Similar to many of my classmates, I have recently been reminiscing about my childhood home and have thought a great deal about how the rivers and watersheds back in Maine have directly affected my life. I was lucky enough to grow up in an area where I was almost always surrounded by water. My house in Maine is backed up to a runoff of the Mousam River that runs directly through my hometown of Kennebunk. I also am grateful to live a mere five minutes from the Atlantic Ocean. As one might think, I spent a majority of my days as a child either foraging down by the riverbanks near by house, or riding my bicycle down to the beach for the afternoon to enjoy the water (although it was generally freezing cold). I sought out the tranquility and excitement of the river and the beach mostly for recreational purposes, whether it was swimming or boogie boarding in the summer months, or ice-skating during the winter. Yet as I get older, I have come to realize that watersheds, such as the Mousam River, provide many different functions for different people.

I have recently been thinking about the Primitive Legacies chapter in the book In River Time, that we have been reading and keep coming back to the part about how the Native Americans who lived close to the James River had different uses for the James over time. At first, the James played only minor roles in the lives if the Natives, because the river did not contain fish yet, but as time progressed and temperatures began to rise, the river was stocked with fish and therefore the James became an integral aspect for all those who lived within it’s reach.

Access and control over watersheds has been important for almost all communities who have settled down in a particular region. I have come to realize that my immediate community is extremely dependent on such watersheds and access to the ocean for food sources and transportation. This past summer I spent two months working on a lobster boat fishing lobsters and crabs at the mouths of a few different rivers in Portsmouth and New Castle, New Hampshire. Especially during the summer months, lobster is one of the most sought after foods, not only in our area, but throughout New England and even in regions further away from the coast, hence lobster fishing is a major part of Maine and New Hampshire’s economies in the summertime.

Even though the changes that took place in order for the James to become a vital aspect of the lives of the natives who lived nearby took many many years to occur, I feel as though I have been able to comprehend some of the different functions that watersheds such as local rivers can offer to different people through my experiences over the past decade. I never used to look to the water as an essential source for food or transportation, but rather only as a source of enjoyment. I hope to explore even more functions of watersheds throughout this year as well.

Here’s one particular quote that I liked from the chapter in, In River Time:

“So intimately de-pendent on the river were they for its sweet waters, its fish, its attractions for game, its protection, even for a sense of location and direction, that they accepted it as a major fact of their natural existence. They took its gifts as they could, very likely unable to imagine that there could be more. The rhythms of their lives were governed by those of nature, as were those of the animals they hunted.”