“On May 17 2020, a catastrophic failure of the St. Mary canal occurred in the state of Montana […] this canal diverts water into the Milk River […] greatly reduced water volume […] river levels are now insufficient for canoeing and kayaking”.
The one year that we had finally committed to canoeing a stretch of the Milk River in Southern Alberta, East of where most people paddle, there was no water. We’d been ignoring this message for a few weeks, but hours before our intended departure the flow meters on the river showed the sorry reality: we needed 18-20 m3/h, and we had 2.8. Now what?
Some quick thinking (mostly by my family), brought us to the Red Deer River. A whirlwind of Youtube videos and a phone call to our hair person’s husband later (who had done a stretch just a week earlier), and the decision was made: we’d float down the Red Deer River, from the Content Bridge to Bleriot Ferry, or a little further if we were quicker than expected. The latter stretch is mostly done in four days, but we saw a lot of leisure time and beer drinking in the videos, and we figured we could do it in three.
We ended up doing that stretch, plus some 35 bonus kilometers in exactly 48 hours; from Thursday noon till Saturday noon. The water was high; we drifted between 4 and 7 km per hour, and any paddling was extra. On average we moved a little over 7.5 km/h. The weather was perfect, not too warm, not too much wind, and though the high water limited the camping opportunities we managed to find spots along the river with some searching and perseverance. We need to do this again soon!
