Chemung River – Paddle With Us

Karen and I chose a different sort of paddle this year. Not as long as we have in the past. And in a place that is dear to me: The Chemung Valley of the Southern Tier of New York State. We enjoyed three days on the Chemung River starting in Addison, NY, and making our way to Athens, PA, where the Chemung meets the Susquehanna River. A total of about 55 miles. We paddled another five miles on the Susquehanna to the next boat access point, five miles that we had paddled a few years ago as part of our four-year journey on the Susquehanna from Cooperstown, NY, to the Chesapeake Bay. And we hit some of the same headwinds that reminded us how difficult some of the larger rivers can be to navigate! We don’t tend towards paddling the same waters more than once but the need to find a spot to get out overtook that. Too many rivers left to repeat any of them!

The weather was great during the day. It was too cold for my sleeping gear in the evenings. Lesson learned there. I will invest in new equipment and remember my long underwear next time, regardless of the weather forecast. The scenery was as beautiful as ever we find on our river trips.

The nostalgic aspect of this trip was strong. Born in 1956 in Elmira, NY, which straddles the Chemung River, memories flowed back to me as we approached the city. Bottcher’s Landing is a river access point now, and I recall back in the day it was a farm and farmstand where my mom would go for flowers and/or vegetables.

And what was that park that was accessed by trolley? Boom, the memory came back: Rorick’s Glen. It had been an amusement park and entertainment center for a couple of decades at the start of the 20th century. It was long gone when I was a child, but we still managed to get over the old wooden bridge and spook around. Nothing remains of the bridge but the abutments.

Paddling towards West Elmira where our house was, we passed under Fitch’s Bridge, one of the many bridges connecting downtown Elmira and its Southside. My mother used that bridge to “relocate” the squirrels she trapped in her yard. It was a never-ending job! Speaking of my mother, Mary, I had a chance to reunite with her Goddaughter and my friend who lived next door, Mary Marsden. By chance we were both in the area and it was fun to include her in this year’s journey.

A special highlight of our trip was meeting up with the Friends of the Chemung River Watershed. Not only did they meet us, but they brought along two TV stations who interviewed us. It was our 15 minutes of fame and a great way to help the cause of the river! Each took a different slant on our story. One (WETM) was focused on the river. The other (WENY) focused on these old women paddling our hearts out! We laughed as we listened! We were in the local Star Gazette as well.

The dam in Elmira was our only portage this year. Our new friends had cleared out the spring growth (nasty knotweed that overtakes indigenous plant) the day before so that we could pull up the gear and the canoe and get it around the dam. The dam creates a pool of water that is treated to become the drinking water for the city. The portage is very near where my parent’s first apartment was and where my sister came into this world.

Skyline of Elmira, now minus the roofline of my home church which burned to the ground in February 2025.

As we paddled out of downtown Elmira, we approached Dunn Field, forever emblazoned in my mind not for my high school graduation but for the streaker who stole the show at the end! My first of two streaker spottings in 1974

The derelict hotel and restaurant is where we would go with our grandparents. It overlooks I86.

Winding beneath the remains of the hotel that used to be on a main road, we made our way from the nostalgia of the Elmira area toward Waverly where the river dips into Pennsylvania, heading to the Susquehanna. At that point it was back to things as usual on the river: beautiful scenery, heron, osprey, eagles, turtles…and even a two-foot-long water snake which Karen spotted just as I put my feet in the water on either side of the canoe! Needless to say, I pulled my feet in quickly and never saw the snake slithering off.

Elmira is behind me now, literally and figuratively. Much of what I knew growing up is gone. It remains a river town, with all the challenges and hospitality that we have experienced on every river we have paddled.

One last bit of nostalgia: Kim, who Maggie met in elementary school 60+ years ago, was our river angel who came to fetch us at the end of our trip and take us back to Corning where our cars were. I have only seen her twice since graduating from high school at the above-mentioned Dunn Field.

The choice of the year’s itinerary started with me thinking about the possibility of paddling the Chemung River, a shorter river than Karen and I usually consider. The Chemung flows through my hometown of Elmira, New York. I’m in Elmira now having arrived last night, and I write this post from the bedroom of my next-door neighbor’s house from when I was a child. It was a second home to me. I’m looking out the window onto the house that I lived in for 18 years and visited for decades after until 20 years ago when it was sold. I’ve been helping my friend Mary whose brother John just died at age 69, having lived in this house his whole life. We have been organizing John’s belongings. Needless to say, Mary and I have been discussing many childhood memories, visiting cemeteries of both my family and my other extended family, the Jacobson‘s, going past childhood landmarks and the houses of friends growing up.

Elmira is a struggling post industrial city. It’s a river city, and like most river cities nowadays, it is cut off from river views by levees and flood walls. Having lived through the flood of ‘72 I know that flood walls are important, but I’m always sad that the rivers are not visible from most of the cities and towns that have flood protection along riverbanks.

How much of Elmira has changed over the years due to a large degree from its waning economic prosperity! One thing has not changed and that is the river, even though it is not visible, except from bridges.

And so I want to begin our trip tomorrow with that reality in my heart. While the buildings change, while people die, and important landscapes have changed, to quote that famous movie, the river still runs through it.

I’m driving from Elmira to Corning tomorrow where I will meet Karen at the house of her friend Beth, who will drive us up to our put-in point this year somewhere around Addison, New York, on the Canisteo River. It flows into the Tioga River and then to Painted Post, NY, where it will converge with the Cohocton River and become the Chemung River.

I had the privilege of meeting Cait and Jim from Friends of the Chemung River today as we walked along the flood walls and scoped out the portage around the only dam that we will have to get around on this trip. In addition to these new friends who hope to paddle with us for a little while, I also get to reunite with a school friend, Kim, from now over 50 years ago, who will help us by transporting us from our end point in Pennsylvania back to Corning.

So this year, the river winds through the friends and family of my past, living and deceased, as well as the present with newfound friends. We have yet to know in upcoming days what else the river will provide for us.

Jim and Cait on the overgrown portage steps out of the river. Cait is hoping that the city can clear it out before we get there in a couple of days. This is where some of the other peddlers might join us for a few miles. Fun fact: Jim knew both my father and Mary’s father decades ago.

Jim and me checking out the portage trail and the dam which you can see to the right across the river.

Tag: Chemung River

A trip down memory lane…

The start of 2026 canoe journey from Maggie‘s perspective: