June 15 Houston Sunrise. Thursday, May 31, 2012

On Tuesday May 29, 2012, I traveled to Houston to attend the annual meeting of NAFSA, the National Association of Foreign Student Advisors: Association of International Educators.
Much of the visit was taken up with meetings and social events. I did get a opportunities to break away. Exploring the city by taxi, I noted that most of the drivers were Ethiopians, each of whom had a brother or uncle who owned the best Abyssinian restaurant in town. Clusters of affluence were surrounded by sprawling dystopic industrial zones, or sketchy residential neighborhoods.
My hotel was near Country Club Plaza, a mini-city-center near Rice University, several miles west of downtown. Planning an outing to visit San Jacinto Battlefield, I was surprised to learn that it was inaccessible via public transportation.
“We like our independence,” I was told by the concierge.

San Jacinto Battlefield. April 21, 1836.

Few states are prouder of their legendary roots than is Texas; an epic tale often told. Images of Laurence Harvey drawing a line in the sand, or Fess Parker swinging Old Betsy like a club as bloodthirsty Mexicans swarm into The Alamo have become indelible images of courage and sacrifice. The horrific slaughter of Texian defenders at Coleto Creek, after their surrender. Their wounded commander James Fannin was lashed to a chair. His face was shot to bits. Sam Houston’s final triumph came on a miasmic peninsula on Galveston Bay, near the mouth of Buffalo Bayou. Emily D. West, a.k.a. Emily Morgan was a free woman of color born in New Haven. Captured in a raid by Mexican cavalry, the beautiful twenty-one-year-old caught the roving eve of The Napoleon of the West; Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana. Legend states that Morgan distracted the generalissimo with sexual favors while Houston quietly deployed his men to attack the Mexican camp. The battle lasted eighteen minutes. Disguised as a private, Santa Ana was captured and delivered to Houston, who had been slightly wounded in the battle. Morgan was immortalized by a popular song; “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. Historians may debate the facts, but most Texans are content to “print the legend”.

The Surrender of Santa Ana. William Henry Huddle. 1886. Texas Sate House. Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.

I met former National Park Service ranger Ed Shirley when we both served as volunteers in the U.S. Army Corps of engineers Living History Team for the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial. Ed was from the piney-woods of East Texas, born along the upper Sabine River. One of his ancestors had fought beside Houston at San Jacinto. Knowing me to be a city-dwelling dyed-in-the-wool Damned Yankee, and thus presumably easy prey to folksy humbug, Ed asked me if I knew why the Texas flag has only one star. Do tell, I replied.
“Why, we put it there to represent the United States, when we let them into the Union.”

Rothko Chapel. Reproduced under fair Use, etc.

At the Houston Museum of Art was an exhibition curated by Yasufumi Nakamori. Utopia Dystopia included numerous living and historic artists including John Baldessari, Herbert Bayer, Christo, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Hoch, Man Ray and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy. A stunning show of monumental Richard Serra drawings was on view at the de Menil Foundation. The Rothko Chapel was more intimate than I expected; the paintings more desperately tragic than I could have imagined. More like a mausoleum than a place of inspiration, it was a moving experience. Looking for comparisons, the feeling was similar to the Neue Wache in Berlin, the Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Dictatorship. The neoclassical stone guardhouse along the Unter den Linden is windowless, barren and empty. Open to the sky beneath the central oculus is a bronze Pietá by Kathie Kollowitz.

Neue Wache, Berlin. Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.

