The Susquehanna Story

There are longer rivers in America (15 as a matter of fact) and there are rivers with more commerce (the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Sacramento) but there probably isn't a river more diverse than the Susquehanna. In fact, there is even disagreement about its name: While experts agree "hanna" is Algonquin for "river" the meaning of "Susque" has been translated as "muddy" or "many islands" or "long reach." It is, in fact, all of those and the boaters found along its shores can, no doubt, add other descriptions.

Cooperstown, New York
The Susquehanna River begins beneath Lake Otsego, a nine-mile long body of water written about by novelist James Fenimore Cooper in The Leatherstocking Tales and The Last of the Mohicans. The writer's father founded Cooperstown, on the south shore of Otsego, which today is home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. As the river takes shape leaving Otsego, it is 12 feet wide. This dimension will soon change.

If you have thoughts of launching in Cooperstown and making a 444-mile run downriver, put those plans to rest. The river is too shallow and where it isn't a matter of depth, it becomes a matter of maneuvering around 15 dams along the way. Cooperstown bass guide Allan Green prefers to stay on Lake Otsego and launch in Glimmerglass State Park (Glimmerglass is the name of the lake cited by Cooper in a number of his novels).

"I use either of the two boat ramps in the village of Cooperstown," he says. "Neither ramp is very good, and access to the lake is terrible. One of the ramps is very shallow and almost impossible to use without backing your tow vehicle into the water. It's also not paved, so you often see people getting stuck. The other ramp is rather narrow. But the biggest problem is parking. The parking lot is very small, and you have to detach your trailer from the tow vehicle. The parking lot fills very early during weekends in the summer months. Also, the village is trying to keep zebra mussels and other exotic species out of the lake. Their solution is to charge $10, do a boat inspection and send you off to a car wash to clean your boat and trailer if it doesn't pass."

In fact, the only boats that do pass Cooperstown and head south on the Susquehanna for any distance are canoes and kayaks. A trailer boat can do it but only for about a half-mile until coming to the first dam. Every Memorial Day weekend, an annual 70-mile canoe regatta begins in Cooperstown and requires a number of portages around a dam and shallows along the way.

Binghamton, New York
The Susquehanna begins to increase in width as it winds west into Binghamton; here it meets the south-flowing Chenango River at the city's appropriately named Confluence Park. With a population of almost 46,000, the city is undergoing a major renovation of its waterfront, extending north from Confluence Park along the Chenango River. While the Chenango can be shallow (rowing clubs have races here), trailer boats can be launched on the Susquehanna from Sandy Beach Park and plans are in the works for a second boat launch (kayaks only) at nearby Rock Bottom Dam.

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Once a huge mining town of anthracite coal, Wilkes-Barre is now in the final year of building a $200 million Riverfront District, with levees and flood-walls to keep the Susquehanna away from businesses and residents. As many living along the river know all too well, the Susquehanna has flooded once every 20 years, in some cases destroying buildings and roads. The new riverfront will also have a boardwalk and shops. Boaters launch from nearby Nesbit Park on the western side of the river, which is undergoing a renovation with improved parking, floating docks and lights.

Sunbury, Pennsylvania
This is where the north and west branches of the Susquehanna converge and from here, the river winds its way through the Pennsylvania mountains into Maryland before emptying into the Chesapeake. Sunbury is just beginning a $22 million upgrade of its River Front Park which, when completed, will have a 30-slip marina (transients welcome), bike and pedestrian trails and green space. There is no boat ramp planned for the marina. Sunbury has a 19-foot flood-wall just beyond the River Front Park that has protected the city 15 different times from the Susquehanna's high waters since being built in 1951.

But while the city was the strategic site of Fort Augusta during the French and Indian War and later was an American headquarters during the Revolutionary War, Sunbury is best known for a visit made by Thomas Edison in the summer of 1883. The inventor, trying to prove his idea that a light bulb held promise, wired the city's hotel to a seven-by-nine-foot generator and illuminated the inside. From that day on, the city hotel became known as The Edison Hotel. It's still open for business today. After illuminating the hotel, Edison walked over to the nearby train station the same day and lit that building as well.

Boaters will be interested in the Adam Bowler Dam that spans the river just three miles south of Sunbury. This is the world's longest inflatable dam (2,100 feet) and is made up of a fiber tube that is "inflated" every spring to create the seasonally formed Lake Augusta. When the "dam" is in place, the Susquehanna backs up in both branches almost six-and-one half miles, forming Lake Augusta by raising the water level almost three feet. Boaters, especially water-skiers, will be found on Lake Augusta during the summer. The dam is lowered in the autumn to allow shad to move upriver, although efforts are underway to set up fish steps that will allow shad movement upstream when the dam is in place.

