St. Andrews River (Colchester Co.) today

[Dusan Soudek]

Two of us had a neat trip down the lower St. Andrews River, maybe 10 km starting near the Town of Stewiacke at the end of --you guessed it-- St. Andrews River Rd. We finished about 10 km downstream at the Hwy. 224 bridge, within sight of the Shubenacadie River.

 

We knew the water level would be low, as it has an on-line flow gauge, which today read 1.62 m. We had to line our canoe through most of the gravelly riffles, but enjoyed all the stillwaters. We portaged the massive log jam on river right, but there were a few more fallen trees blocking the river just below the big jam.

 

We saw lots of wildlife, including many wood ducks and maybe a dozen bald eagles along the very scenic and wild journey. Gradually we realized that we'd entered the St. Andrews River Meadow within the Shubenacadie Game Sanctuary. Here we found large patches of silty brown water, indicating that we were near the tidehead.

 

The marshy "meadow's" level is normally controlled by a low-head dam. This we portaged and put in into an obviously tidal channel just below another 20 m log jam. We were maybe a kilometre from our takeout when we realized that the current had changed and that we were now battling a strong incoming tide. Today was the day of Supermoon, and of exceptionally large tides. So we turned around and rode the rising tide back to the low-head dam. It was now totally flooded and sported a small surfing wave, with water flowing strongly upriver and into the "meadow."

 

We couldn't resist running the dam not once, but twice. Finally we reentered the tidal channel downriver of the dam and paddled to our take-out. The current was almost imperceptible now, as the tide had turned. Egress at the Hwy. 224 bridge wasn't easy, but would have been even more difficult had the tide been low. next time we plan to run the upper part of St. Andrews River, but will wait until water is suitably high.

 

Dusan Soudek

 

P.S. Many thanks to Andrew Fedora for giving us valuable first-hand information about this river...