Canoeing the North Loup River

You don’t see much white

White water pushes young people in tubes over a sandstone shelf, through a chute and down the North Loup River east of Burwell.

water on Nebraska’s rivers. The state is geologically challenged in that matter. But a short stretch of the North Loup River a half-mile below Burwell is an exception.

When the river is high in the spring and fall, the water roils as it spills over a sandstone shelf that zigzags across the river channel. During the summer, when the river is low, most of its water flows over the shelf and then moves swiftly through the 50-foot-long and 10-foot-wide chute. To a canoeist or kayaker facing these rapids, the exposed rock walls of the chute are ominous obstacles. These rapids might earn a Class III ranking on the International Scale of River Difficulty – a six-class scale used to rank rivers worldwide.

Lacking the nerve to run these rapids, I portaged my kayak around them during a trip downriver last June. Other adults in our party made the same choice. But rapids thrill the young, and they let loose with shrieks of delight, fright, or maybe both, as their tubes

Marie Nielsen and her son, Brian, play with minnows in the shallows of a sandbar.

dropped from the shelf and bounced off the walls of the chute. When Nebraska’s Big Rodeo comes to Burwell each July, a few cowboys and girls kick off their boots to float this stretch time after time. The rapids elicit plenty of yee-haws.

These rapids add excitement to an otherwise relaxing North Loup Canoe Trail, which begins at Riverside Park in Burwell and ends 18½ miles downstream at Anderson Island in Ord. It is one of 10 trails the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission has designated on nine rivers in the state.

Before Euroamerican settlers came to the region in the early 1800s, Pawnee Indians hunted deer, elk and buffalo along the North Loup River. They traveled upriver from their villages, including one that was located near the river’s mouth at the present-day town of St. Paul. The Pawnee built earthlodge villages and raised corn, squash and other crops along the Loup and Platte rivers. They called themselves “Skidi,” which translates as Wolf People, and named the Loup “Its Kari Kitsu,” the Plenty Potatoes River, after the tubers they gathered along its banks. To early French traders, the tribe was the Pani Loups.

The North Loup also led hostile Sioux Indian raiders through the Sandhills to the Pawnee villages. The Pawnee were especially vulnerable to these attacks after smallpox epidemics halved their numbers in the 1830s. By the time Fort Hartsuff was built on the North Loup near Elyria in 1874 to protect local whites and Pawnee from hostile tribes, the federal government was relocating the Pawnee to a reservation in Oklahoma.

The North Loup rises north of Whitman in the western Sandhills--a 20,000-square-mile expanse of grass-stabilized sand dunes. Stretching 209 miles, the North Loup

Young people in tubes float downriver as others explore a shallow side channel near Clifton Bluff, a landmark to settlers in the North Loup River Valley in the 1870s.

is the longest of the three Loup branches. Its watershed, covering 4,290-square miles, is only half that of the Middle Loup, which parallels the northern branch for about 25 miles to the south.

The Loup River basin drains nearly one-fifth of the state. The South Loup River, which flows through an area of loess hills, gets most of its flows from runoff. But the North and Middle forks and the main tributaries, the Dismal, Calamus and Cedar rivers, are fed primarily by groundwater. Rain in the Sandhills percolates through the sandy soil and into the Ogallala Aquifer, recharging the underground reservoir that stretches from South Dakota to Texas and the springs that feed the rivers.

The North Loup’s fairly constant flows spurred development of several irrigation projects that divert or store water for about 75,000 acres of farmland. Three irrigation projects are above the North Loup River Canoe Trail. The Calamus River, the North Loup’s only major tributary, is dammed five miles northwest of Burwell, creating Calamus Reservoir.

Because the diversions reduce river flows from May through September, only a handful of people paddle the entire length of the North Loup Canoe Trail each year. For the trail’s first six miles, the river is only 25 to 50 yards wide and runs deep enough that your paddle rarely hits bottom even when flows are low. Downriver the North Loup spreads out, slows down, and leaves a maze of sandbars. It’s still an easy paddle in the spring and fall. But when flows are lowest, paddlers might spend more time dragging their canoe than floating this stretch.

For the canoe trail’s first mile, the water moves swiftly in spots as it flows over a bed of sand dotted with outcroppings of sandstone that are part of the Ogallala group of soils that make up the aquifer.

Adults and youngsters staying at Kamp Kaleo, a United Church of Christ bible camp located about a mile downstream from the rapids, frequently float this stretch in tubes. The camp rents canoes for downstream float trips, but rocks are hard on aluminum so the camp does not allow its canoes to be used in the rapids.

Many local residents also use the upper third of the canoe trail, launching at the park and leaving the river on land owned by a friend or neighbor. Our party planned such a trip last summer.

The North Loup at this point runs through farm country. Farmers grow corn and alfalfa in the fertile valley, but grasslands still line much of the riverbank. Cottonwoods, hackberrys, willows and eastern red cedars grow along the river’s edge. Cedars also fill the canyons rising from the valley into the Sandhills.

Paddlers might see wild turkeys, deer, songbirds and cattle along the banks, and shorebirds and waterfowl in the river and on sandbars. In a few places, concrete rubble and rusted car bodies placed to stabilize riverbanks spoil the view momentarily.

Chelsea Petska (foreground, from left) Garrett Sheets, Andrea Domeier, James Bech and Jessie Domeier enjoy the sun's warmth while others in the party play in the shallows and pick mullberries from trees hanging over the river.

Holes in the river hold big catfish. During our trip, Jim Domeier, who works at Fort Hartsuff State Historical Park, would have liked to drop a line below a mulberry tree. But, he didn’t bring a pole, and his wife, Sally, was happy about that. She said Jim usually fishes every hole between Burwell and the river bridge on the road leading from Elyria to Fort Hartsuff. “[The trip] usually takes 10 hours,” she said, noting the trip can be done in three hours when Jim doesn’t fish.

Chelsea Petska and James Bech picked the ripe berries as the rest of our party stopped on a sandbar to soak up the late-afternoon sun. Most of the teens and youngsters had an impromptu mud fight, but Marie Nielsen and her son, Brian, played with minnows in the shallows.

By this point, the tubers in swimsuits were ready for the trail to end. We had considering postponing the outing when the day began with rain, but stuck with our plan when the forecast called for clear skies and warmer temperatures by noon. A light, southerly wind slowed our progress, and while the skies cleared, the temperature topped out at 80. By the time we pulled out of the river early that evening, temperatures were into the 60s and teeth were chattering.

The cool water of the North Loup River is more fun to play in when it’s hot. But for those with the hull of a canoe or kayak to keep them dry, the day was perfect.