Wild Miles
Have you visited any “Wild Miles” lately? They might be closer than you think!
Lower Mississippi River Dispatch No. 931 "Voice of the Lower Mississippi River" Memphis, TN ~ Wilson, AR ~ Clarksdale, MS ~ Vicksburg, MS Quapaw Canoe Company ~ Celebrating 25 years of service
"Big Muddy" Mike Clark and I composed and published the Wild Miles several decades ago (in 2003) as a way of identifying the best places for paddlers to explore and experience mother nature on the Middle & Lower Mississippi River. Wild Miles is a qualitative survey made from canoes, kayaks and stand-up-paddleboards. It is based entirely on the experience of the paddler from water level, what we experience, what we see, hear, smell, taste, what we feel as a voyageur on the face of Mother Earth. Wild Miles stands the test of time, although I am sad to report that we have lost many “wild miles” since then. See detailed list towards end of this newsletter. It turns out that you can find a high quality wilderness experience on the majority of river miles between St. Louis and Baton Rouge. This is a qualitative survey made with 12 inches of freeboard from the stern of a canoe. Wild Miles ignores human trash. You will find trash everywhere in the world, from the most remote loftiest mountains to the deepest seas. We also ignore human introduced rock, rip-rap, and revetment, and also fishermen and towboats. Towboats are like freight trains. They come & go. The wildlife doesn't seem to be affected, and the stillness returns after passing. The ecosystem remains intact unchanged as far as we can tell. Maybe towboats cause underwater trauma that we don't see, such as fish kill. But there is little evidence (every once in a while a dead fish washed up on shore with a long gash down its side). The Middle Mississippi runs 180 miles from Missouri River confluence to Ohio River confluence. Lower Mississippi starts at the Ohio (Cairo, IL) and runs 954 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. Wild Miles excludes the notorious "Chemical Corridor," the last 320 miles of the Lower Miss below Baton Rouge.
SUMMARY OF THE WILD MILES: There are 515 Wild Miles on the Lower Mississippi River between Cairo, Illinois, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 71% of the scenery viewed from canoes or kayaks paddling down the river looks & feels wild. There are 105 Wild Miles on the Middle Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois. 56% of the scenery viewed from canoes or kayaks paddling down the river looks & feels wild.
INTRODUCTION TO THE WILD MILES: This is a list of the last remaining Wild Miles along the Middle and Lower Mississippi River, places where nature predominates and nothing is seen of mankind save passing tows (and other river traffic) and maybe a tiny hunting camp or a single fisherman buzzing by in a johnboat. These are places where the landscape is filled with giant islands bounded by endless mud banks & sandbars, where the river is overseen by big skies and where the sun sets uninterrupted by buildings or wires and where big river predominates with creative wild beauty, each high water results in shifting sand dunes and re-made sandbars. This is a floodplain valley where only deer & coyote tracks are seen along the sandbars and enormous flocks of shy birds like the White Pelican and Double Breasted Cormorant are comfortable enough to make landing for the night. These are places where it’s dark & quiet at night, where the stars fill the skies like brightly shining jewels poured out on a dark purple velvet blanket, almost as thick & vibrant as the night skies of the Great Plains or Rocky Mountains. Wild Miles are the kinds of places that the 24 million paddlers in North America will travel long distances to enjoy, and we should preserve for future generations of Americans. In sheer “wild value” the Lower Mississippi ranks alongside the Boundary Waters, the Allagash or the Okeefenokee. The Lower Mississippi Water Trail is as important to our national identity and heritage as the Erie Canal, the Santa Fe Trail or the Appalachian Trail. It has been travelled by millions of Americans including the Sioux, the Natchez, and more recently Abe Lincoln, John James Audubon, Langston Hughes and Rose & Jimmie Carter, and has always been our single most important route of migration & transportation. It is the life blood of our nation flowing directly from the productive heartland through the cultural flowering of the south and into the vitality of the Gulf of Mexico. We are identifying these Wild Miles as the focus for future preservation and as the places where new industry & agriculture installations should not be placed. One single smokestack could corrupt the feeling of wildness for miles upstream or downstream. Wild Miles describes the Middle and Lower Mississippi River mile-by-mile with photos, videos and audio clips. Our goal is to document the Wild Miles, and compare the Wild Miles with the Not-Wild Miles (Industrialized or otherwise). My first survey was 1982 (12x24' wood raft). Mike Clark first paddled length in 2001 and kept notes. Together we paddled it in 2009 with a German Film crew. We updated the entire listing during 2011-2016 Rivergator explorations. My last complete survey St. Louis to Gulf of Mexico was completed in 2017. In recent years we have updating particular sections as they are seen during trips, and have witnessed some sad examples of significant loss, such as the glitzy glittering hotel & casino skyline polluting the horizon over the levee in Tunica county, MS -- and also the rip-roaring pioneer steel industry terrorizing the recently wild and now not wild alluvial floodplain between Caruthersville and Osceola, AR. If you know of new industry, or maybe of former industrial sites deconstructed, please let us know! Or lost wetlands reclaimed for conservation. We are like the flock of pelicans on the sandbar. Alone no one stands a chance. Coyote is going to get you. But together we see it all, and coyote has no chance. Many eyes illuminate the whole. Thanks to documentation and trip-reports by long distance paddlers Cory Maria Dack & Sarah Lent "Women on the Water", and Jean Canôt "Canoe Rambler", and many others, we have been able to update some particular sections. America has an opportunity to discover the “wilderness within” by recognizing and preserving the below Wild Miles in the center of the country. It just so happens that the gigantic floodplain of the Mississippi creates these Wild Miles. These places have been preserved mostly by neglect, by the power of the river, by its catastrophic rises & falls, and the danger of building anything within its floodplain. Moreover, in light of recent flood cycles and the declining population of the Delta, this area is receiving attention as one of the best places to restore native bottomland hardwood forests. Restored forest creates habitat for wildlife, improved water quality, a buffer to flooding, and is an important means of reducing the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone,” caused by nutrient runoff into the river.
WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT THE WILD MILES? Quapaw Canoe Company provides guided canoe adventures on the Lower Mississippi River, from Cairo to the Gulf of Mexico. We are based in Clarksdale, Mississippi, with an outpost base in Vicksburg, Memphis and Wilson, Arkansas. Big Muddy Adventures is based in St. Louis, near the confluence of the Missouri, and provides guided canoe adventures along the Middle Mississippi. My name is John Ruskey. I am the founder & owner Quapaw Canoe Company (est. 1998). I first started paddling the Mississippi River with a 5 month raft trip in 1982-83. Mike Clark founded Big Muddy Adventures in 2001 with a 3-month educational expedition down the Mississippi. We guide thousands of visitors every year on the Mississippi River, mostly on overnights and multi-day trips through remote sections of water with little or no industry and agriculture. We employ dozens of guides, shuttle drivers and support staff. We engage and employ local youth through long term-apprenticeships on canoe building, canoe technique & rescue, wilderness survival, and the business of nature-tourism. We help maintain the health of the river system with cleanups and educational campaigns. We at Quapaw Canoe Company and Big Muddy Adventures are very concerned about the detrimental effects of any future industry along the Middle (St. Louis to Cairo) and Lower Mississippi Rivers (Cairo to the Gulf). Future power plants, steel plants and refineries are of particular concern, but also grain elevators and hydrokinetic turbines. We are concerned about the remaining wild places along the Middle & Lower Mississippi River that might be compromised with any new developments industrial or agricultural.
AMERICA'S FORGOTTEN WILDERNESS
Our clients come from all over America and all over the world to see the Mighty Mississippi River. We call it “America’s Forgotten Wilderness” because the river channels are so big & open, the islands are wild, and there are extensive unbroken forests throughout. There is abundant wildlife. It is one of the last remaining habitats for Black Bear in the center of the country. The Mississippi is the most important flyway in North America. There are hundreds of fish & amphibians. It is our strongest & most vital inland fishery. Most importantly to us and our clients when you are paddling the river it truly feels like a wilderness. It’s big and open. Your imagination is intrigued by the scale of the landscape, similar to what you might feel in the Rocky Mountains or the wilds of Alaska. At night, the stars are visible much brighter than anywhere else in the Middle of America.
There is towboat activity, of course, but towboats come and go. Any permanent industrial installations within the Wild Miles would change the feeling of wilderness for paddlers & campers with visual and audible pollution. In today’s busy world it is difficult to find wild places where you can leave behind the trappings of civilization and reconnect with those aspects of nature & survival that is so important to the American pysche as defined by Thomas Jefferson and championed by Theodore Roosevelt.
The floodplain of the Lower Mississippi is one of those places that the feeling of wilderness has been preserved –why?
By the power of this dynamic river. Regular high water events have kept most development away. The river fluctuates 40-65 vertical feet in any given year, high water covers most islands and floods most forests & batture areas (the river side of the levee). While the seasonal flooding prohibits industry & agriculture it actually enhances its value as a wilderness – especially for those who can reach its hidden places by water. It is a paddler’s paradise. It is one of America’s greatest paddling challenges. We are certain that it will become a classic destination for canoeists & kayakers alongside popular destinations such as the Boundary Waters, the Adirondacks, and the Everglades.
Paddlers: please help us identify and document those places that are still wild, and those places that are being threatened by civilization.
Developers: Instead of building any new sites within these Wild Miles, please consider placing new homes, new industry and new agriculture within those places already developed, such as within one of the many harbors and industrial sites along the way, or building it far enough behind the levee that it won’t be seen or heard from the river.
