- Today we are pleased to introduce, Lynne Diebel,
as part of the Wisconsin Historical Museum's
History Sandwiched In lecture series.
The opinions expressed today,
are those of the presenters, and are not necessarily
those of the Wisconsin Historical Society,
or the museum's employees.
Lynne Diebel grew up in southern Minnesota,
and has lived in Stoughton, Wisconsin since 1974,
with her husband, Bob, and their four children.
Her many books, are centered on the landscapes,
and natural world of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Lynne has been canoeing lakes since childhood,
and as an adult she learned to canoe whitewater
rivers with Bob.
Together, they've peddled almost
3,000 miles on the rivers of Minnesota,
while researching their two guide books.
Here today to discuss her book, "Crossing the Driftless"
please join me in welcoming Lynne Diebel.
(audience applause)
- Well, hi everybody,
and thanks so much for being here.
I'm honored to be part of this program,
it's a really cool program. As Katie mentioned,
I did grow up in southeastern Minnesota,
and...
then living most of my adult life near Madison,
I always spent a lot of time traveling,
back to visit my very large extended family,
who stayed in southeastern Minnesota.
Which means that, we traveled occasionally
by train or bus, but nearly always by car.
285 miles, four point five hours to Faribault.
(audience laughs)
220 miles, three point three hours to Rochester.
And then there was that one bike trip.
(laughs) The land that lies between
these two homes of mine,
is known as The Driftless Area.
And...
This gives you a visual of what The Driftless,
is composed of.
Now, some people say that the Driftless
is partly in, southeastern Minnesota,
but officially, according to Carrie Jennings,
who's the, Wisconsin, or Minnesota
glacial geologist, that area was glaciated.
So we're gonna confine The Driftless
to southwestern Wisconsin,
a teeny bit of northwestern Illinois.
But you can,
You'll note, you can see that you are here,
and all the lakes that extend above
the, you are here,
and then look at the Driftless Area,
the rugged land there.
No lakes. Just rivers.
So...
That's a geological reality
that, comes from the fact that, all of this land,
was an ancient Paleozoic Plateau.
That's how it was formed.
Layers of limestone and sandstone
that were once a vast sea bed,
covering much of the Upper Midwest.
And since that time, the rivers have,
in the Driftless Area, only,
dissected the landscape,
creating those deep valleys,
and those coulée's that are so beautiful
in that land.
They've had millennia to do that,
in the glaciated area, by contrast,
you find lakes, marshes, drumlands,
eskers and post glacial rivers.
So, we have the contrast
between those landscapes.
Now I'll show you where we traveled,
and why we traveled.
How many times has an adventure been launched by a map?
It was in small history center in Minnesota,
that we first thought of traveling back
to our Wisconsin home by canoe.
The center stands near Traverse des Sioux,
a shallow river crossing
on the lower Minnesota river.
And it was a Frenchman who drew the map
that so intrigued us on that hot summer day
that we visited the center.
From 1836 to 1840,
commissioned by the newly created
U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers,
astronomer and cartographer, Joseph N. Nicollet,
traveled the rivers and prairies by canoe,
and ox cart to survey the land
that would become Minnesota territory.
Wisconsin territory was surveyed
in the early 1830's, and thus,
Nicollet used that data as well
to create this map, which the war department
published in 1843.
This map became somewhat of a real estate map,
for settlers who were looking
to move into the Minnesota territory.
Because he had not only done the map,
but he did notes on fertility of soil,
on existence of arable land.
There's a ton of praire
in southwestern Minnesota.
So he observed all of that.
And...
He...
This map, there's a digital copy I got from here
at the Historical Society.
It was seeing this map that made us decide
to paddle from Faribault, Minnesota,
where my family has a house on Cedar Lake,
and the house is a settler cabin
that my great grandparents bought in 1883,
back to our Stoughton, Wisconsin home.
There are no roads on Nicollet's map,
as you can see, just rivers.
And the Madison Lakes are perched
on the very eastern edge of the map.
You can see these little dots along
the very eastern edge, at the, you are here.
Some portages required for the trip, of course,
but, people had been traveling
paddle-ported style for millennia,
and this had long intrigued us.
