by Mr. Clark, aka Big Muddy Mike

The recently exposed wreck of what is believed to be the Victor, a late 19th century steamboat, beckoned us to investigate.  We did so after a frigid morning packing camp.  We were situated on a sand bar at the bottom end of Big Island, directly across from Montgomery Island, and on the Mississippi River chute known today as the Old White River Channel, but at the time of the Victor’s demise, it was Sibley Chute.  The massive and powerful flooding of the Mississippi River in 2011 carved away the muddy bank along Big Island in a way to expose the decaying hull of the Victor.  The Victor was a turn of the century steam powered tow boat, and like countless other 1800’s river boats, became a wreck and was silted over in the many years since.  It was said to have been wrecked while trying to unleash a set of lumber barges that had run aground or were fleeted just above the chute.  It has been there since 1907 and investigating its remains was, for canoe builders, a fascinating study in boat archaeology.  The oak planking of the hull is held together with forged nails, old timey nails, thick, as big or bigger than my fingers, and without the exact uniformity of modern nails.  We collected a few to send to the Arkansas Archaeological Society for their archives and study.

We pushed off heading down to the mouth of the chute and the Mississippi River.  Along the way we continued to see the amazing bird life of this area.  A large eagle’s nest with a mature American Bald Eagle perched inside appeared at the mouth of the chute and the Great River.  Our lunch stop gave us one last chance to explore the forest and we found another river otter fishing and a flock of small songbirds busy hunting, again demonstrating that Big Island is teaming with avian life, even at its bottom end where there are many more signs of human impact.

Entering the Mississippi River brought us out of the wilderness and back to the reality of humanity.  Tow boats pushing up to 15 barges were at work, moving upstream and down with their variations of cargo.  The Mississippi River is very wide here, almost three times as wide as it is around St. Louis.  We used the gift of a swift current and a tail wind, one of the only winds in our favor this entire trip, to help propel us towards the mouth of the Rosedale Harbor, where this expedition began.  John composed and sang a verse to commemorate the journey, sung to the tune of a song, “May the Circle be unbroken….”   We took three water quality tests along the way, at the mouth of the Old White River Chute, in the middle of the Mississippi Channel just above the harbor, and finally, in the harbor itself, just before landing at the ramp where this journey began.  We hurriedly packed the canoes onto the canoe trailer, and began what is always for us, the most dangerous part of any river trip, the drive home.  And we made it in time to get our great KIPP student explorers connected to their ride back to Helena and preparations for a school day tomorrow.  A school day that will be a most interesting one I am sure as they try to understand what they have learned in the best classroom of all, Nature.

Tonight, we are all preparing for our first showers in two weeks, and a well deserved sleep indoors, on beds, with furnace heat to keep us warm.  Reentry to life as we normally know it is bitter sweet.  The routine of expedition becomes so ingrained that it is very hard to concentrate when the abrupt change over is taking place.  And so, this is a salutation to Big Island from our team.  Big Island you have blessed us with many gifts, gifts of life, natural beauty and you have challenged us too.  We return to our homes and schools and work with a great perspective, a renewed sense of hope based upon the evidence that wild places are still here in America and are worthy of protection, and yes, a great archive of information.  We hope to do you proud by sharing it well.

We will be working for the next two weeks to tie this whole thing together with our virtual explorers by adding their research projects to the site, and we will be editing the updates from the expedition by adding links as references, many photos to help express the details missing in the text, and to correct any factual errors that we find. And each team member will have the chance to reflect and write about the journey from a perspective that is based upon the memories of a most excellent adventure learning project.

by Mr. Clark, aka Big Muddy Mike

It is a crystal clear, just past full moon lit night, our first this week.  We broke Explorer’s Camp this morning and headed downstream on the final four miles of the White River towards its confluence with the Mighty Mississippi River.  En route, John pointed towards an opening in the high bank, leading into the White River National Refuge.  It was a beautiful bayou with running water moving through an amazing “canyon” of old growth Cypress trees, some of which are easily five to six hundred years old.  Their diameter being over six feet.  The “knees”, or root systems of these great grand daddy trees extended into the water, creating a mosaic of intertwined wooden beauty.

