Changing of the guard

Eagle phenix downstream

The Indian name for this place, I swear, must have been something like “Rapids with herons and turtles downstream.”

Indeed, the post-Colonials who dammed this stretch must have been channeling (ahem) ancient times, when they named their flow-stopper Eagle & Phenix Dam (two majestic birds of reality and myth).

Of course, when they blew the dam, archaeologists…monitored…what was revealed….

And now, six months after the dynamite (or whatever they used), we saw many turtles, including one with a shell more than a foot long, and herons, including one that nabbed and swallowed a feesh right in front of us, just downstream of the old dam site (or dam old site).

One comment

  1. kayak woman says:

    There are ongoing conversations around here about whether or not to destroy dams. I have mixed feelings. I understand wanting to restore rivers to what they “once were” but I’m not sure the Huron River would return naturally to whatever its state was 100 years ago. At any rate, dams or not, the Huron has tons of turtles and herons and things…