we begin . . .
 
 

Our journey actually began months ago with selection of participants and other "behind the scenes" planning. But as departure day neared there were more immediate tasks. One of them was to insure that we all had a plan for the eventuallity of a canoe swamping on someone. We were fortunate to have Mrs. Margory Salmon offer a clinic at VAC for us on Sunday, May 14. A swell time was had by all (right Jenn?....Toban?), and with that initiation, we were psyched!
 
 
 

    To really appreciate Otter Creek, however, there was another point to drive home. Just what is the Otter Creek? Where does it begin? What is so special about "the Crick", as we locals call it? The answers could only be found in a trip to the "headwaters". In a field on the Beebe Farm in Danby, VT just 7.5 miles south of the Danby Market we found a unique spot to reconsider this usually familiar river.
    Here, in the middle of nowhere special, we were standing at THE north/south division of watersheds for much of Vermont.  To our left (south) there was a small patch of wetlands..... the actual headwaters for the Battenkill River. Ten feet to our right (north) was a stream barely 8 feet wide and 6 inches deep......Otter Creek.
 

    It was time for our first superlatives: Otter Creek is the only river that flows north along its entire length in Vermont! And.....it is the longest river entirely within Vermont!
    We began our study with an analysis of the rate of flow.  The students measured average width and depth over a ten foot section and determined the float time of a stick through the same section. Though it was indeed nothing more than a brook at this point, the calculations showed that 6300 gallons of water flow past every minute. Granted, we had a wet spring. Last year this same spot only witnessed 4200 gallons per minute.
 

    By this time it was close to lunch. We drove to Mad Tom Road to get to the real headwaters, stopping on the way for a photo op at the birthplace of William Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. 
 
 
 
 

    We hiked to a Long Trail shelter and ate by the even smaller but swftly flowing mountain stream that would become the Otter. I told the group of my trip last year higher into the mountains where my wife and I probably found THE 3 little springs magically trickling out of the hillsides to join to form this stream. Time prevented us from attempting that today, but the measurements and sight  would surely have
been impressive.
 

    Using the same techniques, we traveled to three other sites that day and watched the Creek grow to 12,600 gallons per minute just 2 miles north as it exited Emerald Lake, to over 126,000 gallons per minute in the Otter Creek Wildlife Management Area only 8 miles from the Beebe Farm! Later we would repeat the measurements near Otter Valley Union High School and found that the river was now a sizable 106 feet across and carrying over 420,000 gallons of water per minute......truly a large body of water that could both supply water to communities, act as a genuine corridor of transportation and that needed to be taken very seriously by people in canoes.
    The tone set, everyone went home for those last minute details.....tomorrow was the real thing!