Come late summer, you’ll find me out exploring one of the area’s many wetland waterways by kayak or canoe. This must-do destination at this time of year is a broad impounded section of the Contoocook River known as Powder Mill Pond, which straddles Hancock and Bennington.

There are other, wild places that I’ll leave to your own (and my) imaginations and personal lists. I don’t go to Powder Mill to hide out, but when I do paddle here, I’m often the only watercraft in sight on this broad, dammed river.

Most may know the boat launch on Route 202 where old railroad tracks lie alongside the pond edge and people fish on summer weekends. From here stands your best chance of viewing the nesting bald eagles from the roadside. Their nest tree, a tall pine on the northern point of a wooded island in the pond, is a prominent feature – if you know where to find it. And, of course, there is the official New Hampshire Fish & Game boat launch in Greenfield by the covered bridge, an excellent approach in its own right.

But I much prefer the marsh edges and classic meandering riverine channels that define the course of this once-narrower waterway, so I prefer to launch near Elmwood Junction, which immediately sets me up for excellent birding and wildlife viewing. It’s also a trip back in time, as historical features associated with the railroad are evident here and well-described on signs created by an Eagle Scout project and maintained by the Hancock Conservation Commission and the Harris Center.

Upon setting out into the mouth of Moose Brook from the Robinson Road put-in, I am surrounded by shades of summer and hints of fall. The purple pickerelweed stalks still retain their glow, and pinker-hued purple loosestrife – a beautiful invader -- stands taller above it. Subtle bluish-purple flowers of marsh grasses intersperse an otherwise sea of green.

Above and in surrounding trees, swifts chitter, kingbirds rattle, catbirds mew and the red-eyed vireo squeals its incessant end-of-summer whine. Short, high-pitched warning calls come from the surrounding wetland vegetation, those of swamp sparrows and their young. Common yellowthroats utter something a bit harsher, but equally short, from the same shared space.

Something mammalian surfaces briefly, but I miss its identification. It could have been a small beaver; more likely an otter, or perhaps even a mink or muskrat. All are likely here. It leaves a wake and splashes along the shoreline of the well-defined, wide natural channel of the outflow of Moose Brook, Hancock’s longest and most ecologically-significant tributary of the Contoocook River.

Time this paddle following late summer rains to avoid sloshing through the sea of variable milfoil which chokes out this pond in summertime, and take care not to become a vector of this highly invasive aquatic plant. You’ll want to remove any loose vegetation from your boat when you exit and well after you enter another pond. A settling summer soundscape is punctuated by occasional higher, more-urgent trills of a gray tree frog and shriek of dueling kingbirds, the only sense of urgency that takes me back to attention.

I let my thoughts drift as my kayak does. The pace of observation flows like a late summer river. I’m never here for a workout, although it could easily be done on such a long pond. This pond’s length and shallow depth mean lots of wetland areas and an abundance of wildlife.

The view ahead features Pack Monadnock Mountain to the south. From here, it looks like a massive “monadnock” (“mountain that stands alone”) with its high spruce community on display a dozen miles away. Find a channel to the open water where you may glimpse a wood duck (or many), hear the rattle of a kingfisher flying away from your approaching craft or see a spectacular bald eagle or osprey searching for a meal. A painted turtle (or many) might be lounging on an exposed stump or floating log.

More likely, you’ll hear them plop into the water ahead of you as they will only permit a distant approach, and if you’re not looking far ahead, or are moving too quickly, you might not notice them.

This pond is not remote by any means. Busy Route 202 runs just to its west, and some homes are visible, but the wildlife doesn’t seem to mind. Across a field to the right is the former home of Don and Lillian Stokes, famous birding authors who kept a meticulous bird list of over 200 species over the span of a decade. Their observations were the impetus of efforts by the Harris Center and local birders to document the nighthawk migration, which regularly tallies over 5,000 migrants between the last half of August into early September each year. Look for these stiff-winged “bullbats” foraging over the wetlands of Elmwood Junction and nearby coves in the late evening hours approaching sunset. Some nights, their migration is impossible to miss, with many hundreds or even a couple of thousand drifting low across the river valley in wide swarms.

To the left is Crotched Mountain, looming large like a low giant over the forested landscape in between. The cove you’ve entered is a fine place for slowly continuing to observe and explore, in which case you might turn this trip into a perfect one-hour wonder. To continue the journey for a longer trip (the “three-hour tour”), hook left which will bring you to the main part of the pond. Continue right through a narrow pass into the main portion of the pond.

Pop out to the main body of the impounded river to reveal a large pond, vegetated all around, unlike a lake with its rockier shoreline. Look left and you’ll make out a rusty old train bridge where a walking trail (still containing tracks) takes Elmwood hikers across the town line to the Cilley Memorial Forest in Bennington. If it’s summer, teens may be jumping from a graffiti-covered bridge. The sounds of adolescence are soon drowned out by the shrieking calls of an osprey and bald eagle duo. The osprey, in this case, the aggressor, dives at an adult eagle perched atop a tall white pine on the island to the right.

Bald eagles have been nesting successfully for several years, progressively displacing ospreys as the most-expected raptor species encountered by boat.

As you exit the pond (only a third of a mile or so to the launch point as the osprey flies), look back into the main cove to glimpse the very summit, all rocks through binocs, of Mount Monadnock. I bank right into the great expanse set before a skyscape of the northern terminus of the Wapack Ridge – wild North Pack to the left and Pack to the right. Though one ridgeline, these are two very different summits. Just as Powder Mill is one pond, but more than a single experience.

No houses or traffic from Route 202 this way; rather, only the chorus of summer crickets and an occasional ripple from a jumping fish or frog breaking the airspace. Distant hums of motorcycles still whine, but they’re far enough away to keep it over there with all the concerns of the so-called “real world.”

Time goes slowly on the water. Monadnock soon disappears into a gray veil as rain from an approaching storm begins to fall. On my hasty retreat, I catch the splash of the painted turtle I had earlier watched plopping back into the water off the log. Just then, I witness a splashing in the water ahead – two massive snapping turtles wrestling each other above and below the surface. Ironically, my quick pace now allowed me to sneak up on them. No two journeys are alike.

Phil Brown is bird conservation director at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock and can be reached at brown@harriscenter.org.