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The Strange Things You See on the River

TXRiverRunner

TXRiverRunner

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I've been capturing videos of some of the odd things you see sometimes on river trips. Here are a couple of them. I'm curious, what are some of the strange things yall have seen. Did you take a picture or video?

 
One Sunday morning we were camped on the Willamette River in Oregon on a canoe trip. It is a large river in a forest. We heard a loud engine coming up the river. Lo and behold it was a small airplane on floats going about 50 mph.
 
ppine said:
One Sunday morning we were camped on the Willamette River in Oregon on a canoe trip. It is a large river in a forest. We heard a loud engine coming up the river. Lo and behold it was a small airplane on floats going about 50 mph.
Click to expand...
I once saw guys moving a house boat on the Neches River (East Texas). They had 3 john boats. One was pushing and 1 on each side that they used to steer. A guy would run across the porch between the 2 side boats to throttle up or down for steering.
 
TXRiverRunner said:
I've been capturing videos of some of the odd things you see sometimes on river trips. Here are a couple of them. I'm curious, what are some of the strange things yall have seen. Did you take a picture or video?

Click to expand...
The odd thing about what appears to be a bridge base is that there was not a matching base on the other side of the river and there does not appear that there was ever a road. But I have no idea what else it would be.
 
4 good ol' boys fishing in a small Jon boat which had 2-4" of freeboard. But that wasn't the strange part. What was that silverish, foot high, stick thing floating nearby? Upon closer inspection, it was a tap, and it was attached to a keg, which was floating in a mostly submerged trash can of ice. "Is that a keg?" A southern-accented voice answered, "sure is. Come on over if and help yourself." I was at the end of a long, 90-degree day paddling with my kid. At that moment, their Budweiser draft tasted better than any craft beer.

A keg and tap aren't really strange, but floating in the river, it was strange and wonderful.
 
Naked women. sunbathing on large rocks along the Gunpowder River. Not really strange, but unusual.

Speaking of naked, my friends encountered the "Paddling Bares," a nudist canoe group, in the Pine Barrens. They said it wasn't pretty.
 
Chip said:
4 good ol' boys fishing in a small Jon boat which had 2-4" of freeboard. But that wasn't the strange part. What was that silverish, foot high, stick thing floating nearby? Upon closer inspection, it was a tap, and it was attached to a keg, which was floating in a mostly submerged trash can of ice. "Is that a keg?" A southern-accented voice answered, "sure is. Come on over if and help yourself." I was at the end of a long, 90-degree day paddling with my kid. At that moment, their Budweiser draft tasted better than any craft beer.

A keg and tap aren't really strange, but floating in the river, it was strange and wonderful.
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I've definitely run into some interesting good ol' boys on the Neches in deep east Texas. One of them spent time in the slammer for meth, but we still see him from time to time. Gerdine Watson's book, Reflections on the Neches is filled with crazy stories of the people that lived on the river at the time the National Parks Service made much of it into a National Preserve. https://amzn.to/4dTGTBL
 
TXRiverRunner said:
Great suggestion! You can barely make out the other base. You have to zoom out a ways to see that there was something there. I believe this was an old railroad track.
Click to expand...


Funny what you can see with those pictures.

An old timer was telling me about the rail line that used to run through a portion of my land and where it went from there. I knew that it crossed my land and that there were empty bridge abutments nearby on the river but I'd never seen any sign of the track farther south where he described despite driving down that highway about 10,000 times.

I looked up the aerial photos and I'll be darned if I couldn't follow that old track across my land, across the river, and continuing south through pastures, across the highway, through a field, and along the wooded hillside.

Alan
 
Alan Gage said:
Funny what you can see with those pictures.

An old timer was telling me about the rail line that used to run through a portion of my land and where it went from there. I knew that it crossed my land and that there were empty bridge abutments nearby on the river but I'd never seen any sign of the track farther south where he described despite driving down that highway about 10,000 times.

I looked up the aerial photos and I'll be darned if I couldn't follow that old track across my land, across the river, and continuing south through pastures, across the highway, through a field, and along the wooded hillside.

Alan
Click to expand...
Yea, I don't know why I didn't think of doing that. The pictures I took show the exact location, so it was easy to find. You can't tell much up close, but when you zoom out it is definitely there. I wish I could find some old pictures or something of when it was used. Pretty neat to step back in time like that.
 
