Paddling the Champlain Valley’s Boquet River, a wild waterway originating in the High Peaks

Paddling journey opens eyes to special features of a scenic river

By Mike Lynch

At Whallonsburg, Zach Matson and I joined our paddling partners to scout the Boquet River. 

It was late May and we were to paddle five miles downstream with Colin Powers and his son, Liam, just home from college. Two years ago the Powers family moved to an 1838 farmhouse with 400 feet of Boquet River frontage in Westport.

Colin is a member of the Boquet River Association’s (BRASS) board of directors and was giving us a tour for a story Zach was writing about the waterway and BRASS’s grassroots efforts to protect and promote it. 

With its headwaters on Dix Mountain in the High Peaks, the Boquet runs northeast to Elizabethtown, before meandering down through the Champlain Valley. After 47 miles, it enters Lake Champlain in Willsboro, where it is known for an historic Atlantic salmon run that scientists and advocates have been trying to recreate in recent years. 

The Boquet is the steepest in New York, dropping more than 2,700 feet from source to its mouth in its relatively short course. Upstream in the High Peaks, the north fork of the river is paddled by expert whitewater kayakers when water levels are high enough. That endeavor requires portaging kayaks uphill through the dense wooded wilderness. The downstream paddle is at least a Class V. Mistakes can be fatal. 

In the Champlain Valley, where we paddled, the water is tamer, as it meanders through farmlands and forests.

We journeyed the 5-mile stretch from Whallonsburg near the Grange, to Sunset Road near the intersection of McAuliffe Road in Willsboro. The water consisted of stretches of flatwater, along with Class I and II rapids, plus one Class III drop. This day, though, levels were low and the biggest challenge was not getting grounded by protruding rocks. 

We portaged around the Class III waterfall and other low-water sections. A mom and her two kids enjoyed a refreshing dip in a calm pool on the edge of the rapids. We cooled off with a slide down the center of the section’s last drop. 

We encountered some quick water right away, but easily navigated it in our plastic tandem canoe, with the exception of bouncing off some rocks. The Powers — with many of years of experience on the river —did the same. Liam leads canoe trips for a camp in northern Ontario and his dad is a veteran of the Boquet. 

As we paddled downstream, we were buoyed by the wild nature of the waterway. The only sign of the homes and farms above was a rare barn or irrigation pump.

“You’re really unaware of any houses,” Colin Powers said.

“Yeah, but they are right there,” Liam Powers responded.

The river also showed signs of one of its major challenges: erosion. During one long bend, Colin and Liam passed beside towering banks of eroding earth. In other places, you can see the debris the river has washed downstream. A pocket of ferns grew out of the duff. 

Colin, who has paddled much of the river’s lower portion, recommended a fast-moving section downstream of Elizabethtown for thrill seekers. This trip, along with the one downstream of Whallonsburg, aren’t recommended for novice paddlers due to the rapids.

For those in search of a calmer trip, he suggested the river’s final stretch through The Nature Conservancy’s Boquet River Nature Preserve and the town of Willsoboro’s Noblewood Park, where the Boquet opens to a view of Camel’s Hump across Lake Champlain in Vermont. This flatwater section can be paddled as an out-and-back.    

After a few hours of solitude, we arrived at a bend in the river. Colin’s car was parked in a small, informal lot. We pulled our boats up a steep embankment, secured our boats to the roof rack, and headed back to Whallonsburg. 

Zach Matson contributed to this report.