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Just got back from a nice canoe trip down the Kickapoo River in Wisconsin...did you miss me? No? Well I came back anyway.

The trip had a tricky beginning on Friday, as I encountered much construction on 90 and feared that I would be late. Recent remasters of Queen, Rush and Derek and the Dominoes made it a classic rock drive. Sure enough, I wasn't very late but Cory, who was providing the canoe, had barely left Rochester, MN when the canoe started shifting. He headed home and called Driftys in Ontario, to reserve a canoe. In the meantime, I had a couple of Spotted Cows and a pizza at Blue Goose Pizza, on a little country road outside of La Farge. I was "greeted" by a barking dog but the place was a nice way to while away an afternoon playing Angry Birds and waiting for your screw-up friend. Beware that you do not order a milkshake for yourself, as one can easily feed three people. It IS the Dairy State, after all.

The canoe trip down the Kickapoo River starts in Ontario and ends in LaFarge. It is about 22 miles and takes about 11 hours to finish. Officially. We launched the canoe at 3:30 and hit the 2:45 mark at about 1 and a half hours. The river was running fast. The first part of the river cuts through Wildcat Mountain State Park, which offers a large campsite which is a pain to get to when you're on canoe, and a primitive campsite which is easily accessible. Supposedly. Like many of the "official" campsites on this trip we passed the primitive campsite without knowing that it existed. We then floated into the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, which is where the majority of this trip takes place.

We started to plan our evening's campsite by checking out an official campsite in the Reserve. There are about a dozen river accessible sites along the way. Unfortunately, the first one that we looked at turned out to be a pain to get the canoe landed (haven't they heard of grading a slope?) and was right next to the highway. We nixed the sited and headed out, at a certain point deciding to camp on a beach alongside the river.

If you just came to this page from the google looking for advice on a Kickapoo River trip, here's the most important that I can offer: don't bother with the official campsites. They are hard to find even if you're looking out for them, they're a pain to park your canoe at and they offer little in the way of atmosphere. There aren't a ton of sandbars along this river, but there are enough to let you park your canoe at a site with a little character.

I haven't mentioned much about the river itself, but let me assure you that it is gorgeous. Huge walls with lichen and moss line much of it, tons of wildlife (we saw muskrats, a woodchuck, an eagle, frogs, turtles and more) and just a very pleasant ride. The river is very crooked and makes some strange backtracks that you only notice if you're looking at a map. We even had a visit from someone at 1:30 in the AM while we were asleep. This someone was splashing (sounded like belly flops) and sniffing VERY loudly at the tent. We suspect it was a black bear. YOWZA! Cory wanted to see it and I was ok with that, since he's the wildlife ecologist of the two of us, but I was not sticking my head out of that tent. We turned on the flashlight and our visitor got quiet, but soon returned until we turned the flashlight on again. We suspect he was fishing (the splashing sounds) and we think we even heard him catch something.

On Day 2 we barely even paddled since the river was moving so quickly. Unfortunately, the story of day 2 was GNATS! They weren't biting but they were all over our faces. WHAT DID THEY WANT FROM US?!? They grew old very quickly. A couple of times we got out of the canoe at landings and took hikes so we could try to get away from them. This strategy met with varied degrees of success. We did manage to see some healthy bullfrogs on one of these hikes, though. Our other exciting wildlife event was something grabbing Cory's paddle while he was dragging it in the water. We suspect it was a snapping turtle.

We missed our checkpoint for finding our next campsite and we were getting close to the end of the route. We managed to find a small beach and then some people kayaking past turned around and kayaked back to tell us that just around the bend was an even better beach, which we then moved to and set up camp. It was big, it faced a big rock wall and had driftwood so we could start a fire to keep the damn gnats away.

We had originally set up our pick-up time for noon on Sunday but it was pretty clear that we were almost near the end, so we changed the time to 10:00. The southern part of the river, which exits the reserve, has a number of tricky spots with downed trees blocking nearly the entire river. Our skilled maneuvering got us through and we made it by 9:40. Lunch in Tomah and we were done!

I would advise you to check how fast the river is flowing before you plan a trip. We didn't have to portage at all, but apparently people often do. We could have easily finished this trip Saturday but made it a point to stretch it out so we could stay on theriver two nights. Also, if you ever want to canoe in Wisconsin, Paddling Southern Wisconsin is a must-read. It's out of print but is apparently available on Google Books. I apologize for missing a bunch of specifics, like bridge and campsite details, but I've given you some links to follow-up.

Just don't let it become...a fetish

Fun at the fun fair