Days 72 & 73 - A Montezuma Picnic
A guest post by Solange
Author’s Note: This is a guest post by my partner Solange, who has joined me for the last 5 days from Memphis, TN to Clarksdale, MS. This is her fourth spell joining me on this journey. Solange is an expert canoe guide who has worked for 10 years guiding in the BWCA and Voyageurs National Park of Minnesota, and 2 years guiding on the Lower Mississippi River of Mississippi/Arkansas. Enjoy her writing for these two days of the blog! J-C
Day 72: Doe Island / Prairie Point Towhead → Island No. 62
Date: September 18th, 2022
LRM 665 → LRM 639
Distance today: 26 miles
River Time: 8 hours
Countdown to Baton Rouge, LA: 410 miles
Local Gauge: 3.0 Helena Gauge
Jean-Canot has handed me the reigns of the blog for the next two days! I call him Canot so I will do so throughout the course of this post.
Remember those recently felled beaver trees from last night? We were awakened in the middle of the night to one of them falling right near our tent! We didn’t hear any creatures scurrying, so I think it was an already-cut tree that just decided to fall. We heard a couple tail slaps in the night that reminded us that we had neighbors on shore.
Today was a sharp contrast to the solitude of most days on the river. It’s not every day that we have multiple social engagements to get to before noon!
Part of the joy of paddling this stretch together is that we both previously worked at Quapaw Canoe Company in Clarksdale, Mississippi, so we have paddled this area and have friends along the way. It really struck me when the Helena bridge came into view — I had the same ah-ha moment Canot had back in Osceola, AR: I suddenly recognized where we were!
Our social plans started at 9 a.m., as Canot’s former boss from the Army Corps in Arkansas offered to drive an hour and a half to get drone footage of us paddling. It was great to meet him, and of course his photos are amazing!
We couldn’t stay too long, because our next meet-up was at 11 a.m., at Montezuma Landing near Clarksdale. This is a place we have started and ended numerous Quapaw trips, and gone swimming, birdwatching, and picnicking on our days off. Today we were greeted on the beach by friends John Ruskey, Matt and his dogs, Mike, and new Quapaw guide Joe. What a welcome team! It was great to see you all, and we look forward to more time with you all this week in Clarksdale!
Joe actually joined us to paddle and camp today, and was a welcome addition to our crew!
The rest of the day was long and hot, and the river level is low. Our most-said phrase today was, “Wow, that is a lot of sand!” This is a good time to paddle the Lower Mississippi if you like wide open spaces and the color tan.
Our other most-used phrase was “Wow, that rock wall is never showing in normal water levels!” Just before the beach picnic, I got the opportunity to go up on an Army Corps rock wall that I have paddled over many times in higher water. It was parallel to East Montezuma Island and a little offshore, making a sort of pristine moat around the island. It was beautiful to see this intimate and narrow “river” after looking out at the vast Mississippi all day.
Despite the heat, we didn’t dare swim off the side of the canoe mid-channel like we would at Quapaw, only because a two-person canoe is less stable and we couldn’t risk a flip. But we managed to stay cool with plenty of hat dips and dunking our sleeves in the water, and after our shortage the other day, we were thankful for every sip of water!
I’ve been fortunate to join Canot on multiple stretches of this trip, and it’s been interesting to see what factors are highly prized on the river in different sections. At the headwaters, it was a joy if the water was more than a few inches deep. Further on, we valued any site that was less buggy. In Iowa, we were thankful to have a campsite at all. And down here it is most important that the shade trees be as close to the water’s edge as possible, instead of far away across a quarter-mile or more of sand.
We didn’t have to guess where to camp tonight. We were headed for a well-loved spot on Island 62, and Joe had been there recently. We put our kitchen on a shelf halfway up the sandy bluff, and our tent right on top, overlooking the river. We enjoyed swapping stories over dinner, and we are ready to paddle just a mile or so to our take-out tomorrow for a few rest days in Clarksdale!
Day 73: Island No. 62 → Clarksdale, MS
Date: September 19th, 2022
LRM 639 → LRM 638
Distance today: 1 mile
River Time: 1 hours
Countdown to Baton Rouge, LA: 409 miles
Local Gauge: 2.9 Helena Gauge
As we were starting to fall asleep last night, we realized that we had not just found a good tent spot, but the BEST tent spot. A penthouse campsite on top of the bluff — shady cottonwoods above us, and a panoramic river view out front. Looking out of our tent, we could see across the whole Mississippi River — front row seats to nighttime barges, the whole Milky Way, and finally, the sunrise.
We had a carefree river morning. We took our time getting up, and Canot enjoyed a rare and precious cup of coffee, provided by Joe. The three of us sat in our chairs, watching the sun come up over the river. I admired all the animal tracks created since the last rain (a favorite Quapaw morning activity). And we checked to see if the water level had changed from where we put our flag last night.
You may have noticed we only paddled one mile in one hour today — not Canot’s usual speed. Today we were being picked up by John Ruskey at a boat ramp only a mile from our site, which allowed us to savor my last day on the river for a while. We had the luxury of floating down the middle the channel — no paddling — before dipping into the back channel of Island 63 to get to the landing. When we got there, John was waiting with the trailer on the ramp, sketching the view.
We had a surprise burst of wildlife sightings to end our trip right. The water was unusually clear, so from the boat ramp we spent a good while watching three swimming turtles, a big water snake, a gar near the surface, and a small snake curled on a rock.
John drove us back to Clarksdale, where we will be for the next few days. Canot is taking a nap, and I can’t end this post without thanking the people who have already helped us out today: John for the pickup and logistics this morning, Mark River for delivering us home-smoked ribs for lunch, and the Sutton family for hosting us at their house this week!
Nicely done Solange! Great photos. Both of you enjoy the rest time in Clarksdale!