It was planned as a full moon paddle, but as dusk fell, the sky was heavy with clouds. There would still be enough light to see. The group of seven met in the waning hours of the long day at Paddlefish Adventures HQ in St. Croix Falls and chose our boats, discussed the plan, set off for the landing.

Just after the 8:52 p.m. sunset, invisible behind the low clouds, we set the boats on the beach at the state park landing. The St. Croix slid south, the water low but in motion as always. The channel had shrunk toward its center somewhat, leaving a wide beach and a boat ramp that barely touched the water.

We put on life jackets, get our headlamps handy, and slide into the water. My friend and collaborator, filmmaker Paul Creager, is in the bow of the canoe, where any photographer should sit, and I’m in the stern, the writer’s seat. (Paul and I are co-sponsoring the St. Croix River Tales contest, please consider making a short film!)

There is a fishing boat anchored in the middle of the channel and no other humans around. A little noise comes from traffic on Highway 8 across the river. The basalt bluffs of the Dalles loom against the darkening sky. In the dimness, few features on the ancient rock are discernible, only silhouettes of the white pines on their tops.

The group paddles slowly upstream, into the Dalles, where the river is contracted by the billion-year-old volcanic rock. It’s hard to spot our fellow paddlers in the gloom, occasionally spotting the flash of a paddle catching some light, or hearing the quiet swirling of one moving through water.

We pass the high angle rock where the river takes a ninety-degree turn, and see the Highway 8 bridge over the rapids, which are reduced to a small cascade by the low flow, and the Taylors Falls Princess laying at her dock. As soon as we come around the corner, the sound of the rapids reaches our ears, like a speaker turned on. When we turn and go back, passing the corner has the opposite effect, a button pressed, the sound suddenly silenced.

From there it is downstream, trying to stay close enough to our companions that we don’t lose them in the darkness, yet far enough apart to avoid collisions. We pass a couple fishing boats at anchor, laying in wait for catfish. A fisherman at the Franconia Dalles has a powerful spotlight that can illuminate the whole rock face. He says catfish bite during the day but better at night.

The trick is not to use the headlamp and stay quiet. Let the eyes truly adjust to the limited light, and let the ears and other senses take over. There is an abundance of awe in the absence of visual input.

Nighttime is when a lot of the St. Croix River’s wildlife comes out. All night, we are greeted by beavers slapping their tails on the water as they dive under, affronted by our passage. We startle fish hanging out in the shallows, and they startle us with their reaction, splashing and leaving a wake as they flee to the deeps. Barred owls hoot and coo from the forest. Fireflies flash occasionally along the banks.

We’re not far past Franconia when Paul and I see blinking yellow apparently on the water ahead of us. As we draw close, it’s clear a firefly is stuck in the surface tension, for some reason still blinking, which is supposed to communicate with potential mates, though it seems like he has bigger problems at this moment. As we float by, he is dark, but I somehow dip my paddle into the water where I think he is and bring it back up and unbelievably, the little lightning bug is on the blade.

I transfer the illuminated insect from the paddle to the thwart of the canoe in front of me, and he keeps on blinking for several minutes as we proceed down the river. Eventually he disappears into the darkness again and I’ll never know if he dried out and flew away or met some other end.

A breeze began to pick up about halfway through the seven-mile stretch, and then the sky starts to sprinkle. The group, already quiet, settles into silence as we paddle. The searchlight from the Osceola airport starts sweeping across the sky ahead, a beacon to airplanes and also us.

To slip into a narrow channel between an island and the Minnesota bank, we must get past a wing dam that was built perhaps 150 years ago, designed to close off this channel and force water into the middle of the river so it could carry more steamboats and lumber. Worn logs looking like the rib cage of a whale protrude from the surface, white in the faint light, so we must carefully navigate between them.

While we’re in that little channel, midnight strikes. Then the rain picks up, falling steadily but it’s still warm and calm. Darkness intensifies. We emerge from the channel for the final stretch to Osceola Landing. The highway bridge is obscured in darkness ahead of us. Every so often a vehicle crosses it and reveals its location, slowly drawing closer. We finally pass under the 73-year-old structure, its lattice work of steel beams seeming bigger in the night. (The bridge will be removed and replaced starting late this fall, closed for up to two years.)

Then we slide back onto some sand and the trip is complete. We are wet and tired and still very quiet. I help David load the boats in the rain and get on the shuttle bus. There is little talk on the drive back to our cars, someone jokes that it reminds them of leaving the state fair after a long day. We all think a bucket of cookies would be pretty good right now.

The rain falls for a couple more hours, welcome water after navigating the low river level. The sun set just four hours before and will rise again in four more. We have spent half this short night on the river.