The conference was interesting, as both accredited and non-accredited institutions of higher learning were scrambling to keep pace with SEVP-ICA regulatory changes governing institutional sponsorship of J-1 visas. The presence of exhibitors from schools in Canada, the U.K. and elsewhere around made it clear that foreign student-recruitment. Sessions were informative, updates mostly on regulatory compliance and evolving protocols for academic advising. Given the number of institutions represented from various different countries, each with their own academic cultures and national immigration laws, keeping pace with changes in compliance seemed both labyrinthine and Sisyphean. Social events were like speed-dating meet & greet sessions where the goal was to exchange as many business-cards as possible. It was nice running into former colleagues, and meeting new ones. The first day wrapped up a group of new friends and old having dinner at a nearby hotel, followed by a cab-ride back to my hotel.
At six in the morning I received a wakeup call. Drawing back the curtains I beheld the high-rise buildings of Country Club Plaza, awash in rosy light. Beyond towers of glass, nocturnal gloom retreated to the west. Darkness pressed a leaden horizon, toward which extended the low-sprawling city. Having listened to the funeral of George Floyd a few days earlier, I went searching for this image. Looking west from an upper floor of a hotel, drinking hotel coffee I mapped out this view. I wondered at what my thoughts had been, that morning eight years ago. Were they hopeful or elegiac? My preference today favors the former. The earth turns. New days are born. Daybreak is a traditional moment for blindfolds and firing-squads. It also signals resurrection, the victory of compassion over cruelty and injustice. Looking toward the rising sun, facing the light, we move with earth’s rotation at a speed in excess of a thousand miles per hour. Looking away from the sun into the darkness, our gaze flows in the same direction as the light from its source, at a speed of one-hundred-eighty-six-thousand miles per second. Regardless of whichever way we face, solar energy warms us.

I think for a moment of Martin Johnson Heade’s 1859 painting Approaching Thunderstorm. 1859. Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Reproduced under Fair Use., etc.)

Painted on the eve of the Civil War, Heade’s composition puts the sun at our backs, measuring the space along elliptical coastline into the umbrageous waters dividing us from the distant shore. My solitary Houston journal-painting is not one I would count as a success, but it holds a dash of Déjà-vu. In the nineteen-eighties a large part of my oeuvre was focused on urban landscapes, a project that resulted from a bit of unintentional self-administered artistic jujitsu, following my first painting-trip to New Mexico. That story is for another day.

On Friday June 14, 1777 the Continental Congress authorized the design of a new national flag, designed by New Jersey congressman Francis Hopkinson. Representing the number of Britain’s Atlantic North American colonies removing themselves from Crown rule was a field of thirteen alternating red and white stripes. The canton, or upper left-hand section of the field was emblazoned blue, with a constellation that may spell “S U” with thirteen six-pointed stars. Apart from representing Judaism, the six-pointed star is Masonic iconography. Many of the founding fathers were freemasons. It may also pay tribute to the Polish-born Jewish financier Haym Salomon (1740-1785), who with Robert Morris (1734-1806) underwrote the American Revolution. Above the eagle on the verso of one-dollar bills is a Star of David composed of five-pointed stars.

Francis Hopkinson flag. June 14, 1777

Legend has it that Betsy Ross convinced Master-Mason George Washington to let her provide the flag she was to make with five-pointed stars, one suspects to make her task less laborious. Washington’s own headquarters flag is a blue field with six-pointed (masonic) stars.

George Washington’s personal position flag. 1777. Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.

Ross also is credited with modifying Hopkinson’s design by arranging the stars in a circle. Her upholstery business was quickly repurposed to produce banners and uniforms for the patriot cause.

Betsy Ross flag. 1777.
This design was by no means uniform, with a range of variations inspired by the official design. But did the design just spring from the imagination of an artsy cousin of Benjamin West? Let’s look at few precedents.

The Grand Union Flag. 1775. Differentiated from the East India ensign by use of a square canton.

The Grand Union flag was adopted, or more correctly appropriated in 1775 as the designating colors of Continental forces in Massachusetts. In every part of the British Empire everyone recognized the design as the ensign of the British East India Company a private corporation that conducted itself like a sovereign state for 274 years.

Ensign of the British East India Company (1707-1874) The field of thirteen red and white stripes with a canton emblazoned with the overlapping crosses of Saints George, David, Andrew and Patrick dates to 1707.

