Photo Essay: Kayaking the Milwaukee River in the wilds of West Bend

February 13, 2024  |  Topics: Places

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By Eddee Daniel

Due to the mostly desultory winter we’ve been having, I’m returning to stories that have been on the back burner for a bit. So, let’s go kayaking! If we can’t enjoy winter as it’s supposed to be enjoyed, at least we can remember summer.

You may recall that we had a dry summer. It was a gamble to kayak any stretch of the Milwaukee River in late July, let alone one we hadn’t tried before. But we got lucky. We paddled for four beautiful hours and didn’t get stuck once.

We put in at the boat launch in Riverside Park, not far from downtown West Bend. The park lives up to its name, stretching about a mile (as the river bends) between S. Indiana Ave. and S. River Road. A hiking/biking trail that runs the length of the park makes four passes on cor-ten steel bridges over the meandering river. The outdoor public sculptures that grace the park, about which I’ve posted previously, were not visible from the water. The River Road bridge was the last we would see until our take out point—except for another pedestrian bridge at Quaas Park.

After floating under the River Road overpass, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly not a windmill on the bank of the river, which was the first thing we came upon. But after that, the next three hours were blissfully free of signs of civilization. The river just got wilder and wilder.  This was largely due, on the south side, to a string of parks and preserves that protect the banks of the river from development—including Quaas Creek Park, Decorah Woods Preserve and Fellenz Woods Preserve. On the north side there is some industrial land, along with the West Bend airport and a water treatment facility. But except for the treatment plant, none of that was visible—and no airplanes took off or landed for the duration of our paddle.

For most of four hours we could easily imagine being much farther away from civilization than we were—the wilds of West Bend indeed!

The only thing that disturbed our reverie was when we caught up to a rowdy pair of kayakers, late in the afternoon. We could hear them whooping loudly well before we could see them ahead of us. Worse, we could hear music blasting from a boom box in one of the boats nearly as far. Since we were all going downstream together, it took a long time for us to paddle our way far enough past them for the softer sounds of the natural world to reassert themselves.

Our journey ended at Goeden County Park at Highway M just west of Newburg.

Note: While we don’t feature sections of rivers on our Find-a-Park map, you will find there all of the parks highlighted in the story.

Related (kayaking) stories:

Floating down the Bark River with Flotilla 2018

Downtown Milwaukee’s river of kayaks 2019

Menomonee River Valley Kayak Tour 2020

Peddle to Paddle in Lincoln Park 2021

An Historic Return to the Milwaukee River and Indigenous Roots 2021

Loew Lake by Kayak—at Last! 2022

Kayaking a Surprising Suburban Wilderness 2023

Kayaking the Root River with Root-Pike WIN and SEWRPC 2023

Eddee Daniel is a board member of Preserve Our Parks.

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