Mile 414.0 - RBD Palmyra - Togo Island Crossroads
414 RBD Palmyra - Togo Island Crossroads
At right bank descending 415 the riverbank suddenly yawns up with a big mouth hundreds of yards wide that reveals a watery crossroads where Togo Chute, Palmyra Chute, the Big River Upstream and the Big River Downstream all intersect. A large bay is always found here, regardless of river level, and you could count on this for a quick exit in bad weather. In high water the back channels are of course flowing, and you might have to hug the trees to find the calm place. A powerful eddy forms in high water where the back channels return to the big river, and a gentle eddy at low water. This lovely harbor forms the nexus of the cross. You could paddle up the Togo Chute, up the Palmyra Chute, down the Mississippi, or up the Mississippi. (Up the Mississippi? Sure why not?)
The nineteen mile long Palmyra Chute (which you passed upstream opposite the big cranes at LeTourneau -- mile 426) comes out at this crossroads after meandering around 45,000 acre Davis Island. Thriving with wildlife such as gators, deer, boar and black bear. Kayaker Jake Anderson spotted a black bear swimming side-to-side across the main channel of the Mississippi over to the top end of Davis Island. Not sure what that crawling pile of wet fur was, a beaver or a boar or a long-haired river rat, Jake paddled hard to catch up. He was amazed that this wet dark mass was swimming so fast, and didn’t realize it was a bear until it turned and looked at him. The round shape of the ears, and long snout made a self-identification! Being a good opportunist that he is, Jake caught up with the bear, but not too close, and snapped a series of photos, and even a video, which he shared with the greater world through Facebook.
As you come out of Togo the river downstream carves opens the forested floodplain surrounding like a cleaver carving meat, and the paddler is offered a delicious point of view over Middle Ground Island (four miles downstream) over the mouth of the Big Black River (six miles) to the high bluffs rising behind (seven miles). This is the return of the Mississippi Loess Bluffs that we left at the Vicksburg Bridge. We’re told that the Grand Gulp is the highest of the bluffs in between Baton Rouge and Vicksburg. It’s hard to tell, this one sits a little further back than the others.
Why the name Grand Gulp? Back then the main channel of the Mississippi slammed hard into the Big Black River, and the bluff rising behind. Steamboat pilots, flatboatsmen (like 19 year old Abraham Lincoln, keelboatsmen (like Jim Bowie), river-rats all, they said that the confluence of the Black River and Mississippi River caused strong whirlpools in the river here that would catch a river boat, twirl it around like cotton candy around your finger, and suck (or gulp) it down in its vicious vortex of a throat. The hard edges of the bluff added power to the turbulence. The riverboat men named the place “Grand Gulp.” Later the Vicksburg paper started calling it Grand Gulf and the name stuck. A town arose along the base of the bluff, and then was destroyed by the river. Everything in this area is called Grand Gulf, including the remains of the town and now the nuclear power plant. But for the purposes of the Rivergator, canoeists and kayakers, we’ll retain the original riverman’s designation, the Grand Gulp. Paddlers beware!