Chapter 49

Little River Near November

Sometimes winter waits, holds its breath, draws the south wind north to fool people into thinking this is not near November.  When that happened, what else could they do but go once more into summer without green leaves and buzzing insects? 

With the weekend, and harvest end in sight, Alexander and Laura ventured a couple of hours north, away from oddly warm, low golden sunlight tipped against the southern horizon.

Mid-afternoon, it was late in the day for a canoe escape into southeast Minnesota, away from northwest Iowa combining and Alexander’s father’s deathbed.  No need for early November caution today, no seeking weather reports or watching northwest skies for signs of another Armistice Day Blizzard of 1941, or a howler like the one that took the Edmund Fitzgerald in '75.  Not today.

The pair would find two hours paddling downstream, winding along steep bluffs and ridges that seemed to defy erosion, then an hour's walk back in sunset. Afterward, the drive home with supper in Decorah at Mabe’s Pizza; when would they see 70°F again this year?  Tomorrow?  How about next April?

The river bottom lies closer to the surface this time of year, yet to their eyes, if the light was right, it clearly defined every rock, every sandy ripple.  They launched -- Laura in the stern, Alexander in the bow providing the muscle -- and paddled first upstream to clear the bridge pilings. Then Laura let the Root River current swing them 'round to face the first of many limestone cliffs, bluffs, and outcrops, many promontories vaguely unmovable.  Those, in turn, faced thousands of years of carving by wind, water, and inspired glances. 

Their paddles clunked the hard bottom more often than not, a rock or two hissed lightly along the length of the 17-footer.  Shallow river; clear, cold stream.  The little river read true, and they followed it down along limestone-hoisted white pines towering over them.  The crows called first, complaining about a pair of bald eagle adolescents, dislodged from trees by their passing, and now invading their space.  The white-headed parent waited calmly on a branch until the paddlers were too close for her, as well.  She floated still air downstream to the next big pine while the youngsters circled overhead, less sure of where to fly or roost.

What ideal hunting for the fish eagles with high perches over clear waters, fat suckers and a gleaming brown trout or two. Sunlight amplified the young birds' keen vision.  Their mottled feathers and uncertainly revealed their youth and inexperience.

Three weeks ago the escarpment poplars ahead were regally golden.  Now the walls of the horseshoe bend lit with only mute duns and grays, showing the trees’ feet clinging to the steeps among a hundred hundred thousand fallen leaves.

The paddlers’ eyes fell again and again to the presently clear water, reading the bottom, reading the flow, seeking the rock-free paddle path downstream.  They felt cool air pouring off the limestone on one hand, and the warmth floating up from the sandbar opposite.  Low sun on their backs pushed back approaching snow,  though almost out of mind, coming with raw wind in the weeks ahead.

This was one of the most beautiful stretches of the driftless rivers, yet Laura frequently noticed the sour smell of ridgetop feedlots. The confinement operations were out of sight, a few near and many far off, but more often than not waiting, poorly planned and constructed, for the next big rain to dump their contaminants in hard runs to the river. Waiting too often to allow nitrates, fecal coliform, and other chemical soup to plunge into the swiss chees-like limestone karst, into the groundwater, into local wells. Alexander shook his head at the high loamed cutbanks, here and there fringed with soybeans unharvested, too close to the crumbling edge. 

As if to remind them who owned the valley, the river hooked down the other leg of the horseshoe They left the sun behind.  Nearly deep pools alternated with shallow riffles as the canoe continued to dodge the rocks.  The river straightened a bit; then crossed a deer ford, plainly-pathed up and down either bank.  They swept through another bend, the ridge on their right rose steep with hickory and ash, while the eight foot-high sand banked island on the left carried small swamp white oaks and mulberries. 

Suddenly, a large grey bird with short wings glided across the river from left to right not fifty yards off the canoe’s bow.  Then another and another and another, one at a time, a dozen or more crossed the narrows right in front of them. The paddlers sat very still.

Blue heads, red beards, and feathers so transparent to the litter on the steep slope that the big birds vanished while climbing away from the river, talking among themselves, scraping turkey feet over the leaves and small branches that made them invisible.  The canoe passed not 10 yards from several of these cautious creatures glancing sidelong at them floating by.  Yet, but for a glimpse or two, Laura and Alexander could not really see them in their camouflage.  They only heard their rustling upward march.

Too soon the canoe approached the old campground pasture take-out and the hike back to the car.  Only somewhat stiff from sitting, they began the climb through the pasture among a couple of curious sorrels and a few grazing cattle.  The old wooden pay-on-the-honor-system box Laura recalled was no longer nailed to the last gatepost to the farmyard. The farmer, already choring, cordially declined payment and noted that the campground was closed, that he didn’t recognize them.  They thanked him and remarked on the warm weather.  He said they’d get into shape after they walked the big hill on their way to the bridge.

The two climbed the main grade, a hill so steep that their hamstrings stretched from the many steps up the gravel road. They emerged at the top into the last sunlight, into the aura a post-harvest orange ball low over dusty ridgetop cornstalks, soybean mulch, and one lonely green alfalfa swath. Laura stopped to watch, not releasing Alexander’s hand. Just before the final arc of glowing light vanished, Alexander took both her hands in his.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

“Yes, I will,” she said.

The sun faded into a wooded valley. The pair walked arm-in-arm all the way to the car. They returned through the farmyard where a teenage girl stopped braiding a sorrel’s tail and waved.

They laced the canoe atop Laura’s car, then headed south with a gold and purple evening at their shoulders.  Before the next dawn the sky burned black with northern lights so green and red that turkeys in trees blinked and murmured.

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Next... Chapter 50.

Thanks for these resources:

CREP Application for Southeast Minnesota with Slide Presentation, the Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota (BALMM)

"balmm currents," the newsletters of the Basin Alliance for the Lower Mississippi in Minnesota (BALMM).

Farm Groups Oppose Pawlenty's Land Set-Aside Plan
Minneapolis, MN -- Gov. Tim Pawlenty's conservation plan has drawn nearly ever major farm group in the state together in opposition, partly because of how the plan idles environmentally sensitive farmland near waterways. (WCCO via AP, 10/24/03)

Pawlenty promotes CREP plan
Rochester, MN -- Gov. Tim Pawlenty stopped in Sabin and Austin last week to announce the details of the state's Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program application. The application will be sent to the federal government for approval. The proposal is the blending of three plans from the Red River Valley, southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Minnesota for a total of 100,000 acres. (Rochester Agri News, 10/21/03)

Driftless Area Initiative, a forum for the discussion of land use trends and alternatives as they affect water quality and habitat quantity within the Greater Blufflands region of the Upper Mississippi River Basin.

The Upper Basin Chronicles, Chapter 49 was written and edited by John Gabbert.

Upper Mississippi Basin Stakeholder Network and The Upper Basin Chronicles © 2003 Saint Mary's University of Minnesota. Your comments are invaluable. Please email feedback to The Upper Basin Chronicles, Chapter 49.

The characters presented here are purely fictional, and neither bear resemblance to persons living or dead, nor represent the views or opinions of Saint Mary's University of Minnesota.