Working my way upstream, I’m kayaking past natural gardens of white-blooming water lilies, green arrowheads, and purple pickerel rush, when I hear the sound: someone has just plucked a banjo string behind me. I pause. Songbirds trill and warble, layered calls echoing along the river from the dense trees. Water drips from the double-ends of the paddle. Drifting in a slow-motion spin, I look back over my shoulder, toward cattails blurring the river’s edge. I hear the twang again, and smile. Green frog, I would learn, a voice found in the wet, verdant, eastern half of the country . For me, a mountain and desert hiker from New Mexico, it instantly becomes the charming voice of the Huron River National Water Trail.

The National Trails System Act of 1968 “authorized the designation of National Recreation Trails (NRT) by the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture as components of the National Trails System,” according to the National Park Service’s National Trails System site. “The NRT system was intended by Congress to compliment National Scenic and Historic Trails … by providing a national recognition program designed to elevate and promote State, local, and community trails for their local and regional significance.”

National Water Trail is a specific category of National Recreation Trail. The National Park Service reviews applications for all non-Forest Service trails. This includes the Huron River, which was approved by the Secretary of the Interior in 2015 as the 18^th National Water Trail. 

The trail leads you under more than a few bridges/Barbara 'Bo' Jensen

A red-winged blackbird scolds my intrusion into his territory. But my presence on this river is significant. Just two years ago, my excursion would not have been possible. That summer, in August 2022, the stretch of the Huron River I now paddle was closed for almost two weeks due to a chemical spill of hexavalent chromium. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Safety’s position at that time was clear: no contact with the river water.

The Huron River Watershed Council website advises that “Hexavalent chromium, also referred to as hexchrome, is a known carcinogen that can cause a number of adverse health effects through ingestion, skin contact or inhalation.” The Watershed Council noted, “Even the earliest news reports covered that the chemicals came from Tribar Technologies, an auto supplier chiefly responsible for the PFAS contamination in the Huron River [in 2018].”

At The River's Edge

The 104-mile Huron River Water Trail (as it is commonly called) could easily be considered an urban trail, flowing from Proud Lake Recreation Area through eastern Michigan to Lake Erie. Similar to riding a city bike path, I travel past backyards of homes, community parks, and construction projects, floating under several highways carrying traffic overhead. I eddy out at a historic stone bridge for lunchtime sliders at River’s Edge Brewing Company in Milford, parking my ride on the grass near their handy back patio.

The Huron River Water Trail arcs around Detroit, any access point only about a half-hour drive from downtown, and even closer to the Motor City’s industrial periphery. Detroit’s car culture is still a defining aspect of the city, from the manufacturing facilities to the polished paint, gleaming rims, and thumping bass of the cars and trucks roaring down the freeways here in the MotorCities National Heritage Area. The amount of new road and bridge construction underway is astounding, the most I’ve seen in any city on my trip.

What is less obvious is how much attention is being paid to the watershed, the river’s infrastructure. As it turns out, a National Water Trails designation means communities are actively involved.

Having driven far, I rented this morning’s kayak from a local livery, Heavner Canoes, supporting their very public efforts to protect the Huron River. After the second contamination event, the hexavalent chromium spill, they hosted a community education and press event. Local businesses, area residents, environmental organizations, and state officials mobilized, demanding that Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, and Toyota cease business dealings with any supplier using hexavalent chromium. The hexchrome spill turned out to be small; water quality was disrupted, not destroyed.  Tribar Technologies went back to work, six miles from this morning’s green frogs.

Leaving Proud Lake State Recreation Area, I continue south, renting from river outfitters along the extensive Metroparks system. The city of Ann Arbor has an easily accessible river park at Argo Pond. Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan; the community draws its drinking water directly from the Huron River. In 2022, the population of Ann Arbor was almost 120,000.

As I wait under a picnic shelter at Argo Pond for the morning rain to subside, I drink my take-out coffee from a nearby shop and think of Erin Brockovich and her fight against hexavalent chromium. Of Michael Moore and the lead-contaminated Flint River only 55 miles away. These fights are often long and complicated. I look out at the pond, the Huron River impounded by a dam. I wonder what water is in my coffee.

Argo Pond/Barbara 'Bo' Jensen

The navigable segments of the Huron River Water Trail are defined by dams. We are determined to make our rivers earn their keep, it seems, generating power for our cappuccino makers and WiFi and riverside pubs. Sliding into a cheap, student-proof plastic kayak, its awkwardly high hull rising like full gunwales on either side of me, I feel like I’m riding in an oversized SUV, a bright yellow battleship for one. My allowed route is dam-to-dam — the river is still too high from recent rains to run the rapids. The Cascades are closed. It would be virtually impossible for me to roll but I don’t argue, dutifully paddling up to the far dam and then back down to the starting dam, randomly whacking my knuckles on those high rails. The price of cheap convenience.

Yet along the way — past the U of M crew team practicing in their elegant long boats while I splashed by in my yellow submarine-destroyer — I find more of the Huron River I saw before. Wide, mellow, full of life. So many great blue herons, egrets, a family of swans, ducks by the dozen; map turtles and pond sliders sunning on logs; and the sweet goofy song of the green frogs. More than once, a huge splash announces the big fish lurking in the depths. I see one jump not 15 feet from me, what looks like a bass leaping fully out of the dark water, impressive and thrilling.

