By Driftwood Johnnie Ruskey

Congrats to Atchafalya Basinkeeper Dean Wilson who was awarded the 2011 River Heroes Award. For full story CLICK HERE.

 

After the Flood

We’re still drying out here, but seeing the lull at the end of the crest.  Of course, who knows what’s coming behind this wave — Was this the highest wave?  Or is this just the beginning of a long train of waves?  Surfers say big waves come in series of seven, the seventh being the biggest & the strongest. There is a lot of evidence that we’ll be seeing more flooding in association with global warming.  Utram Bibis? Aquam an Undum?  (Which do you drink, the Water or the Wave?)

 

As we emerge from the muddy waters and shake off like a wet dog in the sun, several thousand miles upstream in Montana a similar flood scene is replaying itself across the great valleys of the Upper Missouri and the Yellowstone, the Rockies bulging with up to 2000% of their normal snowpack. See attached report from the Missouri.  We’ll see all this water in another month or so of course, but our huge valley will absorb it, and unless the Ohio is rising simultaneously, we won’t feel much effect.

Last week the river dropped below flood stage (44 in Helena) and the big sandbar islands started demonstrating their resilience in the face of the highest water on the biggest river in North America.

One by one the islands and the highest bluffs of sand have been re-emerging, its kind of like Christmas time around here for us river-rats, its like opening Christmas presents each time an island reappears after having been underwater for over a month and subjected to the power of the biggest river in North America.

When the wind shifted to a steady northerly breeze, I couldn’t stand it any longer, I closed shop, loaded a canoe and my good friend Brother E drove me out to the river — a perfect day for a long run downstream.  I made a thirty mile canoe run and saw an amazing variety of creation — and destruction.

The bad news: a lot of man-made property is gone or severely compromised.  Notably  are the places where once-productive fields have been scoured clean, all of that rich topsoil the Mississippi Delta is famous for swept away and are now probably blown out over the Gulf of Mexico somewhere between the Chandeleur Islands and the Texas Coastline.  You can clearly see how farm nutrients will be leading directly to an algal bloom in the annual Dead Zone.

The good news: the trees are re-leafing and re-flowering and the animals are continuing their life cycles. The willows have an amazing vitality, the cottonwoods following suit — I was surprised to see them setting forth their annual snowstorm of cotton fluff.  There is nothing like the feeling of paddling through a flooded forest shafts of humid sunlight slicing diagonally across the tree trunks and flurries of cottonwood fluff drifting softly in the gentle breeze.  The oaks, sycamores, hackberries and underbrush are slower than their willow & cottonwood friends, but they are displaying the promise of fresh life vibrating under the coat of mud and browned, bruised & blackened branches — with tiny green buds and slowly emerging tender pieces of green leaf.

The first life I found on Island 64 was a beautiful luminescent Green Snake climbing a cottonwood.  Turtle tracks everywhere.  It looks like turtles have made a quick & full recovery.  Later I discovered and then captured a Mississippi Map Turtle.  After documenting his presence with a photograph, I let him return to his suntan session on a newly emerged pristine bluff of yellow-white sand.  Other tracks I discovered: White Tailed Deer, Raccoon and of course lots of birds.  I scared away two Canada Geese, maybe they are nesting here somewhere.  Definitely missing was any sign of wild pigs, coyote and beaver.  I take that back, I saw evidence of one beaver in an area of flooded woods with some beaver-chewed trees.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes each member of the various animal families to return to the islands which they must enjoy as much as we do.  More then enjoy: many of these animals depend on Mississippi River Islands for their survival.  Particularly the Least Tern.  Watch out for tern nests if you are on any river islands in the next two months, they nest in the middle of the sandbars and their eggs are difficult to see, especially in the mid-day sun.

Precaution to anyone who plans to explore Mississippi River Islands: I did find a lot of unsettled sand, ie: quicksand, surely there will be a lot of places where sand & mud are piled higher than they have been in a long time and they will require a lot of time to settle back down and solidify.  Also, there has been a hatch of some kind of biting gnat or black fly, its the worst bugs I’ve ever experienced on the Mississippi, it reminds me of the tundra, swarms of flies that will follow you across the water and into the full sun of the sandbar.

What were the river conditions like?  Even at this somewhat lower level the river is still exploding with all of its famous fury at predictable places, like the strong currents pushing outwards around the edges of all the wing dams, and the powerful eddies found around the outside of tight bends and along the break points in various revetments.

–Driftwood Johnnie

Note: if you have emailed me in the past 2 weeks and haven’t heard back from me, please send another email, I recently lost all incoming emails.  Thanks!

 

Driftwood Johnnie (aka John Ruskey, owner and operator of Quapaw Canoe Company, is a regular contributor to The Delta Bohemian. John’s columns are found under our Guest Bohemian page. Take a trip with Ruskey; you’ll be glad you did.

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