TXRiverRunner said:
Yea, I don't know why I didn't think of doing that. The pictures I took show the exact location, so it was easy to find. You can't tell much up close, but when you zoom out it is definitely there. I wish I could find some old pictures or something of when it was used. Pretty neat to step back in time like that.
Click to expand...

I don't remember if it's the .gov site or maybe the DNR or some other such state website but there is an Iowa site that has a catalog of aerial photos that goes back to the 20's or 30's.

It's fun to look at. What I usually find most surprising is how little has changed in the last 100 years. Much if the infrastructure was already in place 100 years ago and quite a few things had already come and gone.

Alan
 
Can't really capture a photo, but more than once during the Yukon River races, when paddling through "nighttime hours" (it never really gets too dark to see), there are strange sights to see, partially due to human psychology, partly due to Hallucinogens due to being awake, dehydrated, and paddling for 24+ hours straight.

There are two types of river bank images commonly seen by the overtired paddler. On eroded clifside talus slopes, I (and others) often will see or imagine figures of people, with shapes commonly seen as grizzled heads of woodsmen, or voyageurs of old, including bearded rough faced men with knit toque caps. There is one rock and talus formation that every time I have been by, it is the exact full head formation representing a buffalo, with horns lowered toward us.

In other areas with steep basalt rock vertical cliffs, anywhere that there are two nearby side by side dark spots in the rock with one or more spots below, then a face with eyes, nose, and mouth appears to be staring back at you. Particularly just downriver and on the eastern shore below Fort Selkirk, there is a several mile long section of such a prominent cliff with numerous cartoonish like characters watching you paddle by. One time I saw a full profile image of Albert Einstein, compete with wearing a rumpled suit and wing tip shoes. I call that rocky segment “Faces of the Yukon”. I dream that I would someday like to paddle by with camera and capture those that are capturable when I am well rested while drifting by at other than race speed. In another wishful case, where subsurface colliding river currents often cause upward boils of water breaking the surface, one of my paddling partners swears she saw “plates of breakfast food appear to becoming up at her.

I know that my race team and I are not the only Yukon paddlers to experience these strange mind effects. I discovered a local Dawson artist, (Nathalie Parenteau) who has captured her same experiences on canvasYukon faces1.jpegYukon faces2.jpeg.


Robert Service may have also experienced the "spell of the Yukon" in his own way:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

From "The Creamation of Sam McGee"
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
 
Last edited:
yknpdlr said:
Can't really capture a photo, but more than once during the Yukon River races, when paddling through "nighttime hours" (it never really gets too dark to see), there are strange sights to see, partially due to human psychology, partly due to Hallucinogens due to being awake, dehydrated, and paddling for 24+ hours straight.

There are two types of river bank images commonly seen by the overtired paddler. On eroded clifside talus slopes, I (and others) often will see or imagine figures of people, with shapes commonly seen as grizzled heads of woodsmen, or voyageurs of old, including bearded rough faced men with knit toque caps. There is one rock and talus formation that every time I have been by, it is the exact full head formation representing a buffalo, with horns lowered toward us.

In other areas with steep basalt rock vertical cliffs, anywhere that there are two nearby side by side dark spots in the rock with one or more spots below, then a face with eyes, nose, and mouth appears to be staring back at you. Particularly just downriver and on the eastern shore below Fort Selkirk, there is a several mile long section of such a prominent cliff with numerous cartoonish like characters watching you paddle by. One time I saw a full profile image of Albert Einstein, compete with wearing a rumpled suit and wing tip shoes. I call that rocky segment “Faces of the Yukon”. I dream that I would someday like to paddle by with camera and capture those that are capturable when I am well rested while drifting by at other than race speed. In another wishful case, where subsurface colliding river currents often cause upward boils of water breaking the surface, one of my paddling partners swears she saw “plates of breakfast food appear to becoming up at her.

I know that my race team and I are not the only Yukon paddlers to experience these strange mind effects. I discovered a local Dawson artist, (Nathalie Parenteau) who has captured her same experiences on canvasView attachment 141242View attachment 141243.


Robert Service may have also experienced the "spell of the Yukon" in his own way:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

From "The Creamation of Sam McGee"
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
Click to expand...
I have heard similar stories of people who paddle the Texas Water Safari. That and paddlers becoming so delirious that they end up in trees cluckling like chickens. I've not witnessed in myself though.
 
clemency said:
Just as a psa regarding now-gone landscape features, this website allows free access to historic topographic maps and aerial imagery. There are better websites, but this one is the most accessible.

