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When I was growing up we lived just a block from the Auglaize River
17 years after leaving Wapak I brought my son and a friend of his back to fulfill my childhood dream. It took two, three day weekends, a year apart to complete the journey.
This is my journal covering the first trip.
Memorial Day Weekend 1990
Thursday 8:00PM Canoe is tied down to top of car. Sleeping bags, clothes, fishing poles, tent etc. are packed with no major incidents.
Thursday 10:30PM After Dustin and his friend Kevin have made 6 Bologna and Cheese sandwiches they start on 6 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches only to discover that we are out of peanut butter. I have to drive to the IGA, with a canoe tied to the top of my car; buy peanut butter and return.
Thursday 11:00PM Sandwiches made and I’m talked into letting Dustin and Kevin stay up to watch “Star Trek” until 12:00AM. Plan is to get up at 6:00AM and be on the road by 6:30AM.
Friday 4:30AM Dustin wakes me up/ He and Kevin decide to get early start and set alarm clock earlier than planned.
Friday 5:45AM Sandwiches placed in cooler, cooler placed in car. We leave the driveway and are on our way.
Friday 6:00AM We hit I-75 and are 120 miles from Wapak and the Auglaize River
Friday 7:30AM We stop in Sidney , OH
Friday 8:00AM Arrive at my Dad’s house in Wapak. Wake the boys. They insist they have not been sleeping. Rain has stopped.
Friday 8:28AM Canoe is loaded and we shove off ready for what may come. A small rabbit sits on the bank watching us leave.
Friday 9:15AM After zigzagging from side to side on the river I realize that Dustin and Kevin’s right and left are the opposite of mine. (They were using their civilian right and left) A short lecture ensues. We sight a blue heron flying up ahead of us and take it as a sign of good luck.
Friday 10:00AM We’ve gone 4-5 miles by my reckoning. 40 more to go. The boy’s decide it’s time to take a break. We hear cars on a road through the trees. Scramble up the bank and discover we’re only 1 mile by road from Wapak. The boys are devastated but I know the river twists and bends. Our blue heron flies up the river in front of us.
Friday 11:00AM We enter some white water riffs. The river is only two feet deep but with a swift moving current and rocks everywhere we all have to concentrate on what we’re doing. Suddenly, Kevin, who’s sitting in the middle, drops his oar and starts stamping on the bottom of the canoe. I can’t look until we’re through the riffs. A large small mouth bass jumped out of the water, hit Kevin in the chest and dropped to the bottom of the canoe. An excellent fishing story, and I’m not sure I’d believe it myself, except I was there.
Friday 12:00 Noon We stopped for lunch somewhere about one mile from Buckland. Never saw these two boys eat so much.
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Friday 12:30PM Our blue heron flies up in front of us. We see some groundhogs, a muskrat and a snake swimming through the water. Dustin hears some water splashing loudly. The boys think we are coming to some large rapids. I told them, “Rapids hell, we’re coming to the falls, make sure everything is tied down!” Their faces registered pure shock. Well, just outside of Buckland there’s a gravel pit and they pump the water that seeps into the pits out into the river through a large outfall sewer. Chalk one up for Dad.
Friday 1:00PM We come upon six ducks and their ducklings. Unfortunately when you come upon ducks you usually find shallow rapids. We did and got stuck on a large flat rock. Who knows what possessed Kevin, but he leaned over the side to see what was holding us in place. About ¼ of the canoe filled up with water. We spent 15 minutes bailing out the canoe. Our clothes and sleeping bags were damp but everything else was fine.
Friday 2:30PM We’ve seen ducks, groundhogs, muskrats, blue heron and other misc. snakes and turtles. The river has been fairly calm. The boys have tried fishing and shooting the BB gun at blackbirds, both with no luck. We’ve been playing the imagination game. That log looks like an alligator, this log looks like a hippopotamus, when we come to a long straight stretch of the river. Dustin see’s a log about 75 yards away. “That looks like a pig.” 50 yards away Kevin yells “Yea, that does look like a pig.” At 25 yards (I now know that I needed glasses) I realize that’s not a log but a dead pig, bloated and covered with flies. We all voted on whether to investigate at close quarters or not. Since my vote counted as three votes we did not investigate closer.
