Canoeing Local Waters Talk – Lyme

Vermont author, Alex Wilson, has co-authored four books for the Appalachian Mountain Club on “quiet water” canoeing and kayaking, including a guide to Southern New England (covering Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island), which recently came out in a 4th edition. The other books in this series cover New Hampshire-Vermont, Maine, and New York. In researching these books, starting around 1990, he has paddled many hundreds of lakes, ponds, estuaries, and quiet sections of rivers throughout the Northeast.

Unlike river guides, which by necessity focus on portages, white water safety, and routes with drop-off and put-in locations, these quiet-water guides focus on what paddlers will see on each body of water. Alex and his coauthor John Hayes are naturalists, and they focus on fauna, flora, and natural history of these places. Some entries also address historical events that occurred there, such as the King Phillips War in Rhode Island, and Thoreau’s explorations of the Concord River in Massachusetts and the Penobscot River in Maine. In selecting places to include in these guides, Alex and John sought less developed bodies of water, restrictions on motorized boating, and varied shorelines to explore—but they also tried to include locations close to major population centers, some of which are more developed.

Alex and Jerelyn will describe a few local paddling spots, including Whalebone Creek and Selden Neck, and also describe a few adventures they had in writing and updating these guides over more than three decades. Bring your questions!