Waiting for the crisis to pass, our thoughts go out to friends and loved-ones, who also shelter in place. News arrives of old friends passing away, people we knew and admired. Immobilized as we are, we can all relive our travels. I invite you to join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel. These are also messages of hope, not just for our own survival, but that we might begin to treasure what we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
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WESTERN HIGHLANDS FROM BOSCOBEL. Watercolor and pen on Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. 3.5 x 10 inches. 2016
To the southwest, the orderly divisions of Constitution Marsh become apparent. Channels were cut through the marshland during the second quarter of the nineteenth century for the cultivation of wild rice. The blue summit at left is Bear Mountain. The gray dashes in the foliage above the river are the stone buildings of West Point. Enclosed by the Hudson Line causeway to the right is Foundry Cove, which is fed by Indian Brook. By the late twentieth-century. industrial waste had resulted in the Hudson having the greatest concentration of cadmium pollution on the planet. Folksinger and activist Pete Seeger conceived the idea of building a replica nineteenth-century gaff-rigged sloop and offering cruises and concerts to promote the rehabilitation of the Hudson Estuary. Public outcry led Consolidated Edison to abandon plans for a massive hydroelectric facility that would have cut into the north slope of Storm King Mountain, several miles upriver. The land is now a state park. Constitution Marsh is today a wildlife refuge, providing habitat for local waterfowl such as herons and egrets as well as a number of songbirds, migratory birds, and raptors, including Bald Eagles. Every June almost one thousand snapping turtles come out of the marsh to lay their eggs. More than forty years later the sloop Clearwater continues to carry Seeger’s message up and down the river.
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com