Upcoming Big River Adventures

June 2024 ~ great swimming and beach-combing ~ love your big river!

Lower Mississippi River Dispatch No. 939
"Voice of the Lower Mississippi River" 
Memphis, TN ~ Wilson, AR ~  Clarksdale, MS ~ Vicksburg, MS
Quapaw Canoe Company ~ Celebrating 25 Years of Service ~
~Winner of the SBA 2024 Small Business of the Year Award~

Upcoming Big River Adventures!

Fri June 21
Solstice Full Moon Adventure
Full Strawberry Supermoon
4pm-10pm from QCC Clarksdale
Note: good swimming!  pack sun & bug protection!
Also: electrolyte liquids like lemonade or gatorade or watermelon!
Respond to email, or sign up here

Sat June 22
Community Canoe
Swimming, Beach-combing, Fossil hunting
1-6pm from QCC Clarksdale
Note: good swimming.  pack sun & bug protection!
Also: electrolyte liquids like lemonade or gatorade or watermelon!
Respond to email, or sign up here

Mon June 24
LMRF Fundraiser: Greenwood
Show your support for the Lower Mississippi River Foundation!
11am-8pm, Greenwood Market Place

June 26-28, 2024
The Great River: Mississippi River Wilderness Paddle with author Boyce Upholt
Wed-Fri June 26-28, 2024
Voyageur Canoe Adventure ~ Muddy Waters Wilderness ~ 47 miles
Primitive Camping, Long Days of Paddling, Long Nights of Campfire Story-Telling
(See below for more details!)

July 14 – September 29 
Wilson Fellows: Group Exhibition at Dixon Gallery & Gardens
John Ruskey, Danny Broadway, Thad Clark and Claire Hardy

Sat July 13
Opening Reception

Tues July 23
Dixon Gallery Munch & Learn

Great River: Mississippi River Wilderness Paddle with author Boyce Upholt Wed-Fri June 26-28, 2024

The Great River: Mississippi River Wilderness Paddle with author Boyce Upholt
Wed-Fri June 26-28, 2024 ~ Voyageur Canoe Adventure ~ Muddy Waters Wilderness

Wed-Fri June 26-28, River Itinerary:

Wed June 26
9am Meet at Quapaw Canoe Company, 291 Sunflower Avenue, Clarksdale, MS.  Park your car and pack your bags.
10am Shuttle to river
Put in: Load canoe at Quapaw Landing and paddle into some of the wildest & remote islands & forests of the Lower Mississippi. Great back channels & oxbow lakes to explore. Fossil finding & rock hunting.  Great swimming throughout. Abundant wildlife, exceptional birding, world class fisheries, the greatest concentration of white tailed deer in the country, as well as the Louisiana black bear.
Paddle to Island 64 (11 river miles)
Points of Interest: Island 63, island 62, Burke’s Point, Modoc’s Pass, Island 64, Muscadine Vine Kingdom)
Camp I: Rowe Island #64

Thurs June 27
7am River Rat Coffee
8am Campfire Breakfast
10am reboard canoe, continue downstream, exploring Points of Interest: Cessions Towhead, Island 69, Knowlton Crevasse, Hurricane Point, Mouth of DeSoto Lake, Mouth of Mellwood Lake.  
Route: Island 64 to Concordia (23 river miles)
Camp: Concordia Towhead

Thurs June 28
7am River Rat Coffee
8am Campfire Breakfast
10am reboard canoe, continue downstream
Route: Schedule: Concordia to Terene Landing (13 river miles)
Points of Interest: : Cessions Towhead, Island 69, Knowlton Crevasse, Dennis Landing, Island 70, Smith Point, Mouth of the White River, Big Island, Victoria Bend, Great River Road State Park, Arkansas Bar 
Mid-Day: Take Out at Terene Landing and shuttle back to Quapaw Canoe Company home base, Clarksdale, MS

Charge: $700 each, which includes guiding & outfitting + meals + shuttle.  Seating is now open.  $350 deposit required to hold seat in canoe.  6 minimum, 12 maximum.

Guiding & Outfitting: includes canoes, paddles, lifejackets and all necessary river gear, first aid kits & emergency gear.

Meals: We will do all the food prep, campfire cooking, provide cookware & eatware & cleanup, using our time-honed recipes and well supplied outdoor kitchens including tables, chairs, and portable pantry.

Shuttle: The shuttle fee applies to downstream trips and covers transportation of canoes & gear plus our vehicles & drivers for drop-off and pickup.
 
QCC Payment Options:

You can make payment by one of 4 methods:

1) Check: 
Send check to Quapaw Canoe Company, 291 Sunflower Avenue, Clarksdale, MS  38614 

2) Credit Card:
Paypal Billing (add 3% PP fee)
paypal.me/quapawcanoecompany

3) Venmo
John-Ruskey-1

4) Cash:
Hand deliver, or send to Quapaw Canoe Company, 291 Sunflower Avenue, Clarksdale, MS  38614 

Muddy Waters Wilderness: 

