RIVER TURNS NORTH

by Bob Van Leer

  We continued west on the Tennessee river to Pickwick Lake. Here is where the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway joins the Tennessee. We stopped at a marina in Iuka, Mississippi for fuel, our only stop in that state.

  From where we started, east of Chattanooga, the Tennessee River river runs southwest to Gunterville Dam in Alabama. From there, the river runs almost due west across northern Alabama to Mississippi. There the river changes course and runs almost due north across Tennessee and across Kentucky to the Ohio River, the border with Illinois.

   We crossed into Tennessee and stopped for the night at Pickwick State Park, another complex run by a state, this time by the state of Tennessee.

  Friday, June 28, we were locked through Pickwick Dam, the last dam before Kentucky Dam which is almost down to the Ohio River. Through six locks we have now dropped a total of 276 feet from our starting point. This is the largest lock we went through, 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long, with a lift of 55 feet - and our 21 feet long boat was the only one in the lock.  Rob said if there is an electricity shortage in Tennessee this summer, the water used to move our boat through the locks may be partially responsible.

  The dams in this region were mostly built during Depression days in the 1930s The projects put people to work when there was no work and the benefits extend to this day.