Clear goal for muddy waters
Posted on Sunday, July 6, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Sports/230579/
HELENA — Paddling a canoe on the Mississippi River is like petting a tiger. The surface is smooth and soft, but there’s no ignoring the raw power that surges underneath.
The similarity was apparent last Friday as I floated a short stretch of the Mississippi with my son Daniel and daughter Amy. Accompanied by John Ruskey of Clarksdale, Miss., owner of Quapaw Canoe Co., and several of his guides, I put Daniel in the bow and Amy amidships. The narrow, smooth-bottom boat was “tippier” than our Buffalo canoe, and it took us a few laps around Helena Harbor until we got our balance. Ruskey and his partner were in a big sea kayak, and the rest of the group paddled boats similar to ours.
We paddled single-file across the harbor to a thin stretch of flooded forest near the Scooter Gabbie Access. This was the hardest part of the float because of a stiff wind that blew like an attic fan off the river. The air and water calmed once we entered the forest, and we followed the elevated boardwalk and grounded the boats on a thin, shallow mud lip at the edge of the woods.
On the other side was the mighty Mississippi, the aorta to the heart of America. More than a mile across to the other side, it was swollen and swift, with wide, shallow swells.
Standing ankle-deep on the spit, I contemplated the roiling waters that rolled before me. I’ve been on the Mississippi before, in big boats with big motors, and it was unnerving. Never did I dream I’d float it in a canoe, with two of my children, no less.
I pushed off the spit, vaulted the gunnels into the stern seat and dug my paddle into the muddy water. The boat leapt forward like a skipjack, and we were under way.
Some say you’d have to be nuts to take a canoe on the Mississippi River in flood stage. Ruskey, who celebrated the grand opening of his Helena Outpost later that afternoon, said it’s a common misperception, even among people who have lived their entire lives on the Mississippi. It’s one of the main reasons why the Mississippi hasn’t become a more prominent recreational destination.
“Ignorance and fear are the biggest hurdles to overcome,” Ruskey said. “I don’t mean that disrespectfully. Most people who live on the river think it’s crazy to get on the river in a canoe or kayak, but they don’t realize canoes and kayaks have been used for thousands of years as a major form of transportation. I mean, the Eskimos use kayaks on the North Sea, for God’s sake. They should be safe on the Mississippi.
“ Our whole thing is demonstrating it can be done,” he added. “If you do it right, do it safely, have the right gear and exercise the right techniques, you can get out there and come back safely.”
James Sykes, 16, of Clarksdale, Miss., is one of Ruskey’s guides. Before going to work for Quapaw Canoe Co., he said he never realized people went on the river for fun. One day, he encountered one of his buddies tending canoes in Clarksdale, and it piqued his interest. He got a job, and now he’s a big-river expert.
“There’s a lot to do out here,” Sykes said. “There are a lot of things people don’t know about the river unless you get out and see how the river works and see where the river takes you.”
Based in Clarksdale, Quapaw Canoe Co. opened its Helena Outpost with assistance from Helena-West Helena as a way to promote tourism and recreation on the river. With its history and location, Ruskey said Helena-West Helena is a natural fit.
“It’s one of the few places where you can rent a canoe and walk a canoe to the river’s edge,” Ruskey said. “The neat thing about Helena is that it’s in between Memphis and Vicksburg. That’s 300 miles of river and only two highway bridge crossings. That’s a lot of wilderness, and there’s only one place that sits on the main channel of the Mississippi River, and this is it.
“ Cultural tourism has always worked here — blues, gospel, the Civil War and stuff — so yeah, why not add to it ?” he continued. “Eco-tourism and nature tourism is the fastest-growing segment of the tourism world. Helena is actually starting to turn around and face the river, and this is an example of it.”
A Colorado native, Ruskey discovered the Mississippi in 1982. Inspired by Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ruskey and a friend went to Minnesota after graduating high school and built a raft that was 24 feet long and 12 feet wide. They spent the next five months floating the river’s entire length. Ruskey lit up at Twain’s mention.
“What he [Twain ] wrote about as a cub pilot learning the river you can use today to read the river,” Ruskey explained. “His thing was if you’re going to be a successful pilot, you’ve got to learn the ABCs of the boils, the eddies and the whirlpools. That’s the language of the river, and it’s still true today. He [Twain ] went into great detail about the qualities of the water, what the riffles mean. Is it shoaling, or is the wind blowing over the face of the river ? If you’re a good pilot, you can tell the difference, and that’s the difference between grounding your steamboat on a shoal or cruising on forward.”
Sykes said the most impressive things about the river are the waves. Towboats can throw waves 10 feet high, he said. With the big river canoes, however, it just adds more fun.
“My favorite canoe that we have is called the Lady Bug,” Sykes said. “It’s 27 feet long, and it’s real stable. The big waves behind the tugboats, you just hit them straight on and go straight through them. You’ll make it through.”
There’s almost no public land along the Mississippi, but Ruskey said there are plenty of places to camp on sandbars and other areas when the water is low. Overnight, multiday floats allow paddlers to enjoy some of America’s wildest, most inaccessible areas.
“Ninety-five percent of the land along the Mississippi is privately owned, but that’s not much of a barrier to recreational development, really,” Ruskey said. “I mean, nobody owns the river, and you can always find a sandbar, places that are really no man’s land, places that are underwater most of the year or places no one else can get to.”
Such ready access to wilderness, coupled with the laid-back lifestyle of the Delta, has captured Ruskey’s heart and converted him into a true southerner.
“Mark Twain was the net that first got me, but I’ve always loved water, and this is one of the greatest places I’ve ever lived,” Ruskey said. “My attachment to this place is deep. I tell people I got the mud between my toes and I can’t kick it off.”