Mile 727.3 - TVA Transmission Lines
727.3 TVA Transmission Lines
After rounding President’s Island the mile wide main channel narrows in half as it flows into Arkansas and is directed southward in a powerful and sometimes turbulent tongue of water. You can find sandbars along the inside of the bend, but the industry and noise of West Memphis will be your closest neighbor. Keep going five more miles for the best camping in the area, along and below Dismal Point Dikes. Unless there are towboats in the vicinity go with the flow and make your crossing over to Arkansas and stay with the fast water past West Memphis docks and industry which is punctuated by the giant grain elevators of Riceland Foods. Arkansas is the rice bowl of the western hemisphere. It accounts for nearly 46% of total rice produced in the United States. Its nearest competitor California doesn’t even come close at 18%.
After flying past Riceland the channel opens up into an ocean of possibilities including the harbor opening (LBD 725.5), a wide back channel behind Enlsey/Dismal Point (RBD 725) and the main channel flowing along an archipelago of islands which extend so far downstream and around the next bend that they actually disappear over the curvature of the earth. As you enter this arena of roughshod possibilities you will flow underneath a TVA transmission line which was the site of a life-and-death drama of personal significance. In fact, it was the seminal event of my present life as river guide, author, canoe builder. I probably wouldn’t be here today sharing this Rivergator with you if things had gone differently when I first came down the Mississippi in the early 1980s. Please skip forward to the next section if you don’t have time for this now. It might make better reading in the tent, or around the campfire, or perhaps best of all waiting until you’re safely off the river. I’m going to take a little liberty here and share this tale in full for anyone who cares to hear it. I’ve never shared this incident in such detail, but now it seems appropriate. There might be a lesson or two within, but mostly it’s a tale of fate and foolishness.