Michael Powell

Writing Impressions

09/11/06

Our two trips on the Wolf River were very informative and challenging. The first trip that we went on was the ghost section of the Wolf River. This portion of the river was very slow with many obstacles. I was trying to identify the class’s species we were assigned, while also trying not to flip my canoe. My partner and I had the smallest canoe out of the entire class. This made the trip entertaining for the entire class, because we flipped over about twelve times. When our canoe was upright, I saw many interesting things. We found gyrinids that smelled like apples when shaken, we saw different species of trees, and we also found some clams (Corbicula). The actual ghost section of the river was very challenging because the cypress knees were hidden beneath the water just high enough so that when you run into them with your canoe, it flips. This section of the Wolf River was more peaceful than the other section that we canoed the next week. It was more of an undisturbed river, which allowed nature to do its known thing.

The second trip we took was on the same river, but this time the river was disturbed and looked completely different.  Working to conserve this portion of the river the Army Corps of Engineers has constructed weirs or artificial sections composed of thousands of rocks and boulders. This river was a faster flowing river and was actually more relaxing. I found it incredibly interesting how the river branched off into its own rivers, and how the original river changed paths over time. We were also informed that many of the tree trunks were actually thousand of years old. While canoeing this river, we passed two sewer drainage systems that smelled like chemicals rather than sewage. Larry says that “dilution is the solution to pollution”. We also saw many plants, insects, and animals. I found a rather large snake under a keg that had floated down the river until it got caught up in some debris. There were quite a few wood ducks in one particular section of the river also. This portion of the river seemed to have more of a history than that of the ghost section. This may be because Larry Smith has lived and been around this river for basically his entire life. I personally enjoyed both sections of the river, but I found the second trip to be more fun and interesting.