Yakkin' the Royal River

Here we are kayaking on the Royal River in Yarmouth, Maine in late May. We've paddled this river several times, but always put-in at Dunns Corner off Rt. 9. From that launch we've either paddled downstream to the Royal River Park launch (where we've left a shuttle vehicle) or paddled upstream and just turned around when we were ready to head back.

This river has two distinct "paddling points" for me; it has an incredible amount of wildlife and it has the muddiest water ever..LOL. I'm not an ecologist here, but I assume the water's color comes from the tremendous amounts of clay that is everywhere. From the launch upstream, we went to the falls about 3 miles north. We encountered one class II rapid (under the bridge at Rt. 231) and could have portaged at the falls, but chose to eat lunch and meander back from there. It was difficult to judge the depthof the river, but I didn't hang up on any sandbars. The trip from the launch downstream, however, is very deep. We stuck our paddles in several times and almost never hit bottom. When we first launched the sounds of the birds struck me. Red-winged blackbirds, kingfishers, pheobes, chickadees and jays all singing at the top of their lungs and flitting back and forth across the water. Not a few hundred yards up stream, we scared up a ground hog and his fear had him clawing his way up a tree! I have NEVER seen that before. We also passed a pair of Canada geese trying to hide in the brush up the bank aways, only to see them again on the return trip taking the kids out for a swim. They let us get fairly close before they circled the goslings and scooted them away to safety. We saw numerous evidence of beavers and muskrats with their tracks dug into the clay covered banks. This is a great spot for a long, leisurely paddle. The downstream trip was approx. 6 miles and took us about 3 hours or so. We passed some gorgeous riverbends with wonderful old trees draping over the water. One particularly nice spot was passing a farm high on a hill with two bathtubs sitting down aways in a field (conjure up a familiar commercial??) looking over the river. It was very quiet only being punctuated by the hoots 'n hollers from boys jumping off tree ladders or rope swings. The river was a bit cold for my taste, but there were about a dozen guys poised to test it at one of the big iron train bridges on the last mile or so of the trip. We cruised precariously under the bridge, hoping they wouldn't try and swamp us (as has happened to us before). We then turned in the middle of the river to look back and cheer them on. They each jumped off and did some crazy "Ryan Sheckler" moves, while we applauded and urged on the hesitators. Our downstream trip ended at the boat launch behind the water works building across the street from the Royal River Park. This is the end of the line anyway, as there are falls and a damn just downstream. While taking-out and loading, we met a "county boy" (and Aroostook County native) who paddles a kevlar canoe up and down this river for fitness, a canoeing family with their 1-yr. old son and a older couple taking their kayaks out for a first trip. This is a river we will paddle often 'cause it's just so darn fun!