How Low Can it Go?

On days, in sections, low-water has brought barge traffic to a standstill and forced dredges to work around the clock to keep the River open for commerce. But the River is not too low for paddlers and anglers and waders and water birds. John Ruskey's Aug. 13 "Lower Mississippi River Dispatch" describes the River's majesty at low-water:

If anything it has become more majestic and more awesome -- if nothing else than for the visual effect of the mind-boggling unending landscape of the still very wide and deep big river running in between steep muddy banks and giant piles of rip-rap, and convoluted sections of revetment that have been rolled up as surely as they were originally unrolled. Now exposed wrecks of barges and steamboats glare darkly and menacingly, along with deep muddy cuts into backwater places and slot channels which disappear into overhanging forests.

...We are learning exactly what the bottom of the river looks like. And we don’t even need diving gear. Over one century ago James B. Eads walked the bottom of the river in a special diving bell he invented and learned it better than anyone before or since. But this year us river runners don’t need any life-support system. We simply make a canoe or kayak or SUP landing and start walking!

Read the fascinating "Dispatch" HERE.

For information about paddling the River with Quapaw Canoe Co., click HERE.