Historic Aerials: Viewer

www.historicaerials.com www.historicaerials.com
Click to expand...
Very interesting. The oldest picture of that site is 1958. The bridge was already gone, but the road/track is easier to see.
 
The strangest and a bit scary thing I ever encountered was on a local river many years ago. The local river is about 1/2 mile from my house. Occasionally I have my wife shuttle me about 10 miles upstream and I paddle back to a park not far from my house. Most this section flows through farm land and by occasional rural houses but gives you a nice secluded feel.

On the trip I am recalling I had just started down the river and was not too far from where I launched. I start hearing multiple weapons firing almost continuously. As I got closer it seemed I was entering someone’s firing range. I shouted out “COMING THROUGH ON THE RIVER.” The firing stopped and a couple appeared on the river carrying semi-automatic (I assume) weapons. I thanked them for ceasing fire and they responded in an unfriendly way that I shouldn’t be coming through there. I picked up my pace got going as fast as I could.

Later I talked to a neighbor who was a police sergeant for the township this incident occurred in. He asked if they overtly threatened me, which they had not. He told me the police were aware of these guys and that I should definitely stay away.
 
jdeerfoot said:
The strangest and a bit scary thing I ever encountered was on a local river many years ago. The local river is about 1/2 mile from my house. Occasionally I have my wife shuttle me about 10 miles upstream and I paddle back to a park not far from my house. Most this section flows through farm land and by occasional rural houses but gives you a nice secluded feel.

On the trip I am recalling I had just started down the river and was not too far from where I launched. I start hearing multiple weapons firing almost continuously. As I got closer it seemed I was entering someone’s firing range. I shouted out “COMING THROUGH ON THE RIVER.” The firing stopped and a couple appeared on the river carrying semi-automatic (I assume) weapons. I thanked them for ceasing fire and they responded in an unfriendly way that I shouldn’t be coming through there. I picked up my pace got going as fast as I could.

Later I talked to a neighbor who was a police sergeant for the township this incident occurred in. He asked if they overtly threatened me, which they had not. He told me the police were aware of these guys and that I should definitely stay away.
Click to expand...
Yea, that would have me paddling as fast as hearing the sound of banjos. I've heard gun shots plenty of times and have even fire off a few rounds myself, but paddling into a firing squad wouldn't be entertaining.
 
yknpdlr said:
Can't really capture a photo, but more than once during the Yukon River races, when paddling through "nighttime hours" (it never really gets too dark to see), there are strange sights to see, partially due to human psychology, partly due to Hallucinogens due to being awake, dehydrated, and paddling for 24+ hours straight.

There are two types of river bank images commonly seen by the overtired paddler. On eroded clifside talus slopes, I (and others) often will see or imagine figures of people, with shapes commonly seen as grizzled heads of woodsmen, or voyageurs of old, including bearded rough faced men with knit toque caps. There is one rock and talus formation that every time I have been by, it is the exact full head formation representing a buffalo, with horns lowered toward us.

In other areas with steep basalt rock vertical cliffs, anywhere that there are two nearby side by side dark spots in the rock with one or more spots below, then a face with eyes, nose, and mouth appears to be staring back at you. Particularly just downriver and on the eastern shore below Fort Selkirk, there is a several mile long section of such a prominent cliff with numerous cartoonish like characters watching you paddle by. One time I saw a full profile image of Albert Einstein, compete with wearing a rumpled suit and wing tip shoes. I call that rocky segment “Faces of the Yukon”. I dream that I would someday like to paddle by with camera and capture those that are capturable when I am well rested while drifting by at other than race speed. In another wishful case, where subsurface colliding river currents often cause upward boils of water breaking the surface, one of my paddling partners swears she saw “plates of breakfast food appear to becoming up at her.

I know that my race team and I are not the only Yukon paddlers to experience these strange mind effects. I discovered a local Dawson artist, (Nathalie Parenteau) who has captured her same experiences on canvasView attachment 141242View attachment 141243.


Robert Service may have also experienced the "spell of the Yukon" in his own way:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

From "The Creamation of Sam McGee"
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
Click to expand...
Yknpdlr, do you have those paintings?
 
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