The Living River
When March delivered snow and more snow, I was thinking about spring and rivers. It is a sure sign that spring is at hand in the north when the ice gives way to the rushing water of our rivers. Essays, poems, and books have been written by experts. Yet, I have the audacity to believe that there is more to be said. Yet, this blog has always been about encouraging personal thoughts.
I love rivers. While lakes are a welcome sign of summer, rivers perennially announce the welcome of spring. The river waters are moving and breaking up the ice long before the lakes shown any indication of thaw. Rivers repeat this ritual of nature every year, still drawing me in with the expectation of a new adventure or maybe just the opportunity to renew an old acquaintance.
The source of a river is not always easily determined. That being said, without rain, rivers would have no beginning. In a very elementary sense, each begins with a single drop of rain and goes on from there forming brook, then a creek, then a river. In fact, In Minnesota there’s a spot just north of Hibbing, where there is a marker indicating a rare three-way continental divide. It has been said that a rain shower falling on this spot will split into three parts. One will begin its’ journey to the waters of Hudson Bay. The second will flow to the Atlantic Ocean, while the third part will find its’ way to the Gulf of Mexico. Isn’t this amazing? There are natural wonders of the world like Victoria Falls and the Grand Canyon well worth the visit. However, imagine standing where a simple rain shower feeds icy waters of the north, a major ocean to the east, and the balmy waters of the gulf to the south. WOW. This is an adventure!
Thinking about rivers delivers in a rhetorical sense---a flood of memories. From watching the flocks of migrating pelicans resting in the marshes of Lac qui Parle, where the Minnesota River begins its’ 270 mile journey across the diverse landscape of central Minnesota; to standing at Fort Snelling in Bloomington overlooking the river as it joins the Mississippi River. I’ve canoed the Cannon River of southern Minnesota and battled the rocks in the same canoe on the Eau Claire River in central Wisconsin. I’ve watched mesmerized at the sight of over 10,000 migrating Sandhill cranes landing at dusk on the sand bars of the Platte River in Nebraska. I will never forget seeing the first and only armadillo and crocodile in the river refuges of Florida. I cannot overlook the many waterfalls visited in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota; especially the falls of the St. Croix River only a few short miles from where I live today. This wild and beautiful place exists today because of partnerships of landowners and visionaries like Senators Mondale of Minnesota and Nelson of Wisconsin, both of whom championed the passage of the National Scenic Rivers Act in 1968.
The rushing water, the waterfalls, the islands, and the wetlands that surround these rivers are what sustain the life of those who live in their vicinity. Yet, the life of the river is itself a message in sustainability. Just like us, rivers begin small, clean and pure. As they continue their path in life, they seem hurried, rushing along, the waters powerful, the current strong. It isn’t until a river begins to reach its’ end that it slows, taking time more seriously, and (like some of us) it gets still wider…………..then it ends. It has served a purpose. It has completed a journey. Although they seemingly end, rivers give me a feeling of continuity, knowing that as summer days give way to the first red leaves falling from the maple trees, winter will follow, and then the rivers will break through their icy crust once again to welcome a new spring.
I recall a book I once read about rivers. It was a good book, though I cannot recall the title. The writer said something to this effect. “I doubt that everyone loves a river. But every river has someone who loves it”. It then seems quite plausible that someone loves every river.
That’s another story for another blog. Have you found a river to love?