Part 5 of personal reflections and historic explorations of the Grafton to Cairo length of Illinois Route 3 by writer and poet Richard Stimac.

More than one company rents kayaks by the hour, but paddling the Illinois River is a task. Both the Illinois and the Mississippi contain a nine-foot channel lock-and-dam system to maintain a navigable channel, manage river depth, and control flooding. The system also slows the natural current to one to two miles per hour. Without the barriers, the rivers would flow fast enough to form rapids. For the most part, both rivers are nothing more than a series of cascading lakes. If you paddle downstream, then you don’t have to work against the current on the way back. Likewise, if you paddle upstream, then you paddle all the way back down. There is no letting the current take you on the water of these working rivers. You work just as hard. That’s what the guy who rented me the kayaks said.

KEY WEST OF THE MIDWEST

The most common Grafton kayaking day trip is to cross the Illinois to the sandbanks that surround islands at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi, which is visible through side channels. The islands have distinctly unromantic names, like Island 526. Regular flooding and thick undergrowth make the islands unlikely stops for onshore excursions. When the river is low, large patches of dry sand offer better landings to beach the kayak and stretch out in the sun. Boaters will drop anchor in the side channels with plenty of beer, classic rock, and sunburn for everyone. With a mix of irony and pride, locals call this stretch of the river the “Key West of the Midwest.” In a lot of ways, they’re right.

I’ve taken two girlfriends onto the river at Grafton. The first was Madeline, a dancer from an old south Louisiana family. Her grandfather has been a captain of one of the oldest and most prestigious New Orleans krewes. I don’t remember which one. I do remember that it mattered. She was muscular, and her deltoids and lats flexed with each slice of the double-bladed paddle.  We’d covered our necks and faces in lotion against the Midwest summer sun. The thick humidity from the land dissipated on the water. We glistened with sweat as we dug our paddles through the still water.

The lighthouse at Grafton (image: Richard Stimac)

ILLINOIS GRILLADES

Passing barges created the only challenging wakes. The barges moved around five miles per hour. The wakes would crest at three feet or higher, sometimes near six feet. I didn’t know much about kayaking, but I knew to turn into the wake. With each passing crest, the bow of the kayak rose then dropped hard into the trough. Once on the far side of the river, we toured the thickets of driftwood and kudzu that surrounded the islands. That was enough for us. We ate grillades and grits at a new Orleans-themed restaurant. Grillades was a specialty of Madeline’s dad. She was not impressed with the southern Illinois version of this southern Louisiana dish. After the food, the kayaking, and the heat, we were finished for the day and headed back to St. Louis down Illinois Route 3.

Grafton Marina (image: Richard Stimac)

Grafton never grew into the rival to Alton that competing St. Louis riverboat companies wanted it to. In the very early 19^th century, Alton grew faster in population, industry, and river commerce than St. Louis. James Mason, from Grafton, Massachusetts, founded Grafton with the intention of making it an industrial hub, using St. Louis money as backing. The heavy industry never materialized there. Three businesses did flourish—limestone quarrying, commercial fishing, and boat building—and the local population may have exceeded 10, 000 people by the mid-1800s.

As rival Alton and patron St. Louis learned, the age of river towns ended around the same time. Today, Grafton is a quaint tourist town. The boatworks is a flea market and a (non-working) lighthouse was built in 2007. After the floods of 1993, the population dropped from just over 1, 000 to just slightly above 600. A visit to Grafton offers a nice day of nostalgia.

SILVER CARP FRENZY

The second woman was Jennifer and her daughter Anna. Jennifer grew up in Nebraska. For her, the river was a beautiful natural resource. I grew up near the river, and for me, the river was an open sewer for the entire upper Midwest. We found a small inlet among the shoals between the islands. After we beached our kayaks, I hiked up and down the edges of the island.  Visions of Heart of Darkness flooded over me as I peered into the shadows of the scraggly island woodlands. By the time I got back, Jennifer and Anna were in the water with all its sewage, fertilizer runoff, and factory farm waste. I was appalled.

Then fish began to jump. Any agitation of the water provokes the invasive Asian silver carp into a frenzy; they can easily leap two or three yards into the air. Their sharp fins cause cuts. People report bruises, even broken bones. Jennifer and Anna rushed from the water. I laughed. For years, I told the story of those two wading into the river to my friends and family from the area. The response was always, “They got into the water?”

Downtown Grafton (image: Richard Stimac)

Like so many places, Grafton faded as times and people changed. The river continues to work, just with different technologies, like steel barges, diesel towboats, and mechanized grain elevators. Condo developments dot both the riverfront and the bluffs. Wineries, microbreweries, bed-and-breakfasts, antique stores, taffy shops, and plenty of parking, all the things a for a pleasant day along a nearly four-mile scenic stretch of a big river. Only three steep streets lead up the bluffs to the Great Prairie and endless farmland that most people associate with Illinois. Grafton offers a pleasant variation.

I didn’t marry either woman.

Author bio: Richard Stimac lives in the St. Louis area, Missouri, USA. He has published the poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region. He invites you to follow his poetry Facebook page.