Bob and I like paddling rivers.
We wanted to, know what paddling upstream would be like.
(Lynne and audience laugh)
It's one thing to go downstream, quite another to go up.
So he's looking at the map, and he's saying,
"Well, look if we went down the canon,
and then we went down the Mississipi,
the Wyalusing, then we went up the Wisconsin
to Arena, and then up cross the Black Earth Creek
to Cross Plains, portage over
into the Madison Lakes, we could get home."
We live in Stoughton,
which is right on the Yahara River.
So, I said, so what are you suggesting?
(Lynne and audience laugh)
And he said,
"We can do this! Come on! This is an adventure".
And we had always gone for adventures.
The trip in the end, totaled 359 miles,
that took us 12 days,
and it didn't come out exactly as we had planned,
but, trips on rivers rarely do.
So those are the guidebooks that we did
for Paddling Minnesota, there's a series also
for Paddling Wisconsin done by a fellow named,
Mike Svob, published by Trails Books.
So here's our route, on the Nicollet map.
You can see the...
...wide part that's Lake Pepin,
that was an exciting part of the trip.
And here's one of the first of the maps
that Bob drew, for the book.
And these are very precise,
he's an engineer, by profession.
But he also is kind of playful,
so he's got all these interesting
little details on the maps.
And each, little drawing tells a story
about that particular episode.
So Faribault to Stoughton.
And this is the first, day of the trip,
we went down the canon,
just about the Mississippi.
To back track just a bit to Cedar Lake,
where we had planned to start,
we didn't end up starting exactly at Cedar Lake;
we started in the town of Faribault
about five miles away.
This is my grandmother in 1898,
and that's an Ojibwa canoe, a birch bark canoe.
And here's the same canoe,
in 2012, Bob renovated it with the help of fellow
up in Woodruff, Ferdie Goode,
who's an expert at these things,
and how to dig the spruce roots
out of the marshes.
This is the canoe we took.
We did not paddle my grandmother's canoe.
(Lynne and audience laugh)
This is a Wenonah Jensen hull, Kevlar,
light weight, not very much freeboard though,
so, that's why Lake Pepin got exciting.
And, that's all of our stuff,
please note the portage wheels,
they're important.
(audience member laughs)
Here's a cropped version of the map,
this is following the canon,
this is Nicollet's research.
He also called it the Lahontan River.
The word canon comes from
bastardization of the French,
which was, riviere de cano,
and that's, or o cano.
It's river of canoes,
because there a lot of canoes on the river.
And, it got changed to canon and lots of people
think that it has to do with warfare,
but it doesn't.
On our way down the canon,
the portage wheels are in the front there.
If you look at the bluff along the canon,
you see a cross section of the Paleozoic Plateau.
At the bottom, St. Peter Sandstone,
and then a thin layer of Glendwood's Shale,
topped off with Platteville Limestone at this point.
There are other layers in other areas,
but this is what was left there.
During settlement times,
a southern Minnesota wheat boom led to numerous
water powered mills to grind the grain.
Local historians say that at least 17 gristmill's
operated on the canon in the 19th century.
It's not that long a river.
Leaving behind ruins like the Archibald Mill
at Dundas, which is a really
cool looking old building.
Nothing's being done to it.
Here's a little cross section of history.
At the sight of Scotts Mill,
does anybody recognize what that's the shape of?
- That Goddess, I can't remember...
- Shiva. - [Lynne] Shiva! Thank you!
Thank you, yea.
Nearby are the remains
of a dry laid, of bridge abutments.
But, In the 1970's, a St. Olaf College,
art student carved this carving of Shiva
on the bluff face, merging several layers
of prehistory and history,
the Paleozoic era stone, that was his material,
Glacial era erosion, 19th century industry,
and ancient eastern religious iconography.
So, it's also a great sight for young people
to try to deface.
Early 20th century bridges,
add another layer of history,
I'm very fond of these bridges,
these truss bridges, because,
my childhood was spent driving over those.
The waters of the canon river,
flowing over a dam at the site
in Northfield Minnesota once powered
the 1856 Ames Mill.
