a water-loving

a water-loving

willow spreads branches and roots

toward the river

One of my favorite childhood memories is of a weeping willow that grew on the bank beside an Ozark creek where our family often vacationed in a log cabin that belonged to some friends. The wife was an artist and she painted a watercolor of my older sister and me under the willow. I am sitting cross-legged, reading a book, and my sister is standing, fishing with a bamboo pole. This early memory comes sweeping back whenever I see a willow. So when we arrive at Hruska's Canoe Livery, I am pleased to discover that the campground on the bank of the Oneota River is shaded by many willow trees. However, these are not weeping willows and they don't look like the wild willows with contorted trunks and low, widespread branches that grow along the river. Our shuttle driver tells us it's an Austree, an import from Australia. He calls it a "dirty" tree because it litters the ground with lots of little branches. I find out later that the Austree was widely planted in Australia to control erosion along waterways because they grow quickly with wide-spreading roots. However, it is now considered an invasive weed and is being removed and replaced with native trees. Many homeowners can attest to the problem of aggressive, moisture-seeking willow roots that clog drains and septic systems. Still, they are beautiful trees and they have a very important medicinal use. The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been used for thousands of years for aches and fevers. The active ingredient, salicin, turns into salicylic acid, the precursor of aspirin, in the human body. This brings back another childhood memory. My father always kept a huge bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet. He considered it a cure for everything from tummy ache to tantrums.

muddy rubber boots

muddy rubber boots

wait for construction workers

to get back to work

Our truck kicks up white dust on the gravel of West Ravine Road. We keep passing big red and white signs, Road Closed. Finally, we see a smaller sign, Hruska's Campground Open. When we arrive at the campground, it's clear why the road is closed. A pair of concrete T-columns rise up from the water on either side of the river, twice as high as the old iron truss bridge. The enormous pillars, like the ones on a four-lane interstate overpass, look totally out of place in this picturesque backwoods area of northeast Iowa. In the morning we are awakened by the sound of a semi-truck with a long cargo bed dumping a load of large limestone rocks. We walk through the early morning mist to watch the activity. Two men unroll and slice off a length of black groundcloth, then carry it over to the sloping bank to lay under the rock backwall. One man in an orange digger scoops up a load of rock and dumps it on top of the groundcloth. A driller on the other side of the river blasts through the rock, preparing for the next set of footings. 


The old bridge rests incongruously in a field next to the crane that lifted it from the place where it had stood for 122 years. The Upper Bluffton Bridge was built in 1888 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio, which fabricated the parts and shipped them by train and wagon to the site on the Upper Iowa River in Winneshiek County, where it was erected by local contractors. The Upper Bluffton represented a new type of bridge construction, the Pratt truss, which used diagonal bracings slanting downwards towards the center of the bridge, allowing the structure to withstand pressure towards the middle. However, it was also one of the last of its kind. By the 1890s, steel was used exclusively for bridge construction because of the numerous advantages it had over iron structures. The Upper Bluffton Bridge, built for horse-drawn carriages, carried a 3-ton weight limit and a 9-foot vertical clearance limit. But with the advent of heavier motorized vehicles, this became a handicap. 


Despite the posted restrictions, many drivers chose to ignore the signs and cross the bridge anyway. The man who comes to shuttle us to our canoe put-in upriver tells us, "Not many people know how high 9 feet is. They were scraping the AC units off the tops of their supersize RVs." Fearing that the bridge might collapse, as had happened to a similar structure in Missouri, county engineers decided to replace it rather than repair it and reroute heavier traffic. And so another unique and beautiful structure has gone by the wayside. Perhaps it will be left in the field next to the new bridge, with a little plaque explaining its historical significance, for those who take the time to stop.

