Mile 417.0 - Miles 417-414: Togo Island Bend & Dikes
417-414 Togo Island Bend & Dikes
The Mississippi makes a tight bend at Togo, a one hundred and eighty degree about face. The waters running northwesterly past Big Black Island find themselves turned around at Togo Island and made to exit this bend running southeasterly! That’s some wrangling of forces, water and land, the land eventually winning the battle, momentarily, as it pushes the river around and makes it turn face. Of course, this is helped along by our army engineers with the Togo Island revetment! There is a giant sandbar LBD hugging the inside of the bend at low water, which diminishes as the river rises and then pulls its carpet completely in during high water (although a steep shelf of sand remains at the base of the forested point). Several possible protected campsites could be located with the forest if needed at high water, but your best bet is to continue on to Middle Ground Island which boasts the best camping in the area. Watch for towboats as you come around this bend and yield to their progress. The severe angularity brings downstreamers to a halt as they go into the flanking maneuver, even during high water. You can easily pass a towboat engaged in the flanking maneuver, but watch carefully for the moment they throw their engines into full steam forward and come shooting out of the bend like a bag full of grapeshot. You will not want to be in their way, and if you are they will let you know with much cursing and earth-shaking blows of their horns! Once they get their nose pointed in the desired direction they throw all engines forward and need to move fast (in towboat speed) to get out of the bend before the water pushes them into the outside bank.
Does the big river dead end at Togo? It sure looks like it. As you paddle into Togo Bend coming around Big Black Island from above it almost appears that the entire Mississippi is coming to a dead end, the lines of trees meet abruptly in your perspective with an unbroken line of forest. To the uninitiated it seems like you are paddling from one side of a lake to the other. Especially when there are no towboats.
In good Tom Sawyer spirit I have purposely shared this appearance with some friendly paddlers I had in my canoe. This was the announcement: “Well, we’re going to have to turn around. This is where the Mississippi comes to an end.” What? Everyone stops paddling involuntarily, water drops dripping off their uncertain paddles. Someone turns and looks back and all around the line of trees with Incredulousness. What!? The Mississippi dead ends?” This statement is met with some surprise, then confusion, then general dismay... These intrepid and gullible paddlers lump down this falsehood, and move on to action. “What do we do now? How will we get back home? Where are we going to camp?” And other exclamations... Of course, eventually you come around the bend, the channel straightens out, and the opening appears downstream in front of the prow and passage of the canoe, and the falsehood is exposed with laughter from the crew and a twinkle in the eye of the perpetuator. The “Dead End” or “Lake Illusion” is strongest as you come around one of these tight, complete turn-arounds like Togo, where the river revolves completely round 180 degrees so that you leave in the opposite direction you entered. All rivers do this at some point in their course. Even big rivers. The Mississippi is especially prone to these tight bends by nature of its muddy substrate which encourages this kind of extreme meandering. Other bends in this stretch of river which create the “Dead End Illusion” are Widow Graham Bend, Morgan’s Bend, and Mallet Bend. In low or medium water watch for and avoid big tows going into the flanking maneuver around these 180 degree bends.