This current structure,
which is almost 100 years old,
now serves no practical purpose,
except to block the passage of fish.
Today the Multi Mill company,
which has owned Ames Mill since 1927,
produces cereals like Chocolate Malt-O-Meal,
and Coco Roos, in the vintage mill building,
the original, vintage mill building,
but not with water power.
Post Holdings recently bought the company
for 1.15 billion.
So, it may change. They may tear it down.
Now this is a hyro-dam on the canon,
a 60 foot high, hydro-dam,
that was quite a portage,
'cause you go straight down.
It impounds a lake called, Lake Byllesby.
And this is the beginning
of the portage wheel story.
At the downstream end of Byllesby,
we float quietly for a moment to watch laughing,
shouting teenagers jump from a bluff
into the water far below.
And then we land a portage.
Once again the canoe
makes the overland journey on it's wheels,
which wobble ominously across the parking lot,
and stubbornly refused to roll
when reached the grass.
A few years ago, Bob tried to sell
these portage wheels on Craigslist,
(audience laughs)
He was asking 15 dollars.
A young man drove 25 miles to look at them,
and offered 10 dollars.
(audience laughs)
Bob was adamant about his price.
The young man wouldn't budge either,
and he drove away without buying.
Which is why we don't have a better
set of portage wheels today.
(Lynne and audience laugh)
So, moving on to Lake Pepin!
And you'll have to read the book,
if you want to know the story that's associated
with this particular drawing.
This is a bird's eye-view, well sorta bird's eye,
it's from, Great River Bluff State Park,
of the Mississippi.
And it gives you a sense of how
the Mississippi has changed since the 1930's
when it was, they attempted to corral it
with the lock and dam system.
So, what you see in the foreground
is the, channel, the main channel,
that's officially called the 9-Foot Channel,
but is also dredged to twelve feet in some areas.
And behind that, the backwaters,
and that gives you a sense
of what the river looked like before
it was impounded and before it was dredged.
It was a very complex system
and it got really confusing for early explorers.
This one's another story.
You can see in the foreground we have a truck.
That one we won't go into either.
(Lynne and audience laugh)
So we had, this was in 2009,
that we did the trip.
And, we had a cellphone, it wasn't a smart phone,
we didn't have internet access,
and we decided that on the Mississippi,
that we had traveled so many times by road,
it would be fun to stay
at some of the little places along the way,
that were right in the river towns.
But we were able to reach our son, Greg,
who was dubbed our river concierge,
and he would check, we'd say,
"Ah, we're gonna get to Alma tonight",
and he'd call back and say,
well the Alma Hotel, can put you up,
and I made a reservation for you.
And so, we went to Alma.
And, this is the second chapter
of the portage wheel story.
Half way down mainstreet to our night's lodging,
and soon after we dropped the canoe rig
over a steep curb cut,
our portage wheels being wobbling
in a dramatically new fashion,
not a good thing.
At the Alma Hotel,
we park the canoe on the sidewalk.
Still wearing his lifejacket,
Bob walks up to the bar,
where five patrons in various stages
of Sunday afternoon inebriation
are seated on barstools.
"Our son called about us getting a room tonight",
Bob says to the barkeep,
"You don't need a lifejacket in here,"
offers one of the patrons. (Lynn and audience laugh)
"I don't know about that,
our canoe's right outside on the sidewalk."
"Oh!"
Everyone including the barkeep,
hurries out the door to see the canoe.
(audience laughing)
"You ought to get a motor,"
suggests one thoughtfully...
(Lynne and audience laugh)
...adding that he works on a dredging rig.
We chat for a bit about the hazards
of canoeing the big river.
"So, about the room?" Bob asks the barkeep.
"You should probably see it first."
Up the stairs from the bar,
we see why she said that, as the place is being renovated.
There's no light in the upstairs hall,
paint is peeling from the walls,
and there's one shared bathroom.
But the room and bed are clean and comfortable.
We say yes and follow her downstairs to the bar.
"How much do we owe you for the room?" I ask.
"Oh, it's very expensive, about 297 dollars,"
interjects the dredger.
