I decided to take a day to rest, reorganize my gear and fix the kayak's rudder. I also needed to catch up on my writing. I've been taking notes in my Rite-in-the-Rain journal, but I needed to get the notebook computer out and do some serious writing. I've not been able to use the voice recorder in the windy conditions I've had every day, so whatever wasn't in the journal was still floating around in my head somewhere.It was a nice spot to stay over for a day: wide sandy beach, good shade under the trees and not too windy. Very clean too. I took out the Sun Shower, filled it with water from the river, added 40 drops of Pristine chemical purifier and hanged it against a tree in full sunlight the whole day. I had a wonderful hot shower late in the afternoon, my first in 4 days. The small things in life can sometimes make a huge difference. The only challenge with my shower came from the mosquitoes. As soon as the I started washing, my usual layer of DEET came off with the dirt and river grime, and I was left defenseless. And naked. In the middle of swarms of mosquitoes. My solution, quite a creative one I might add, was to wash a small area, towel dry very quickly, squirt on some fresh DEET, and get to work on the next part of my exposed anatomy.
My kayak's rudder needed some serious work. The deployment cord had snapped on the second day, and although I had fixed it a few times, it wouldn't hold together for more than a few hours. A better solution was called for. First I had to shorten the entire cord so there was sufficient tension to hold the rudder in place when deployed. And I had to find a way of joining the two ends of the cord so they stayed connected. Shortening the cord was fairly easy: I folded a loop in the cord and wound some nylon string around the loop to keep it in place. I then secured the string with a few rubber bands. My wife had insisted that I pack a bunch of heavy duty rubber bands. I thought it was a silly idea, but I keep finding new uses for them every day. Thank you Christine!
Joining the two ends was more difficult. I had to find a way to prevent the one end of the cord from slipping through the knot all the time. Then, a brain wave! I removed one of the little pressure clips from a ditty bag and attached it to the tip of the cord. Voila! It couldn't slip through anymore. To be on the safe side, and to turn it into a contraption worthy of Heath Robinson, I wrapped several bright pink and blue rubber bands around the joint. Ugly, but strong, would be a fair descrition.
Sitting below Dam and Lock # 5 for an entire day, watching the controlled flow of the river below the dam, made me think about what it was like before all these marvels of engineering tamed the Upper Mississippi.
Long before European settlers came to the area, the river was an important trade route for Native Americans who lived along the river and beyond. They used birch-bark canoes and log dugouts, called pirogues, to transport trade goods on the river and into the backwater creeks, streams and sloughs. I imagine they also travelled up and down the river to hunt, relocate or to simply visit other villages. And to go to war, naturally. Early white explorers, hunters and fur traders adopted the styles of canoes used by the Native Americans. They could be loaded with 2,000 pounds of cargo, and were well suited to negotiate the big lakes, the shallow backwaters of the Mississippi, and everything in between. The boats were light enough for portaging around rapids and waterfalls.
With more permanent European settlement came new modes of river transportation. Flatboats and keelboats were used to ship goods downriver. Most flatboats were sold for lumber at their final destination; it was just too difficult to get them back upriver. Keelboats were moved upstream using a laborious method called 'poling'. This involved 10 to 20 men, armed with 20 foot poles, who pushed their poles into the river bottom and walked the length of the deck to move the boat upriver.
The introduction of steamboats on the Upper Mississippi was limited by sandbars, low water, seasonal flooding and underwater snags. In the 1840s, river communities started expanding, and mining, lumber and grain distribution activities increased, and with it the need to control the river for safe and reliable navigation. Before river modifications started, the Upper Mississippi was a confusion of channels, rapids and shallow areas that made navigation in large boats all but impossible.
