Since the Alabama Scenic River Trail began reconnecting Alabamians (and others) with our rivers two years ago, it has been our organizational dream to point to the Tennessee River and call it one of our own. The turning point came on October 15 when the Alabama River Valleys and Lakes RC&D Council presented the Trail with $7500 to create a Tennessee River Guidebook, thereby linking the curious powerboater or paddler with the 182 miles of the Tennessee River, slung like a necklace over the top of the state.
Most people in the state are not aware of the good work that the RC&D Councils perform, but they have been a great support to the Trail. Since the sixties, they have served as a way to take federal money and instead of applying it to centrally controlled programs, Federal money is distributed through the councils to fund projects deemed worthwhile by the regional Councils and which have strong local support. String together enough of these small initiatives and you have the longest river trail in a single state, a trail that, in our case, just got longer by almost 200 of some of the most interesting river miles in the state. Representative Jeffrey McLaughlin (District No. 27 Marshall County) was also instrumental in providing funding for this project.
To grasp the importance of the RC&D Council and Representative McLaughlin’s support, consider a sample of the treats awaiting the boater or naturalist on the Tennessee: abundant camping virtually anywhere; Painted Bluff soaring 375 feet above you; Coffee Slough behind Florence’s Seven Mile Island, featuring the largest cypress grove in Alabama; the unbelievable close encounters with waterfowl in Wheeler Wildlife Refuge (check out their two-story, one-way glass mirrored observation building); Bucks Pocket, Guntersville and Joe Wheeler State Parks, the civilized camping below the dam in Florence; innumerable beautiful creeks and caves; and Colbert’s Ferry on the Natchez trace, where the Scotch-Indian trader Colbert once charged General Andrew Jackson $100,000 to take his army across the great river.
Elsewhere in the state, camping is a problem we at the ASRT are constantly tasked with solving. Not so on the Tennessee River. Here, TVA allows camping anywhere on the River (but not at developed sites like dams) where your party may camp for up to three weeks, after which time you must move at least one river mile. What sounds like a restriction is heaven compared to camping access in the remainder of the state’s rivers.
We welcome the citizens of the Tennessee River basin to the Alabama Scenic River Trail, and we look forward to seeing you all at our events on the mighty Tennessee, the river that sometimes feels like an ocean from the cockpit of a kayak.
