September 8 Boardman cleanup, Forks to Scheck's
Lois Goldstein | Published on 9/8/2021
A couple of weeks ago, on Ron's trip, I noticed a few cans on the bottom of the river, and decided that we should plan one more cleanup there early this fall. I never did see those cans this time through that section, but we did locate 3 large bags of stuff as we proceeded downstream.
My compadres were my hubby John, Jocelyn, Mike R, Marlene and Jacqui, who all seemed to find more stuff than I did. Jocelyn hauled in a giant hunk of styrofoam early in the game, while Mike found something that nobody had ever picked up on any other cleanup, at least none that I have ever heard about. Apparently a fisherman had caught some fish, cleaned them on the riverbank, and put the fillets in a nice clean ziploc bag, obviously planning to take them home for dinner. Well, Mike found the bag. Although the fish looked nice, and had been kept cool by the stream, he wasn't sure how fresh they were, so they got tossed out at the end of our adventure.
Marlene uses the nicest water softener bags, so she always has a handle to haul in her bounty. I didn't see it, but apparently Jacqui got a bit of a wet bottom as she leaned over to try to grab some sort of morsel. John found a large tarp on a log, and passed it on to Jocelyn since she had more room in her canoe than he had in his kayak. I gave a full can of Labatt's Blue Light beer to Jacqui; I think she plans to cook with it. Otherwise, we didn't find much of value, but we did leave the river spotless!
It was a cool day, with patches if sun interspersed with clouds while we were paddling. Luckily the rain held off until we were done and it started to come down while most of us adjourned to Peegeo's for a well-deserved lunch. Thanks to Marv for the shuttle service and to John & Jocelyn for photos.
Report by Lois
Mike and Jocelyn organize their canoes
We didn't find much stuff in the beginning so we all just floated down the river.
Lois
Marlene
Jacqui
Jocelyn showed off the first piece of trash found in a bunch of foam.
Mike helps Jacqui empty the excess water from her kayak.
Much of what we find is not pretty. Mike picked it up anyway.
Fresh? fish
Lois spotted a flash of red in a logjam and worked hard to get back there only to find this!
The joys of early fall river cleanups.
Our booty. Note the sunshine on John, Marlene, Lois, Jacqui, Jocelyn & Mike. About 10 minutes later, it started raining, and continued on and off for the rest of the day.