We stopped and climbed up the steep bank using the knees as a ladder.  The forest revealed more old growth trees, oaks of gigantic proportions, and it dawned on me that we were in one of the few places in America where trees of such age exist.  For three centuries, settlers, steamboats and the lumber industry have been busy like beavers, finding, cutting and selling this enormously valuable wood stock.  But here in the Refuge, these awesome trees are protected from man’s saws.

As part of the learning adventure for our KIPP student explorers, I asked Tristan if he wanted to be the stern paddler of our heavily laden 22 foot canoe.  He is a newcomer to paddling, and yet he jumped at the chance.  I was impressed.  With a few simple instructions on steering, he took command.  Our initial path downstream became a zig zagging tour of the channel.  The teacher in me wanted to give more instructions, but this is one activity that simply requires experiential learning.  Too much instruction, advice makes for confusion, over correction and in the end frustration.  Tristan got the hang of it by the time we turned the corner at the confluence.  I became aware of what a breakthrough of self-confidence can do for the learning curve. And what a great reminder of what good teaching should be.

Our journey, another great circle, following great rivers, connected together to form a Big Island, has one day remaining.  We have collected water, tested it and even drank from it, the ultimate test of quality.  John and I love our coffee which is brewed in “river rat” style, no filter, dark roasted, robust ground beans, brewed over a campfire in the wee hours of the morning, as we write our rough hewn, unedited expedition journals and updates.  We have used water from the river and are happy to report that our intestinal systems are still working well, that is if you discount the effects of Wolfie’s fire brand chili which has produced enough gas to fuel a tow boat.  We are living proof of what the great writer T.S. Eliot said (paraphrased), “The oceans are all around us, but the River is within us.”

The “Virtual Zoo” project that our students at home have engaged in has been a main focus of this expedition, and our exploration and creature count of Big Island and the White River National Refuge has been difficult.  Not difficult in the sense that we are unable to find critters.  Rather, just the opposite.  There are so many birds that we have been only able to approximate their numbers.  Mammals have been a bit easier to count, but it is the late winter here, and the stormy weather has kept them hunkered down just as we have had to.  Still, today we observed a flock of turkeys, a herd of white tail deer, dozens of wood ducks, hundreds of mallards and other duck species, a marsh hawk, red tailed hawk, a flock of turkey vultures and we heard a pair of great horned owls serenading each other from opposite sides of the river.  Thousands of song birds, of varying varieties have been singing their happy songs in the reappearance of sunshine, and the egrets and great blue herons remain a constant companion on the banks as they fish, then fly as we approach.  Our favorite sighting was a river otter, swimming and diving in an eddy pool just below the Confluence where we turned into a back channel of the Mississippi, which was at one time the Old White River, now disconnected as so many chutes and oxbows are by the timeless change that Old Man River has wrought.

It is cold tonight, the coldest of the trip.  Water in our dish pan is freezing solid.  We are all spending our last minutes awake watching TV, that is, staring at the sky and the heavenly bodies which have been the source of curiosity for thousands of years.  Each of us is taking turns identifying constellations and star groups.  But this won’t last long.  We are tired from ten days on expedition and hard core paddling.  Tomorrow, we will explore the bottom of Big Island and follow the instructions of our virtual exploring students who have sent us “field guides” to follow and find their virtual zoo critters.

by Mark “River” Peoples

We leave our White River camp and immediately cross the channel to explore an old cypress forest. We enter the slough of swift water pouring out of a inland lake through a beautiful cypress forest. The delta used to be full of cypress trees until agriculture became the life of the delta. The trees anchor the river banks looking like a maze of exposed root balls.  I look around and I see cottonwoods, oaks, and sycamores laid across the forest not having the strong root system needed to handle land saturated by water. I didn’t see one cypress tree fallen.

I think about the Mississippi River and all the work the  Corps of Engineers do to stop the erosion of the shoreline.

Why don’t they reintroduce the cypress trees?

The anchoring exposed roots of the cypress tree remind me of a mango forest or a freshwater coral. Natural filtering systems in nature.

As we leave “Cypress Canyon” we spot small waterfalls descending from small limestone deposits along the shoreline, when a commercial fishing boat approaches us.

“Where are you guys going?”

I reply, “We are circumnavigating the Big Island.”

I added, “It’s taken us 10 days.”

“Wow, you guys are serious!”

We continued on knowing our next stop is the confluence.  It never fails.  As we approach the Mississippi River, the sun seemed to come out and the river widens in order to welcome us with a big hug. I’m beaming inside as I have missed the big beautiful sandbars and islands. My muscles seemed fresh. I feel as if we are on our first day.