LIST OF WILD MILES:
Middle Mississippi
101 Wild Miles within 180 mile section of river
St. Louis to Cairo = 56% Wild
Wild Miles: Approximate mileage on the Middle Mississippi. Subject to revision.
Mile 136 to 130 6 Wild Miles Above St. Genevieve
Note: includes historic Fort DeChartres. The lights of St. Louis can be seen dimly above the northern horizon.
Mile 121 to 110 9 Wild Miles below St. Genevieve to above Chester
Note: includes Middle Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge-Kaskaskia Island and other protected public-use islands
Mile 105 to 82 23 Wild Miles below Chester to above Grand Tower
Note: includes includes Middle Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge- Rockwood Island and Wilkinson Island as well as other protected public-use islands, parks & campgrounds
Mile 80 to 54 26 Wild Miles below Grand Tower to above Cape Girardeau
Note: includes protected public-use islands and Trail of Tears State Park
Mile 45 to 8 37 Wild Miles below Cape Girardeau to above Cairo
Lower Mississippi (Cairo to Baton Rouge)
515 Wild Miles within 724 mile section of river
Cairo to Baton Rouge = 71% Wild
Approximate mileage on the Lower Mississippi. Subject to revision.
Mile 935 to 925 10 Wild Miles below Columbus to above Hickman
Mile 920 to 890 30 Wild Miles below Hickman to above New Madrid
Note: Near Reelfoot Lake State Park — frequent bald eagle sightings
Mile 882 to 875 7 Wild Miles below New Madrid to above Tiptonville
Mile 867 to 850 17 Wild Miles below Tiptonville to above Caruthersville Harbor
Note: unbroken forests – very wild feeling
Mile 822 to 812 10 Wild Miles Tamm Bend around Wright's Point
Mile 805 to 785 20 Wild Miles Chickasaw National Wildlife Refuge to Osceola Harbor
Note: Chickasaw National Wildlife Refuge, 1st Chickasaw Bluff
LOST WILD MILES: 785-780 New Power Plant and NuCor US Steel Mill and associated industry needs to be removed from Wild Miles Mile 780 to 740 40 Wild Miles Osceola Harbor to above Memphis Note: Chickasaw National Wildlife Refuge, 1st Chickasaw Bluff, Anderson Tully WMA, 2nd Chickasaw Bluff, Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park, 3rd Chickasaw Bluff, several protected public-use islands including Redman Bar, Loosahatchie Bar and the Hickman Bar. Lights of Memphis seen at night along southern horizon. Mile 725 to 664 61 Wild Miles below Memphis to above Helena Note: Tunica RiverPark & Museum, Buck Island protected public-use island. Some casinos seen. Bright night lights from casinos. lights of Memphis dimly seen along northern horizon. LOST WILD MILES: Tunica County Casino section Mile 708-695 needs to be removed from Wild Miles Mile 650 to 588 65 Wild Miles below Helena Harbor to above Rosedale Harbor Note: White River WMA, Great River Road State Park Mile 583 to 572 11 Wild Miles below Rosedale Harbor to Catfish Point Note: Arkansas River Confluence Mile 568 to 555 13 Wild Miles Catfish Point to Huntington Point Note: Choctaw Island State Wildlife Area – 8,000+ acres – possibly the most beautiful island on the entire Lower Mississippi River Mile 550 to 540 10 Wild Miles Ashbrook to above Greenville Harbor Note: legendary “Greenville Bends” – very wild feeling and lots of wildlife Mile 550 to 540 10 Wild Miles Ashbrook to above Greenville Harbor Note: legendary “Greenville Bends” – very wild feeling and lots of wildlife Mile 530 to 500 30 Wild Miles below Hwy 82 Bridge to above Mayersville Mile 495 to 458 10 Wild Miles below Mayersville to below Willow Island Note: Shipland WMA Mile 455 to 440 10 Wild Miles Forest Home to above Vicksburg Note: Tara Wildlife Preserve Mile 432 to 407 25 Wild Miles below Vicksburg to above Grand Gulf/ Port Gibson Harbor Note: Mouth of the Big Black River, Grand Gulf State Park Mile 402 to 365 37 Wild Miles below Port Gibson Harbor to above Natchez Note: Phatwater Mississippi River Challenge Mile 360 to 320 40 Wild Miles below Natchez to above Old River Note: Red River WMA, 3 Rivers WMA Mile 305 to 267 38 Wild Miles below Old River/Angola to above St. Francisville Note: Very wild — Last Loess Bluff on Mississippi River Mile 259 to 238 21 Wild Miles below St. Francisville to above Baton Rouge
Wild Miles on the Middle & Lower Mississippi River — “where the beauty of nature predominates in the heart of America.” If you prefer cut & paste, use this: https://wildmiles.org/