British East India Company Ensign. First pattern. 1600-1668

Its precursor bearing only the red cross of saint George on a white canton had been in use since the formation of the company in 1600. The flag of the progressive Sons of Liberty kept the stripes, sans the tyrannical symbol of British rule.

Sons of Liberty Flag. 1765

When the flag was banned by the Crown, the S.O.L. modified the colors to nine vertical stripes, representing the organization’s nine founders. During the War of Independence from 1775-1784, a number of local variants were produced, with and without a starry canton.

John Trumbull. The Surrender at Yorktown. 1819-1820. U.S Capitol Collection. The national colors portrayed here by a veteran of the war has been called into question. If the object every existed it has never been located. Trumbull’s depiction of twelve stars forming a box around a single central star has never been verified, and deviates from eyewitness sketches of American flags drawn by the British defenders. It nonetheless demonstrates the lack of uniform regulations specifying any single design

Star-Spangled Banner. Adopted 1795

It was not until after the admission into the United States of Vermont in 1791, and Kentucky in 1792 that a fifteen-star predecessor of today’s national colors became the official flag of the United States of America on May 1, 1795. With so many contenders in the running, why in 1776 did the Continental Congress favor the East India Company pattern flag? Could it have been because that Congress pondered the formation of a sovereign state that could behave like a private corporation? Why were no allegorical figures of Liberty adopted, nor Roman eagles, Phrygian bonnets, nor arboreal devices? The answer may seem obvious. How did Flag Day begin? That is another story.

Washington Heights, Manhattan. June 8, 2020

Since April 1, I have posted sixty-nine quotidian dispatches pairing images and texts. Apart from keeping myself occupied with a structured project during quarantine, these mini-travelogues were published as messages of hope, addressed to others sheltering in place. Thanks for following these dispatches. As parts of New York State begin to reopen, I will be devoting my attention to other pressing tasks. Today’s desktop road-trip will be the first of a new series of hebdomadal blogposts. Every week, look forward to another. The next installment will be on June 15.

Niagara Falls. Sunday. September 30, 2012.

“…when viewing the falls from below and at a distance, it is hard to say from where the whole river comes. But finally the waters reach the rim, and they rush downward without encountering any obstacle. They do not however form a single mass, as they are separated by an island into two very distinct cataracts. The larger one, occupying the northwest side of the river and bordering the bank on which I approached belongs to the English and is called the Great Falls, or more frequently, the Horseshoe Falls because its summit is quite curved and the two ends, the one on the shore side being longer, project about 70 feet from the center. The top of this cataract forma a nearly horizontal line that is broken only by rocks projecting beneath the water. Masses of suspended rocks lie on the shores, and the quantity of their debris piled at the foot of the cataract attests constant disintegration. One of these projecting rocks was famous for its enormous dimensions, its position over the abysm, and the names that thousands of curious people, including the great Washington, had scratched on the surface. This narrow ledge, known as Table Rock, afforded a view of the whole cataract and the vast chasm below. Upon my arrival, I did not hesitate to venture out on such a perilous platform but, during the night, the gigantic mass broke loose and rolled into the precipice with a fearful noise, engulfing the frivolous glory of all those who had inscribed their names on the stone. Returning to the scene a few hours after the catastrophe, I was terrorstricken and thanked heaven for having preserved my life.”