This is a journey through some of the wildest & remote islands & forests of the Lower Mississippi. Described in a 12-page article in National Geographic Adventure Magazine, August 2007. Great back channels & oxbow lakes to explore. Fossil finding & rock hunting at Knowlton Crevasse & Catfish Point. Great swimming throughout. Abundant wildlife, exceptional birding, world class fisheries, the greatest concentration of white tailed deer in the country, as well as the Louisiana black bear. No towns or industry. The only evidence of civilization is the tugboats on the river. We’ll pass by the mouth of DeSoto Lake, where nearby its namesake explorer Hernando DeSoto is thought to have discovered the “Rio Grande,” as he called it, the “Big River.” He and his men witnessed an armada of 200 Indian canoes on the river. Some of the canoes held 70 to 80 warriors. Opposite Smith Point (Camp II) is the mouth of the White River, through which commercial traffic can access the Arkansas River through the Arkansas Post Canal. This region saw the visit of explorers Jolliette & Marquette (1673), LaSalle (1681) and John James Audubon (1820). It was also the heart of the Quapaw Nation, the Siouan tribe who followed the rivers downstream out of the Ohio River Valley and settled within the forests of this dynamic confluence. Choctaw Island Wildlife Area is the southernmost public island in the Lower Mississippi Water Trail being developed by the American Land Conservancy & others. The route ends with passage through the notorious “Greenville Bends” whose collapsing forests and ruthless pirates & moonshiners caused much misery to steamboat pilots.

Muddy Waters: 

This section of Lower Mississippi river flows alongside the Mississippi Delta closest to where the late great McKinley Morganfield (AKA Muddy Waters) grew up and lived the vast majority of years of his southern life (25 years). The shuttle out includes a stop at his home site (Stovall Plantation) and passes through the landscape he played in, fished in, and worked in. Visit Clarksdale’s Delta Blues Museum before or after the journey to see the original cabin, hand-hewn from huge Cypress Logs, and learn more about the earth-shaking artistic tradition that evolved in this region, the Delta Blues.  Live music every night of the week in town.

Route:

Put in at Quapaw Landing, (12 miles West of Clarksdale). 46 miles on the river. Take-out at Terene Landing (Near Rosedale). Camping:

The camping is spectacular on the Mississippi River — it’s like having an entire ocean beach to yourself! Full of wildlife, and the wonders of nature. The stars are almost as good as western skies. You can find 5-star camping on land, but on the river it’s million star camping! It is primitive camping, so no bathrooms or showers. But, you can swim in the Mississippi, and there is plenty of privacy when you need it. We carry everything with us for all of our trips, and go completely self-contained with all canoe and survival gear, food, water, camp and kitchen equipment, and personal items.

Typical River Days:

River trips flow along with a mixture of paddling (usually not more than 1-2 hours at a stretch), exploring islands, birding, beach combing, animal tracking, napping, swimming, and whatever else is of interest to you & your friends or family! Our goal is to share the profound experience of immersion in the wild beauty of the Lower Mississippi River. We arrive as visitors, and respect the landscape and the river as such, the home of the richest biota in the heart of our country, including superlative birds, fish, crustaceans, and amphibians. Micro-biotas on the Mississippi include deep water, shallow water, forests, wetlands, sandbars, and meadows.

Great Wildlife:

Great Birding, tracking, animal & insect sighting, fossil & rock hunting (on select gravel bars). Bring your binoculars & pocket guides. We will be paddling though some of the wildest & most remote forests in the mid-South. 60% of America’s songbirds use this flyway. Also, the richest biota in North America for many species (including White Tailed Deer). You may not see the 230 varieties of fish & amphibians, but they “see” you! The fishing is fantastic if you know what you’re doing.

Cooking & eating considerations: 

We do all of our cooking on the campfire with cast iron cookware, pans, pots & Dutch ovens. Smoked Cowboy Coffee (our specialty) poured from enamel coffee pots, we always keep hot water in a separate pot for soups & tea. We’ll have on board big coolers with ice and several dry boxes for dry goods in case you have something extra you want to bring (ie: BYOB). Meals served on enamel camp plates, bowls & cups. Any personal food requirements? Let us know, otherwise we’ll go with whatever looks freshest & tastiest!

Fantastic Swimming:

Swimming: great swimming from ocean-size beaches and possible blue holes along the way. Blues holes are greenish or bluish pools of water carved directly into the sand & mud during high water, the low water leaves them in unexpected places. Best swimming in the Mississippi Delta! Pack swim gear and towels.

Primitive Wilderness:

This is the Lower Mississippi River. The Muddy Waters Wilderness. Save for the occasional passing towboat, there are few traces of civilizations. Every island we visit will be primitive. Bring any toiletries you need, and be ready to dig a hole when nature calls.

About Quapaw Canoe Company:

Quapaw Canoe Company provides high quality guided canoe adventures on the wild and wonderful Lower Mississippi River, over one thousand miles of free-flowing watery wonderland.  We cover any section of the river from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.  But most of our activity takes place in the most wild 500 miles between Memphis, TN, Vicksburg, MS, and St. Francisville, LA, where the river swells to its full, mature magnificence — here the big muddy river swirls through giant sandbar islands, in and out of vast wetlands, and along endless bottomland hardwood forests thriving with birds, fish and mammals.  The big river creates one of the most important biotas in the world.  Music and art overflows the juke joints and museums of Memphis, Vicksburg, and Clarksdale, MS (our home base where we fashion our unique hand-crafted 29′ cypress strip voyageur canoes).  Jump on board and join us for an exploration of the wildest freshwater wetlands in the heart and soul of North America! Our mission is to share the great beauty, and raw, wild power of the big river!