Salmon River Paddle

Hi Blog.  Today is Monday, August 25, 2014. We arranged to rent a couple of kayaks and paddle the estuary area at the mouth of the Salmon River.

This area received its first white settlers in 1801, after New York’s Governor George Clinton purchased the land from the Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga tribes in 1788. Some believe Selkirk received its name in honor of Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island off Chile. Although Selkirk’s remarkable story of survival provided the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, it is more likely that the inspiration for naming the Town of Selkirk was the Scottish philanthropist Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, who purchased roughly 4,400 acres on the north side of the Salmon River in the late 1790s.

Early settlers were attracted by the bounteous annual runs of Lake Ontario Atlantic Salmon in the river at Selkirk, which led to naming the stream the Salmon River. Here are some of the historic cottages that were built on a small island in the river.

While inspecting the river in the early 1830s for the potential construction of piers, a government engineer determined that the river mouth had sufficient depth and breadth for anchoring some thirty ships and began planning Port Ontario. Congress appropriated $3,000 on March 3, 1837 for the lighthouse, and approximately 5,760 square feet of land was purchased from Sylvester and Daniel Brown on September 1, 1837 as a site for the structure. Here is the view of the Selkirk lighthouse as we paddled down from the Pine Grove boat launch toward the river's outlet into Lake Ontario.

We were sorely tempted to paddle right out into the middle of Lake Ontario, but the river was running very fast due to releases from the dams upstream.  While it would be easy to get out there, we might have trouble paddling back in against the river current.

So, we satisfied our curiosity as best we could, by getting as close to the inlet as possible. Here is the harbor light that sits at the end of the jetty.

We had a little company today.  Here, a family of ducks took flight as we approached.

We spent several hours working our way upstream, weaving in and out of the various islands.  We picked a particularly shady spot to pull in for lunch. Here's Dave relaxing on a branch of a huge tree whose roots established a solid beach and whose limbs reached far out into the water, giving us ample shade.

We couldn't have asked for better weather for our paddle.  The sun was out, the winds were calm and the water was almost still.  In places, the water was so still that the puffy clouds were mirrored with almost perfect precision:

Wait, I see two Kathys.

As we meandered back to the boat launch, we were able to spot some local residents also taking a break on a branch.  Here is a duck who eyed us suspiciously as we passed:

Hanging on branches seems to be the thing to do.  Here is another local taking a break.

We finished our paddle around 2:00 p.m. not realizing that this was prime time for the boat launch.  All the salmon fishing guides were bringing their customers back after a morning of fishing in Lake Ontario. The "unofficial" concensus is that the salmon have not started their run yet, but there are some in the river.  The fishing is hit or miss. We'll find out tomorrow, as we cast about upstream to see what we can catch.