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.
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
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.
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