Baby Beaver

Horned GrebeI am an optimist. But on Tuesday morning as I launched my kayak onto the Hudson River at 7:30 in the morning I was not filled with my usual sense that just around the corner was the next glorious sight. I wouldn't say I was feeling pessimistic, but rather more grumpy. And I was grumpy because the height of migration has passed--it comes and goes so quickly it is excruciating. I decided that nothing special could come my way ("all the best birds are gone" I said to a friend, sounding like a twelve year old having a tantrum). Armed with this bad attitude, I stroked south under a bluing sky toward Magdalen Island and the entrance to the North Tivoli Bay.

Map TurtleJust to prove me wrong, the river first offered up a Horned Grebe, in elegant breeding plumage, floating placidly at the opening to the North Tivoli Bay. It bobbed along, as if it belonged there (it doesn't--it should be in Canada somewhere far north). I scooted down the main waterway, lined by cattails and phragmites. Red winged blackbirds sang their insistent conkla-dee, and marsh wrens trilled from the reeds. A Map turtle sunned on a log. Two Canada Geese crossed the channel, three babies trailing behind. Fifty yards later, a Mallard mother scooted thirteen young into the reeds. I couldn't help but laugh at myself. This was the most glorious day.

In the distance, I saw the tell-tale V of a beaver plowing through the water. In 1840, the beaver was a rare animal in New York State. Trapping had all but wiped out this large rodent, whose pelts were used for hats and coats. When trapping was finally prohibited in 1895, some claim there were but 10 left in the State. In the North Tivoli Bay, it is hard to believe this desperate history: I always see a beaver. Or rather, I hear a slap of a broad tail, signaling danger before the beaver dives below the surface.

So it came as a surprise when I spied a beaver snout moving toward me. About five feet in front of my kayak, the little beaver crawled up into the mud, and perched there, letting out a darling, but slightly heartbreaking mew. It then plunked back into the water and swam toward me, looping around my paddles and nuzzling the boat.

I guessed it was lost. Across the channel rested a stick pile, a beaver lodge. I moved my boat to the middle of the channel thinking the little beaver might swim to me once again and this would get it closer to home. It did. And I had the foresight to turn on the video in my pocket camera. And sure enough, after it rounded the stern of my boat, the baby beaver swam off toward the lodge. Watch the video here.

Full of optimism, I paddled home.

Back on the water, 2014

I woke to fog. To a duck perched in a tree. It was beautiful and felt out of place, the tree high on a ridge in my front yard. Still, this seemed a good omen: wonders for the day.

Four of us carted our kayaks down the wooden stairs at the North Tivoli Bay launch at noon. Sun, blue sky, a light breeze had taken over. We eased our wetsuit-cloaked bodies into our sleek boats and pushed off. It seemed so normal. And yet but two months ago we were walking this same spot on ice, hefting through snow that reached to our thighs. Now it was all liquid and freedom. To paddle out, under the railroad trestle onto the Hudson River, cold and brown, wide and empty. We skirted the eastern shore, trailing the rip rap, and the still bare trees; the wake of a tug and barge knocked us around a bit. Then we popped back into the bay through a southern passage.

The North Tivoli Bay is a maze of cattail and phragmites. Once before I had paddled from the southern to the northern end, winding through the reeds. But more often, I had gotten lost. My paddle-mates were game to try and return through the reeds. A few dead ends, slicing into muck and forty-five minutes later we had made our way back. None of us were ready to end our first paddle of the season. We all were looking for something that you might call an adventure, not just a lovely meander through reeds. So we launched back onto the big river.

“Let’s see an osprey, a long tailed duck,” Christina said. "And a smew."

I nodded. The osprey was possible. As for the duck, less likely. I didn’t even know what a smew looked like but Christina had been clamoring for one for the past few weeks. (A smew is a dashing looking Eurasian black and white merganser, and a rare visitor to the western Aleutian islands of Alaska).

It is a treat to look for birds with someone more optimistic than I am. “Let’s go find that smew,” I said as we gathered to paddle across the river. The Hudson felt bare, exposed without green to rim the shoreline and boats purring north and south. We spied a few other kayaks but otherwise, it was us, the outgoing tide, and a few spring logs floating south.

Backs already tight from sitting, we stopped in to visit Dock and Kate, who live by the waterfront. They were hard at work, joined by a half dozen others to build a new dock for the Saugerties Lighthouse. We admired their work, stretched our legs, threw sticks for the dogs, and set back onto the water.  

North, we found green-winged teal on the shoreline, a few common mergansers floating nearby and bufflehead out in deeper water. I looked up to see an osprey flying over, the crooked wings distinctive.

“There’s your osprey,” I called to Christina. Sometimes I believe that if you wish hard enough to see a bird, it will appear. Was the smew next? No, what was next, was a one boat parade coming from the south. The unbalanced, brightly colored ship is a replica of the Half Moon, the ship Henry Hudson sailed in 1609. When I think of Hudson I don’t usually have kind thoughts, but looking at this squat ship, I scrolled back to imagine the courage, perhaps folly it took to embark on these early voyages.

