I walked the kayak down the broad, mown ditch of Highway 23 to Marsh’s Landing, about ¼ mile from the lodge. The landing nestled in a break in the bluff along the Fox River. As I coasted along the day before, I had noticed the quiet, grassy inlet. That afternoon, Leanne Harvey mentioned the inlet as one of the places they launched canoes, and she obtained permission for me to start my Sunday paddle from there. I was not the only Sunday user, as I had to compete with a two foot-long water snake for the launch site.
The river was a little narrower now, and the current a bit stronger. At a leisurely pace, the first two and a half miles passed in an hour, taking me to what was marked on my map as a large, marshy, hairpin loop of the river. Only after paddling to a dead end did I realize that since the making of the map, the river had cut through the loop at its base and filled in the far outlet with the eroded soil. I had to retrace my route, but it was graced with waterlilies floating like white candles on the limpid gray-green water.
Half a mile farther downstream was the long portage at the Princeton Lock and Dam, the half-way point for my six-mile Sunday paddle. I examined the kayak while making the portage. It was holding up well. Before the trip, I found a split rib and had splinted it with a spare oak dowel, lashing them together and then wrapping them with duct tape. The repair had held. Many other ribs in the mid-section had shifted - up to an inch - in their lashings, responding to the pressure points of where I sat or moved. The baidarka was designed to adjust just that way. The canvas skin was scraped and nicked, but there were no leaks, an equally apt descrition of my own state on the fifth day of paddling.
Besides being narrower, the Fox was now often dominated on one side by a high, sandy bluff, the opposite shore being the low spoil bank from years of dredging, beyond which stretched marshes. Silver maples predominated, joined by locust, ash or cottonwood. One cottonwood had snapped during the storm, collapsing at an angle into the river, necessitating a wide swing around it. Here and there willows grew. An especially large willow at one of the infrequent cottages wept a curtain of branches into the river.
As I neared Princeton, Sunday morning church bells rang out. In the further distance rifle shots resounded from a shooting range. Religion and guns - how American.
I arrived in Princeton at 11:30, sweeping through the backside of the downtown and getting out at Hiestand Park, just below the Highway 23 Bridge. I had read that on May 20th, fifteen fifth graders from Neshkoro Elementary School had sampled the life of a voyageur. Recreating a 1762 trip by the Northwest Fur Company, they boarded a 28 foot-long wooden voyageur canoe at Hiestand Park for a three-mile maiden voyage down the Fox River.1 Had fur-trading voyageurs stopped at the park site 250 years ago?
Princeton was settled in the mid-1800s by pioneers drawn to the Pleasant Valley township, and grew during the free-wheeling days of the steamboat. My favorite tale from then was of Captain Robert Booth, determined to reach the city in his Lone Star steamer despite darkness and high water. Sensing that the boat had left the channel, Booth cut the engine only to hear a farmer shouting angrily: “What do you think you’re doing in my pasture?” to which Booth yelled back: “Why in hell didn’t you keep your gate shut?” Then, changing his tone, he persuaded the farmer to guide the Lone Star back to the Fox, and the steamboat reached Princeton safely.2
The city was still vibrant with 1,500 residents and specialty shops, fine restaurants, antiques stores, and riverside terraces. I wheeled the kayak through downtown toward Emmy's Lord Byron Bed and Breakfast on Maple Street*, my home for the night. It was near noon and I had not had any breakfast. One of the first places I came to on Water Street, the main street through downtown, was the Once in a Blue Moon Café. I parked the baidarka on the sidewalk below the restaurant’s windows and flower boxes, and went in for a lunch of Thai chicken wrap, with fresh strawberry pie for dessert. The kayak attracted curious passersby. Two old men gave it a real going over until their wives dragged them off for shopping.
I continued on to the bed and breakfast, a lovely, little Victorian house with two cement lions guarding the front walk, and turned-wood spindles framing the porch. Just as at the lodge, I was the only guest. There were four bedrooms upstairs, each with a private bath. I chose the light-green room - the least frilly of the four. Emmy was the enthusiastic and inquisitive proprietress. Before I knew it, we were talking about my legal work, including divorce law. Emmy eventually pried out of me that I, myself, was recently divorced.
After showering, I headed back downtown. I went first to Strong’s Landing, an antique shop. Items were organized by theme, era and style into rooms and settings, mostly expensive Victorian pieces. However, I found a Japanese print of irises and ducks, matted in silk with a gold frame. The whole affect was simple but elegant. A reproduction rather than an antique, it was only $45, so I bought it. The shop owner promised to deliver it to my office, as it certainly would have looked odd strapped to the back of my baidarka. Among the other shops I stopped at was the N Gallery. I spoke to Nick, the owner, whose path to opening the N Gallery was long and circular. He had left Princeton as a young man to study at the New York American Culinary Institute. That training took him to a job in Seattle, where, through a friend, he became interested in glass art, which lead to the making of fine jewelry. Family and available funding brought him back to Princeton to open his shop. I bought a simple but unique necklace.
Dinner was at JJ’s Supper Club around the corner from the bed and breakfast. The diners were families and senior citizens, including Harry. In his 70’s, Harry sailed through the dining room with a rolling gait. He tacked from table to table, zigzagging across the room, loudly hailing everyone he knew, which was almost the whole crowd. After working the dining room, he jibed off into the bar where he sang a lusty, off-key Happy Birthday to a red-faced woman.
After a good night’s sleep, I went down for a hearty breakfast. As Emmy served me she took a telephone call, slipping into the kitchen with the phone. When she returned, she seemed a little flustered, but tried to make conversation. She remarked that I had been out all Sunday afternoon, and wanted to hear what I had been up to. So, I ran through Sunday’s exploration of Princeton, including the shopping. Emmy asked if the necklace was for a daughter. I answered: “No. It is for a woman that I have begun to see.“ There was a long silence. Then Emmy sat down in a chair and became confessional. “I don’t know why I am telling your this. You will think that I am wacky.” And then she proceeded to tell me.
After talking to me on Sunday, Emmy was so sure that I was a perfect match for her ex-sister-in-law Marcia that she called her. She talked Marcia into letting her give me her e-mail address. The next door neighbor, Elsie, had been recruited into the match-making scheme too. The telephone call was Elsie asking if Emmy had told me about Marcia yet. The attempt to fix me up with Marcia was sweet, and I was sure that Marcia was nice, but I had to disappoint Emmy and politely decline.
Having escaped potential matrimony, and with a very nice English-style breakfast in my stomach, I wheeled my baidarka back through downtown Princeton to Hiestand Park. My next destination was Berlin, Wisconsin, about 17 miles further down the Fox.
* Certain names of people and places have been changed to respect the privacy of individuals.
1. See Fox of the River Voyager Canoe LLC,
2. Svob, Mike, and Elizabeth McBride. Paddling Northern Wisconsin: 82 Great Trips by Canoe and Kayak, at page 13. Trails Books, 1998.
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