–Jacques-Gerard Milbert. Picturesque Itinerary of the Hudson River and its Environs. 1826

Niagara Falls. Jacques-Gerard Milbert. Picturesque Itinerary of the Hudson River and its Environs. 1826

Lake Erie drains into Lake Ontario via the Niagara River, which flows over a ledge of Silurian Dolomite that extends east to the Adirondack Mountains, and west via a long northern loop through Bruce Peninsula, Manitoulin Island, around the Michigan Peninsula to Door Peninsula, along the southern shores of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The movement of six million cubic feet of water over the falls per minute erodes the ledge, moving its lip upstream (south) at a rate of two to four feet each year. The first European to describe the falls was Pere Antoine Hennepin (1626-1704), a Franciscan priest who accompanied explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle on an expedition through the Great Lakes in 1679. The Niagara peninsula became a battleground between invaders from the United States, and British forces supported by Canadian fencibles. On October 13, 1812, defenders held their ground at Queenstown Heights, at the loss of their dynamic young general Isaac Brock. On July 15, 1814, American regulars led by Winfield Scott defeated a larger British force at Chippawa, few miles above the falls near the mouth of the Welland River. A dozen miles south of Scott’s victory, a force of Irish-American Fenian invaders were defeated at the Battle of Ridgway on June 2, 1866, by a combined force of British regulars and Canadian militia. Many consider this minor battle a major event in the path to Canadian independence. On July 1, 1867, the North America Act established the dominion of Canada within the British Empire. Hibernian veterans of the U.S. Civil War continued harassing British-held Canada until 1870. What one might find astonishing is the number of artists who visited the area, including British artillery officer Thomas Davies, who also documented actions around New York City in 1776.

Niagara Falls. Thomas Davies. Royal Artillery

A few years after hostilities ceased in 1815, Rembrandt Peale, Jacques-Gerard Milbert and Samuel F.B. Morse all visited the falls, bidding for their shares in a booming market for picturesque views of exotic locations. Frederic Church produced several views of the falls, the most famous of which was exhibited in multiple venues like a theatrical event, or the equivalent of an Imax film today.

Frederic Edwin Church. Niagara. 1857. Corcoran Collection, National Gallery of Art. Washington DC (Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.)

On Sunday September 30, 2012, Kathie and I flew to Toronto. She was to attend a meeting of scholars and curators at the Art Gallery of Ontario, to plan a major survey of art the Americas. The exhibition would coincide with the Pan-American games being held in Toronto in 2015. Flying into the city on Porter Air, we landed on a little island linked to the mainland by a two-minute ferry ride. Having a few days to kill before her meetings, we decided to visit Niagara Falls. Taking a taxi to our car-rental facility, we got a vehicle and headed south. The trip to Niagara was shorter than expected. Driving through Burlington I noted the house of Thayendanegea, aka Joseph Brandt, the Mohawk war-chief who coordinated bloody raids as far south as Ulster County, New York with British forces and American loyalists. Brandt and a number of Haudenosaunee who had borne arms again the Continentals had relocated to Canada. The industrial city of Hamilton stands along the southern shore of Burlington Bay at the head of Lake Ontario. Crossing the James Allen Skyway, we entered the Niagara Peninsula. The terrain is flat, lush, agricultural and a center for wine production. Presuming the beverage would resemble the sweet white table-wines of New York’s Finger-Lakes, we were pleasantly surprised to find a greater variety. En route to our hotel we visited Brock’s Monument at Queenstown Heights, the massive fluted column surrounded by woods and manicured lawns.
The present monument was built in 1856 to replace another that had been dedicated in 1824, which had been damaged by insurrectionists. The landscaping reflects a similar impulse seen in the USA at the same time—the creation of pastoral settings for rural cemeteries, and later for city parks. After winding our way through the strip-commerce, we locate what remains of the battle-field of Lundy’s Lane, a small grassy park next to a Starbucks, across the street from a Presbyterian church and graveyard. Checking into the Oakes Hotel, we are stunned to find the management had put us on the eighth floor, with a stunning view of the falls.
Walking down to the head of the Falls Incline Railway, we queued up for tickets then waited to board. Like funicular gondolas, the carriages were small and glazed on all sides. Greeting us at the bottom was the remains of Table Rock, and the constant roar of the cataract, as the river plunges nearly two hundred feet into the chasm below. Walking north past a monument to Nikolai Tesla, we find Hornblower Cruises, purchase tickets and fall in with the lowing herd.
Photographs were taken. Color-coded hoodie-ponchos were issued. We were in the blue group.
Filing on board, we made our way forward along the starboard rail. Following a short, narrated tour of the Niagara Gorge, the boat made its way toward Horseshoe Falls, hanging back for several minutes while another boat entered the pool at the base of the falls. As we crept forward, aerosol droplets of water filled the air, like rain falling from every direction. Unlike the hissing roar one hears from above the din was deafening like at ground zero of a nuclear explosion. Vibrating every bone, every ounce of quivering flesh, I was reminded of how it felt, the first time I heard Emmanuel—the great bell of Notre Dame de Paris. Metal striking metal. Its deep sonorous call. The voice of God. Dripping wet in our useless raingear, looking up at an avalanche of water, sheer terror is inundated up by an ecstatic flood of exhilaration. This mélange of fear and awe is what Romantic poets dubbed the Sublime.

