The Land of Shining Water

The Seneca people called it Karoondinha–The Land of Shining Water. Locals call it Penns Crik. Most first-time visitors refer to its wide berth as a river. Penns Creek first percolates to the surface from a spring near Penns Cave and Wildlife Park, before carving its way through Amish farmland and gaining volume as it joins with Pine and Elk Creeks in Millheim, PA. From there, it follows a long-forgotten railroad bed through narrow valleys where spring-fed mountain streams cool and quicken its pace before reaching Oakwood on Penns Creek in Millmont, Pa.

Here is the river’s demarcation. Go further downstream, and Penns Creek flattens, smooths, warms, and broadens with more pools than riffles. Good smallmouth bass fishing and easy kayaking all the way to the Susquehanna near Selinsgrove where Penns Creek empties. 

But head west, and you find adventure. Upstream, Penns Creek runs colder and faster. Only three miles west is the famed Cherry Run catch and release section of Penns, a special regulations, trophy trout area prized by trout fishermen from around the country. Jimmy Carter once floated his hand-tied flies here on the same water that now exhilarates kayakers and inner tubers. Here too hikers can trail along Penns Creek Path, a spur of the Mid-State trail that parallels Penns Creek from a long forgotten railbed. It was once part of the Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad, a line dating back to the 1880s when Andrew Carnegie bought an iron pit in Centre County.

But it’s the area’s limestone that makes Penns Creek so special. The earth here is laden with it. Porous and pocked, limestone naturally neutralizes any acid the river might absorb. Limestone carved by underground springs chiseled many of the nearby caverns and gives Penns Creek its deep green hue. And it makes for a perfect habitat for small aquatic life on which trout and smallmouth feed. Cut open the belly of a Penns Creek smallmouth (we keep the bass and release the trout; you should too!), and you’ll find crayfish, flies, minnows, frogs, crickets, hellgrammites, a virtual smorgasbord assuring the health of Penns Creek. 

Oakwood on Penns Creek sits in the middle of the Thomas Pool, so named after the original homesteaders who built a summer cabin on the north bank of the river and the still-standing stone dam which locals rebuild annually after spring flooding. 

Everflowing and unrelenting, Penns Creek is among Pennsylvania’s most prized water resources. A place to refresh and replenish among the laurels and native rhododendron that forever shade Oakwood on Penns Creek.