" 22 dollars and and 16 cents;
that includes the tax,"
the barkeep concludes with a grin.
"It's just a sleeping room."
When we lock the canoe
to the dumpster behind the hotel,
Bob inspects the recalcitrant portage wheels.
One metal support has buckled so much
that another bounce down a curb
will render the wheels useless
and the other support is twisted.
"So what'll we do about the portage
from Black Earth Creek?" I ask.
"We'll figure that out when we get there.
Let's get dinner."
(audience laughing)
On our evening walking tour of Alma,
we have a tasty meal
at Kate and Gracie's restaurant,
which is no longer there, sadly.
A session at the laundromat,
and a trip to the pier downstream
to scout tomorrow's exit route.
As an afterthought,
we carry the wheels to a municipal trash can
and drop them in. (audience laughs)
He should have taken the 10 dollars.
(Lynn and audience laugh)
Ah, yes!
Alright, so, this is a dredging rig.
And this is what they used to scoop out,
and then they have an adjoining barge
that they pile the sand,
and then they move it to other places on the river.
And they pile it in huge mounds
in various places.
They build islands with it,
they do all sorts of stuff,
because the sand is always moving downstream,
and refilling the channel.
So this is where our dredger
was bound to be working.
Just on that note, on the river
there's a continual tension between nature
and man's works.
The river's power, reminds us that the things
we build in it's floodplain,
the towns, the levees, the farms, etcetera,
are there only as long as the river permits.
Congress built the lock and dam system
for commercial navigation in the 1930's,
not for flood control,
but the Army Corp of Enginners River Commission,
has been messing with the Mississippi's flow
and floodplains for much longer,
building levees and wing dams.
In 1883, Mark Twain wrote,
"One who knows the Mississippi,
will promptly aver, not aloud but to himself,
that if thousand River Commissions,
with all the mines of the world at their back,
cannot tame that lawless stream,
cannot curb it, or confine it,
cannot say to it, go here, or go there,
and make it obey;
cannot save a shore which it has sentenced;
cannot bar its path with an obstruction
which it will not tear down,
dance over, and laugh at."
That was from, Life on the Mississippi.
Fortunately there were those,
who understood this truth.
And in 1924, under heavy pressure,
from the newly formed, Izaak Walton League,
Congress had established the upper Mississippi,
National Wildlife and Fish refuge.
And that's 261 miles of river,
between the foot of Lake Pepin
and Rock Island, Illinois.
No new levees there from now on.
The flood of 1965, however,
crusted at about 20 feet,
mocking most existing levees anyway.
Our fourth day, was a four dam day,
Alma, Whitman, Winona and Trempealeau.
We portaged two of them, locked through two.
We passed the confluences of the Zumbro,
and the White Water, those are two
lovely paddling streams in Minnesota,
and the quirky boat houses
on Winona's, Latsch Island.
We... (Lynn and audience laugh)
Bob likes to take a nap in the canoe.
And he'll have me paddle
so that he can kind of stretch out.
That's him napping.
So we ended the next day, at Genoa,
taking us past the mouth of the Trempealeau,
the Black, the La Cross, the Root and Coon Creek,
as well as visiting glorious flocks of Pelicans,
to spend the night at Genoa,
in another riverside in.
We were getting spoiled at this point.
And at Genoa, this was the sweetest thing,
the innkeeper, whose name was,
Ann Zebolio Meerhead,
was standing on the side of the river,
on the riprapped river bank,
where, just below where the train tracks
go along the river there.
She was waving a dishtowel, to signal,
where we should go under the tracks.
We could see her from really far away,
she's standing there waving the dishtowel,
and saying, "Ok, you go through there."
And then she and her husband met us
at the landing that was underneath
the railroad tracks,
and helped us carry our stuff to the motel.
And that was one of the pluses
of having a river concierge.
(audience laughing)
Next day we passed the Bad Axe, the Upper Iowa,
and the elegant Black Hawk Bridge
at Lansing, Iowa.
And camped on an island, number--
We're going through the barge traffic,
which I don't recommend hanging out with.
Camped on island number 166,
just upstream of Prairie Dasheen, Wisconsin.
Just to back up for a moment.