Back in our hotel-room I unpacked my journal and watercolors. Looking east, a rainbow leaped across Horseshoe Falls, anchored on Table Rock. Across the river was Goat Island and the American Falls. Behind a rosy plume of mist, the wide southern leg of the Niagara River stretched out to the horizon. I thought about doing a nocturne, the falls were illuminated by pulsing colored lights changing slowly from red to blue to green to white, and so forth until past midnight. Drawing the curtains, we called it a day.

Sunrise. Niagara Falls from Oakes Hotel. Monday October 1, 2012

I arose the next morning at five o’clock. My sketchbook and materials still lay on the table beside the window. The sun had yet to appear as I mapped out the imaged. The perpetual mist-plume ascended from the pit. As the sun burned through the haze, its fiery shape hovered behind the clouds. I was reminded of Frederic Church’s 1862 Cotopaxi, Carl Rottman’s 1849 Epidarus, and of the fact that if one never goes on rambles, the scenery never changes.

Frederic Edwin Church. Cotopaxi. 1862. Detroit Institute of Art. (Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.)

Carl Rottman. Epidarus. 1849. Lenbach Haus. Munich. (Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.)

Check out April 2020 Quaranteam Traveler Dispatches

(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

ed******@ne***********.com

As civil unrest sweeps through our cities, we think of friends and loved-ones who continue to shelter in place. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.

Lake George, Looking South from Sagamore Inn. Thursday May 29, 2014.

There are many things one can say to pick a fight. Derisive imputations concerning one’s honor, or the virtue of a mother or sister will often trigger a dust-up. Classic openers like “your momma” or “who’s your daddy?” would not agitate in the least my dear wife. But questioning the existence of Luminism—as I once did at breakfast—unleashes the full fury of Hellfire.
Sitting at the table, enjoying a second cup of coffee, the conversation drifted onto the subject of the Hudson River School, which I wondered might be a misleading term for several reasons.
Few of the founder-artists ever painted the river, while younger painters like Sanford Gifford, John Kensett and Samuel Colman did.
“You damn fool,” Kathie shot at me. “Those are Luminists.”
So. What’s the distinction? Was it geographic or stylistic? Had any of those artists ever heard a living soul utter the L-word. None of them had of course. The term was invented by art-historian John I.H. Baur in the nineteen-fifties, to identify stylistic differences between two generations of painters classified within the Hudson River canon. This Kathie confirmed.
“In other words,” I said, “there really is no such thing as Luminism.”
These words proved transformative. Suddenly my kind and loving wife became an incensed art-historical Boudicca.
“What about Fitz-Henry Lane? You damned fool. What about Martin Heade?”
I thought for a moment and replied,
“Isn’t Lane just a maritime painter? Why does he have to be a luminist?”
I thought her head was about to explode, or mine might be swept from my shoulders with a single savage blow. Ever since that conversation, Luminism has become a well-gnawed bone of contention. My position is that Luminism doesn’t exist. Hers is that squalid ignorance and stunted intellect render me incapable of understanding it. It’s our Tracy-Hepburn diversion, unpacked periodically to both annoy and amuse.

