Paddling the Squannacook – Leave it to Beaver
My son & I had a great 2 hour paddle on the Squannacook River, ending at sunset last night. My son was taking our new Perception Swifty for its maiden voyage. The flow was high – 400 cfs – but was up at 1400 cfs on Sunday! This river usually meanders along at about 20 cfs in the summer.
I know the canoe/kayak launch for this part of the Squannacook can be difficult to find, so here is a map to help out. The biggest soure of confusion is that there are 2 Townsend Roads – one on the east (or Groton) side of the river and the other on the West (or Shirley) side. You want the one on the east (Groton) side of the Squannacook. If you are coming off of Rt 225 and heading North from West Groton, look for the Groton Water Department building on your left – it will be past the Vose complex (on your left) and shortly afer the Vose Field (on your right). Turn left on to the dirt driveway and continue across the abandoned railroad tracks. You’ll see the river ahead as you follow the left bend in the driveway.
The launch is upstream of a dam and is a large flat body of water. Once rounding the bend to the main river , paddling upstream became more strenuous in some places, but as long as we kept momentum it wasn’t too bad. I paddle the Squannacook a few times (6ish) a year and this was the fastest flow I’ve paddled. There were also lots of newly downed trees which made progress difficult in 5 spots.
We paddled up to the rapids at the Bertozzi Wildlife Management Area and took a short break. For a little fun, we paddle up the rapids as far as possible,and made a 180o paddle turn to coast down the rapids. It was fun!
The paddle back to the launch was fast – going with the current was a lot easier. Just round a bend, we heard a huge splash as we saw first one and then a second beaver slapping their tails when they saw us. We paddled over them and turned the next bend. There they were again, just sliding down the bank back in to the stream! They slapped again and disappeared. We continued on around the next bend and there they were again! More slaps and splashes.
The river straightened out a bit as we closed in on the launch. We surprised 4 more individual beavers out on the water. I think this was the most beavers I have seen in one time!