That is a lock.
And you can see that they will lock
through any one canoe,
if the one canoe is the only one
that wants to get in.
One canoe gets to lock through.
It's big enough to hold an enormous barge.
And so we're sitting there, you know,
you just hold on to the rope,
you don't tie up because you drop,
(laughs) as you're going down.
And so you just let the rope
slide through your hands.
So there's all the barge traffic
and there was plenty of it.
Here we are, at island number 166.
And on the seventh day,
and that sounds a little biblical,
(Lynne and audience laugh)
it wasn't.
After floating past Praire Dasheen,
we turned left and head up to Wisconsin.
Now, has anyone here heard
of the Wyalusing River?
Yes.
- Yea, we camp at Wyalusing State Park.
- Wyalusing State Park.
Well there's a made up Wyalusing River,
it's actually a historic river.
What direction does the Wisconsin River flow?
- Southwest.
- Southwest. Right.
Has it always? This is a trick question.
(audience chattering and laughing)
That's the right answer is no! (Lynne and audience laugh)
Go back almost a million years
before the most recent glaciación,
which ended about 12,000 years ago.
The evidence lies along Wisconsin highway 16,
near Bridgeport.
And you can see Bridgeport on this map.
Where the highway rides the high bedrock bench
called the Bridgeport Terrace.
And this is once place
where there is glaciación in the Driftless Area.
Evidence of it.
According to Wisconsin geologist, Eric Seacarson,
the eastward tilt of that Bridgeport Terrace,
plus the narrowing of the river valley,
as it nears it's confluence with the Mississippi,
and the shape of the valley wall
at the confluence, suggests
that as recently as 800,000 year ago,
the Wisconsin flowed east, probably all the way
to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
And, there's a lot of geological research
being done on that right now.
Finding the markers,
the geological markers of Wisconsin's path east.
Paddling upstream around the sinuous sandbars
of the lower Wisconsin took some learning.
And, this our route on the next day between
that sandbar near the Kickapoo,
the mouth of the Kickapoo in Coumbe island.
This is one of the techniques
we used for going upstream. (Lynne and audience laugh)
And it was actually a nice thing,
because, you probably also notice
that I wear the same thing, in every picture,
and that is true,
I wore the same clothes for 12 days.
But going upstream is quite possible,
we were able to go about two miles an hour,
upstream, against about a two to three
mile an hour current.
And, yea we got tired of sitting,
because we'd be paddling 12 hours a day.
And so, we periodically towed the thing,
in the shallow.
The water was kinda low that year.
This is the bridge near Lone Rock.
And, that, it's a steel through truss bridge.
And that means that, the trusses form a box
through which the traffic drives.
It's another one of those shapes
that I find so appealing,
and I think it echoes the shapes
of the hill of The Driftless.
And all of those bridges
have that lovely curved arch on top.
This is the route between
Coumbe Island and Lone Rock.
Notice the drawing because you'll see that again.
(audience member laughs)
Okay not everyone floats in canoes
down on the Wisconsin. (Lynne and audience laugh)
It was the fourth of July weekend,
and we noted that all the way
down the Mississippi,
we hadn't seen a single other canoe.
Everybody we met and talked with,
and that was a lot of people,
they were all on dry land.
But in the four days it took us
to reach the Arena landing, we met hundreds
of people floating down the Wisconsin
on the July fourth weekend.
And most told us,
we were going the wrong way.
(audience laughing)
Be a lot easier people! (Lynne and audience laugh)
So here's where that sketch came from.
(Lynne and audience laugh)
They weren't given any advice,
they were just having a great time.
They had actually built that raft in the morning.
(Lynne and audience laugh)
So we paddled in place for awhile
chatting with them and they were just,
they were great kids. They were really funny.
I know, the couch is a great touch.
(audience laughing)
So, day four on the Wisconsin
took us to just down stream of Arena.
And...
That was...
Passing the highway 23 bridge
over to Spring Green.
and, this is Frank Lloyd Wright territory,
as many of you, I'm sure know.