We stop at a favorite camp spot between the White River and the Old White River channel for lunch. We noticed that the beavers in the area have noticeably thinned many of the cottonwoods we use for comfort and shade in the summer.  A river otter curiously swam by checking us out while continuing its day of fishing.

We set out after lunch to find a good campsite on the old channel. We pass by an old hunting cabin which always catches my eye because it looks as if it’s occupied, but I never see anyone. We continue on to camp. We plan to camp by an old steamboat, The Victor, that sank in the early 1900′s. This will be our last night of the expedition.

We spend our night looking at constellations of stars on one of our only clear nights. Mother Nature saved the best night for last.

by Mr. Clark, aka Big Muddy Mike

Two full days without sunshine and a long night of storm and heavy rainfall, and yet there are good spirits here at Exploration Camp.  Oscar and Tristan, our KIPP student explorers, are real nubians to expedition routine.  Unsure of what to do, seemingly content to sit the fire, and like most kids, tethered to an electronic device, John asked them to stow away the phone with the game apps for the duration of the trip.  He gave them a list of chores and activities to do to fill their day and learn from their elders, we who have the know how and experience of paddling, camping and exploring.

We are here to explore this habitat, created by and sustained by the waters that flow, rising and falling, naturally connected to the seasons and yet affected by the whims of weather and in this age, the human control of locks and dams.  But here, it is the natural that predominates.  And it is in the sloughs and bayous which reach into the interior of the forest that we notice the natural effect the most.

Habitat is the descriptive work for a consistent environment where all of the living species make use of and survive because they find and have adapted to the conditions most suitable for reproduction, growth and sustainability.  The beauty of this place is that there are far more natural conditions than those affected directly by human impact.

The mammals, birds, reptiles and insects that we are observing and which we are attempting to count have routines based upon seasonal consistency.  Right now, we believe that here in the deep South, the birthing and hatching process is well under way.  As I lay in my tent, I can hear the cries of new born coyote pups, most likely confined to the den, while mama is out hunting for their meals.  The black bears are holed up in the crevices of enormous downed cypress trunks, nursing their cubs, soon to emerge and begin the process of teaching and learning how to forage for food.  And the bull frogs and spring peepers are resounding in the back waters, beckoning for mates, to begin the cycle of life, from tadpole to adult.

Each of these species survive because of their innate connection to seasonal change and environmental consistency.  And as human impact affects the climate and thus seasonal patterns, I ask myself, will these species be able to adapt?  No matter the answer, what we do know for sure is that the young will only survive if they are cared for and pay attention and learn from their elders.

And with that said, we are happy to be a part of Oscar and Tristan’s naturalist education and the learning that is going on in our virtual classroom back home.

by Mark “River” Peoples

I wake with the sound of a tow boat pushing upstream on the White River headed towards lock number two. After yesterday’s 21 mile paddle I feel worn, but rewarded with a beautiful campsite overlooking the White River. I’m the last to rise as the Kipp-Delta students download pictures from the previous day and update their journals for the day. It’s monday, a school day, so we wanted to make sure they had a day of learning as if in school.

Everyone else is planing our day of documentation of water turbidity, PH levels, and dissolved oxygen test that we had been taking along the way. Wolfie and I pull a bag of chicken livers out of the cooler and plan to set a jug line to see if we could catch a catfish for dinner to go along with a Mighty Quapaw staple, Raft Potatoes.

I never really write much during the beginning, or in this case, the upstream part of expeditions. My body is usually in survival mode making sure I have the protein and electrolytes needed to complete the grueling upstream paddle full of man-made structures and wing-dikes- but today the words are pouring out of me and the images encountered along the way are coming to light and need to be released.

Last nights storm was just a few drops, but today after dinner, it is a drenching. We barely get our dinner prepared as the rains came down in a vengeance. A small river, created by the rain, runs through our camp as we eat. Everyone finishes quickly and retreat to their tents to sleep out the storm. It’s coming down in buckets so I adjust my tent to fight the relentless water, which has no sympathy for campers. I pray to the Creator to give us the benefit of the doubt and keep us dry until morning. He hears my call and the rain lets up.

I pick a dry spot in my tent to lay my head and call it a night.

When it comes to camping, Mother Nature always has her way.

Good Night. Mark River