River Report: Remnants of Hurricane Francis Last week Hurricane Francis became a Tropical Storm Francis and rotated around and around and northwards up the Lower Mississippi Valley like a mad spinning whirling dervish, not catastrophic in comparison to others more powerful, but delivering bucketful of rain along the way, in a giant swath from Georgia, across the Florida Panhandle, down the Gulf Islands of Alabama & Mississippi, and on into Louisiana. We got a tiny little bump of water from that (from near zero Helena Gage now rising towards 2.5 in the next couple of days). The fish die-off reported last issue has peaked (big head carp), and now it seems like the back channels are clearing and becoming more habitable for fish, and better paddling and swimming for us. ~~~Upcoming Trips You Can Join in On~~~ *Full Harvest Supermoon Partial Eclipse tomorrow night Tues, Sept 17, 6-12 midnight. *Next Community Canoe, Sat Oct 5th (1-6pm from Clarksdale Quapaw Landing) Book your own custom-guided trip by going to www.island63.com.
Muddy Waters Wilderness: raw scribblings from Driftwood Johnnie’s Sketchbook & Journal, with some corrections, but mostly unedited
The Story Thus Far: German adventurer Marc Kindermann engaged us Mighty Quapaws for a 3-day Mississippi River immersion. Capt."Mayfly" Ceili Hale and I ended up being the guides. So of course we brought him to our favorite wild and wonderful stretch, that being the magnificent Muddy Waters Wilderness. Marc is also a water engineer on the Elbe River. On his off time he kayaks and camps. He was great company on this trip -- a keen observer, and curious about everything. The river is always overflowing with life & death, and beauty & surprises. On the shuttle drive out from Clarksdale, we stopped by "Muddy's Mound," to pay our respects to namesake Muddy Waters (AKA McKinley Morganfield), who lived in a hand-hewn cypress log cabin 25 years with his grandmother before heading north in 1947 to become the King of the Chicago Blues. We are paddling 24-foot cypress strip Cricket Canoe. All harmonious and fitting. This is the land of mud and cypress. Our route was Quapaw Landing to Rosedale Harbor. Low water (dropping to -0- Helena Gage) and moody weather. We got hit by spectacular late summer storms, but fortunately both nights the storms waited until just after we got tents and camp set up and had finished supper. So we were lucky in that regard. PS: This newsletter covers Day 3. If you missed Days 1 and 2, go here to catch up: A Glowing Bar of Color Otherwise, read on:
Mon Sept 2, Mouth of the Old White River
How sweet it is: morning on the Mississippi. Sweet coolness, so divine after the long hot summer. I am on water's edge, behind me mourning doves are cooing softly. Song birds singing brightly. My heart feels soothed in the vault cathedral of the heavens, my mind swelling upwards & outwards in a wash of inspiration, euphoria swelling in similar fashion upwards through my body and up through my head, this euphoria following wake up in the wild, a walk, a swim in the river, and now a cup of coffee and my sketchbook in hand — a religious ecstasy.
We packed up camp and paddled past the rip-rap riddled teeth of the top end of the Old Channel of the White River as the dense low lying clouds slowly thinned out. Eventually the sun broke through, with the temperature following, it felt like someone turned on the heat in a sauna. Immediately turned from cool to hot & humid. We whisked around the top end of Montgomery Island following main channel, and made a refreshing swim break in the vigorous washing machine eddy of the 3rd wing dam right bank descending. Always a great swim spot, wide open and fresh, the strong currents maintain the site, no mud or algae or stinky fish die-off, always clean sands with big river-sculpted logs thrown ashore. 
Every time I stop here I find a unique grouping of new logs with striking individual character and personality, their journey sometimes told in the texture and injuries to their woody bodies, the same as are seen on our human bodies. We all wear the past on our skin. This time two blue logs are lying stranded in the sand, ancient fellows, in deep dark decay, severely cracked & carved & mutilated in their journey, one is particularly fossilized, part wood, part mud, part rock, probably buried for millennium in the mud and then later uncovered by some change and sent downstream. In the past 2 weeks of paddling I have seen several ancient stumps still rooted to the ground.
Around the swift waters of Victoria Bend we had to dive in through pulsing boil lines to reach the eddy behind. Our goal: the wreckage of a Mississippi River barge which becomes visible only during low water levels. From the distance it stands out, an aberration to the already chaotic patterns of rip-rap and revetment common to outside bends of the big river. Up close it becomes more and more grotesque, the mammoth steel structure splayed out over the bank with its back broken, the double-walled 1/2 inch plate steel innards exposed and laying perpendicular to the strong current like the skeletal carcass of a beached whale, its double-walled super structure getting ripped apart by the raging river, heavy rip-rap rocks sprinkled like salt on the feast, a blanket of revetment uprooted and rolled back with total disregard for law & order over its edges, the unfathomable power of the river made visible in a single discrete scene.
