Mastering the mighty Menominee

Within moments I was in my kayak, nudging it along the shore in the direction of the two dams that keep me from the river's mouth unless I portage. Overhead an osprey flew, heading for its nest on a platform built by the utility company to discourage nesting closer to the power lines. Shortly thereafter a blue heron flew off as my kayak neared it. Then a sturgeon startled me when it jumped clear out of the water right in front of my craft. And to think all this took place in less than a half hour.

The water that is backed up by the dams in this area give many fishermen and paddlers reason to stay close to home. Marshy grass harbor fish that swirl and gurgle when you near them below the lily pads. Turtles slide off dead heads when you get too close. Muskrats swim ahead of you with reeds in their mouths, heading for their home under the riverbank. Then there are those rarer green herons giving locals a special treat this year.

Below the second dam near the Hattie Street Bridge, which separates Michigan from Wisconsin, an old and unique train trestle hovers in waiting, silently luring kayakers and canoeists to take a closer look. Just upstream from the trestle, two rock cribs have poked out of the water for decades, a reminder of those days when the river was filled with logs moving toward sawmills further downstream.

The current takes paddlers past the commemorative war statue, museum and picnic area on Stephenson Island. Then it's downstream a bit, passing under the new interstate bridge, and detouring slightly between the sailboats moored on the protective canal at Nest Egg Marina on the Wisconsin shore. On the Michigan side, an attractive and popular campground is worth exploring.

In short order, the Marinette Marine boat building operation appears. The superstructures of a few craft tower above me. Two workers wave down to me. Many a time over the years, huge boats have been launched sideways into the river while thousands of spectators watched from the interstate bridge and shorelines.

Downstream from Marinette Marine, ghost-like remnants of log spiles sprout out of the water. The partially decaying logs once supported a huge dock that shot out into the Menominee River to accommodate cargo ships. This was a place where fishermen spent their waning afternoon hours sitting on or walking the dock, luring supper in the form of walleye, pan fish, northerns and perch. The old "Long Dock" has become a distant memory for many along with the sugar beet factory that loomed above it on the Michigan side of the river. On the Wisconsin side mere memories of the WWII Victory Gardens and the old swimming holes remain. Those swimming holes saved kids lots of money because they didn't have to wear suits. Hidden in the tall grass and fenced off from the river near the Sixth Street Boat Landing are two old cement foundations that once formed the bases of saw mills.

Old timers remember the Long Dock with much melancholy. Some remember crossing the river in row boats at midnight and snatching coal from the huge piles along docks on the Michigan shore when the night watchman was out of sight. That same coal dock now houses gargantuan iron ore boats that sail the Great Lakes and loom like sky scrapers above the water's surface.

My paddle continued to the interstate drawbridge near the mouth of the river. It is to my good fortune that the bridge is opening now to allow a tall-mast sailboat in the marina make its way out to sea. I bobbed on the waves produced by the sailboat as it motored by. I paddled up to the drawbridge and watch the two wings, their teeth clanging together. I then moved under the bridge and sat there listening to the rattle of traffic passing over me.

I continued my two-hour vacation downstream toward the two piers that keep the river channel protected from the scathing of Green Bay. Sea gulls are cried out while accompanying me. To my right, another behemoth ship is docked next to the Wisconsin shore and emptying pig iron for the local foundry. To my left, huge spiles are banded together in a circle at the fishermen's boat dock, a setting that once hosted the Ann Arbor Car Ferry from Ludington Michigan. The banded logs also became diving boards for more adventurous kids.

The water got choppier as I passed moored fish tugs and a handful of sailboats. Then the moment of truth surfaced, that feeling a paddler gets when the safety of an enclosed waterway vanishes before the open emptiness of the much larger Green Bay. Fishermen sat on the Michigan pier, waiting for perch and walleye to bite, but not much caring if they caught anything. The sun attended to them and water sparkled below. That seemed to be enough. The Wisconsin pier was empty, unlike years ago when perch fishermen sat shoulder to shoulder filling pails and cloth newspaper bags with their catch.

Finally at the end of the earth, gulls hovering around Menominee's lighthouse came out to greet with their squawking, crying and arguing. It wasn't that long ago that a lighthouse keeper attended it. More painful than the sentinel's absence is the sad low tone of the lighthouse fog horn regularly blasted on foggy days.

I reached this destination having accepted nature's invitation to kayak the last three miles of the Menominee River. The fact that a kayak is maneuvered solo allows the imagination and memory to flow without interruption. A canoe comes close, maybe closer than a kayak for some. Either way, there is aura on the mighty Menominee. It is that priceless aura that makes these little escapes into the heart and soul of nature a sure pathway to Heaven.