Ginger Travis
Above: Early morning lineup for Roanoke Ramble with safety boat and participant kayaks and canoes. PHOTO BY GINGER TRAVIS
On a perfect blue-sky day last November my canoe partner and I hauled our Old Town Osprey down to Weldon (“Rockfish Capital of the World”) for the annual Roanoke River Ramble. We joined 130 strangers and paddled nine miles downriver to Halifax in a rainbow gaggle of plastic yaks and a few old-school tandem canoes.
I signed us up for the Ramble because I really wanted to see the upper flatwater section of the Roanoke before the river goes vastly swampy down near Williamston. I’ve paddled and camped in those swamps.
In contrast, the Weldon to Halifax section is contained within fairly high banks, and you see hickories, oaks, red maples, and box elders rather than bald cypresses and tupelos. At Weldon, just a mile or so east of I-95, the river looks a lot like our Piedmont water—like flat sections of the Deep River for example. And that’s true in part because the Roanoke, born in the Virginia mountains, is a great big brown river, not a blackwater stream like the slower, smaller rivers arising in the Coastal Plain.
Cathy and I somehow got a spot at the front of the more than 90 kayaks and canoes lined up on the concrete Wildlife ramp, and off we went. I immediately discovered my inner lead dog and paddled furiously to stay ahead of all boats behind us. I was not going to be caught! We got down the river in our wide, slow 14-foot canoe in under three hours, ahead of all but a tandem kayak, one other canoe, and a few longboaters propelled by strong men and a couple of young and skilled women paddlers.
Launching at last, Weldon ramp. PHOTO BY GINGER TRAVIS
Our mad gallop means that now I’m looking forward to a do-over. I want to float myself calmly down that river—no other boats around —and pay proper attention to the sights and sounds. I won’t be taking the competitive beast on that trip!
We were met at the Halifax end by guys in camo—members of a fishing club with a very nice setup on the high riverbank—who deep-fried cornbread in a huge iron washpot on an open fire, and a squadron of ladies dishing up Brunswick stew. Paddlers get all this plus shuttle service, bluegrass band and an event T-shirt in return for our relatively modest $27 entry fee.
It felt festive. People sat at long tables, ate, talked, hung out and were happy. It felt like we were celebrating our luck to be on a great river on a perfect day.
PHOTO BY GINGER TRAVIS
At the end of it all, squads of young men from ECU and Halifax Community College picked up people’s boats and hefted them on top of cars—a service that one friend calls “valet paddling.” In fact, the whole event was run wtih military precision by Chris Wicker for Halifax County Tourism. When the Ramble’s excellent organizers make it so easy to deal with boats and with shuttling cars, how can you not sign up?
The Roanoke flows more than 400 miles from the Virginia mountains to North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound. At Weldon the river falls over the last rock ledges of the Piedmont in a Class III rapid that’s a whitewater paddler’s delight. Below this rapid the river continues eastward across the coastal plain, now flat water, for its last 125 miles—and is an equal delight for quiet-water canoeists and kayakers and swamp explorers.
Flatwater paddlers like us are the people the Roanoke River Ramble is meant to attract —paddlers as tourists to complement the hordes of striped bass anglers who descend on the Roanoke in March and April.
The Ramble and a sister paddling event, Spring Paddle Days, are all about promoting yet another source of tourism in a corner of North Carolina that has suffered deep gashes to its economy—lost jobs, declining population—over the last 20 years.
The river towns—Weldon, Halifax, Jamesville, Williamston and Plymouth on the Roanoke and Windsor on the Cashie, and the surrounding counties are working very hard to promote their assets: cultural and historical sites; local foods and agricultural products; striped bass, birds and black bears; and those intriguing swamps along the rivers.
For example, 20 years ago, whoever would have thought of building camping platforms —solid wooden decks—out in the middle of the deep cypress-gum swamps of the lower Roanoke and expecting paddlers to come? The nonprofit Roanoke River Partners pushed that project along: they got the platforms built and the paddlers came. I came. That’s how it started for me—my love of paddling and camping in the northeastern NC swamp forests. I return every year.
If you have a yen to go, check out roanokeriverpartners.org—a clearinghouse for news of events up and down the Roanoke and Cashie Rivers. Also, RRP handles reservations for the camping platforms on the two rivers and sees that they are kept in good repair.
Just one word of caution: The Roanoke River is often tame in late spring and summer but can be a flooding beast after heavy rain. For instance, the original date for the Roanoke River Ramble, Oct. 22, had to be moved back two weeks because Hurricane Matthew rains held back by Lake Gaston, Kerr Lake, and Roanoke Rapids Lake took so long to discharge. The river flow at Weldon Oct. 22 was five times the rate on Nov. 5 when the event was finally held.
Always try to check flow before you go (Lower Roanoke on waterdata.usgs.gov) and get a local weather forecast including wind speed and direction.
Paddling in happy crowds may not be for everyone—and usually isn’t for me—but it can be an easy and fun way to sample a new stretch of river. You might consider it. With that in mind, coming right up in April: Spring Paddle Days on the swampy Roanoke down at Williamston.