“And remember, no gps system or maps, just the moon and stars and a sextant and vast oceans of doubt and wonder,” I said to my travel mates.

Once back in the North Bay, tired and happy from the sun and the movement, we moved slowly, chasing two disgruntled Canada geese. A barred owl hooted from the woods, an early evening call. I spied a lump in the mud--it was now low tide. The shape was odd enough that I stopped to look. Sure enough, the mud lump had two eyes, nostrils. My first snapper of the season. Soon, it squished its head below the surface.

No smew, but a duck in the fog and a snapper in the mud. A river to paddle and friends to paddle with.  

Morning on the River

Juvenile Bald EagleFall migration is underway. Lots of intriguing birds will pass through—although less brightly colored and less tuneful than in spring. What I hope for here in the Hudson Valley is the chance of seeing shorebirds. A few have been appearing—last weekend Black Bellied Plovers at Greig Farm. So as I headed onto the river this Sunday morning I had high hopes for what might be flying or floating through.

The weather report claimed rain and the sky over the Catskills loomed gray, but electric. I stroked to the Western shore of the river and wove through the water chestnut mat. A Spotted Sandpiper bobbed about and a dozen Great Blue Herons posed in the shallow water.

I pushed south, then back across the river to round the southern end of Cruger Island. There, like a giant loaf of bread, sat an immature Bald Eagle. It watched me as I floated nearer, then it took off to land at the top of a snag. There, it flared its wings, resplendent in the morning sun. In the sandy shallows of South Cruger Island a Lesser Yellowlegs tagged its way along the waterline, ignoring me in my pink boat. It wandered near my bow, then continued on its Yellowlegs way.

Lesser YellowlegsThe South Tivoli Bay is a wide open expanse, now clogged with water chestnut. The tide was heading out, so I pushed against the current to enter the bay. There, a half dozen Wood Ducks squatted on a log, then took off, crying like babies. In the distance I spied a white bird. A few weeks earlier I had found two juvenile Little Blue Herons on the bay. I stroked forward wondering if the birds were still around. One was. It poked about near my boat, caught a fish (lousy picture taken with a point and shoot as my good camera went for a swim). I floated and watched as I had a few weeks before, the bird insouciant. Soon, I turned to leave and to my left, a white bird flew toward me. “That’s a strange looking gull,” I thought. So strange it was another Little Blue. It landed near its pal and the two wandered off into the brown-green spatterdock.

I was feeling pretty cheerful about all of this, and the sun echoed that cheer by parting a few of the clouds in the sky. Things were now heading toward a fully beautiful day. I spied a kayak heading toward me, the paddler awkward in his boat, the paddles rising too high. “Susan?” I heard.

Logan paddling with his bikeIt was Logan, one of my wonderful students, who always has an adventure afoot. His odd stroke was because he had a bike wedged into his kayak. This is a kid who has biked across the country and plans to travel the world to bike, make bikes, fix bikes. He was heading south to pick up a sail boat he intends to live on this year.

“Can we talk about senior project sometime?” he asked.  Senior project is a year-long event for Bard seniors, and it brings out the best and worst in our students.

“Sure,” I said.

“When?” he asked.

“This seems a good time,” I said, and we rafted up. Work follows me onto the river, I thought, but this was certainly the best senior project meeting location I could think of. While Logan told me about his plans to look at homelessness and issues of sustainability in terms of housing I watched a snail work its way over his kayak.

I listened and gave advice as only one can in a kayak and told him to go and start writing. We soon waved goodbye and I took my own advice and headed home to write.

Southern River Kinship

Camp on Goat Island, Broad River, SCOctober 14, 2012. Dawn, Goat Island, a sandy perch of land in the Broad River, South Carolina.

I unzipped my tent and slipped out into the cool of the South Carolina October morning. The sun, if it was trying to shine through, had a challenge in the gray cloud cover. I walked toward the still river hoping to see some sandpipers working the sandy shoreline. Perhaps in the night, while the Barred and Great Horned Owls hooted, some small bird had flown in. But the sandy shoreline wasn’t there anymore. Had I mis-remembered the soft bank of this island?

I walked past a half dozen stilled tents to the kitchen area, where I hoped to find some coffee. Bob, who runs river trips and had orchestrated the details of this float, had the pot set up. All I had to do was turn the knob and light the propane burner. This was cushy camping.

I looked over at the four sit on top kayaks, two regular kayaks, the wooden hand made canoe, and the supply raft. Something was missing.

“Where’s the second raft?” I heard Bob’s voice to my left.

Indeed, it had floated off in the night.

