I paddled seventy miles down the Namekagon River in northwest Wisconsin last week, and aside from a dreary six mile stretch in back of a dam, it was, I dare say, a lovely journey. The Namekagon is small and clear, and a little dreamy. One afternoon I set my paddle down across the canoe gunwales and gave up counting miles and landmarks. The water oozed along like swelling melted glass. A leaf flowed three feet below the surface and six inches above the sandy bottom. Of what had been yellow, only a neat quarter leaf remained so, the rest was dark brown, the color of a leach. The leaf’s bonds were breaking from the relentless water that permeated its soft bonds; it would crumble at first impact, whether it against a round gray stone or slimy submerged branch.
Redhorse carp darted abundantly. I named my canoe for these fish, bottom feeders with the hated name, but, like game fish, this strain of carp is susceptible to pollution, and is disappearing in rivers lacking the protection the Namekagon has.
So often the northwoods seem almost sterile—the scoured stone lakes of the Boundary Waters, the deep tight forests empty of sound other than rustling breeze—but the fecundity of the Namekagon was striking. In the depths of a pool on an outer bend, a muskie the length of my paddle’s shaft sat ominously in the shadow of a bleached and beached log, a fishy T-Rex waiting for something to blunder by. In the thicket above, a beaver chewed into a tree. The lumberjack was out of sight, but the squeaky chomping of soft wood carried strangely from dense alders.
