Long Creek may not offer pristine waters or peaceful
quiet, but when my friend Mike and I paddled our kayaks from the Fore
River up the creek to Clark’s Pond last week, we found it to provide a
perfect opportunity for some pleasant urban kayaking. I got the idea
for the trip while reporting on the beginning of a three-year project
to develop a watershed management plan for Long Creek–a stream that has
been severely contaminated by the vast development that has sprouted up
all around it over the last fifty years. Long Creek originates in
Westbrook and works its way to Clark’s Pond before flowing along I-295
and the Portland Jetport on its way into the Fore River.

    We started out in the late afternoon on the Portland
side of the Fore River near where Mike lives. After paddling across the
river, we passed under the small bridge carrying I-295 near the grounds
of the Portland Jetport and entered into Long Creek, with an incoming
tide giving us a push. On our left was the interstate, resonating with
the constant hum of traffic, and on our right was a fence that borders
the jetport. All along both sides of the creek was a thin strip of
woods and marsh buffering the creek from development.

    Surprisingly, the area around the creek was quite
active with wildlife. We saw more than one great blue heron take flight
as we approached and cormorants, gulls and mallards dotted the surface
of the water and the sky above.

    It was clear from a thin layer of what seemed to be
gray scum coating the creek that the water was not healthy. The grasses
that filled the marshy areas alongside the waterway were similarly
coated in gray. I was careful not to dip my hands in the water or let
water drip off my paddle onto my lap.

    After a few minutes the elegant brick buildings of
what was formerly the Maine Youth Center came into view atop a hill on
our right. The site is now home to an innovative smart growth-style
residential development called Brickhill. Eventually, the developer,
Richard Berman, wants to provide access to Long Creek for the residents
living there in the form of a boat launch. He even imagines them
commuting to Portland by kayak someday. 

    Continuing on, the creek narrowed and veered away
from the interstate. Mike noted how removed from our surroundings he
felt. Even though we had both driven on the interstate, or rode our
bikes on the surrounding roads countless times, seeing it all from a
kayak allows you to experience the environment in a wholly fresh way.

    It was easy to imagine what the creek was like fifty
years ago, when it really was pristine and kids swam in the water and
fished. Up on the interstate, peering out a windshield, its like you’re
on another planet. The creek below, if you notice it, seems like a
drainage ditch built to collect runoff from the road surface, and
unfortunately, to some degree that’s what it has become.

    Mike and I have both spent much of our time in the
last several years guiding sea kayaking trips in some of the most wild
and remote places on the coast of Maine, but we both appreciate urban
kayaking too. It allows you to explore all those places that everyone
has forgotten about, the margins of a community that seem to be
invisible.

    Two years ago Mike paddled his kayak from the
Florida Keys to New Orleans, following the Gulf Coast. In New Orleans
he navigated the canals into the interior of the city and spent a few
weeks sleeping in a hammock on the side of a canal near downtown. You
could probably do the same thing on Long Creek and no one would ever
notice.

    We eventually reached a dead end in our journey up
Long Creek at the dam below Gorham Road that separates Clark’s Pond
from the creek. We sat in our boats and ate a few slices of cold pizza
in a pool surrounded by tall spruce and pine. A plane roared overhead.

    I was hoping to find an easy way to carry our boats
over the road and dam and into the pond, but it would have required a
significant trek.

    We pulled onto an eroding bank and walked up the
busy road to check it out. Drivers passing by stared at as with
befuddlement as we stood in our lifejackets and spray skirts in the
parking lot of what will soon be Wild Willy’s Burgers.

    Across the street we could see Clark’s Pond but
there didn’t seem to be any easy way to get to it. Hopefully that will
change soon, when the South Portland Land Trust builds two miles of
public trails tracing the circumference of the pond. Tom Blake,
president of the land trust, told me the trails are already flagged and
ready to be cleared. On Oct. 13 and 14 the work will begin and the land
trust will be asking for lots of volunteers to help out.

    We returned to our boats and started our way back
down the creek just as the tide turned in our favor. A father and son
emerged from the trees to wave as we cruised by.

     It was still early when we reached the Fore
River again and we decided to head underneath I-295 and Route One and
into the harbor.  As we passed tankers lined up at the Sprague
terminal on our right our boats sliced through a slick of oil and a
tugboat worked at turning around a barge on our left. I felt like a
tiny bug skimming across the water as a paddled a few feet from a
docked oil tanker with it’s engines humming.

    We eventually wound up at the Knightville Landing
where we took a short break. The landing, which will soon have floating
docks specially designed for canoes and kayaks, is a perfect place to
begin a trip up Long Creek or the Fore River.  Several fishermen
were casting their lines as the sun began to set.

    Paddling back to my car along the Portland
shoreline, we watched the sky turn orange, putting the industrial
jungle of the South Portland shoreline in silhouette. To finish the
trip off, a seal poked its head up for a puff of breath as darkness
settled over the city.