John Lane in his elementWe included John Lane, the mastermind behind this float. He is South Carolina’s poet, nature writer, river lover. He has launched a three year initiative, titled “Thinking Like a River,” at Wofford College, where he teaches in the Environmental Studies program. This was their first “Thinking Like a River” conference and he had invited  David Furbish, from Vanderbilt, a hydrologist who can explain the mysteries of water to people like me; Allison Hedge Coke, a native poet, activist, storyteller currently teaching in Oklahoma; and Mike Freeman, my fellow northerner and Hudson river paddler who wrote Drifting. We spent two days on panels, visiting classes, giving readings and musing on “Thinking Like a River” with the wonderfully polite Wofford students. (I loved how polite everyone was—the man in the elevator at the hotel, the young woman at the Krispy Kreme who was sure I needed more than one of the hot doughnuts. She was right.)

We were now off to experience John’s rivers, first the Pacolet and then the Broad. With us were three Wofford students; Haley, who assists the Environmental studies program; and Kaye Savage and Terry Ferguson, who both teach in the Environmental Studies program. Yes, there were twelve of us on this trip.

Pringle Duck LipsWhen I write about my outings, whether on foot or on water, I usually have to introduce but one or two characters. Having so many on this journey was both disorienting and marvelously fun; on the river we were like a watery parade. The trip had texture. Kaye, a geochemist, showed how to make duck lips with Pringles and Terry was full of history of the region. For some, being on the water was like breathing, for others it was a grand adventure.

On Saturday morning we had gathered in Spartanburg to assemble the most amazing amount of gear. There were enough dry bags to equip an army. But also—we had a stove, a camp table, an enormous cooler, a poop tent, and tents, pads and sleeping bags enough for everyone. We drove south and east through beautiful pine forests to launch on the Pacolet River. I had read about the Pacolet in John’s book, My Paddle to the Sea. In it, he sets his canoe into the Pacolet in his back yard and heads toward the sea. Reading about this journey (I wrote about his and Mike's books earlier) I had been jealous—that he had a river in his back yard and that he could wind through rivers with such lovely names as the Broad and Santee, the Congaree. Though I love my Hudson River, it and its name do not hold the mysteries of a winding river shaded by sweet gum on a red-sand riverbank. Being on the Pacolet my envy returned. It’s an intimate river, narrow and snag-filled, with sycamore trees hugging tight to the water. It was all green and easy paddling, the current in the shallow water scooting us along. Carolina Wrens echoed their song from the river-side bushes, and Mockingbirds, the sound of the south, kept us company with their musical play. I would mosey along, having  a conversation with Mike about crows or books that he loves, then loll in the water looking at a Phoebe until Kay and Allison stroked by in the wooden canoe, or the raft with the Wofford students coasted up, their talk and laughter adding to the tonic of the river. 

Bob with our mass of gear in the raft I paddled for a short timeI convinced Bob to let me try rowing the loaded raft, and had a few laughs as I dodged trees, and scraped on sand bars. Perched high in the raft I could see to the next bend, the colorful kayaks dotting the water. This was an expedition.

If there is one way to get to think like a river it is to spend time on a river. There, I experienced time differently, the years this river has flowed, and the no-time that it took us to arrive at the Broad River. There, the world opened up, the river less lively then the Pacolet, but more assured. The Wofford students spread onto the rounded sides of the gray raft, legs draped over the sides, and napped as their boat made its way downstream (until, of course, one of them fell out of the boat!). Soon we had pulled up on Goat island. In my reach of the Hudson we also have a Goat Island, with its rocky shoreline and tall trees. This island had a tuft of small trees, but consisted mainly of a wide sandy beach, perfect for our many tents. I pulled my kayak partially out of the water, thinking that this Broad River was not tidal like my Hudson. Nothing would sweep it off in the night.

Napping Wofford studentsOur evening was calm, fire filled, and conversation filled. John told river stories and Haley asked for camping advice. Buy good long underwear, I said, as the temperatures dropped. If your feet are cold, wear a hat, I offered, pulling my hat over my ears. Even in this casual setting, everyone in scruffy river clothes and starting to ripen with the effort of the day, the students remained polite, “yes, sir, and Professor Lane, and Dr. Savage—these kids are a wonder. In that, I heard a respect I found pleasing. Early, we drifted off to our dew-covered tents, to wide sleeping pads covering the soft sand.

The next morning, the quiet Goat Island transformed as everyone was up and packing tents, stuffing sleeping bags, drinking coffee, marveling that the raft had been swept off in the night (my kayak was just held to shore). A dam upstream must have been released. John, Mike and I left early in our kayaks, and before we left, Allison sang a native song to the spider. The spider would help us find the raft (which we hoped was not hung up at the dam in Lockhart). She sang, then made an offering of coffee to the spiders. And her offering worked: a quarter mile downstream, the fat gray raft had lodged on the bank. John tied it off then we pushed downstream.

Our watery parade on the Pacolet--southern fall colors!Too soon we were loading boats onto John’s truck, and I was shifting clothes from dry bags to my suitcase. I had a list of books to read, ideas about rivers, thoughts on bringing rivers to people and people to rivers in my head. It was our work, our writing and teaching, our ideas and affection for rivers, for floating on rivers that had brought us together. Once on the river our bonds formed so surely over a fire, over river musings, over a meal prepared on a camp stove. In thinking like a river, I found kinship on a river.