What I love about river trails is also what endangers them — the human connection with that rich environment. In the afternoon, I have a great trip down from Flat Rock, a great boat, light paddle, easy current. A sweet ride. The pace of paddling, I’ve found, just about matches the pace of taking a mellow stroll. It’s the speed at which we can notice what’s happening around us. Being out on the river reminds me that I am truly carried by it, dependent on it for the essence of my life. Even so, it's a battle, to keep paying attention. To look at it, the Huron River is beautiful and healthy. I can’t see hexavalent chromium. Or PFAS — except where highly concentrated in the white river foam floating innocently past me. What endangers the river ultimately threatens us all.

Building A Way Forward

I stop at Hull’s Trace, the site of army road-building northward along the western edge of Lake Erie toward Detroit in the summer of 1812. The roadwork was in preparation for anticipated war with Great Britain. General William Hull’s troops created a “corduroy road” over the swampy edge of the lake, laying logs like a boardwalk; by July, they had reached the Huron River.

Walking toward the water, I watch an old man fishing in the lily-filled delta as he reels in his catch: a hefty catfish. His buddy brings over a five-gallon plastic bucket to hold it.

Hull's Trace went this way/Barbara 'Bo' Jensen

A couple, both around 40 or so, have their kayaks prepped on the boat launch.

“You going to fish?” I ask the woman, seeing the rod holders. She has a friendly, open face. I want to know about warning signs I have seen posted all along the river.

“Gosh, we haven’t fished in a minute, to tell the truth,” she says, lowering her voice at the end in mock confession. She’s got a hint of a musical, folksy accent I can’t place. “Just gonna float, I think.”

Her partner walks up from their vehicle, a strong-looking guy with a light-colored stubbly beard and a big smile. We say hello.

“I saw signs, that people aren’t supposed to eat the fish they catch in these rivers,” I continue, addressing them both.

“Oh, no,” the woman agrees. “No, I wouldn’t eat nothing out of that river.”

“But people do,” the man counters. “Lotta people do.”

“Even though there’s pollutants,” I add.

“Oh yeah. Catfish. Big ol’ walleye, ice-fishing in the winter.” He looks at the woman, then back at me. “Some people need that fish,” he says matter-of-factly. “I mean, anyway — somethin’s gonna kill you.”

“Guess that’s true,” I nod. I thank them for talking with me and turn to leave. “Oh hey,” I ask off-handedly, “have you heard of Hull’s Trace?”

“Never did,” he replies. The woman shakes her head.

I tell them the abbreviated story. The one written on a permanent sign posted in the parking lot we all walked through. “They built it as they went. It’s right here, that old battle road,” I finish. “Right under our feet.”

“No kidding!” The man is amazed.

“We’ve lived in Michigan most of our lives and never knew anything about it,” the woman laughs.

“Actually, I think it’s under the high water right now,” I say. “I can’t find it. I’ve been looking.”

Talk Is Cheap — Protecting Water Is Not

As the sun sinks toward the horizon, I drive out to Lake Erie Metropark. Here the Huron River joins Lake Erie in a smooth trace of its own. At the lake overlook, a large, colorful sign illustrates the whole Huron River Watershed, covering 908 square miles. “Water volume is approximately 383,300,000 gallons per day.” In the golden light, the Canada geese landing nearby are the picture of a healthy waterway, the sky deepening into an orange sunset glow; the water, too, looks clean and pure, and like it goes on forever.

What I find curious about the National Water Trail designation is that —with the exception of Forest Service managed areas— the National Park Service is the gatekeeper to that distinction. Because that’s as far as their responsibility goes.

Unlike National Historic Trails and National Scenic Trails, there’s no budget, no additional protections, and no enforcement for Recreation Trails, no remedy except removing the “National Trail” status. A successful application for any Recreation Trail requires using the National Park Services’ seven-point Best Management Practices and needs deep community support. Yet the designation provides only inclusion in a national database, some signage, a photo contest, and the possibility of priority for some funding opportunities — but no guarantees.

According to Allison Bullock, Community Planner for the National Park Service, on a recorded webinar from July 6, 2023, regarding the National Water Trails application process, “National Park Service does not provide oversight or maintain these trails once they’re designated. This is a designation; it’s an honor, basically, showing the good work that’s been done at your community level and what a great resource you have, but we do not come in and make that part of the National Park Service’s system that we maintain. It’s going to be up to the local applicant to continue to maintain the trail.”

Hull’s Trace was an important trail, now safeguarded as part of River Raisin National Battlefield Park. But signs and designations alone obviously aren’t enough. While the National Park Service is protecting that obscure trace of history, the present status and the future of the Huron River National Water Trail is up to the rest of us.

Read more: Connecting Trails To Parks (CTTP) Funding: a competitive, internal annual funding source through the National Park Service (NPS) focused on the National Trails System.

Bo Jensen is a writer and artist who likes to go off-grid, whether it's backpacking through national parks, trekking up the Continental Divide Trail, or following the Camino Norte across Spain. For over 20 years, social work has paid the bills, allowing them to meet and talk with people living homeless in the streets of America. You can find more of Bo's work on Out There podcast, Deep Wild Journal, Wanderlust, Journey, Months to Years, and www.wanderinglightning.com   

Follow @wanderlightning   [email protected]