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The U.S. Issue

Seven Rivers Less Paddled

Looking to get far from the paddling crowds? We consulted kayaking experts around the country, and came up with seven less-trafficked places to hit the water this spring and summer. One of them is sure to float your boat.

CONNECTICUT RIVER

WHERE Northern Vermont

DURATION: Day trip

DIFFICULTY: Easy to moderate

You might spot peregrine falcons, osprey, kestrels and red-tailed hawks — maybe even minks, otters and muskrats. But one thing you probably won’t see are other paddlers along a 23-mile stretch of the Connecticut River in northern Vermont, between the towns of Bloomfield and Guildhall.

“It’s like Alaska,” said John Sinton, one of the authors of “The Connecticut River Boating Guide” (Connecticut River Watershed Council, 2007). Kayakers put in at the end of a path in Bloomfield, Vt. There are some rapids and quick water, including a section known as the Horse Race. But for the most part, the river is gentle flat water that meanders past the Percy Peaks of New Hampshire and Bear Mountain of Vermont, with sandy beaches and bare-bones campsites along the way, until it reaches a dam at Guildhall, a classic Vermont town.

Hemlock Pete’s Canoes and Kayaks (603-667-5112; hpcanoes.com) in North Haverhill, N.H., across the river, has rentals from $35 a day and will arrange shuttles.

LAKE ERIE ISLANDS

WHERE Off Port Clinton, Ohio

DURATION Two hours to a weekend

DIFFICULTY Easy to moderate

Declared “dead” in the 1970s, Lake Erie might not seem a natural choice for kayakers. But the lake is cleaner today, thanks in part to invasive zebra mussels, which now carpet the shallow lake like a giant water filter.

Sea kayakers have returned to the Lake Erie Islands, an archipelago that offers dramatic limestone cliffs, marshy inlets and the chance to spot eagles, egrets, great blue herons and fish-gobbling snakes.

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Paddling the Menomonee River.Credit...Eddee Daniel/Milwaukee Riverkeeper

Hard-core paddlers launch from Catawba Island State Park, along the northern coast of Ohio, and make the three-mile journey across the choppy open waters to South Bass Island. An easier trip starts at Put-in-Bay, the party-hardy village on South Bass, and glides along the calm coves of Middle and North Bass Islands.

Kayak the Bay, an outfitter on Put-in-Bay (419-967-0796; kayakthebay.com) has single-passenger rentals for $20 for two hours; 41° North (866-529-2541; kayak41north.com), in Lakewood, near Cleveland, offers weekend tours.

LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER

WHERE Northwest Oregon

DURATION Day trip

DIFFICULTY Moderate to hard (check tide charts)

The Lower Columbia River stretches 146 miles from the Bonneville Dam, not far from Portland, to the Pacific Ocean. The upper part nearest Portland can get crowded, so those seeking more solitude are pointing their paddles to what might be called the Lower Lower Columbia River: the last 20 miles before the Pacific.

It’s mostly local fisherman at the Aldrich Point Boat Ramp in the rural town of Brownsmead, Ore. But it puts sea kayakers close to a little-explored network of sand flats and marshes that attract geese and tundra swans. The giant cargo ships that ply the northern banks of the river are nowhere in sight. But don’t venture too far: the Columbia River Bar, the turbulent area where the river meets the ocean, is called the Graveyard of the Pacific because so many ships have sunk or run aground there.

The Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership has water trail maps on its Web site (columbiawatertrail.org). Kayaks from $35 a day are available from Columbia River Kayaking in Skamokawa, Wash. (360-795-8300; columbiariverkayaking.com).

MILWAUKEE URBAN WATER TRAIL

WHERE Milwaukee

DURATION Two to four hours

DIFFICULTY Easy to moderate (but beware of motorized boats)

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The Lower Columbia River.Credit...Sam Drevo

As the waters around former industrial cities clear up, paddlers are discovering new urban kayaking possibilities. Some of the more scenic routes are in and around Milwaukee, once known primarily for beer and manufacturing.