John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872). Lake George. 1870. Broolyn Musuem. (Reproduced under Fair Use, etc.)

On Thursday May 29 2014, we drove south from Bolton Landing to Lake George Village, to embark on a cruise of the lake from head to spillway. Several day-lines run cruises from docks along the esplanade from the reconstructed Fort William Henry to the downtown cluster of honkytonk commerce. Presenting our tickets to board the Mohican, we were paused at dockside by a perky young woman who took our photo. The same drill is repeated at many attractions ranging from Niagara Falls to the Alamo. Pictures are taken upon entry, and then sold to visitors upon leaving. I have a shoebox full of these treasures. An ear-piercing whistle announces our departure. Backing away from the dock, the ship maneuvered around a homeward-bound tour-boat. A minute or two later a mellifluous voice welcomes us aboard, then launches into a concatenation of anecdotes about the Marquis de Montcalm, the French and Indian War, indigenous lore and robber-baron mansions lining the lakeshore. Basting our tender flesh with sunscreen, we purchase a few bottles of water and head for the upper deck.
Taking a seat above the fantail we settle in for a three-hour cruise. Having packed all my painting-gear in a travel-vest, I set out to document the voyage as much as possible, given the time allowed. Kathie used the time to break in a new digital SLR. I turned to her.
“Look over there. Is that a luminist moment?”

Prospect Mountain from the Mohican. Thursday May 29, 2014

She gave me a dirty look. The dark clouds hovered off the south, washing the summit of Prospect Mountain in sunlight. Behind Tea Island was a cove at the foot of a property once owned by the Stieglitz family, where Alfred and Georgia had summered. As I painted, a bank of clouds threw Prospect Mountain into shadow. Reflected on the surface of the waters, a huge thunderhead framed the rolling topography.

Prospect Mountain from the Mohican. Thursday May 29, 2014

“What do you think now? I asked Kathie, “Is that a luminist moment”
“You know it’s not you damned fool.” She replied.
I went over to the port side, facing north as the Sagamore came into view. I called Kathie over, which patiently she did.
“Now what?”
I pointed to Sagamore. “What about that?”
Shaking her head, she went back to her seat.

Sagamore from the Mohican. Thursday May 29, 2014

North of Sagamore the Mohican approached The Narrows. The narrator explained that Tongue Mountain to the west is a notorious denning-area for Timber Rattlesnakes—Crotalus Terribilis Terribilis. The reptiles are relatively docile if left unmolested. While fatalities from a single snakebite are rare, they can be painful and result in serious infection. Famed botanist Joh Bartram described his encounter with one of these animals while collecting specimens in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.

“After dinner we passed the openings of two ridges, the last of which was by the bank of the principal branch of Swataro, the soil poor and stoney; then we ascended a great ridge about a mile steep, and terribly stoney, most of the way: near the top is a fine tho’ small spring of good water. At this place we were warned by a well known alarm to keep our distance from an enraged rattle snake that had put himself into a coiled posture of defence, within a dozen yards of our path, but we punished his rage by striking him dead on the spot: he had been highly irritated by an Indian dog that barked eagerly at him, but was cunning enough to keep out of his reach, or nimble enough to avoid the snake when he sprung at him. We took notice that while provoked, he contracted the muscles of his scales so as to appear very bright and shining, but after the mortal stroke, his splendor became much diminished, this is likewise the case of many of our snakes.”

–John Bartram (1699-1777)

The unique danger to hikers venturing into nesting zones are high concentrations of these venomous creatures, as noted by Jacques Milbert in his Picturesque Itinerary of 1826.
Storm clouds broke up around The Narrows as the rain veered north toward Lake Champlain.
I called to Kathie. Looking over, she shook her head is dismay. I sensed she was amused.