Friday 5:45PM On the right hand side of the river, the Ft Amanda canoe livery comes into sight. There’s a sixteen-year old boy mowing the grass. As my buttocks are developing blisters and my legs are cramped we stop and tie up. I ask the sixteen-year old how far to Ft Jennings. “Oh, we average 6 ½ hours to Ft Jennings.” Great!!! We’re way ahead of schedule. Hmmm, second thoughts. “Well, how long does it take you to come from Wapak to here?” Now keep in mind that we’ve taken 9 ½ hours to get to this point. “We average 5 ½ hours.” Smart aleck kid.
Friday 6:00PAM We stop at Ft Amanda park. Ft Amanda park is made up of a graveyard dating from the 1812 war, some picnic tables and a granite monument from the war of 1812. The boys were not impressed.
Friday 6:30PM We’re tired, wet and hungry and looking for a place to camp. We see six deer crossing the river in a shallow spot. Dustin reaches for the BB gun but I remind him it’s not deer season.
Friday 7:00PM We find a place to camp! Build a campfire, pitch the tent and realize all of our clothes and sleeping bags are damp. We wolf our food down. The temperature has dropped from 82 to 52 but, hey we’re guys. Wet clothes and sleeping bags are no problem.
Friday 11:15PM Everybody is asleep.
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Saturday 6:00AM Have we slept? Time to start breakfast. Spam and eggs. Made my morning. Nothing dried overnight. Our blue heron flies by as we’re packing.
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Saturday 8:15AM We’re off. No playing around, we’re going to reach Ft Jennings by Sunday Noon or bust.
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Saturday 10:00AM More ducks, ducklings, blue herons, etc. We’re in the middle of nowhere when a bridge appears. On the other side of the bridge is a small brick building with no windows and a large antenna beside it. We’re back to the imagination game. Thought I learned better with the pig? No way. It’s a missile silo, a spy center, etc. All eyes are on this building as we float past. Suddenly, Dustin hears running water. We all look forward and we’re only eight feet from a small, five-foot high, low head dam. Two feet from disaster we paddle over to the edge and tie up. We unload the canoe; tent, sleeping bags, camp box, cooler, clothes; you get the idea. Carry the canoe around the dam and reload. My muscles were crying.
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Saturday 11:00AM We’re making great time. Kingfishers, ducks, a turtle and a deer watch us go by. We hit some shallow rapids. Everyone is concentrating on making it through without hitting a rock. Suddenly my heart stops. A small mouth bass has jumped out of the water, hit me in the chest and fell to the bottom of the canoe. I don’t care what you think, it happened!
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Saturday 11:30AM We’ve been sitting for 15 minutes watching two red tail hawks. They’ve made the mistake of trying to rob a Blue Jays nest. Four Blue Jays are doing the “Battle of Britain” with the hawks and no one speaks. We drift towards shallow swift water and it’s all hands to the paddles. We’ve become experts and the boys have learned their right from their left.
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Saturday 12 Noon We come upon the largest logjam you’ve ever seen. It’s in a curve in the river and the water can flow underneath but we sure can’t. We have to unload the canoe and carry everything 125 yards around the logjam. We carry everything halfway and stop for lunch. My muscles were screaming. There are blisters on my buttocks. Oh well, there’s a log that looks like an alligator.
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Saturday 1:45PM A blue heron flies up ahead of us; our good luck is still with us. We’re out of drinking water and we’ve been watching through the trees for a farmhouse. We see one about 50 yards from the river so we tie up, get the water cooler and walk up to the farmhouse. We ask for some water and the farmwife directs us to a hose in the barn and says we can have all that we need. We fill the five-gallon water cooler and a familiar odor hits my nose. Sulfur water! Dustin takes a drink and spits it out. “Hey, this barn water stinks, lets see if we can get some water from the house.” Yeah, right Dustin. It all comes from the same well.
