Last Thursday myself and a few buddies set out on a multi day kayak camping trip. We covered a total 53 miles overall crossing roughly 8 lakes along the Huron River watershed. The first night we met up at Highland Lake and paddled the channel into Halfmoon Lake and finally landing at Blind Lake for a solid practice run.
The next morning we paddled back and staged vehicles at Proud Lake rec where we started our River journey which ended its final day just past the rapids at Delhi.
The first day was just over 20 miles of paddling with 3 dams to portage. The crossing of Kent Lake was a bit rough. The day started brisk, rainy and windy, but once we got to the dam at Island Lake just before night one’s campsite, the sky cleared and temps jumped!
The next day we paddled again, just over 20 miles. This time however, there was only 1 dam to portage and much smaller lakes to cross… and we had the pleasure of pulling our kayaks up to Riverside Pizza for much needed good food and drinks just a short stretch before camp.
The next day the ladies joined us for the final stretch involving a shorter paddle with no portages, but a few sets of rapids including the class II rapids at Delhi. This was followed by dinner and margs at Casa Tequila. I’m looking forward to finishing up the rest of the Huron in the near future!
Looks like a great trip. I’ve never seen a portage set up like that, much easier than having to bushwhack around most dams.
Maybe some day the US will start replacing small dams with the weirs that they use in Europe. When I kayaked in England a few years ago there were a lot of those – they build them with a slot on the sides or down the middle so than canoes and kayaks can slide over, and because the slope on them is so gradual there is no dangerous recirculating turbulence pool at the base. This video (not mine) is one of two that we came down on the River Derwent in Yorkshire.
Yeah, and the rails are wide so the narrow yaks tend to want to slip to one side and fall between the rails, which is why you see the two narrowest boats on the grass in the picture, it was easier to just slide em down the hill lol
Another advantage of the weirs is that the outflow creates a safe area for people like the guy in the video that want to play in the standing waves and holes. I have been very impressed with how the British design their infrastructure to be human-friendly, especially regarding outdoor recreation. There are hundreds of miles of old canals and small rivers across the UK and many have weirs where there are level changes, but even where they have dams instead, the locks can be hand operated so that people in boats can lock themselves through. There are people who live on what are called “narrowboats”, long thin houseboats that can negotiate the river and canal systems. The self-service locks enable them to travel easily. And in the UK, there is a general understanding that strangers can hike through your rural property – even animal pastures often have stiles, which are a sort of gate that allows a human to wind their way through and over the fence or stone wall without risking letting the stock animals escape.
Our destination on one of the paddling trips I took with the Malton-Norton Canoe and Kayak Club during my trip there was the historic Howsham Mill. This was a water-powered grain mill built in 1755 on a small island along the Derwent but had become a near ruin. It was restored in the mid 2000’s, using draft horses instead of modern heavy equipment to avoid damaging the site. Not only did they restore the charming architecture, but they preserved the original millrace so that the flow through the structure now powers a generator and 3 Archimedes screws that provide clean power to 100 households. It is tied to the national grid and income from that power helps to maintain the site.
They recently added a free EV charging station at the parking lot across the bridge. The building itself is now a museum showing how they did the restoration as well as a space for teaching events. The grounds are also a family picnicking area. The rapids exiting the mill race were originally set up with gates to be used as a whitewater slalom practice area but I understand those were damaged in a flood a few years back and have yet to be restored.
But like so many public projects in the UK, human recreational and functional benefits were thoughtfully considered and built into it.