Milwaukee Riverkeeper (mkeriverkeeper.org), an advocacy group that promotes paddling along the city’s three rivers, has created a Milwaukee Urban Water Trail map that traces 25 miles of reclaimed and surprisingly varied shoreline.

Urbanites can float along the office towers and breweries bordering the Milwaukee River, while naturalists can head for the Lincoln Park Fishing Pier and spot herons and egrets amid the marsh. Thrill seekers, meanwhile, can shoot over the Estabrook Falls. And those curious about the old industrial waterfront can paddle the Menomonee River to the Burnham Canal to see late-19th-century wheat silos and a grain elevator.

Laacke & Joys Downtown (414-271-7878; laackeandjoys.com) has kayak rentals starting at $30 a day.

RIO GRANDE

WHERE Southwest Texas

DURATION Varies

DIFFICULTY Easy to moderate

Big Bend National Park, an otherworldly landscape of desert and limestone canyons in southwest Texas, gets most of its visitors during the cooler months. Come spring and summer, visitors pretty much have the 1,250-square-mile park to themselves, and perhaps the best way to see it is to float down the Rio Grande.

Water levels fluctuate year to year, depending on rainfall and dam releases. This spring — good news for kayakers — the river is higher than it’s been in the recent past. But even when levels are low in the park, there is the Lower Canyons area, a spring-fed stretch of the river that runs for 83 remote miles beyond the park’s eastern boundary. Here, you are almost guaranteed not to see another soul.

Desert Sports in Terlingua, Tex. (432-371-2727; desertsportstx.com) has inflatable kayaks ($40 a day) and offers guided trips. A $10 backcountry permit, available at the park office (432-477-2251; nps.gov/bibe) is required for camping and kayaking.

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The swampy offshoot of the Wacissa River in northwest Florida known as the Slave Canal.Credit...Doug Alderson

TUCKASEGEE RIVER

WHERE Western North Carolina

DURATION Half to full day

DIFFICULTY Easy to moderate

For 97 years the Dillsboro Dam had corked up a section of the Tuckasegee River, about 40 miles west of Asheville, N.C. You could go fishing upstream of the dam and rafting downstream, but you couldn’t paddle between the two points — until now.

Duke Energy removed the hydroelectric dam in Dillsboro, N.C., earlier this year — one of many dam removals taking place across the country — allowing the Tuckasegee to flow freely for the first time in a century. While the shoreline is being stabilized with riprap, kayakers can make the 40-mile run from Cullowhee, N.C., all the way to Fontana Lake, including new Class III rapids that the dam removal unveiled.

“It starts out fast, almost like a natural slalom course,” said Shane Williams, owner of the Dillsboro River Company (northcarolinarafting.com), a rafting company in Dillsboro. “A lot of folks are coming out to try it for the first time.”

Tuckaseegee Outfitters (888-593-5050; raftnc.com), six miles downstream of the old dam site, rents kayaks starting at $30 a day.

WACISSA RIVER

WHERE Northwest Florida

DURATION One to two days

DIFFICULTY Easy to moderate

It takes a certain kind of kayaker to tackle this swampy offshoot of the Wacissa River in northwest Florida known as the Slave Canal. Felled cypress and sweet gum trees create an obstacle course. And curtains of wild rice need to be bushwhacked.

But for tenacious kayakers, there is the reward of an Indiana Jones-style adventure through spring-freshened water, encounters with alligators and the cries of a bird called a limpkin, that sounds eerily like a wildcat.

Dug by slaves in the 1850s to transport cotton, the canal is only five miles long, but to reach it, visitors have to paddle nine miles from Wacissa, Fla., to the Goose Pasture Recreation Area. From there, look for signs to the Slave Canal, two miles away. Finding the start can be tricky, so first-timers would be well advised to carry a GPS device or go with a guide.

The Wilderness Way (850-877-7200; thewildernessway.net), in Crawfordville, rents kayaks from $30 a day and offers guided trips on the Slave Canal for $65 a person.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section TR, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Rivers Less Paddled. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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