William R. Watt wrote:
: does anybody paddle where there are no vapour trails?

: I was born before there were any jet aircraft. I never used to see vapour
: trails. Now I see them everywhere I go. It just doesn't seem like
: wilderness when I look up and see vapour trails.

Well, here's my contribution (http://www.chicagopaddling.org);

No, it's not a fast-moving river, it's not even a natural stream, but the
Hennepin Canal offers something that most waterways in Illinois can't, quiet.
This canal runs across Illinois from Bureau, IL (where the Illinois River
turns south) to the Rock River (near Moline,IL). There is also a feeder canal
that offers 30+ miles of no portage travel between Rock Falls,IL and the
Hennepin Visitors center.

The Hennepin canal is slow moving brown water. The sections near the locks
have a little bit of current, farther away from the locks there is not really
any current at all. The water is covered with swirls of algae. Birds are
everywhere. Great Blue Herons are quite common. There are so many waterbugs
on the water, that it almost looks like rain as they dance from spot to spot,
searching for food on the water.

Portage at the locks is a bit tricky as they don't have sand or dirt beaches
and you have to guess where the tall grass ends and the water begins, but you
know real quick if you made a mistake.

The state maintains the canal at about 5 feet deep. Every once in a while
you'll see a small concrete structure near the edge of the canal. These are
siphons that drain off the water from the canal to keep it from overflowing.
Many creeks are in the area, and the water is siphoned off into them to help
keep the canal within its banks. Completed too late to become a major canal,
the canal was too shallow and too narrow for the larger barges that now
travel the Illinois River thanks to Chicago's Ship and Sanitary Canal. Unlike
the I&M Canal, this was never a sanitary canal!

Some sections of the canal are excavated, but most have levies on each side.
The ground is sometimes overgrown on the edges so that the edges are hard to
see (when biking with my scout group earlier this year, my son rode off the
edge, when the scout behind him saw him disappear, he tried to stop, but
ended up in a thorn bush at the bottom of the 6-8 foot drop, my son managed
to stay on his bike and rode back up the hill about 30 feet away).

In some places, the canal is close enough to I-80 to hear cars, but in most
places, all you hear is wind.

--
John Nelson
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chicago Area Paddling/Fishing Page
http://www.chicagopaddling.org http://www.chicagofishing.org
(A Non-Commercial Web Site: No Sponsors, No Paid Ads and Nothing to Sell)