Jock River

I have some general questions about the Jock River. I've heard it is canoeable, but am just wondering what it's like. I moved to Richmond last October, and it seems pretty tame.. looking at it, I'm not even sure which direction it flows. I actually live right across from the canoe launch on York St. so often see trailers of canoes with people heading out for trips. Where do people generally tend to travel along the river? Is it a trip that can be made both ways (ie: no huge rapids that would ruin a leisurely trip back)?

My father in law is giving us his cedar strip canoe that he built a few years ago. He never uses it.. Unfortunately, it's not getting here until late August (it's coming up from Nova Scotia).

However, if there are actual rapids, etc. on the Jock, I'd like to pick up another canoe. Preferably, I'd like to pick up something relatively cheap (~$300 - $400), even if it is a fix-er-upper, just for exploring and the odd camping trip.. any info on where to look for something like this as well would be greatly appreciated.

As another note, I'm looking for plans for a canoe shelter. My garage isn't really big enough for canoe storage and the car, so I'm looking at building a shelter in the backyard.. I've got a few ideas in my head, but plans always help.

Happy canoeing..

Andrew

I grew up in Richmond and learned how to paddle on the Jock. Paddling upstream from York St (i.e. South-east-ish) there should still be a very nice camping area that we used to call 'The Rock Cut'. In the summer there's rapids here but you can literrally walk through them. There should be a well-established fire pit on the north bank where cubs and scouts would have cook outs. You'll also want to make sure you wear shoes around there as it also used to be a favorite drinking spot with the local high-schoolers and there's probably broken glass in that area. I recently took a drive through Richmond for the first time in about 4 years last week and noticed that now there's houses going up along the Legion road. The Rock Cut is behind there somewhere so maybe it's all been bull-dozed by now. I'd be curious to find out. The quickest way to get to it by boat is to drive all the way down the Legion road, bear left by the golf course and go to the end. You can launch there and follow the river downstream. You'll come to it in about one kilometre or so.

The best time to paddle the Jock in my opinion is during the Spring runoff. We used to get my buddy's dad to drop us and our canoe off in Munster Hamlet (just ask some of the locals where you can access it) and he'd pick us up behind the church by York st. We'd do that twice in one day, one day a year and it was a blast. I wouldn't want to venture a guess at the 'class' of rapids during the run-off as I was only 14 or so the last time we did it and I swear those rapids got bigger every year . In reality I'm sure they're baby class 1's (but don't tell my kids that.)

Dave