Tree swallows were common, and bank swallows swooped near every highway bridge I paddled under. Heard, but not seen, black-capped chickadees called their alarm warning of my approach.
The only reptile I saw was a painted turtle basking on a deadfall. There were mammals. Muskrats swam in the Fox, and I could paddle very close before they altered course. A deer came down to the river to drink. But, so far I had met no other humans on that warm, still Wednesday morning.
At mile four, I portaged around the low dam and lock of Government Bend. Before carting the kayak from the take-out to the put-in, I rested on the island between the dam and lock. Sitting at a picnic table, which was half sunk in the soil, I snacked on an orange and a power bar. A man with an impressive beer-belly was fishing from the island’s shore. His little girl kept looking at my strange kayak. I caught her eye, and she gave me a shy, little wave.
By half past noon I had reached the County Trunk Highway O Bridge, about nine miles downstream from the Indian Agency House. I stopped, stretched and ate a lunch of trail mix and another power bar, washing it down with pink lemonade from the Nalgene. The trail mix was my own concoction, featuring my favorite nut, the almond, with a fair mix of M&Ms, cashews and peanuts in a base of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and dried soy beans. I already regretted not including more M&Ms and fewer soy beans. The mix was dry and joyless, and I had seven more of these lunches to look forward to.
Under the afternoon sun, the day continued to warm. By 2 p.m., my arms were a little fatigued and my bottom cramped from sitting. Except for going aground once, all had gone well. As I approached Packwaukee Island and the diving terns, I ignored my guidebook’s suggestion to take the north channel around the island. It looked more sluggish than the south channel. So I swung south, but the channel broadened more and more, while getting shallower and shallower. Halfway around the island the boat ran aground. I didn’t have to get out to rescue the situation, but it took six minutes of poling with my paddle before I was able to extradite the kayak from the shallows.
Passing the island, I now had only a few miles to go before my destination – Endeavor, Wisconsin.
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