Surprises await those paddling the Pine River in the spring

CANOEING
BY DAVE FOLEY

What’s the most popular canoeing and kayaking river in Michigan? The Pine River definitely is among the top three.

This river, flowing through the northwest part of the state, attracts hundreds of paddlers on summer weekends. But if you go in the spring, you’ll have the river to yourself. That seemed an ideal time to kick off our paddling season.

We launched our canoes from the farthest upstream public landing, which is just east of Skookum Road, off a road that dead ends at a place known as Briar Patch.

Two days and 36 river miles downstream, we would finish at Low Bridge.

When you’re paddling this river in the spring, before the canoe liveries send their staff to clear away fallen trees, you can expect to encounter some obstacles. With that in mind, we left our best boats back home.  Sam Hogg and Lauren Rule were paddling an ancient aluminum canoe, while Cyndy and I would be in our durable Mad River.

Recent rains had swollen the river and muddied it, adding another challenge. This fast-running river would test our steering prowess. Expectations were high for a fun, exciting trip – a great way to celebrate Mother’s Day weekend.

Although this was our first river trip of the season, there’s no grace period when you’re paddling the Pine. As soon as you launch, you’re maneuvering through rock gardens, around tight bends and dodging log jams. There’s not much straight ahead paddling on this river. Sweeps, j-strokes, prys, bow rudders and draws – we use all these strokes to keep upright as we head downstream. What we find to be the most vexing, though, were the overland carries past log jams.

The portage party starts about 20 minutes after launching. As we swing around a bend, there is no place to go – a fallen white pine blocks across the stream. I  yell “portage!” as I apply a sharp draw stroke, while Cyndy rudders hard. I scramble onto the bank and hold the canoe as Sam and Lauren pull in just behind us. Now the hard part – carrying the canoes through the brushy jungle around the fallen tree.

On most trips, we bring kevlar boats. Weighing about 40 pounds, they’re easy to portage. Sam and Lauren’s aluminum canoe probably goes about 60 pounds and our canoe is 90 – virtually indestructible but awful to carry. And our overland events are just beginning. We’ll do nine of these carries before we’re done, plus several lift-overs and incidents where we will ram a nearly submerged log and try to slide over. If you’re on the river before Memorial Day weekend, this is what you can expect.

That may be the downside, but you will have the river to yourself and most of the cottages appear to be empty. We see more deer than people. The first tinge of green appears on budding trees. Without the heavy summer greenery, one can see far into the forest where we catch glimpses of squirrels and pileated woodpeckers. Merganser ducks fly up as we approach, and kingfishers zoom downriver delivering their scolding cry as they flee.

We pass under Meadow and Skookum Bridges before pulling into the Silver Creek Campground just past Walker Bridge. Earlier that day, we had set up our tents. Sam’s idea of making camp before we started paddling had been a good one.

Sam builds a fire. We impale brats on sticks and hold them over the flames until they burst open and the juice drips into the coals.

At dusk, the peepers’ incessant cheeping fills the air. Later owls, first the single hoot of a great horned owl, and then the “who cooks for you” call of the barred owl comes from somewhere back among the trees. It’s a wonderful background for our first night in a tent this year.

Dozens of birds sing out our wake-up call. An hour later, fortified by a breakfast of oatmeal, we break camp and launch our canoes. Today, the water’s even higher as rushing tributaries and springs continue to swell the river.

We spend a couple of hours scrambling out of our canoes and up onto the bank for portages or straining to push the boats through narrow openings in the stream among the tangle of downed trees.          The most exhilarating times come when we decide to go for it and blast over the top of logs lying just beneath the surface. When this works, it’s a great feeling but less fun when you find yourself balancing on a tree trunk trying to shove the boat over the obstacle.

Despite the portages, we are having fun. And we have the river to ourselves. There are stretches of rapids above Peterson Bridge and continuing for a couple of miles below. Here’s where the high water becomes an asset as it covers the tops of many of the rocks.

I wish I dared take my camera out for pictures of our canoes shooting through this wild water.     Just before we reach the canoe landing above  Low Bridge, the current slows, an indication that the river will soon become part of the Tippy Dam Backwater.

A day and a half of travel left us pleasantly exhausted but ready for another afternoon back on the river, if not this summer, most definitely in the fall when colors are peaking.