Wrightson Taliesin is in the hills
just south of the river here,
and it's architectural style deeply rooted
in the landscape of The Driftless,
echoes the shapes and forms of these bluff faces,
their outcroppings, and the low rounded hills
that rise above them.
An organic expression of this land
where the architect grew up.
The materials and shapes derived
from the landscape,
and at times from the riverscape,
Wright built with Cambrian sandstones,
and dolomites quarried from the hills
of the Driftless and he mixed Wisconsin River
sand into his plaster.
Which is a nice connection.
This photograph was taken from Bobs,
it used to be called Bob's Riverside,
now it's just Riverside Landing,
which is a, they have really great burgers,
so we stopped for a burger there
and went up on the deck
and I love this view of the Wisconsin.
It is my favorite river.
Another view of the Wisconsin,
it's taken from Ferry Bluff and Cactus Bluff,
so that you can see off in the distance,
the highest point in the Driftless,
which is Blue Mound.
Can you see it on the horizon?
Ok.
This is a...
A point that's about six miles upstream
of where we took out at Arena.
So, which brings us to the final chapter
of the portage wheel story.
And, at this point we had reached
the Arena landing, but we were trying to find,
there are about three different outlets
for Blue Mound Creek,
which Black Earth feeds.
And we were trying to find
the mouth of that creek.
It wasn't easy the water was low.
Today it isn't easy to find the mouth
of that cold creek again.
The chameleon shape of the Wisconsin sandbar
may be the reason, as the sandbar
is always, always changing.
So instead of searching for the confluence,
we look for a proper place to camp,
choosing a spot on a high sandbar,
facing the back channel with scattered thickets
of willow on vast expanses of open sand,
so hot in the afternoon sun that it is hard
to walk barefoot.
That we cannot see the main channel from here
makes our camp feel secluded, somehow wilder
than our wide-open tenting grounds
of the last few days.
On the wet mud flats that abut the sandbar
on the shore side,
trails of sandhill crane tracks,
each footprint shaped like the letter T,
form intricate patterns of line and curves,
and loops, frequently punctuated
by dried droppings.
As it turns out, we are indeed camped
at the confluence, or perhaps more accurately,
at one of several points where Blue Mounds Creek
drains into the Wisconsin.
By studying the shoreline, Bob concludes,
that one branch of Blue Mounds Creek
flows into Wisconsin, under a tangle
of undergrowth that is just across
the back channel from our camp.
To confirm this, we paddle across
the narrow channel, and step out of the canoe
into the water.
It is clear and icy.
We have discovered Blue Mounds Creek.
Back in camp, we bathed in the Wisconsin,
lying full length on our backs
on the sandy bottom of the shallows.
My hair floats on the surface, Medusa-like,
I had longer hair then,
as I slowly cool off and relax.
Later we dine on oranges, bananas, gouda cheese
and Wasabrod and toast our arrival
at the confluence with cups of ice water
from the bottom of the cooler
and the last of the Oreos.
(audience laughing)
Bob suggests that when we get back to the Madison
in two days, that we spend the night at
at the Edgewater Hotel on Lake Mendota.(laughs)
(audience laughs)
"We can paddle right up to the dock," he says.(laughs)
I agree, delighted with his somewhat outrageous
idea of staying at a posh hotel on a canoe trip.
Two sandhill cranes cross the mouth of the creek
pausing to look our way,
a few quick running steps and their launched.
They depart over the trees,
bodies glowing softly golden
in the evening light, long wings silhouetted
against the sky, and that distinctive
wingbeat tempo, slow on the downstroke, quick up,
then another long, slow roll and quick snap,
and then they're gone.
Sun drops behind the bluffs and the world
slowly cools.
I listen to the distant cranes call to each other
intermittently through the evening,
not thinking of anything in particular.
Then out of the blue, I recall our long -ago
abandoned portage wheels and feel
a mild sense of dread.
(audience laughing)
It was justified.
(Lynne and audience laugh)
We made it only two miles up Blue Mounds Creek
before turning around and back tracking
to the Wisconsin.
The water was too low.
Too many deadfalls cross the narrow stream.
Too many sick blankets, they were this thick,
of filamentous algae blocked our passage.
We became crabby paddlers.