tenacious tendrils

tenacious tendrils

corkscrew up toward the light

bearing prickly pods

We've been paddling through the deep gorge of the Oneota River, bracketed by steep stone bluffs and dense forest. Now we've come to a little stretch that is tree free and John signals to pull over. He says he wants to see what's up there. He gets out and slowly climbs to the top of the high, vertical bank, pushing through tall clumps of weeds entangled with vines. Dan and I wait in the other canoe. It's nice to just sit in the sun and gaze at one small patch of wild vegetation without moving or doing anything. I notice things I wouldn't see even at the slow pace we've been keeping on the river. "What are those yellow flowers?" Dan wants to know. "Rosin weed," I reply, breaking one off so he can feel the prickly stem and leaves and the gummy resin. The blossoms, which look like little sunflowers, attract butterflies, and birds flock to the seeds. The plants grow in clumps up to 6 feet high and prefer dry, open areas like the top of this sunny bank. Coiled around the rosin weed is a vine with star-shaped leaves, equally intent on reaching up to the sun. We both stare in amazement at the spiky green pods hanging from the vine. "What's that?" Dan asks. "It looks like a prickly cucumber." Indeed, prickly cucumber is one of its common names, as well as wild cucumber and creeping jenny. Actually a member of the gourd family, its genus name, Echinocystis, is derived from the Greek words echinos, "hedgehog," and kustis, "bladder." I pull one of the ovoid pods down for closer inspection. The prickles bend rather than penetrate. Inside, there are four flat brown seeds. The vine is also called squirting cucumber because the dry fruit flings the seeds into the air when it breaks open. I would like to witness that, but these pods are still green and growing. John clambers back down from his expedition to the top of the bank. "What's up there?" I ask. "A field." We've seen lots of fields. Now it's time to return to the ever-changing panorama of the river.

towering chimney rock

towering chimney rock,

weathered fossil palisades

line the river gorge

“That’s got to be Chimney Rock,” I say, as a towering stone pillar comes into view around a bend in the Oneota River. We’ve been paddling past palisades of white bluffs, fractured and weathered, but still forming a contiguous wall of stone. How did this lone, freestanding pillar get that way? The answer to that question leads me deep into Iowa’s geologic history, which mostly lies buried beneath the ground.

We are drawn to this area of northeast Iowa by white bluffs along a clear river, lots of wildlife and pleasant paddling. The trip turns out to be a fascinating excursion through time and space. In one afternoon we travel in geologic time from 350 to 600 million years before the present. In space we traverse from the Southern Iowa Drift Plain through the Iowan Surface to the Paleozoic Plateau.

The landscape where we live in the southeast corner of Iowa consists of rolling hills, the eroded remains of glacial deposits on top of bedrock. The sedimentary bedrock consists of sandstone, limestone, dolomite and shale, over 3,000 feet thick in places, laid down by shallow seas that covered the area between 530 and 74 million years ago. The fertile soil on the surface presently supports fields of corn and soybeans. Exposed rock is rarely seen, except at road cuts or river valleys.

As we travel north, the terrain gradually becomes more gently rolling. The older glacial deposits in the Iowan Surface region were leveled by intense erosion during a glacial cold spell between 16,000 and 21,000 years ago. Near rivers, the hills become steeper, the valleys deeper, the picturesque terrain depicted in many of the landscapes of Grant Wood.

Finally, we enter the Paleozoic Plateau, a region of deep, narrow valleys and exposed bedrock in the form of bluffs and outcrops. This is the only region of Iowa where bedrock dominates the landscape. The sandstone and carbonate rocks that are more resistant to erosion are the ones that form cliffs and escarpments. The answer to my question about the unique form of Chimney Rock is unequal weathering. Why this lone pillar? That's an even deeper question.

The rock outcrops, studded with fossils, lie in layers, reflecting their sedimentary origin. Vertical fractures in the brittle rock, caused by earth stresses, give the outcrops a blocky appearance. These breaks become flow paths for groundwater. In addition to the distinctive bluffs, this is also a karst area of springs, sinkholes and caves. As we continue maneuvering our canoes through the shallow rapids of the narrow gorge, we encounter many springs and small waterfalls pouring their cold, clear water into the river. I dip my hand into one of the outflows as we drift past. It feels glacial.

