Small Towns, Wisconsin Southwest Region Summer 2014 | Page 35

Since moving to Wisconsin, our river experience has been limited to tubing in Albany and
hanging out at the beach, but we decided that it might be fun to try canoeing. If only we
had known…
I Googled for canoe companies in the area; the first result didn’t lead to a website, so we
ended up with the Wisconsin Canoe Co and booked their shortest trip: 10 river miles from
Arena to Spring Green, estimated as about 3.5 hours of nonstop padding and with plenty
of sandbars for breaks. (Full disclosure: the owner wrote our “From the local expert” article
in this issue, but we didn’t tell him we’d also be renting a canoe from his company!)
Sunday morning, we were at the pickup spot bright and early. The rest of the people on
our shuttle were early as well, so our 10:00 shuttle upriver was able to leave ten minutes
ahead of schedule. We received a map of the river, a warning to keep life jackets handy
and not take any glass on the river, and instructions to put the stronger paddler (that
would be me) in the back of the canoe.
We made it to the river, strapped into our life jackets, hopped into a canoe, and took
off. Everything was going great….for about the first two seconds. Then our canoe started
turning itself around.
We paddled and we paddled and our canoe just kept on turning; we eventually ended
up switching positions so that I could control the canoe from the front! We found out
later that the problem was not enough weight at the front of the canoe. The winds were
particularly strong that day (30 mph upstream), and the front wasn’t getting deep enough
in the water to not be pushed upriver. Lesson one: pack some weight up front!
We kept on paddling, but found it slow going. After three hours we were exhausted and
found that we’d only gone about four miles! It was our bad luck to have gone out on what
turned into an extremely windy day; the expert paddlers we talked to told us that this was
a terrible day for beginning paddlers to be on the river. Lesson two: watch out for the wind!
By this time, we weren’t sure how we’d make it to our pickup spot. The Wisconsin River in
this section is secluded enough that there wasn’t even a place to get out and call for a
ride! Fortunately, the aforementioned expert paddlers, who were part of a group of over
a hundred canoeists and kayakers called The Great River Rumble, generously gave us a
tow downriver to the next stopping point (and offered a satellite phone to call the canoe
company, as our phones couldn’t get a signal). A shuttle from the canoe company met
us there and took us back to our car. Lesson three: 10 miles is NOT a good distance for your
first time canoeing!
By the end of the day we were tired, sore, sunburned (lesson four: don’t forget to re-apply
sunscreen on the river!) and not particularly interested in ever going on another boat that
doesn’t have a motor. Until next time…

Also at: www.Facebook.com/SmallTownsWI | www.Twitter.com/SmallTownsWI

Spring Green

p.35