Living Waters: Reading the Rivers of the Lower Great Lakes (Excelsior Editions)

215 Pages·2009·3.73 MB·English

by  Margaret Wooster

M A R G A R E T W O O S T E R
L I V I N G WAT E R S
Reading the Rivers of the Lower Great Lakes
L iv ing Waters
The Great Lakes–St. Lawrence R iver Sy s tem
MARGARET WOOSTER
L i v ing Waters
Reading the Rivers of the Lower Great Lakes
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, ALBANY
© 2009 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may
be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission
in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press
www.sunypress.edu
Production and book design, Laurie D. Searl
Marketing, Susan M. Petrie
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Wooster, Margaret.
Living waters : reading the rivers of the lower Great Lakes / Mar-
garet Wooster.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7914-7703-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-7914-7704-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Great Lakes
Region (North America)—Environmental conditions. 2. Water-
supply—Great Lakes Region (North America) 3. Ecology—Great
Lakes Region (North America) 4. Great Lakes Region (North
America)—Description and travel. I. Title.
GE160.G75W66 2009
333.91'620977—dc22
2008017299
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Foreword xi
1. The Global Context 1
PART I
THE NIAGARA FRONTIER
2. What Is Niagara? 15
Interlude: Harmonic Convergence, Niagara Falls 32
3. Scajaquada: Portrait of an Urban Creek 35
4. Buffalo River Abandoned 51
Interlude: The Power of Water 68
PART II
BEGINNINGS
5. Genesee Torture Tree: Rereading Little Beard’s Signs 73
6. Zoar Valley Genesis 87
Interlude: Killdeer and Other Mysteries 104
PART III
THE EASTERN DOOR
7. High Peaks, Cloud Lakes 109
8. Oswego, Onondaga, and the Politics of Listing 125
v
vi CONTENTS
9. Le Fleuve 141
Interlude: Second Voyage 164
10. Leopold Revisited 169
Notes 181
Bibliography 189
Index 195
I l lustrat ions
Map: The Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River system ii
Map: New York’s Great Lakes watersheds by chapter number xii
1.1 Snow crystals photographs by Wilson A. Bentley 4
1.2 Map: Lower lakes Areas of Concern 10
2.1 Map: Niagara River 14
2.2 Map: Niagara Escarpment 18
2.3 Love’s map of Model City 24
2.4 Tuscarora protest: “Moses Go Home” 28
2.5 “Falls Follies” 29
3.1 Map: Scajaquada Creek Watershed 34
3.2 “Story of Black Rock” 38
3.3 Jubilee Spring brochure 44
3.4 Parkside Greens’ banner 48
4.1 Map: Buffalo River Area of Concern 50
4.2 The Brech unloads 56
4.3 Buffalo River, 1995 59
4.4 Buffalo River, 1951 62
4.5 Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Stan Spisiak on the
Buffalo River 66
5.1 Map: Genesee River Watershed 72
5.2 1755 map: “Partie Occidentale de la Nouvelle France” 75
5.3 State historical sign at the “Torture Tree” 77
vii
viii I LLUSTRATIONS
5.4 Wooster barn 81
5.5 Salt mine shaft 82
6.1 Map: Cattaraugus Creek Watershed 86
6.2 Zoar Valley 88
6.3 “Map of Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga” 91
6.4 Lighting the creek 101
7.1 Map: Adirondack Watersheds 108
7.2 Adirondack highlands 110
7.3 Space shuttle view: smog over lower Great Lakes 115
7.4 Beaver work at Lake Tear of the Clouds 122
8.1 Map: Oswego River Watershed 124
8.2 Lock on the Oswego River 126
8.3 Inland range of American eel 129
8.4 Inland range of Atlantic salmon 131
9.1 Map: Le Fleuve 140
9.2 Map: St. Lawrence mixing zone 143
9.3 Map: St. Lawrence Seaway region 147
10.1 Éole, Cap-Chat. “The highest vertical axis wind
turbine in the world” 165
10.2 The land holds up signs 166
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, Great Lakes United, the
Erie and Niagara Counties Regional Planning Board, and the SUNY
B uffalo School of Architecture and Planning for providing the oppor-
tunities to study, map and otherwise explore many of these rivers and
their watersheds.
I also want to thank readers Ray Vaughan, Neil Patterson, Carl
Dennis, Lynda Schneekloth and Kathleen Marien; fellow travelers Neil
Schmitz, Maureen Wall, Taylor Schmitz, and Suzanne Simon; and early
guides now gone but not forgotten: Twylah Nitsch, founder of the
Seneca Nation Historical Society, David Bigelow, naturalist and educa-
tor for the Buffalo Museum of Science, and my parents, Gregory and
Evelyn Wooster, life-long practitioners of Baha’i principles, especially
the “independent investigation of truth.”
Dave Dempsey, Great Lakes author and advocate, encouraged me to
see the book through and helped me to shift my focus from the agen-
das we brought to Washington DC and Ottawa, to the experiences that
made me care in the first place.
Nellie Schmitz, creative director and owner of NextLevel Commu-
nications, digitized and edited my maps and photographs with great
skill and sensitivity. She also introduced me to the Leopold Legacy
Center in Baraboo Wisconsin, once a dustbowl farm Aldo Leopold
bought for “its lack of goodness,” now a state-of-the-art resource for
ecological restoration and sustainable design.
Western New York Heritage Press published an earlier version of Chap-
ter 5, “Genesee Torture Tree: Rereading Little Beard’s Signs” in the
Spring 2005 edition of Western New York Heritage Magazine. Many thanks
also to the following people and institutions who provided images for
ix