An Indian Creek adventure

A trio of teenage boys waved to me from the No. 17 tee box. I waved back.

As a high school history teacher I don’t expect to get such necessities from the boys. But I suppose they didn’t expect to see someone kayaking by on Indian Creek. In a civilization, we take novel experiences with openness.

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I’ve lived with Indian Creek as a community feature for more than half my life. I crossed it countless times by car, ran and biked along it, wet a line and set a trap, and even picnicked.

However I had never paddled it. In fact, I never saw anyone paddle it though I know some do.

Maybe Indian Creek, and streams like it in Iowa, are avoided because of the pollution. The French spent about $1.5 billion to permanently clean the Seine for the Olympics. I’m confident it wouldn’t take near that much to permanently clean Indian Creek. And I also know there’s no political will to do it. Cedar Rapids for the 2032 games?

The creek had fallen to 3.59 feet from a storm engorged pulse of 8.01 feet four days earlier. Now was go-time before it fell any lower. I put in at the 29th Avenue Wetland, just south of the Linn-Mar campus. As I dragged the boat on the grass path I met a man walking who offered that he’d floated it with his granddaughter a couple of weeks earlier in a canoe. He said they had to get out to push quite a bit. He added he and his son paddled Indian Creek from Marion to Palisades Park 45 years ago. Adventure is all around us.

The gurgling water moved me with minimal paddling. The sense that I was in town diminished quickly, lovely. I was forced to get out to work around impediments in Willow Park and at Eighth Avenue. According to the Indian Creek Management Plan, Indian Creek is 35 miles long. However I don’t recognize that number because of the several man-made barriers that stop the migration of aquatic life.

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The artificial segments of Indian Creek are biologically compromised, like living with clogged arteries.

Before I knew it I was coursing through Thomas Park. Instead of a park user, I felt like a tourist. The new perspective from the water changed my sense of the park and the people, “Bon jour!”

Many times I came upon deer in the water. After fighting and failing to get my cellphone out of the plastic bags in time to take a pic, I wisely gave up and instead just enjoyed the spontaneity. How much pleasure do we miss because of cellphones?

I had to get out twice near Highway 100, but there it made me smile because I knew what they portended. Sewer upgrade work to massive 60-inch pipes from Cedar Rapids meant the long wait for the CEMAR bike trail was at hand.

On the back of the excavation, the trail will parallel Indian Creek and connect Marion to Cedar Rapids. Maybe more people enjoying the creek becomes the will to act? Maybe.

The Indian Creek Watershed Authority published a 166-page report in 2015. One part of the report was survey results. When asked to assign blame for poor water quality, farmers and townsfolk fingered run-off from hard surfaces as the chief culprit.

Yet a top five answer from townsfolk was excessive chemical use by farmers. A top five response from farmers blamed excessive chemicals on yards. A tie preserves the status quo.

The float continued with new viewpoints at each bend. Sunning softshell turtles scattered at my approach, deer bounded to shore and then spied on me as I passed. I refused to look back. Paddling through the Cedar Rapids Country Club was a sharp break in the scenery. Feral vegetation and twists transformed to manicured turf and an aesthetic of control.

It was here that was the largest impediment on the creek. The antiquated steel dams caused feet of drop. Woe is the clam or fish with designs for a greater life.

Not long after Americans put men on the moon, Congress passed the monumental Clean Water Act. The second goal of the Act follows: “Clean Water Act section 101(a)(2) It is the national goal that wherever attainable, an interim goal of water quality which provides for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish and wildlife and provides for recreation in and on the water be achieved by July 1, 1983” Laudatory!

Coe College published 2016 water quality data on Indian Creek. Professor Marty St. Clair’s team recorded an average summer E. coli score of 9,756 from samples at Thomas Park. They added that the Iowa E. coli standard for children’s water recreation was 235.

Soon I was beside the Sac and Fox Trail. As a runner I always felt like I was following the path — the creek was just next to it. Now in the water, I felt like the trail was following me. More deer, turtles and all the herbs, native and invasive that one could imagine in a wet Iowa summer.

There was no charge to take this ride.

The stream changed south of Mount Vernon Road. The dashing creek became a lazy river, or that French word, Bayou. The air got lazy, too, it no longer kept away the mosquitoes.

And then I was at the confluence with the Cedar River. Clearly I was on a tributary to a more massive body. It was four hours and 17 minutes since I set out. I let the kayak rest in the co-mingling waters before paddling upstream about 300 yards to haul out.

Indian Creek has flowed on this land for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s a lifecourse, and you’re invited for an education.

Looking up, looking ahead, and keeping my pencil sharp.