The winter solstice is a celebration of hope and renewal as the sun, having reached the point in our year where it shines for the shortest period of time in one day (Northern Hemisphere), to a gradual lengthening of our days and shortening of our nights. What better way is there to observe the winter solstice than a canoe trip Dec. 21^st on the Shawsheen River?
   Earlier I might have thought a nice brandy by an indoor fireplace was the right answer, but I can now say that canoeing on a cold winter night is magical and a perfect solstice observance.
   The trip started at Bridge St. in Tewksbury, where Strongwater Brook merges with the Shawsheen River. As I drove into the small parking lot my tires cracked the ice on a small frozen puddle.
   My headlights illuminated Ken Doran as he unhitched his canoe and carried it to the water's edge. With the help of his great headlamp strapped to his hat, he trekked at a good clip, not stumbling over the rocks and roots of the towering trees.
   Soon Bob Rauseo, and two others whose names I've forgotten, joined us. We made transportation arrangements, ferrying cars to the takeout spot and then returning and climbing into the now three waiting canoes.
   My worry about the cold daytime wind making me uncomfortably cold was wasted effort. Dressing in layers kept me warm, but the riverbanks protected us most of the time from any cold blasts that jostled the trees. Bob and Ken had scouted the river earlier in the week and cleared any obstacles we might encounter so our journey was free tree-trunk and tree-branch obstructions.
   The river was high enough for us to navigate what would have been low areas with our lack of rainfall. One bony bend caught our canoe at a shallow curve and Bob got out to pull us around into the deeper current.
   I was very glad he was willing to do this since I did not wear waterproof boots as he had. Still it must have been cold.
   The sky was clear except for a very few clouds drifting by lit by the moon. It was a quarter moon but enough to light the banks along the way. When the trees arched over the Shawsheen in stretches making it very dark Ken's headlamp became our beacon to follow. But most of the time we could see pretty well.
   The river puts on a totally different look in the winter evenings. It is a beautiful sight with the waving silhouette of trees cradling the dark smooth river. Then another beautiful view as we came around a bend and saw the bright quarter moon with a few determined stars that had come out to show us some constellations such as Orion and Draco the Dragon. Through the dark trees on both banks we could see the glittering of holiday lights on many of the homes along the river's edge. Definitely a magical canoe trip!
   At one point where the river was slow and smooth we joined up our canoes and toasted the solstice and gently floated with the current for a while.
   We passed under the Route 93 and took out just downstream from there. Luckily, we didn't have too far to go because that was the coldest we all had been, up on the bank standing in the wind. I missed the summer solstice trip last year, so I'm looking forward to one this year and definitely the winter solstice trip in 2002.
 
End-of-Year Canoe Trip

We reprised the solstice trip on December 29, 2001, for an End-of-Year Canoe Trip beneath a full moon. Present on this trip were Bob Rauseo and his daughter, Nicole, Larry and Sharon Lapham, and the editor of the Shawsheen Trib.
   We paddled upstream from Rte. 3A to the Billerica/Bedford border and then returned. The full moon provided brilliant illumination. The air was cool enough that hulls and gunnels were encrusted with a shell of ice when we pulled the boats out of the water. It was magnificently beautiful.

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