A Day On The Mississippi Bottoms

Finally, Minnesota summer!

I have waited months, through arctic weather and the blink called spring, for a chance to kayak the winding channels, finger islands, and sloughs of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge near Wabasha Minnesota. 

Lately the air temperature has been well on the sweltering side of 90º.  I jump at the chance to take a vacation day from air-conditioned discomfort and head down river.

While everyone else is commuting toward town, I flow in the opposite directing, south through fields of corn, beans and alfalfa.  June brings the first cut of hay and a warming sun fills the air with the scent of drying grass.  It is days like this you revel in the thought "it is a damn good season to be in farm country".

I make my way through the historic river towns of Hastings and Red Wing then cross the Mississippi to track along the Wisconsin bluffs. 

Up comes the little towns of Maiden Rock and Stockholm, both squeezed tight between green bluffs and the blue of Lake Pepin, There is hardly room in these towns for a sidewalk, much less commece, houses or a place to stop and take in the view; the speed limit is a strict 30MPH.

At the town of Pepin, my route takes to the hills.  I follow a bucking gravel road that meanders indifferently along a few ridge-lines before losing purpose altogether.  Impetuously, it darts into a hollow to explore the cool of dark woods then chastined by an encounter with another road it scampers back into the open.  I stay with it for one last gravel tossing turn before dodging into my brother's driveway.  

We doddle over coffee on the gazebo, making small talk  -- finally we quite stalling, gather up sunscreen, water bottles, gloves, maps and load the kayaks into the back of a Ford Ranger. After snapping the boats tight with bungee cords -we are off.

The best place to set in is at Beef Slough Landing, a short boat ramp just off a long causeway.

The water is down but no problem; our shallow pumpkin seed kayaks are fully capable of skimming across as little as a damp washcloth.  We find this feature handy in the many spots on the bottoms taken over by Asian Milfoil, a noxious weed that tests our patience and requires a great deal of finesse.  Others spots on the bottoms are - well -- just good old river muck.

A hot sun turns the distant hills blue with humidity.  On the river, the cattails, sedge and bulrushes wear the bright green of early June.  This blue on green is a common theme in the channels where long thin islands support a heavy canopy of trees rooted in soil too damp for brush; the ground is open as park land. 

Years ago, in autumn, I hunted these islands.  I would walk slowly and carefully, forcing game to move ahead without panic.  As they reached the end of the island, the deer or whatever critters you were driving would turn to slowly filter back.  It was not unusual to find yourself staring eyeball to eyeball with a doe, poised still and silent, waiting for you to pass by.

We wind through back channels, wooded by silver maple, ash, elm, cottonwood and willow to the annoyance of a blue heron.  He reluctantly rises a few feet off the water to labor downstream, only to repeat the effort time and again as we paddle out toward Big Lake.  He squawks, he stares, he wades in the shallows, poises on a log, and eventually swings around, flapping wearily to set down where we first encountered him.

We stir catfish and carp, arouse a few ducks, feed the horseflies, and amazingly encounter not a single mosquito.  It is a good day on the slough - and of course we get lost.

We brought a map but alas, not an honest one.  It fibs and toys with us, playing silly tricks like superimposing a ramp symbol on one channel then deftly pointing at another with a little arrow that you only notice once you have paddled the full length of the wrong channel.

After eight hours on the river, we conclude our day over pints at Slippery's bar in Wabasha, a legendary local watering hole made famous by the movie "Grumpy Old Men".

A perfect end to a perfect day.

© Greg Schiller, 2007
Author: Greg Schiller