Storm Clouds over the Narrows. Lake George. Thursday May 29, 2014

As we passed beneath the rocky eastern slopes of Tongue Mountain, I spared Kathie another round of questions. She called out to me.
“There you go. Do you see that? Know what that is? It’s NOT luminist!”

Tongue Mountain. Lake George. May 29, 2014.

Painting next day from the Sagamore Inn alfresco lakeside bar I had gotten drenched in a downpour. Kathie had gone to the pool for a swim. When she had finished she came over to see what I had been doing. I showed her my rain-spattered painting.
To the southeast toward Pilot Knob, rain-clouds darkened the skies, as the cool forms of distant hills were crowned with a rosy glow. Sunlight burned through the mist to the west. The wooded mountain glowed an eerie citron hue. The dark from of Dome Island rode like a massive barge upon violet waters. At once calming and terrifying, nature had paused, time stood still, hushed like an orchestra on the brink of a shattering crescendo. She looked at me, then pointed across the waters.
“There! THAT’S Luminism!!!”

Storm over Lake George from Sagamore Inn. Friday May 30, 2014.

At dinner I proudly showed her what I had done.
“Hopeless,” she said, “You’ll never be a Luminist.”

Check out April 2020 Quaranteam Traveler Dispatches

(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

ed******@ne***********.com

As civil unrest sweeps through our cities, we think of friends and loved-ones who continue to shelter in place. Immobilized for the time being, we can revisit destinations, near and far. join me in celebrating the joys of Quaranteam travel, the hope that these diversions might inspire us to value things we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.

Lake George from Sagamore, Bolton Landing New York. Saturday May 31, 2014.

One thing that has not changed since the stone age is that ninety-percent of human goods still move by water. For thousands of years indigenous traders traveled between the Atlantic coast, the Great Lakes and the far west through a series of waterways linked by carrying-places known as portages. One could enter the Hudson at Sandy Hook, proceed upstream to Stillwater, ascend a series of waterfalls before making a short trek overland to the south end of Lake George. At the northern end of the lake one ascends a winding river, scales another set of falls before putting one’s canoe into the waters of Lake Champlain, which drains via the Richelieu River into the Saint Lawrence River. From Saint Joseph de Sorel, one could either paddle downstream to Gaspé and Newfoundland, or upriver through the Thousand Islands into Lake Ontario. After scaling the heights below Niagara Falls, paddling across Lake Erie, up the Detroit River into Lake Saint-Clair, the up the Saint-Clair River into Lake Huron, one reaches in inland sea. Heading north through Sault-Sainte-Marie, then south into Green Bay, one ascends the Fox River, crosses Lake Winnebago to Lac de Butte des Morts, paddles up the southern stretch of the Fox to Portage, where after a short carry one puts in to the Wisconsin River, which at Prairie du Chien joins the Mississippi. The mighty river is joined downstream by the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers, rising is the Rockies, descending across the Great Plains.During the early colonial period, these waterways were superhighways. Exporting trade goods to indigenous nations, trappers harvested millions of beaver-pelts needed by European hatmakers.

Great Seal of the City of New York. Notice the iconography; a Dutch Builder, a Lenape Warrior, a windmill. Beaver and molasses barrels. The colonial economy of Nieuw Amsterdam was driven by fur-trapping, sugar production and slavery.

Where the Hudson descends from the Adirondacks, below the mouth of Sacandaga River is Glen’s Falls, which featured prominently in James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans. Just below the falls on the left back of the river is the carrying-place that links the Hudson to Lake George. Thirty-seven miles in length this body of water was known to indigenous tribes as HoriconJacques-Gerard Milbert traveled through much of New York State, publishing his writings and drawings as Itineraire Pittoresque du Fleuve Hudson et Des Partes Laterales en Amerique du Nord in 1826.