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06/01/2015 12:00 AMIn May 1773, John Ledyard decided that six months at Dartmouth College was enough, so he made a dugout canoe to escape down the Connecticut River before going to sea to explore the world. That 222-mile paddling trip from Hanover, New Hampshire, nearly to the river’s mouth in Old Saybrook took him about a week.
Each May for more than 50 years, Dartmouth College students in the Ledyard Canoe Club honor his adventurous spirit by re-tracing his river trek from Hanover to Old Saybrook. And for all of those years, a final night’s stay at the Bill Webster house in Fenwick has just been part of the experience.
The Webster family connections to Dartmouth College and to this annual Ledyard Canoe Club trip run deep.
Bill Webster (the father), graduated from Dartmouth in the Cass of 1939. The family’s home in Fenwick in Old Saybrook was on land near the Outer Light. Bill Webster’s son, also named Bill Webster, graduated from Old Saybrook High School, went to Dartmouth, and graduated from there in 1965.
Throughout the 1960s, the grueling May trip down the Connecticut River was organized as an intercollegiate competition. Teams of paddling students from different colleges sought to beat the others to the river’s mouth using canoes and kayaks. The paddling record for one of these teams to complete the full 222-mile distance was 32 hours and 52 minutes. It was during this time that Bill Webster (the father) first started hosting an annual party at his Fenwick house for the Dartmouth paddling teams.
Peter Webster, the younger Bill Webster’s brother, also decided to attend Dartmouth, graduating in the Class of 1971. Growing up in Old Saybrook and watching the celebration at his house of the canoe club team’s final night, he decided to join them. As a freshman, Peter joined the club and was a member of the annual Canoe Club team paddle trip from Hanover to the Sound. As a junior and senior at the school, he led the club’s May trip.
As the 1970s dawned, clearer heads had prevailed and the race component of the paddling event was discontinued (worries about dangerous encounters with river hazards like barges at night were just one factor). So now the annual paddling event meant long days of paddling, but no nighttime stints.
Still part of the experience then and for the past 50 or more years was that the club would finish the trek with a celebration and overnight stay at the Bill Webster house in Fenwick (now owned by Bill, the son.)
To better understand and appreciate the club team’s experience, 12 years ago, Bill Webster the son decided to try the grueling river paddle, joining up with the Dartmouth team at the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor.
“My roommate from 1965 at Dartmouth and I paddled the rest of the river from there in a double kayak,” said Webster.
After that trip, he shared a camaraderie of experience with the students he hosts each year.
This Year’s Trip
This year seven students traveled the river in two canoes; one student chose a kayak. Leading the team this year was Dartmouth senior Conor Cathey.
Winter snows and spring rains left the river high through April, but then came May, and a drought set in. That meant that hydroelectric dam managers along the Connecticut River didn’t make many water releases, and what releases there were were low in volume, so water releases that generate the river rapids that make paddling exciting were few. But that doesn’t mean the trip wasn’t demanding.
“We paddled 12 hours each day,” said Ellen Meyer. “It was definitely really challenging. It’s cool to test your limits and push yourself harder than you think you can go. We had such a good group.”
Meyer said it would take about 40 minutes to break down their camp and be ready to paddle. By 6 to 6:30 a.m. each day, they were out on the river.
At several locations, the Canoe Club team had to portage around river obstacles like hydroelectric dams to continue paddling down the river to the Sound.
The trip began on a Sunday in Hanover. That evening, they camped at Wilgus State Park in Vermont. Monday took them to an overnight at Windyhurst Campsite in New Hampshire.
Tuesday’s stop was at Northfield Mount Hermon Boarding School in Massachusetts, while Wednesday put them at Brunelle’s Marina in South Hadley, Massachusetts. There, they were hosted for an overnight and party by Peter Webster and the Pioneer Valley Dartmouth Club.
Thursday evening the paddlers slept in the Loomis Chaffee School gym and on Friday, the stop was Hurd State Park in Connecticut. The final night, Saturday, the club members slept at Bill Webster’s house in Fenwick.
High winds on the Saturday afternoon the team arrived in Old Saybrook meant their goal of paddling around the Outer Light to land on the Webster beach were thwarted. Ellen was in the paddlers’ Clipper canoe when winds and waves pushed it across the river towards Old Lyme. In a strong, coordinated effort, the paddlers were able to return the craft to the Old Saybrook side, but were forced to end the trip at Harbor One Marina instead of Webster’s beach.
Waking up early on Sunday morning, though, the paddlers were already loading their gear and canoes for their next adventure. Over breakfast, Bill Webster shared with them the historic logbooks kept by his mother that had club members’ notes about past trips and signatures of past participants.
After breakfast, though, the team was ready to go since it planned to drive to Deerfield, Massachusetts, for an all-day paddle trip. Spring break took the club on a trip that Cathey led through the Everglades. Next stop for the club? A month-long trip later this summer to Vltava River in the Czech Republic.
Better keep training.