Tag: Paddling

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

by Maggie, posted in Uncategorized

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.

A new year 2026

by Maggie, posted in Uncategorized

A year has passed since we paddled the bulk of the Connecticut River in 8 days. The river froze over this winter more that I had seen in our 11 years in Vermont. In many places it was flat ice that could be skated or walked on, unlike the choppy chunks I usually see due to freezing and thawing multiple times. This past winter in New England was mostly freezing! In fact, summer is having a hard time arriving. We still have temps in the 40’s.

But now the river is thawed and, crossing it many times a week to travel to Claremont, NH, I think fondly back to last year…even the night we thought we might freeze to death! I have actually paddled on it a couple of times this spring. Yes, I finally bought a used LL Bean kayak! I resisted getting a kayak for many years and for many unreasonable reasons. But the river and ponds of New England call to me and I want to get out more than once a year. And I treated myself in honor of entering my eighth decade of living as of my 70th birthday in April.

Now it is time to plan a new trip in a few weeks. However, I realized I never summarized last year in this blog! So, please click here to read some of the high points and low points of those two weeks!

Meanwhile we turn our paddles to a much smaller river though it is very significant. I grew up in Elmira, NY, which straddles the Chemung River, a short but stately little river that provided livelihood to Elmira for a few hundred years. Our family dates back to around 1800. But for all our history in that place, I have NEVER paddled the Chemung River. I find this fascinating and have pondered why. The best answer I can come up with is that in the mid to late 20th century, many of our rivers remained industrial. They were ugly and polluted. They were not seen as a place for recreation.

Fortunately, things have changed. People are studying the nation’s rivers and learning about them. Karen has become a volunteer with the PennState Extension Master Watershed Steward Program in Western PA…the watershed that fed our first 1234 miles of paddling. I have recently joined the Connecticut River Conversancy volunteers and have also learned about the Vermont Center for Ecostudies Loon Conservation Project. We do these things because we now have some time in our retirements and because we have learned how important our rivers are. So many people before us had to fight to clean up the rivers and create recreational opportunities. It feels good to help sustain some of that work.

So, on June 15th, we will meet at the headwaters of the Chemung River, somewhere near Hornell, NY. We will paddle the short 45 miles down to Athens, PA. Depending on our timing perhaps we will paddle of few miles on the Susquehanna River that takes the waters of the Chemung and deposits them eventually in the Chesapeake Bay.

Hopefully I will report that trip sooner than I did last year’s. Thanks for paddling along with us.

Source to (not quite) Sea: The Connecticut River

by Maggie, posted in Uncategorized

I am so rusty with my blog posting that I cannot even find where I posted the intro to our 2025 paddle down the length of the Connecticut River, so vital to the communities that have lived along it for millennia!

On Monday, May 19th, Karen and will put in at Canaan, VT. Preparing for this trip has been different for a few reasons. For one, we have never paddled a river that one of us has lived near at the time. I once lived near the Susquehanna which we travelled a few years ago but at the time had no interest in the river. Now I cross the Connecticut between Windsor, VT, and Claremont, NH, several times a week. I see it in all seasons and water levels. This year, John and I were even able to do some reconnaissance around some of the bigger dams to determine whether Karen and I would portage ourselves or ask for help. It will be a little of both, it turns out. We had a great afternoon last weekend exploring the Moore Dam, Comerford Dam, McIndoes Dam, and Wells River Dam. We will take our canoe dolly this year to pull the canoe around some of these dams.

I have also studied up maps and some great books about the river more than I usually do. I guess I am more interested because we have lived here for a while.

But the big difference in planning is that we are going out for two weeks to cover the whole river from below the Connecticut River Lakes in Northern NH to the Long Island Sound! Two years ago, we paddled the Connecticut River Lakes but the stream to Canaan, VT, is not navigable in our canoe so we will put in below the dam at Canaan. This is a week more than we have ever paddled. So, let’s see how young our bodies are after sleeping on the ground that long. The night temps are looking to be in the 40s as well. Good news is that since we are close to our home, we will spend at least one night in West Windsor, VT, with guaranteed hot showers and flushing toilets!

Next try

by Maggie, posted in Allegheny River, Canoe Trips, Cassadaga Creek, Conewango Creek, Marden Cobb Water Trail, Uncategorized

I’ve not yet aged to perfection.  I still have a little of that accomplishment/acquisition blood in me. Having had our exciting though short-lived trip down the upper Allegheny, I wanted to do something major even if just a little major. I wanted to go up to Kennedy to get on the Conewango Creek upstream from where we had joined it years ago. We had already decided that the Cassadaga Creek presented too many issues of getting in and out or finding our way through the marshy parts. The Conewango is larger. And on Saturday when Karen’s son Jordan (getting to be baptized into the tradition of transporting us to or from paddling as Kyle and Chelsea had in the past) drove us to Kennedy, we learned it was not only larger but also significantly overflowing its banks.
We found that the road to the public ramp was closed because of the flooding water and, in case we were considering something stupid, a state trooper showed up just then to tell us the whole area was under water and we might consider getting in at Frewsburg.  He must have known that we were all wondering what would happen if we drove around those barricades and found a way to get a canoe into the creek!
IMG_3254[1]IMG_3256[1]

 

Two things: We had already paddled the Frewsburg part of the creek and we took this as a closure to getting onto the water that day.  At least that is what we thought at the time.