Starting in 1930, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a system of locks and dams to facilitate navigation on the river. The locks and dams regulate water levels to maintain a 9 foot deep channel for barges and other boats. The dams create a series navigational pools, and each dam is a step in the river as it descends to the Gulf of Mexico. A pool is the stretch of water between two dams, and typically consists of a series of lakes. Pools are numbered for the dams at their downstream ends: Pool # 7 will be above Lock and Dam # 7.
Locks are used to lower or raise boats to the next navigational pool. A lock is basically a huge bathtub with massive steel doors on either side. Once a boat is inside the lock, water can be drained from the lock to lower a boat to the downstream pool, or added to the lock to raise a boat to the upstream pool. There are 27 locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi, between the Twin Cities and Cairo.
My kayak's rudder needed some serious work. The deployment cord had snapped on the second day, and although I had fixed it a few times, it wouldn't hold together for more than a few hours. A better solution was called for. First I had to shorten the entire cord so there was sufficient tension to hold the rudder in place when deployed. And I had to find a way of joining the two ends of the cord so they stayed connected. Shortening the cord was fairly easy: I folded a loop in the cord and wound some nylon string around the loop to keep it in place. I then secured the string with a few rubber bands. My wife had insisted that I pack a bunch of heavy duty rubber bands. I thought it was a silly idea, but I keep finding new uses for them every day. Thank you Christine!
Joining the two ends was more difficult. I had to find a way to prevent the one end of the cord from slipping through the knot all the time. Then, a brain wave! I removed one of the little pressure clips from a ditty bag and attached it to the tip of the cord. Voila! It couldn't slip through anymore. To be on the safe side, and to turn it into a contraption worthy of Heath Robinson, I wrapped several bright pink and blue rubber bands around the joint. Ugly, but strong, would be a fair descrition.
Sitting below Dam and Lock # 5 for an entire day, watching the controlled flow of the river below the dam, made me think about what it was like before all these marvels of engineering tamed the Upper Mississippi.
Long before European settlers came to the area, the river was an important trade route for Native Americans who lived along the river and beyond. They used birch-bark canoes and log dugouts, called pirogues, to transport trade goods on the river and into the backwater creeks, streams and sloughs. I imagine they also travelled up and down the river to hunt, relocate or to simply visit other villages. And to go to war, naturally. Early white explorers, hunters and fur traders adopted the styles of canoes used by the Native Americans. They could be loaded with 2,000 pounds of cargo, and were well suited to negotiate the big lakes, the shallow backwaters of the Mississippi, and everything in between. The boats were light enough for portaging around rapids and waterfalls.
With more permanent European settlement came new modes of river transportation. Flatboats and keelboats were used to ship goods downriver. Most flatboats were sold for lumber at their final destination; it was just too difficult to get them back upriver. Keelboats were moved upstream using a laborious method called 'poling'. This involved 10 to 20 men, armed with 20 foot poles, who pushed their poles into the river bottom and walked the length of the deck to move the boat upriver.
The introduction of steamboats on the Upper Mississippi was limited by sandbars, low water, seasonal flooding and underwater snags. In the 1840s, river communities started expanding, and mining, lumber and grain distribution activities increased, and with it the need to control the river for safe and reliable navigation. Before river modifications started, the Upper Mississippi was a confusion of channels, rapids and shallow areas that made navigation in large boats all but impossible.
Starting in 1930, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a system of locks and dams to facilitate navigation on the river. The locks and dams regulate water levels to maintain a 9 foot deep channel for barges and other boats. The dams create a series navigational pools, and each dam is a step in the river as it descends to the Gulf of Mexico. A pool is the stretch of water between two dams, and typically consists of a series of lakes. Pools are numbered for the dams at their downstream ends: Pool # 7 will be above Lock and Dam # 7.
Locks are used to lower or raise boats to the next navigational pool. A lock is basically a huge bathtub with massive steel doors on either side. Once a boat is inside the lock, water can be drained from the lock to lower a boat to the downstream pool, or added to the lock to raise a boat to the upstream pool. There are 27 locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi, between the Twin Cities and Cairo.
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