JOURNEY #10 - July 6, 2002

Clyde River (Lanark to Clydesville): "Getting Loony"

PICTURES

Julie Below The Rapids
Keenan Below The Rapids

TRIP REPORT

This is a perfect trip for a morning or afternoon paddle. The launch point is right across from the Glenayr Kitten Mill factory outlet store in the tiny village of Lanark. There is a nice parking lot (there were no cars when we arrived or when we left) right next to a small playground and a tiny public beach. There is a perfect grassy spot for kayak launching right between the parking lot and the river. You could use the little beach as an alternative.

It took us about an hour to get to Lanark from Ottawa. You just take exit 155 from the 417 and go west right through Almonte until the road (which is by that point county road 16) comes to an end. Turn left, and after crossing the Clyde River twice (the second one is near the end of this journey) you will soon be in Lanark. If you go over the Clyde again, you missed the turn for the launch site.

When we pulled up and parked there were three young local boys playing in the water. Our presence did not deter them in the least from their discussion of various sexual mechanics. I would imagine the babysitters in town do not get paid enough, whatever it is they get.

You paddle upstream from here. Downstream there is a dam just a few minutes away. This is the size of river that we enjoy a great deal. There's enough room for two side by side paddlers all the way along, but you can spot wildlife on either bank no matter where you are. There's also a number of stretches without human beings, but best of all, although there are a number of cottages and homes, the boat traffic is negligible. We saw only one motorboat out on the water the entire trip. The only other craft was a rowboat.

We were only a minute or two into the trip when we were almost startled out of our yaks by what sounded like gunshots. It was. There is a firing range to the east, well out of sight and we are sure a safe distance away, but it was nevertheless unpleasant. We soon left this behind after rounding the first large marshy curve. This is a very curvy river, if you look at your compass at ten minute intervals you will not be sure which direction you are actually travelling. Travelling upriver from Lanark, if you mark the start point to the end point just below Drummond's rapids, you have gone northwest.

As you pass under a low bridge about half way along, you enter a decent sized marsh, where you will likely encounter several blue herons, and if you are lucky as we were, a pair of loons. Even better, we saw a pair of loons and a tiny loon chick. We did not notice the chick on the way upstream, so we could not believe how the male loon was coming so close to our kayaks, in what seemed almost a friendly and playful manner. We spotted the chick behind the mother on the way downstream, and figured out that the male was of course attempting to distract us and move us away from the rest of his family. There is nothing quite so beautiful as the call of a loon. Oddly enough, when the male was attempting to entice us in his direction, before diving each time he made a sound quite reminiscent of the noise our large housecat Pookie makes when he wants to be fed. Sort of like a combination meow/moo.

When we were about half way through the marsh and moving towards what is known as Kerr's lake, the wind was quite fierce in our faces. There were actually some small whitecaps on the resulting waves, much to our surprise. As we pushed ahead towards the lake, we weren't sure at first where to go next, as the channel was not apparent. There is what looks to be a decent boat launch with parking to the west (left, moving upstream) and just beyond that is where the river narrows and continues under the 511.

There's a lovely home with a rock garden to the north (right, moving upstream) and just beyond that a turn to the north which brings you in sight of the rapids. They are very gentle, but you can certainly hear them. We were able to paddle right up to the base by picking through the rocks. You could easily get out and sit in them. We were watching the time or we would have done so. Next time!

There really wasn't much in the way of current the entire trip. The wind was much more of a factor, and it was mostly behind us on the way back. We hung around with the loons for a while in the marsh, and when we were almost to the large curve near the start of the trip, we spotted a strange bird on the east/south shore that we think was some sort of small crane. At first we thought maybe it was a baby heron, but the neck was very brown. It responded to our investigations not by flying away, but rather by hiding in the wood and reeds on the shoreline, which did not seem like heron behaviour.

There was no one at the firing range by this time, so the last stretch was just as quiet as the rest. As we prepared to take out the yaks, two older teens were raking the beach and cleaning up. As I plucked a discarded glass bottle from the water and threw it up on shore nearby, I asked if they were working for the city. The young man replied "The city don't do nothin' to keep the beach in shape, so it's up to us." Too bad such attitudes are the exception.

As we loaded the yaks on the van we noticed a pedestrian with an ice cream cone. Right at the entrance to the parking lot there is a quaint ice cream and fudge store in a two-storey home. We bought two double-scoop ice cream cones ($2) and some fudge before getting underway.

We managed the entire trip (about 8 kilometres) in about two and a half hours, which included some time for playing with the loons and poking around in interesting spots, but in general we were moving along at a good clip. If you were moving at a more leisurely pace and stopped to play in the rapids and have a snack, at least four hours would be a reasonable estimate.

The inspiration for this trip, as with some others past and future, comes from William R. Watt's website which includes a page about the Clyde at http://www.ncf.ca/~ag384/ClydeRiver.txt.