Frozen Rivers

by Maggie, posted in Allegheny River, Canoe Trips, Connecticut River, Ohio River, Preparations

We are already into the second week of February.  Soon Karen and I will start calling each other and emailing our lists and ideas for our next journey on the Ohio.  But right now that seems a long way off.  I have remarked in the past at the many changes that have taken place in Karen’s and my life since we first set out in a canoe in 2001.  And the changes just keep on coming. 2014 was full of changes. Our daughter was married on September 27 in a beautiful outdoor wedding at their home in West Windsor, VT.  Karen and Mark were integral helpers in making that a special day.  It was great to have another excuse to see them in the same year. Though you will read in forthcoming posts that Karen and I did not make it to the Ohio River in 2014, you will learn that we still had some canoe adventures. The day after the wedding we got to enjoy a group paddle on the Connecticut River. Ten of us took a leisurely trip on the river for about three hours.

After over ten years of working for Habitat for Humanity in Santa Fe, NM, and then in North Central Massachusetts, I started a new job in Claremont, NH, last week working for an agency that helps build stronger families from before the children are born.  Claremont is very much like Jamestown, NY, where Karen lives and where I worked for 17 years.  I find it interesting how we come back to what is familiar. I have worked at the new job for only 7 days but I like it and think it is just right for me at this point in my life.  But I have to say that one of the most fun things about the new job is that I have to cross the Connecticut River at least twice a day to get to it.  And sometimes by covered bridge.  I never imagined ever having a job in a place that meant I would be crossing rivers via covered bridges.  Pretty darn cool, eh?

It has been a cold and snowy winter in New England. We have not had it as bad in Vermont as the folks in Boston but at our home in Lancaster, MA, 40 miles west of Boston, the piles of snow are immense. We move our household belongings into storage at the end of the month and I cannot even imagine how we will pack a U-Haul with all that snow in the driveway but I guess we will figure it out.

The Connecticut River near Windsor, VT.
The Connecticut River near Windsor, VT.

Meanwhile, I enjoy driving over the frozen Connecticut River and seeing the changes each day. Mostly it is frozen over completely but there are a few spots where the water is not frozen. Last Friday when it was minus 15 degrees when I drove to work, those spots where there was water created a fog machine of sorts. The evaporating water instantly turned into frozen mist as it rose from the river. It coated nearby trees with a bit of frost. It was beautiful.

So here’s what I don’t know. When will the ice break up? What kind of damage will it cause? I remember one stop on the Allegheny River years ago where the residents enjoyed showing us photos of the damage the ice did to docks and riversides the previous winter. There is lot of ice on the Connecticut. If it cuts loose all at once it will do some serious damage downstream. I hope it won’t and I also hope I get to see it literally breaking up and flowing away. That will be a first for me.

So I am grateful for the daily reminder of river life. In New England, river life is more about the bygone days of the industrial revolution. On the Ohio, it is about the transportation of goods and lots of coal. But there is still the air of the bygone days as we pass abandoned coal powered plants.

And finally, I am grateful for the promise that Karen and I will have many more hours of paddling and talking and catching up on all the changes that are taking place in our lives.

Back in Pittsburgh

by Maggie, posted in Canoe Trips, Ohio River

We returned to Pittsburgh last night for a comfortable stay in a motel by the airport before Maggie flies out today and Karen returns home with Wonder strapped to the top of her car.  We have many people to thank for their support along the way and we will spend time in the next weeks writing about that so please stay tuned even though we are off the river.

Most especially, we want to thank our families for supporting this wild journey of ours.  Our husbands have supported this journey for ten years usually thinking we are brave and sometimes crazy.  Our children, we think, always think we are crazy.  Karen’s husband Mark has served as our meteorologist and reconnaissance man using Google Earth to seek out places to camp ahead of us.  Maggie’s husband, John, is our anchor at home, sending encouragement and prayers our way.  Chelsea, our IT person, keeps up the blog as we travel and Kyle got up at 5:15 am to transport us to the river, then spent 5 hours to come pick us up.  Kira and Jordan (as well as Chelsea and Kyle) just roll their eyes as they hear our stories and tell their friends about our trips…and we laugh at that and find support as well.

We think of  all who have tuned into our blog and who have prayed for us and hurrayed for.  We thank you for that encouragement and support.  Today we will begin to think of how and when we can get into the Ohio River in Powhatan, Ohio, and continue this journey which has become a metaphor for our lives in so many ways.

May 2011, final day

by Maggie, posted in Canoe Trips, Ohio River

We made it 110 miles down the Ohio river this month!  We have reached the end of this leg of our journey, and are sad to leave the river for the time being, even while we are glad to dry off!  We had breakfast of tea and chocolate, then paddled the rest of the way to Powhatan,where we were picked up by Karen’s son Kyle.

Heading home with “Wonder”, which is what we have named our new red canoe because we wonder about things all along our journey, and because we think she’s Wonder-ful!

May 2011, day three

by Maggie, posted in Canoe Trips, Ohio River

Thanks to the generosity of a boat club, we were able to spend last night indoors, and woke up to a bit of sunshine.  The rest of the day, however, was very wet. We had to wait out a thunderstorm under a bridge in West Virginia!

We are spending the night in the basement of a Catholic church in Bellaire, Ohio, after paddling about 35 miles.  Thank you to Father Dan for taking us in on such a rainy night!  Now, time for some dehydrated macaroni and cheese…yum.

The Boathouse

Taking shelter under a bridge!

May 2011, day two

by Maggie, posted in Canoe Trips, Ohio River

We’ve completed our second day on this leg of the journey.

The second picture shows Ohio to the right, and West Virginia to the left.  We have now paddled in four states!

We pulled out of the river and had dinner at a restaurant called The Boathouse.  Life is Good!

More barges, upriver and down

Ohio and West Virginia

Day 2 dinner