Paddlers enjoying a trip down the Mississippi River often come across some unique and awe-inspiring sights on their journeys.
Last week, travelers on an expedition with crew members with the Quapaw Canoe Company were paddling down the Muddy Waters Wilderness section of the Lower Mississippi past Wood Cottage Right Bank Descending 617 when they spied a massive tree hung up on the muddy bank. Even from the middle of the navigation channel, the log appeared to be a big one.
“We could see an absurdly broad crenellated trunk, which erupted like a cylindrical volcanic plug from the monster of a root ball,” said John Ruskey, owner of Quapaw Canoe Company.
He said the root ball was maybe 15 feet in diameter, but once much broader, as the river had clipped and carved and then smoothed all the root ends. The tiled woody trunk was around 7 foot in diameter at the four-foot line (above ground level). The trunk was tiled in the way typical to sweetgum driftwood, Ruskey said.
“Every once in a while we come across giant logs like this one,” he said. “For us, it's like discovering fossil skeletons from the past, like finding the bony, mineralized remains of the mega fauna. They tell a story. They are a sober reminder of what we've lost.”
