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| At the put-in |
There was a time when you rarely saw a tandem canoe. Everyone wanted to captain their own ship and paddle their own boat. Now people are realizing the benefits of paddling tandem – especially on windy flatwater. With tandem paddlers the toughest part of organizing a trip can be figuring out who paddles with whom, and who brings the boat.
I was talking to Al last week at the Papa Joe hike, and we decided to paddle the “Lakes District” on the Charles. The Lakes District is formed by the backwater of the Moody Street Dam and runs for 5.8-miles from Washington Street in Wellsley to Moody Street in Waltham.
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| Sculptures on the banks |
In it’s glory days, this section of the Charles was home to Norumbega Park in Newton, named for the Norumbega Tower just downstream, and the Riverside Recreation Grounds a little further upstream in Weston. Established in the 1890’s, these parks were located at the end of the Boston trolley lines and attracted hundreds of thousand of visitors each year. The Lakes District became the most heavily canoed river on earth with more than 5,000 canoes berthed at over a dozen clubs along its length.
Today, there are two put-ins on this section of the river - the Duck Feeding Area at the end of Norumbega Road in Weston (across from the Marriott Hotel) and 48 Woerd Avenue in Waltham. We decided to launch in Waltham. Conrad and I were going to paddle tandem, but I ended up bringing a solo boat for him instead.
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| Matching WildFires |
We headed upstream past a home where the homeowner has placed statutes along the river – an elk, a bear, some deer and a life-sized bison and Native American. Shortly after we came to the dilapidated boat ramp at Norumbega Tower.
Nurumbega Tower is a stone tower erected in 1889 to mark the supposed location of Fort Norumbega, a legendary Viking fort at the confluence of Stony Brook and the Charles River. We hiked over to the tower and climbed to the top to check out the view.
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| Waltham Watch Company |
Unfortunately we had a few problems getting back in the boats. First Georgie jumped out of the boat and landed in the water. Then, with an unstable boat, Julie tipped over at the dock. We got everyone back in the boats, and decided to head back downstream in case Goergie or Julie got a chill.
Julie and Georgie were fine, so we paddled past the put-in and down to the Waltham Watch Company. This huge mill was also known as the American Watch Company and produced over 40 million watches between 1850 and 1957. We continued down to the Moody Street Bridge (and dam) before turning around and calling it a day.
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| The crew at Norumbega Tower |
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