Well, Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day in Tacoma, and Saturday was rainy, heavily overcast, and downright dismal - which day do you suppose we went canoeing?We loaded up the canoe in the rain, drove in the rain, and paddled in the rain. Yup. Saturday.
George preferred going on Sunday, but I was eager to get out, regardless of moisture. (At the time, Tacoma was experiencing sunbreaks and just a light misting.)
He chose the Black River, considered the primier paddling river in this area, and one of the most spookey rivers imaginable, even in summertime. It meanders through a vast, largely impenetrable swamp before becoming free-flowing.
The tannins in the water cause it to look black, inky, and if you capsized and dropped down there, no one would ever find you.....at least that is what I've always thought about it on the several times we've paddled it.
Not that it is deep - parts of it have lovely aquatic plants waving in the slow current. But, it is the mystery of the water that spooks me. And, when the wind came up, with light rain, I was sure eager to finish the paddle. Some of our paddling got quite rigorous - of course George always finds time like this to sing quite loud, as if experiencing weather was the entire purpose of the trip. Not a 'Rub-A-Dub Dub' song, or, for that matter a 'Hail Mary', but a song more to the tune of "I Saw The Light" by Carl Story and His Rambling Mountaineers.
Well, we started out in fairly flat country, with a bit of a view, but soon the water meandered into little twists and turns, with the vegetation getting more dense. Along the riverbank were mixed stands of red alder and Oregon ash, a handsome hardwood tree that grows to a height of 50 feet. Beneath these trees spreads a dense thicket of Pacific ninebark, red-osier dogwood and willow. Most of the vetation along the Black River has just barely budded-out. The thickets along the shoreline create a safe, near-impenetrable home for swamp dwellers like the river otter, beaver and mink. Stilt legged waders, including the American bittern and great-blue heron, hunt at the river's edge. Red-winged blackbirds,yellow warblers and other native songbirds flitted from branch to branch as we glided along. We also saw several dead young geese, with their fur perfectly fluffed with grey fuzz.
In 1980, United States Fish and Wildlife Service identified the Black River as one of the most important fish and wildlife habitats in the state. It is spring-fed, with healthy runs of chum, chinook and coho salmon, as well as steelhead and cutthroat trout. These positively churnned in the water as we paddled along.
We managed to turn into some little grottos holding the enormous-leafed Skunk Cabbage. They were quite magestic, grouped stoicly along the riverbank.
And, Mr. Chipper and Dandy himself here, with his visor and raingear, sure looked better than I did. I didn't pull up my hood, so I looked like a drowned rat that had just been batted around by a few cats.Oh, I was miserable - I had cold hands, feet, legs and arms, in spite of full weather-gear, a scarf and mittens. At one point, I focused strictly on the shoreline directly to my right, so I couldn't look ahead. I knew if I did, it would look like another vast stretch of current, with no end in sight.
When we finished the paddle, we got in the car and drove home, and the rain started coming down in torrents. We got out of that water just in the nick of time.
