NAPANEE'S TIDES CONTINUE TO BAFFLE   

Thursday, July 07, 2011

It is a tiny pool of water that has found a clearing amongst the shoreline vegetation, nestled in along the popular asphalt trail beside the Napanee River, not far from the falls at Springside Park. The water in this little inlet is uncharacteristically calm, and the presence of four or five large stones standing some six inches high creates small ripples as the inflow from the currents swirl gently around them. When we return from our guided walk about an hour later, we watch with interest as rising water eventually covers the peak of the last stone and leaves all of them completely submerged.

This is the same spot from which the late Dr. Mac Smith, some eight years ago, started taking measurements to support the stories that he had heard about the mysterious tides along the Napanee River, between the town and the Bay of Quinte. Another location from which he took measurements was the Centre Street Bridge where he found the same phenomenon taking place. Water was flowing down stream toward the Bay of Quinte, as it should, but on the average of every hour and six minutes, water would begin to flow upstream as though in a tide, raising the level between 12 and 16 inches.

The mysterious tides are not something new in this river; they have been occurring for over 150 years, and more than likely, long before that. There are stories of sailing schooners and paddle wheelers using the tides to their advantage when coming upstream into town. During a guided walk that he conducted there two years before he passed away, Mac Smith spoke fondly of his grandfather who worked as bridgemaster at the Centre Street location, when it used to be a swing bridge, allowing vessels upstream to access the saw mills and grist mills. In May of 1955, Captain Angus of Belleville, was the skipper of the tug Salvage Prince, when she towed the barge Hilda, loaded with coal from Oswego, N.Y., into Napanee Harbour. “He rode the tides both ways in and out of the river,” commented Mac on his guided hike.

Mac remembered as a youngster, sailing out of the river with his grandfather Mills on a 44-foot gaff-rigged sloop he had built. They left Napanee with the outgoing tide and made good headway, slowed somewhat on the incoming tide, and cleared the river mouth on the second outgoing tide. An Internet reference dates back even further to the late 1800s when it mentions a ship going aground, “then came a little ‘tide’ the next morning and floated her off.”

Before Mac Smith passed away in 2006, he presented me with copies of the research he had done. It was his research that he had painstakingly compiled, encompassing 16 pages of text, graphs and photos, that I carried with me last month on a guided hike along the newly paved trail. The river was still resonating with the lake as it has done for so many years, and those on our guided hike were fascinated.

So, what is the reason for this strange phenomenon? Apparently, prolonged winds across Lake Ontario from the southwest predominantly, push the lake water to the north shore. When the wind abates, the water surges back to where it came from, in a fixed period of time, very close to 2.1 hours for a one way slosh or surge between Rochester and the Bay of Quinte, a distance of 110 km. The amount of time it takes to traverse the lake is as regular and unfailing as a clock’s pendulum, says Dr. Smith’s report. The surge repeats itself again and again and the sloshing of the water back and forth is called the “seiche” effect and can go on for several days, due to the size of the lake. The important driving function causing the tidal effect on the Napanee River is the wind and the sloshing of the lake together with the river’s willingness to resonate with the lake. They reinforce one another. The tidal flow up the 10 km stretch of the Napanee River requires about one hour and six minutes, peaks, then returns, requiring the same length of time, which perfectly coincides with the 2.1 hour seiche of Lake Ontario. If the river was any shorter or longer, Mac explained, it wouldn’t work. It’s a case of many factors working in perfect harmony to create was is in effect, a regular tide in the Napanee River.

Mac’s research and explanation has been disputed by some, but to date, no other theories have been backed up with any scientific evidence to show that something else is happening to cause this strange phenomenon, so dramatic at times, that driftwood and floating ice have been seen floating gently upstream as buoys lean into the normal current of the river. It’s simply a case of the river’s unique position and direction which manifests itself here, but nowhere else along the Bay of Quinte shoreline to such a degree, although minor water levels are noticeable here and there during extreme lake seiches.

The hike last month was a pleasure to conduct along the refurbished trail, complemented by the story of the tides, not to mention a very focused great blue heron who hunted for fish at the base of the falls, less than a few feet from the new wrought iron fence and several cameras clicking away. A plaque recognizing Mac Smith’s research can be seen on the Centre Street Bridge, but Mac always wondered, as have I, why more isn’t being done to promote this unusual phenomenon in the town of Napanee as a tourist attraction.