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{  } We hear so much said about the mighty Missouri, the great Ohio and other tributaries of that king of rivers that we feel almost ashamed of our own comparatively small rivers. Boston Courier, August 30, 1839 Invigorating Climate of NH Creates Boom Manchester Union Leader, August 31, 1969 FBI joins probe of Iraq Lowell Sun, September 1, 2003 I dug my paddle deeply into the river, pulling hard along the canoe’s stern. Each stroke seemed more difficult than the last, as if the water had become viscous, slowly solidifying like concrete. My shoulders and arms throbbed. My back ached from fighting a stiff wind that pushed the boat sideways. “Brace yourself for another damn speedboat wake,” Alan shouted from the bow. His voice seemed distant, almost lost in the breeze as he gestured toward a broad open boat with fishing rods standing at attention like antennae and huge twin Johnson outboards hanging over the transom. Unrelenting August sun sparkled on the river, stinging my eyes. I blinked at the powerboat gliding so easily while we struggled for every foot of forward motion. The wake hit us broadside like an ocean roller, and instinctively we each shifted our weight to keep the canoe from tipping. We passed a tan brick cube of a building cantilevered over the river and marked on our map as a Lowell water department pumping station . Suddenly, I was thirsty. My lips were sun-dried and my throat parched, but I didn’t dare let go of my paddle long enough to take a swig from the water bottle. With even a momentary distraction, the wind would shove us against the bank like a hockey player making a hard check. Canoe and Time Machine  h e a d w a t e r s Nearby, a couch and sink were washed up onshore along with the usual beer cans, plastic bottles, and foam cups. The city undoubtedly treated its water, but at the moment that fact hardly made the thought of drinking it more appetizing. Weren’t pesticides and fertilizers running off the lush greens and fairways of the Vesper Country Club just upriver? Hadn’t we seen the bubbling geyser of Nashua’s sewer outfall in midstream the day before? As we crossed beneath power lines carried from bank to bank on twin towers, a couple of jet skis whining like giant mosquitoes darted around us, leaving twisted and braided wakes. The left bank immediately above us was dotted with houses and small commercial buildings , and traffic whizzed in and out of the city on Route 113. Railroad tracksparalleledthefaroppositeshore.Anoldredbrickmillhunkered in the distance. Why would two middle-aged guys drive hours to canoe a lakelike impoundment on the Merrimack River in a garden spot like the battered industrial city of Lowell, Massachusetts? Could there be a more peculiar outdoor vacation destination than the tired mill precincts of the Northeast? If we had craved a paddle through settled countryside, the bucolic Farmington River with its treed banks and rollercoaster rapids beckoned just down the street from our Connecticut homes. Like the Merrimack, it passed a few old factories, Indian encampments , and vistas with farms, forests, and hillsides sporting new subdivisions. For adventure, I could have returned to the wild heart of Labrador or the edge of polar bear country on Ontario’s James Bay. If vacations were about rest, beauty, a change of scenery, and getting away from it all, what were we doing here? Was this a dare? Could money be involved? Did it hint at the bizarre twist of a midlife crisis? There had to be an ulterior motive. No doubt such were the thoughts of friends and colleagues who learned we were off for a few days of canoeing. At first, they approvingly envisioned some remote stream with a thickly treed shoreline and primitive campsites far from paved roads. But when we revealed our destination, an awkward silence often resulted, soon broken by a weak smile, as if we were joking. Then they patiently waited for a punch line. 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Hepatitis and worse lurked in such garbage-strewn and polluted waters . We could drown at abandoned and uncharted dams. Old machinery and chunks of metal lay in ambush just below the water’s surface, ready to tear...

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