We followed a strong v-line flow that propelled outwards and downstream from Victoria, thankful that no upstream tows were in sight, and eventually crossed over to right side, the bottom end of Montgomery Island, edging along old steep banks, layered sand here, rip-rap walls there, layers of hardened mud elsewhere, and made landing in a sandy eddy alcove next to a place where the mud was collapsing into the river like the end of a Greenland glacier into the sea. Above this deeply-fissured mud we found a cool breezy piece of shade below the last group of willows at the bottom of a small island, where the Old Channel of the White rejoins the big river, perfect for picnic lunch, a swim, and a leisurely stretch-out for a quick nap.
Recharged by lunch and some shade we continued onwards, paddling downstream. The current rolled along undercutting the same sandbar into a steep cliff of sand, exposing multiple layers sometimes parallel, sometimes at acute angles, revealing the recent past history of rises & falls. You can read the sandbar (or mud bar) in this way, like reading the rings of a tree. Not in years, but in rises & falls of water level.
The sand ended. We were pushed outwards by the end of a wing dam. We followed the flow around a large eddy, and then exited onwards downriver, as the eddy peeled off to our right and revolved in a giant circle back to land and then back upstream along the base of the same. We were now paddling once again alongside Big Island, the biggest island in the contiguous lower 48, the same Island we had camped on the previous night at the mouth of the Old White River.
We spotted a dark stationary shape on the shoreline, at the base of another steep muddy cliff, layers of old hardened mud with some grasses growing on some layers. Eye catching in its inky darkness. Marc was first to view I think. Another stump of an old tree? Another log? It was black and shiny and wet-looking. And then it moved. I thought at first a large male boar. But as we watched it amble along the muddy bank, and it became apparent we were looking at a bear! What a sight. A large Louisiana black bear. Maybe 300 pounds. Pear shaped, with a fat rump, big back legs, body narrowing like the neck of a pear towards his head. We’ll call him a male, he seemed to have that kind of male energy. Could have been female though as far as we knew. He seemed to be well-fed, not hurting for sure, healthy looking, fully furred. He loped along at a leisurely pace at first, not aware of our presence. (Watch the video attached to this newsletter. It’s only 56 seconds long). Towards the end of video he suddenly stops and seems to be sniffing the air, as if struck by some aroma. Bear’s noses are 2100 times more sensitive than ours. I think he got a whiff of us, and maybe our picnic, a little delayed because of the calm air. Suddenly Mr. Bear rears and takes off running uphill, up the muddy bank, and into low-lying bushes up higher. You can see him turn and look outwards towards us. It seems like he sees us for the first time. As if “Ah-ha! There you are! I know who you are, and I’m not staying here any longer!” Then he turns again and runs into woods above, disappearing completely from view.
Epilogue:
We were close to exit for our 3-day trip (the Rosedale Harbor not 5 miles downstream). The remainder of journey was uneventful, although as we paddled up the Rosedale Harbor we were met with a wonderful wild sight of hundreds of egrets, greater & lesser. Interestingly, the water was exiting the normally slack water harbor at a fairly vigorous clip. Probably due to low water in the main channel sucking back channels dry. So much so that in addition to the headwind we had to paddle hard! Mark River met us at boat ramp, which is still usable even at this low water level, thanks to a pile of gravel dumped at concrete's end. Sending appreciations to our new German friend Marc Kindermann for an excellent Labor Day Weekend adventure down the Muddy Waters Wilderness. And thanks to Mighty Quapaw guide Ceili Hale for her excellent captainship, and assistance with all matters involved, from preparing meals to interpreting the experience of nature for clients.
Postscript: JW Francis Made It!
We met 7 long distance paddlers during the weekend. Pure coincidence. At time of writing, like an hour ago, by coincidence, I received a text message and photo from JW Francis. He made it! He took the Atchafalaya Route. He said it was slower than had anticipated, but beautiful & scenic. I believe this photo is from Burns Point State Park. Paddles up JW!!!!! Glad we met you. Can't wait to hear what original songs come to life as result of your long journey. 
Lower Mississippi River Dispatch No. 946 "Voice of the Lower Mississippi River" Vicksburg, MS ~ Memphis, TN ~ Clarksdale, MS ~ Wilson, AR Quapaw Canoe Company ~ Celebrating 26 Years of Service ~ ~Winner of the SBA 2024 Small Business of the Year Award~
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