The Great River, Dugout Canoe Migration & Bugs

Best of QCC 2024 -- #3 in quatrain, this one featuring Summer/Fall, sharing our favorite memories and best photos!

River Report: After rising over thirty vertical feet, and cresting at 37.7 Helena Gage, (the highest we've seen in about a year -- but still 6 feet shy of flood stage 44), the river has retreated back downwards to the low 20s, and looks like it will bottom out around 21 HG. For now.  Our source is the US Weather Service.  Typical cycle of endless undulations up and down, for us paddlers that means every time we go out we see something different.  Upswings push water into the adjoining wetlands, replenishing wet places, and downswings suck the water refreshened water back into main channel, rejuvenating the whole.  Especially exciting are the many "passes" and "runouts" that connect to backwaters.  The mouth of Tunica Lake, Mellwood and DeSoto are examples.  (see below photo montage for more examples).  Sometimes the shifts are so radical the water in these places runs outwards or inwards in a swift muddy torrent that create standing waves and hydraulics.  Sometimes waterfalls appear, over the jagged edge of rock piles (placed to maintain lake level behind).  Other excitements: high water replenishes all the fossil beds, and also the piles of driftwood.  It's like going to your favorite gift shop and finding the inventory completely renewed.  The water is cold.  Still in the 40s.  Wear wetsuit or drysuit if paddling solo canoes, kayaks or paddle boards.  The Lower Mississippi runs out of the North.  Most dangerous days are the warm ones when you get fooled into thinking Spring has arrived and you don't need to worry about it.  A Full Moon Eclipse will take place this week, starting around midnight Thursday (Mar 13), and totality at 1:26 am CDT Friday (Mar 14).  Sometimes called the "Blood Moon" for eye-catching incandescent charcoal oranges, reds, and greys.  Well worth getting up for!

Great River Expedition:

Our Fall 2024 began with an adventurous expedition exploring the Muddy Waters Wilderness with author Boyce Upholt -- to celebrate the publication of his Great River book (2024, WW Norton).  Whenever Boyce and I are together on the big river Mother Nature seems to open up and express her extremes.  Previous expeditions have resulted in high winds, sleeping in flooded forests in hammocks (no dry ground to be found), falling trees on tents, and a terrifying run down Chemical Corridor in high water 2019.  On that last one (along with photographer Birney Imes), incredulous towboat and freighter pilots started calling us "Canoe-i-cide" or "Kamikaze Canoe" -- amongst other lively descriptors not fit for print.  2024 was no exception.  Returning back to our 2024 Great River Adventure with Boyce: within one hour of departure from Quapaw Landing we were hit by a surprise charge of front line winds (top left photo) that blew our flotilla to pieces, and required a hasty refuge in a life-saving nearby slot canyon of mud (the runout leading to Modoc Lake).  Days later and miles downstream, we were stymied by a closed-off back channel that necessitated a very challenging big canoe portage (bottom right hand photo).  Fortunately for all, the hurdles were interspersed with incredibly beautiful campsites, scenery, jaw-dropping skies, campfire fellowship, vibrant wildlife, and book readings & discussions.  Advance Note: Boyce will be donating and signing copies of Great River during fundraiser for the Lower Mississippi River Foundation at Cutrer Higher Education Center on Thursday, May 15th, along with artwork, food, wine and music!  See below for more details). 

Canoe Read? Fall Dugout Canoe Migration:

Above: it was a lively Fall 2024 for dugout canoes.  Froggie Canoe hopped on up to the Horn Lake Library for 3-month program "Canoe Read?" while Barn Owl Canoe spread her wings and became the first ever canoe displayed at Dixon Gallery & Gardens in Memphis (alongside artwork by Danny Broadway,  Claire Hardy and Thad Lee).  The S.S. Goose Dugout Canoe carved by the intermediate students at now defunct Delta School, is making a long-term visit to the Mississippi River Interpretive Center at Quapaw Canoe Company home base in Clarksdale, MS.  Queen Beaver Canoe in top right photo hanging out with S.S. Goose.  Queen Beaver will be swimming south to the Mississippi School of Arts during the last two weeks of March for public exhibition there (Brookhaven, MS).  Bottom left photo: Delta School student carvers at Dixon.  Bottom right: kids love dugout canoes! (photo by Thad Lee).  Bottom Center: Junebug II is not a dugout, but one of our 29' voyageur style canoes.  We added new gunwhales last year (outwhales -- ash).  We never do these canoe projects alone.  Many hands make light work.  It's also a lot more fun as community project.

Bug Diversity:

Above: a small selection of creation we experienced in last year.  (I had to sift through many dozens more bug photos, each unique, for choosing the above.  I closely witnessed & documented a minimum of 100 different species of bugs in the last year).  Worldwide insects populations and diversity are plummeting.  I feel like we are seeing more of both on the Lower Miss, more insects, more diversity.  But I don't have the numbers to prove it.  Maybe my eyes are just more open?  Maybe insects are taking refuge from industrial farming by fleeing over the levees, and down below the banks of the river?  Maybe some sectors are thriving while others decline, or disappear?  Mosquitoes seem to be less.  But definitely more buffalo gnats every year since 2011 flood.  I had one tick last year, which is rare for the river islands.  Also night time insects are swarming during warmer months.  Mother Nature is always an open book waiting to be read.  Top left is the fun-to-watch cottonwood borer beatle.  l-r clockwise brings us to the zebra swallowtail butterfly, then the gentle lightning bug,  hummingbird moth (Hyles lineata), 2 white ermine moths (mating), leafcutter bee, katydid, fish spider and viceroy butterfly.  The viceroy butterfly is a monarch butterfly look-alike.  For protection the smaller and slightly differently patterned viceroy adopts the monarch's colors.  Birds and other predators do not touch.  (Note: if you are a hungry bird, avoid monarchs -- a poisonous meal!).  Unlike monarchs, viceroys do not migrate long distance, but stay close to the extensive willow forests of the Lower Mississippi River islands, to whom their entire life cycle is connected.

More Reading:

For more reading about above topics, go to select previous issues, click on link:
1) INSECTS -- "If you don't like the bugs, don't turn on your light"
2) BEARS -- "Ursa Major: the Smell of Us Was Drifting Down the River"
3) BIG CANOES -- "a living example of balance, teamwork, harmony"
4) DUGOUT CANOES -- "The Waterproof Eyebrows"
5) MORE ADVENTURES -- "River Log ~ Muddy Waters Wilderness"
6) WILD MILES -- "They might be closer than you think!"

Fundraiser Extravaganza Thursday May 15th:

Upcoming: Thursday, May 15th -- special once in a decade -- Artists Fundraiser for the Lower Mississipi River Foundation at the Cutrer Higher Education Center in Clarksdale, MS.  Featuring Robin Whitfield, Thad Lee, Rory Doyle, Lisa Webb, John Ruskey, and maybe a few others.  Author Boyce Upholt will sign Great River books.  Gallery talks, food and music.  More later -- gators!  

Rivergator: Heart of the Lower Mississippi River, Watercolor 2024 John Ruskey

Lower Mississippi River Dispatch No. 960
"Voice of the Lower Mississippi River"   
Vicksburg, MS ~ Memphis, TN ~ Clarksdale, MS ~ Wilson, AR 
Quapaw Canoe Company ~ Celebrating 27 Years of Service ~ 
~Winner of the SBA 2024 Small Business of the Year Award~