Horn of Plenty

It is a fine winter day, much too nice to waste. I put in on the local big river, in the usual spot, and head upstream against the beginning of the ebb tide. It is only about 40F, but there is no wind and a full sky of sun. 

I cross the river, eddy hopping the bridge abutments before cutting across to the far shore. The current is faster than I'd expect, maybe 2 to 2-1/2 mph, but only under the bridge, where it is always the fastest. I spot 2 deer heading back into the trees while a Great Blue Heron stands guard at the bottom of Carting Island. I head up between Carting and Peacock. A pair of drake Mergansers overtake me. Ducks are fast, even though most of them might not look it. But Mergansers, they look fast. Heck, they look faster than they are.

I pass Peck's mill, then cross the river. Just below Fowler Island I spot a small mammal swimming. Might be a muskrat.  I zoom in with my camera - it's a squirrel, heading out on a 200 yard swim across the river. Kind of ambitious, go figure,

I paddle close to shore, in part because the water is cold, but also because the water is very clear right now and I can scan the bottom several feet below.

Next, is the Baldwin Station Site, an Native American village site with evidence of use going beck about 4000 years. It is currently a McMansion development site. The report that I read on the site tipped me off to 3 other local sites - one near the bottom of the river, one near the town harbor, and the third on a small river in the middle of town. This got me thinking about something I learned while living in the Pacific Northwest. Out there, it was obvious, with a little reading and paying attention, that the coastal area was a genuine horn-of-plenty. A historical record of natural resources before big projects, such as dams and forest clear cutting, exists on the west coast. The big dams that have damaged the salmon runs did not exist until about a 100 years ago. Anyone living near a river had, with little effort, all the salmon, and all the shellfish they could eat, and the forest and mountains supplied anything else. On the east coast, the main difference is that the historical record is poor, or at best obscured. The great runs of fish - Atlantic Salmon, Shad and whatever, were seriously diminished before people started tracking on them. Most of the dams in New England are small and were built before the age of steam. On top of that, this area was the industrial center of 19th century America and the rivers were used to carry away toxic chemicals and sewage. Of course, we were taught something about the Pilgrims arriving to a wilderness. Then one day, the indigenous people came out of the forest and saved them - Thanksgiving. What really happened, is that the first settlers arrived to an east coast horn-of-plenty that was already fully settled. Between disease and violence, the new arrivals took over. I don't think that four village sites in my own town is particularly unusual. Our ancestors wilderness was already someone's home.

I head up to the top of the next island, which doesn't seem to have a name, before turning back. A light wind is coming upstream, just enough to cancel out the downstream current. There's a hundred yard long line of animal tracks on the sand at the dragonfly factory. They're washed out, but I manage to spot a few toe prints that survived. I think it was an otter based on the track pattern, even though it is missing the typical tail mark, which would have washed away first.

I finish up just a bit over three hours after starting.