spearing a minnow

spearing a minnow

a great blue heron flaps up

to a treetop perch

Nearing another bend in the Oneota River, we spot a great blue heron as it lifts off from the water where it has been wading on its long legs. Croaking in alarm, it spreads its wide wings and slowly flaps up to the top of a tall cottonwood. There it stretches its slender body and neck to its full height to watch us warily as we drift by in our canoes, paddles silent. The primary food of the great blue heron is fish, though it will also snap up anything else that comes within spearing distance of its long sharp beak, including insects, turtles, frogs, snakes, mice and small birds. The heron locates its prey with its keen yellow eyes and usually swallows it whole. Being an opportunistic forager may not always pay off, as the bird has been known to choke on prey that is too large to swallow. The large adult bird has few predators, but the bald eagle is one of them, and we are seeing many eagles on this stretch of the river.

bald eagle plunging

bald eagle plunging

talons into the river,

clutching a brook trout

As we drift down the Upper Iowa River, we glimpse several bald eagles flying downstream. One of them plunges into the river and snags a brook trout with its talons, grasping the slippery fish with the spicules on its toes. What an amazing sight! Dan tells us about a friend of his in Alaska who watched an eagle dive into the water and disappear, apparently pulled under by a large salmon. Eagles are strong swimmers, but sometimes they do drown. Another eagle flies off, mysteriously trailing a sprig of black walnut leaves in its talons. It almost looks like the image of the bald eagle on the national seal, clutching an olive branch with one claw and arrows in the other. We startle another large bird from the low trees along the river's edge, but this one does not have the white head and tail of an adult bald eagle. When it lands in a tall dead tree we can tell from its dark brown plumage and nearly black bill that it is a juvenile eagle. In a few years the young eagle's head and tail will gradually turn white and its beak yellow. Eagles are long-lived birds, up to 30 years in the wild. As raptors, they eat many kinds of creatures, both live and dead, but their favorite prey is fish, so they are usually found near water. However, I have seen one sitting in a tree just up the road from our home, with the nearest river miles away. 

cliff swallow mud nests

cliff swallow mud nests

clinging in colonies to 

limestone river bluffs

We put in at Daley's Bridge, an arched iron bridge rusted with age, and now we are mostly just floating with the fast current down the Upper Iowa River. Though shallow, the clear water is moving swiftly enough that paddling our light-weight Kevlar canoe is optional. We employ our bent shaft paddles to navigate riffles, horseshoe bends and trees that have fallen across the river, their roots undercut by spring flooding. The leisurely pace gives us plenty of time to enjoy the scenery as we pass by in slow motion. The river has carved "entrenched meanders" through bedrock, with 100 foot vertical limestone walls on the outside curve and floodplain forest on the inside. The cliffs consist of layer upon layer of fossils laid down by ancient seas. The chalk-white escarpments host balsam firs, red cedars and white pines, distinctly different from the willows, maples, oaks and cottonwoods growing along the low shoreline. The cliff overhangs offer protection for nest colonies of cliff swallows. Common summer residents in Iowa, cliff swallows breed as far north as Alaska and winter as far south as Argentina. Arriving in late April, they have already finished migrating by this time of year, early September. As we flow past the cliffs, we see many colonies of nests, some still intact, others half obliterated. The swallows build their nests with pellets of mud they gather in their mouths. They use little reinforcing material such as straw or hair, so the nests are vulnerable to rainstorms. Each nest is shaped like a squat clay bottle with a downward protruding neck, which functions as an entrance to the interior chamber, sparingly lined with grass, hair and feathers. Both parents build the nest, which takes one or two weeks. As a potter, I am enchanted with these round pots cobbled together and plastered in clusters on vertical stone. Now I want to come back in early summer, to watch the graceful swallows catching insects on the wing and feeding their young in their charming earth shelters.

morning mist floating

morning mist floating

downstream above the current,

two horses grazing

The day after Labor Day, everyone has gone back to work or school and Hruska's Campground on the Upper Iowa River is deserted. When I step out of our tent in the early morning, mist blankets the meadow in layers like wool roving and floats in clusters downstream, hovering just above the water like a second river. I am surprised to see three horses casually walking through the park, unfettered by fences. When they see me, they trot to the far end of the grassy area. The two white mares drop their heads to graze, but the bay keeps his head up, watchful. We watch each other until a yellow school bus rattles down the gravel road and pulls into the the driveway of the brick house across the way, red lights flashing. The horses lift their heads and canter away from the noise and lights, then break into a gallop, vanishing into the mist.