Taking the aptly named Bridge Avenue across the Susquehanna from Sunbury brings you to Packers Island and Shikellamy State Park. There's a four-lane boat ramp in the 131-acre park with 90 spaces designated for tow vehicles and trailers. If your boat has a Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission launch permit or registration sticker, no fee is involved. Out-of-state boaters can buy an annual sticker for $10. This is a day-use park and closes at sunset. Nearby boat launches are at Pineknotter Park and Northumberland Park less than a mile from Shikellamy.

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital has a five-mile Riverfront Park along the eastern shore of the Susquehanna. During the summer it's the venue for a myriad of food and music festivals and is known for having 13 river overlooks-which represent the original 13 colonies. Keeping with this patriotic symbolism, each walkway to the water has exactly 13 steps.

City Island is in the middle of the mile wide Susquehanna and connects to Harrisburg by both the Market Street bridge (for cars) and the Walnut Street footbridge (for pedestrians). The 62-acre island is home to Commerce Bank Park, a minor league baseball field where the Harrisburg Senators play and operate as a farm club for the Washington Nationals.

A renovated municipal boat ramp is found at Nesbit Park on the west side of the river. It has floating docks and an improved parking area. There is also a boat ramp across the river in West Fairview Park where Bassmasters Fishing Tournaments are held a few times during the year.

Havre de Grace, Maryland
The Susquehanna's 444-mile journey through three states and, over 15 dams, comes to an end at Havre de Grace, where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay at a rate of 19 million gallons of water every minute. Havre de Grace almost became the nation's capital during a major Congressional debate in 1791, but Washington, D.C. won in a close vote. Today, the city is home to things more nautical than political.
Visitors will see the Concord Point Lighthouse, built in 1827 to warn ships away from shoals and now open for tours, and the Decoy Museum, which celebrates centuries of rare hand-carved duck decoys and boats that were used for hunting food by 19th and early 20th Century residents.

Today, Havre de Grace has a boardwalk along its waterfront, locally owned restaurants and inns and, probably most important, a variety of boat ramps providing access to both the river and the bay. Right on the waterfront is the 22-acre Tydings Park, with has a boat launch and is the venue of the annual seafood festival held every August. The park is next door to Havre de Grace Yacht Basin, which also has a boat ramp ($5 per launch) and areas for fishing from shore.

Just north of town is the 2,600 acre Susquehanna State Park. Here, the Lapidum Boat Launch is available at $10 per launch for Maryland residents and $11 per launch for out- of-state boaters. If you intend to leave your trailer and tow vehicle overnight, let the park office know prior to launching.

Farther north and on the east side of the river is Port Deposit, so named because this was the farthest a ship could travel up the Susquehanna before it ran aground and the town was a collection point for logs that were floated downriver from Pennsylvania. Today, Port Deposit is a good place for a walking tour of Victorian homes constructed of local granite and wood. There's a boat ramp here too. The town's web site (www.portdeposit.org) always has updates about scheduled openings of floodgates at the Conowingo Dam just upriver. This is important for boaters because the released water creates a strong current flowing out of the river, in many instances carrying half- submerged logs. During releases of water, most boaters will avoid the river. It is usually only an inconvenience for a few days.

Beyond the Susquehanna headwaters in the upper Chesapeake Bay is an eight-mile-long area called "the Flats" which is one of the most frequented fishing sites in the area. Depending on the tide, 'the Flats" can have as much as six feet of water or as little as two, but it is consistently attractive to striped bass (rockfish), trout and perch. Local anglers describe "the Susquehanna Flats" as a large inverted bowl. From March to May, all fishing on "the Flats" is catch and release. It's crowded and many trailer boaters will drift fish over the area or position their lines along the edges of the "bowl."

Susquehanna River
Fast Facts:

• 444 miles long from Cooperstown, New York to Havre de Grace, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. It's the 16th longest river in the United States.
• It is a mile wide as it flows past Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
• Explorer Captain John Smith had to turn back at what is now the Conowingo Dam because the waters were too shallow and full of rapids.
• They lived along the Susquehanna:
  Actor David Hasselhoff (Havre de Grace, MD)
  Hall of Famer Cal Ripken (Havre de Grace, MD)
  Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling (Binghamton, NY)
  All About Eve director Joseph Mankiewicz (Wilkes-Barre, PA)
• There are fish passage facilities (fish-ways) at each of the four hydroelectric dams on the lower Susquehanna River. Conowingo, Holtwood and Safe Harbor Dams have fish lifts or elevators while York Haven Dam uses a vertical-slot fish ladder in which the fish swim to different levels before being released. The utilities that run the dams have spent more than $70 million on fish ladders and lifts.