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Saturday 4:00PM We’re looking for the Route 30 Bridge and a train trestle side by side. We know we can camp when we get there and make Ft Jennings by Sunday noon. We see bridges and stop for a rest. There’re several houses and a bar at the crossroads. We stop in the bar for Pepsi’s since drinking sulfur water gets old real fast. We haven’t bathed since Thursday and are slightly muddy and wet. We strike up a conversation with the barmaid and she offers to let us camp behind the bar. The backyard ran 100 yards down to the river and is all freshly cut grass with a few trees and no bugs or weeds. We spread our clothes and sleeping bags out and got everything dry. The boys went fishing and I made a fire in the woods at the edge of the river and start supper. (Spam) It’s so nice out that we don’t pitch the tent and sleep under the stars in our sleeping bags.
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Saturday 11:30PM We all fall asleep.
Sunday 2:30AM The bar closes and every fast car in the county is in the parking lot. They all rev their engines and burn rubber, honking their horns out into the darkness. All’s quiet now.-->
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Sunday 4:00AM A train is coming right at me blasting its whistle. I sit straight up in my sleeping bag. The boys are sitting up too. Remember, the train trestle is next to the bridge where we’re camped. It’s only 100 feet from where we’re sleeping and it sounds like it is coming right at us. It passes and all is quiet.
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Sunday 6:00AM Time for Spam and eggs. What a father does for his son.
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Sunday 8:20AM Everything is packed and we’re on our way. Barring any incidents we should reach Ft Jennings by 11:00AM, ahead of schedule.
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Sunday 10:00AM We’re making good progress. Ducks, groundhogs and hawks all watch us glide down the river. Our blue heron flies up and instead of going in front of us he turns and flies back up the river. Probably figures we can make the last few miles on our own.
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Sunday 10:30AM We see a huge sign that says DANGER stretching across the river. It’s about twenty feet above the river, strung across the river between two telephone poles. As we get closer we see in smaller letters “Dam Ahead – 200 feet”. We round a bend in the river and suddenly a twelve-foot high dam appears 20 feet in front of us. We paddle over to the right side of the river and tie up. The banks on either side are 7-10 feet high, steep and muddy. We’re too tired to pull the canoe and all the equipment up a steep muddy bank. There’s a spillway in the dam that’s just wide enough for the canoe to fit through. I’ve seen canoes portaged through spillways and we decide to try it.
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Sunday 10:40AM All loose equipment has been removed. The sleeping bags, tent, clothes and camp box are tied down in the canoe. Dustin is in the water up to his waste on the upper part of the river holding a rope tied to the back of the canoe. Kevin and I are on the dam holding the rope in the front. The idea was that we hold the front end up as the canoe goes through the spillway. Dustin holds the back rope until ¾ of the way through the spillway and then he should let go. As the back end drops over the dam, we would let go of the rope and the canoe should drop into the water. Well, Dustin said something to me and I nodded my head not hearing what he had said. He thought I had indicated to let go of the rope. The canoe was only 1/8 of the way through the spillway and when he let go of the rope, the canoe turned sideways in the current and fell over the dam upside down.
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Sunday 10:55AM The canoe had filled entirely with water. We worked hard to bail it out. We didn’t loose everything, but clothes that used to weigh 10 lbs. now weighed 50 lbs. We repack everything and now totally exhausted, soaking wet and muddy, turn down river towards Ft. Jennings
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Sunday 11:50AM We see the bridge on a bend in the river that is on the edge of Ft. Jennings
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Sunday 11:58AM We pull over and stand on firm ground at the Ft. Jennings Riverside Park
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Sunday 12:45PM We’ve eaten, drank, dried in the sun and watched the canoe race. Dad arrives and we pack up the car and leave. The boys sleep all the way back to Wapak. 44 miles on the river but only 28 miles of backcountry roads to Wapak.
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Sunday 1:30PM We arrive at my Dad’s house. We shower and change into clothes we left there on Friday. Eat, drink, stories, visiting, clean and dry. It’s great.
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Sunday 4:30PM We’re on I-75 heading south to Cincinnati
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Sunday 7:00PM We get back to Cincinnati
