In Honor of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Huron River, Island Lake Metropark to Huron Meadows Metropark

10 November 2012

Ellen and I and our friend Doug made this paddle of twelve or so miles on the anniversary of the day the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior in 1975.  The colors of the November river and the day’s lighting were appropriately dramatic,  but we encountered no real trouble of our own, thank God.

We saw very few animals on this trip–some fleeting muskrats and weasels, some skittish ducks, one heron who was like, “did I miss the last train outta here?” and a lone cold turtle perched up on a rock.  We shared the river with a few other paddlers, all quiet types contemplating the fall palette.  The second half of our paddle was through a part of the river that canoe liveries do not service, and you could tell, based on the number of trees down in the river.  I was the shortest of our paddling group, and I was able to squeeze under the tree across the river pictured to the left here, but the rest of my party had to portage.  There were several other near-portages, but nothing, it turned out, that some fancy maneuvering couldn’t get us around. The other big news is that with some nice fall rain, current has returned to the river–moving water that pushes your boat along, so you don’t have to paddle the whole entire time as we had to do all summer long because it never rained.  Current!  What a wonderful, wonderful thing! Of course, as I was reminded when one or another us was pinned against a log by current, it’s not such a great thing when it’s not on your side, and can be more than a little scary and pretty dangerous in those situations.

And along with current came some deeper water, into which Ellen plopped our new water-proof camera, on purpose, to determine if the floating strap we have for it really would keep it aloft.  It does! As someone fearful of being underwater anytime ever, as I watched the camera bob along on its red strap in four and a half feet of water, I thought of the Edmund Fitzgerald and was grateful to be just a river paddler.