The portage wheels were back in that trash can
in Alma, or we could have portaged
the three miles from the Arena landing
to where the Black Earth is relatively open.
But with no wheels we sure weren't
going to be able to do the ten mile portage
from Cross Plains to Middleton as we had planned.
Luckily, we were voyagers with cellphones.
Our son Matt, this is a different son,
drove to the Arena landing,
and gave his crabby parents a ride
to Lake Mendota in Middleton.
(audience laughing)
It was a role reversal.
(audience laughing)
This is Black Earth Creek,
beloved of trout fisherman.
It runs through agricultural land
and thus has it's share of obstacles
for the paddler.
Fenced in cattle crossing, low bridges,
and deadfalls abound.
But the good news is, it's the only dam
that impounded the creek for 150 years,
to create Lake Marion was recently removed.
And a mile of stream bed, banks, and floodplain
restored to their former contours.
Floodplain restoration is going on all over
the Driftless.
Mile by mile, stream banks are being reshaped
into their natural contours.
On the east branch of the Pecatonica,
timber cooly, Sees Branch, the north fork
of the bed acts warm and cooly,
with thousands of stream miles in the Driftless,
it's slow but important work,
the best hope for Driftless streams.
Just to show you in contrast,
if you look at this one,
see how the floodplain goes level with the water.
And here we have the banks,
sediment from agricultural fields upstream
is deposited as steep, highly erodible banks
in the canon river bottoms,
eliminating the floodplain.
And so, instead of spreading into the floodplain,
when the water rises,
the water rips off more and more soil
and carries it down to the Gulf of Mexico.
Home again!
Alright, leaving Black Earth Creek,
we left the Driftless.
The lakes of Madison strung together
by the Yahara River lie just over
the Johnstown moraine
into the glaciated landscape,
the land that isn't the Driftless.
Almost home.
Ok, glacial lake, Yahara.
When the last glacier moved in,
it covered the land that is now Madison
in the Yahara River valley
with ice more than 1,000 feet deep.
Imagine that. We'd be under it.
As the ice melted off the land
where the lakes of Madison now lie,
glacial lake, Yahara took its place,
draining first of the southwest and west
through the Sugar River and Black Earth Creek.
Glacial lake Yahara shrank until it filled
only a basin bounded by the moraine
that now divides the Yahara River
and Black Earth water sheds to the west,
and by the retreating glacier to the northeast.
The lake then found a new outlet to the south,
through the glacial debris covering
what is now the River Valley.
As the water moved downstream,
and the lake level dropped,
a chain of smaller river linked lakes appeared,
the Yahara lakes.
So this is a place that has been formed
in large part by the glacier, I mean,
it was the Paleozoic Plateau,
but that's long gone.
Our last day on the water,
deeply familiar lakes and river,
we landed the canoe
at Stoughton's Division Street Park,
and walked up the hill to our home.
(chattering)
I have just one last paragraph to read.
And...
This is kind of a retrospective on it.
"Sifting through the many mental images
"I gathered over the past 12 days,
"I'm surprised by some that linger vividly
"in my mind's eye.
"The long, low line of a lock and dam ahead,
"slowly coming into focus as we close the distance.
"The flash of a goldfinch in a riverside willow thicket.
"The bleakness of a bermed, and rock-clad river bank.
"The startling beauty of a white steeple rising
"from the greenrey of a Mississippi River town.
"The intimidating stoney hulk of burned bluff,
"Frontenac and Wyalusing,
"Our first glimpse of each secretive
"wooded confluence, the wild overwhelming
"tumult that is a train roaring down the River Valley.
"There are about ten of them a day.
"The ominous power of a barge tow.
"I recall with lasting fineness the riffles of the canon,
"the flight of the Pelicans,
"the grand movie that is the Mississippi River
"Valley Bluffs, and the golden soft sand of the Wisconsin.
"In the end I realized that I felt, rather than observed.
"The sudden absence of the Driftless
"following our departure from that compellingly
"rugged landscape,
"a passage we had so many times over the years,
"but which I had never experienced with such clarity,
"and such a powerful sense of connection."
And, thank you very much for being here.
(audience applause)