Best of 2022 No. 2

The Journey Continues.... Our Favorite Lower Mississippi River Sights & Scenes from the Historic Low Water Year 2022... All Aboard!

QCC Shuttle Driver, Ellis Coleman (photo by Rory Doyle)

Lower Mississippi River Dispatch No. 897
"Voice of the Lower Mississippi River" 
Memphis, TN ~ Helena, AR ~  Clarksdale, MS ~ Vicksburg, MS
Photos & Text (c) 2023 John Ruskey

Riding the Big Waves behind Towboat (photo by Jean-Canôt)

The Journey Continues... on River Time...

I am finally getting a chance to share the best of Quapaw Canoe Company 2022 scenes and sightings, from day-trips, overnights and week-long expeditions.  Including the Atchafalaya and the Birdsfoot Delta.  Many of these depict the historic low water year, the lowest water levels ever in some places.  

l-r, top to bottom: 1) Paddling into the Yazoo Pass, 2) Shower Under Freshwater Pipe, 3) Algiers Point Sunset, 4) Turtle Tracks in the Mud, 5) Old River Sunset Paddleboard, 6) Sandbar Spa, 7) Artist's Camp Terrene Bar, 8) Freshly Hatched Dragonfly, 9) Bighead Carp

You might notice a lot of photos with wild bees, and dead fish.  We have seen a lot of both in the past year.  It seems like the bees have been asking for attention.  It also seems like the fish are a significant sign.  We have also been frequently witnessing striking new cloud patterns, in particular long wave trains of clouds, and flee cy cloud shapes with trailing waterfalls of rain appearance scratchy parallel lines (that never reach the ground) -- and vivid arresting colors in the sky, mostly in the red spectrum.

1) Birds on a Wire, 2) Garter Snake Island 63, 3) Whitewater Spa Island 62, 4) Morning Catch Quapaw Landing, 5) JA 6th Grader Girls Pulling Up Canoe, 6) Sandbar Exploration, 7) Shovelnose Sturgeon, 8) The Endless Fascination of Water, 9) Big Canoes Sunrise

A few of these photos come from when the water was high (although it never got to flood stage in 2022, or even near it).  Many come from our favorite sections of river including the Chickasaw Bluffs, and the wildest of the wild, the Muddy Waters Wilderness.  Many illustrate our favorite adventures, with old friends, and new friends made.  Many feature the creatures we saw, the insects, mammals, fish and birds --the precious sparkling variety of creation we visit with and live with during our river trips -- some in full color expression (like the katydids and kingfishers), others we know only for the footprints they leave in the sand (such as the bobcats and coyote).  

1) Big River Guide Mark River, 2) American Queen Getting Navigation Help from Towboat, 3) Bighead Carp, 4) Storm-Rider Varnishing Grasshopper Canoe, 5) Horsetail Straw Big Springs, 6) Beaver Strut, 7) River Otter Tuning SUP Paddle, 8) Mississippi Map Turtle Unknown Cause of Death, 9) Close Up Turtle Shell

We hope you enjoy the journey as much as we have enjoyed serving you in 2022, and simultaneously serving our Queen Mother Mississippi -- wherever she goes, we follow, and her multi-layered floodplain rainbow extravaganza of creation.  

Now in the New Year of the Swamp Rabbit, we continue doing the same into 2023.  Go here to visit new website for an array of new trip offerings, mixed with our traditional classics (like the Muddy Waters Wilderness)!  Or cut & paste this address: www.island63.com.  Our dear sweet Mother Earth needs us more than ever, and we need her.  The big canoe is the ideal way to regain the balance!

Gliding into the rising Full Harvest Moon, Back Channel of Island 63