Shadow River
River at End of Property
River at End of Property
bear-shadow-river-postcard.jpg
Shadow River is located at the very north end of Rosseau Lake in Muskoka.
“The Shadow River is one of the most wonderful natural curiosities of the Muskoka district; it empties its water into the bay on the shores of which Port Rosseau stands. Its course can be explored inland by boats for about five miles, the stream varying throughout from twenty to sixty feet in width. Tall elms and ranks of tapering pines line the banks, and below them the sedgy shores, heavy with foliated ferns and wreaths of moss, overhang the edge. The surface is as motionless as glass and everything is duplicated in marvelous detail, each leaf and branch having its reflected counterpart even more distinct than it appears itself.”
– from Muskoka and the Northern Lakes of Canada, 1886
Tekahionwake, better known as Pauline Johnson, the celebrated Six Nations poet, spent much of her time paddling Shadow River in the late 1800s. The river possesses a calm, passive quality, and it is easy to understand Johnson’s particular fondness for it.
Shadow River is predominantly a wetland ecosystem, broken up by bands of open bedrock. April is the best time to paddle the upper Shadow, as it usually runs high at this time. At peak flow, the river is barely a canoe length in width but deep enough to float a boat. The reflections on the river of the overhanging oaks evoke a kind of lightness that has been the subject of much prose, poetry, photography and testimonials for well over a century.
For the more adventurous, the upper three kilometres of the river provide a mix of meandering creek wetland and Precambrian rock outcrops, with some of Muskoka’s most picturesque chutes and cascades. The lower section can be paddled up- or downstream without difficulty at any time of the season. Look for beaver activity here, great blue herons along weedy shorelines, osprey circling overhead, several species of ducks, Canada geese, muskrats and deer. Mostly second-growth hemlock and pine fringe the shoreline; a generous ground cover of wintergreen, serviceberry and ferns blankets the upper river landscape, and maple and oak form a canopy over the lower course. For a casual, family outing (which I undertake as soon as the ice is off Lake Rosseau), the Shadow is easily accessed from the beach in the village of Rosseau. As Pauline Johnson wrote, you will find yourself floating as “a bubble in the pearly air … midway ’twixt earth and heaven.”
Shadow River Location
Shadow River can be found at the north end of Rosseau Lake near the village of Rosseau. Travel six kilometers north of the Rosseau marina on Highway 141 and put-in on the southwest side of the bridge on Nipissing Road. The marina will serve as your take-out point.
Shadow River: Muskoka
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Johnson, E. Pauline (1861 – 1913)
1A stream of tender gladness,
2Of filmy sun, and opal tinted skies ;
3Of warm midsummer air that lightly lies
4In mystic rings,
5Where softly swings
6The music of a thousand wings
7That almost tones to sadness.
8Midway ‘twixt earth and heaven,
9A bubble in the pearly air I seem
10To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream
11Of clouds of snow,
12Above, below,
13Drift with my drifting, dim and slow,
14As twilight drifts to even.
15The little fern-leaf, bending
16Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,
17And kisses soft the shadow that it meets
18With touch so fine,
19The border line
20The keenest vision can’t define ;
21So perfect is the blending.
22The far, fir trees that cover
23The brownish hills with needles green and gold,
24The arching elms o’erhead, vinegrown and old,
25Repictured are
26Beneath me far,
27Where not a ripple moves to mar
28Shades underneath, or over.
29Mine is the undertone ;
30The beauty, strength, and power of the land
31Will never stir or bend at my command ;
32But all the shade
33Is marred or made,
34If I but dip my paddle blade ;
35And it is mine alone.
36O! pathless world of seeming!
37O! pathless life of mine whose deep ideal
38Is more my own than ever was the real.
39For others Fame
40And Love’s red flame,
41And yellow gold : I only claim
42The shadows and the dreaming.
Links:
http://muskokaseasons.blogspot.ca/2011/07/shadow-river.html
http://www.cottagecountrynow.ca/community/life/article/1439967–paddling-the-shadow-river
http://onnaturemagazine.com/river-stories.html
http://www.chrisgreaves.com/Tripping/Shadow%20River%20-%20Muskoka/Shadow%20River.htm
http://www.victoria.tc.ca/~sly/epj/frog.htm
Rosseau Links:
http://rosseauretreat.com/local-attractions/