St. Lawrence River--a world changes forever

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While researching a new historical bride story for Quebec, I realized that once again I have bumped up against a landscape which has totally changed since my childhood. My parents and I lived for a time on Skanaeateles Lake in New York State, when the midstate area was still a bustling industrial region. Post war, people looking for work came down Route 20 past our house. In 1953, many of these travelers were aiming to turn north and head to Massena, New York, where ground on the long debated seaway (since before World War I) had at last been broken. 

This project was first proposed in the 1890's, as a way to open the vast interiors of Canada and the U.S. to maritime trade. Miles of rapids would be eliminated, rapids which the first travelers into the Northwest territories had navigated by portage, and, later, in the 19th century, by a series of canals. The canals were too and narrow to accomodate large modern ships, so there was a trans-shipping industry with much loading and unloading, in which smaller ships carried ores, coal and grain from Canada and the American midwest, to the nearest deep water port. Of course, the largest visual cue for anyone airborne surveying the territory between the Atlantic and Lake Eire was the magnificent drop at Niagara Falls.  

When I was very small, my parents took me through upstate New York, way up past my family's homestead near Schuylerville, NY to the shores of the St. Lawrence. From the American side, I saw many lovely islands dotting the river, some with "castles" built upon them. There were also terrifying rapids, and, in between small boats, some fishermen, some sightseers, out for a day's work or pleasure on the river. My mother told me stories about  one of her great-aunts who had spent her summers working as a cook on one of those pretty touring vessels. 

Eisenhower was president when the project began; he was still president when, in 1959, the seaway was, with much fanfare, completed. Young Queen Elizabeth arrived on HMY Britannia to do some official ribbon-cutting and sail on a small section of the newly completed Seaway. At last the interior of both Canada and the U.S. were open, cutting costs for the shippers and making the Great Lakes, and all the rich commodities both north and south of the border, available to ocean going ships.

Well, fanfare of trumpets for Progress, which was the watch-word for the optimistic 1950's! 

I don't want to omit, though, that there were also many severe individual losses, as old family farmlands, small historic river towns, and even some of those "thousand islands" were demolished, as grand mansions, fertile fields and fecund wetlands alike vanished beneath the water. A long established way of life beside this great river was forever lost. Generations of families who had lived tranquil, seasonal lives here, lost their land and homes through Eminent Domain.

One group who probably lost more than anyone to modernization were The People of the Flint, a group of Iroquoian (Six Nation's) people. Most of the those on Kahnawake reservation now are Mohawk, but others once belonged to their southern brothers, the Caughnawagas. Still others were refugees, fleeing the European take-over of their heritary lands.

Forty thousand three hundred and twenty acres were originally granted to the Iroquois. Today, thirteen thousand acres remain. The rest has been taken by non-native encroachment and abetted by mismanagement by the same government officials who were entrusted with the job of enforcing the original treaty. They were aided by surveyors who modified old maps at the expense of the Kahnawake people. Modern cessations were also forced upon the tribe to make way for a railway, hydro-electric dams, highways, bridges, and, finally, the Seaway. This has permanently severed the ancient relationship with the land and the river enjoyed by these original inhabitants. The people have suffered in many ways as their old seasonal continuities, energetic, subsistence lifestyle, and food ways were lost along with access to the river.

Moreover, it didn't take long for the unintended consequences to appear. Invasive, destructive new species arrived in the Great Lakes and in the St. Lawrence. Now, Zebra and Quagga mussels clog freshwater intake pipes for the large midwestern cities that ring the lakes. Sea lamprey kill many sport (and regional food staple) fish. They have also been known to attach themselves to swimmers. The Round Goby, arriving in Black Sea bilgewater from Eurasia, poisons river bottoms with botulism, which then infects the environment and kills native diving birds. The Goby also has a nasty habit of chowing down on juvenile native species of the prized sportfish and on that original First Nation's staple, the once-plentiful White Fish.  A reedy invasive, Phragmites (Phragmites australis ssp australis) look pretty, but these now grow in thick mats and smother native plants--including the smaller native Phragmite species--upsetting the wetland food chain necessary for many North American foundation species of plants, fish and animals. 

This great Seaway, built at an (estimated) cost of 5 1/2 Billion dollars of today's money, has proved, like many past public works, a blessing for some and a curse for others. Capital wealth has been generated, certainly. The pay-off has been huge for the company owners, for stockholders as well as the workers who, (before our heavy manufacturing base collapsed) benefited with high standards of living in midwestern cities like Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo and Sarnia. 

Once again, the old adage, "Man proposes; God disposes" has proved both true and apt.

~~Juliet Waldron  

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The barge image above: 

Image: Wikipedia (public domain)

US government agency DOT

By 20px|link=User:Kcida10|Kcida10 Kcida10 (talk) (Uploads). - https://www.transportation.gov/fastlane/new-years-eve-ends-seaway-navigation-season, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47277919

Nevis Story for Alexander Hamilton's January 11 Birthday

 

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Once upon a time, back in the 1950’s, I was a youngster. One, however, who was driven by the same interest in history that still brings me so much pleasure today.

Me, Charlestown, Nevis, 1958

Here’s a picture which I recently discovered in the attic. I remembered it, but didn’t know if it still existed. Old and color faded, it is framed in a way that tells me my mother had it somewhere in her last little home. It has survived our journey which took us from upstate New York, to the U.K., to the West Indies then back to America again. It also survived the fire in her house, one which she inadvertently set while heating milk one night. Plenty of things disappeared during that--books, furniture, pictures, and a good part of the roof. Other possessions were water-damaged or broken after the firemen came to save the house.

I'm very happy this picture has survived, because it was taken on one of those spectacularly good days--one of those days where wishes come true. There I am, sitting on the ruins of a sea wall on a black sand beach, with the remains of a fort behind me. This is Nevis in 1958 and my Mother had taken me to see the birthplace of my hero, Alexander Hamilton.  Besotted with Alexander as I was, this made me the weirdest kid in my school. The term "nerd" had not yet come into being, so what I was did not yet have a put-down label. That's what I was all the same, especially in a world where Elvis Presley reigned, teen heart-throb supreme.

Nevis today

The entire story of our trip to Nevis sounds improbable today, but jet planes were not yet "a thing." It took nine or ten hours to fly from Idlewild airport-now, JFK--to the West Indies. The trip was accomplished in jumps and layovers--to Bermuda, to San Juan, to Antigua, and, from there, hitching up with whatever "puddle jumper" between islands was heading toward your  destination. 

To get to Nevis in those days was not exactly easy. There were a couple of flights a week from St. Kitts, otherwise travel was by ferry. We'd flown into St. Kitts the day before, traveling north again from our base in truly tropical Barbados. 

St. Kitts surprised us. What we saw of it was nearly treeless, mountainous, and cold and windy too. I remember the wind howling around our hotel that night, and Mom and I searching for extra coverings for our beds. 

At the St. Kitt's airport the next day, we arrived to discover that the small plane in which we and two other passengers were to travel was in pieces in the hanger. Would we be able to leave today? Lots of head shaking was the answer to Mom's question. I sat on a bench in the open-to-the-elements waiting room and lost myself in a book. The book was, of course, about Hamilton. Published in 1912, the story was, I've since learned, mostly fictional, though the characterization still rings true. In those days, this used bookstore acquisition traveled with me everywhere.

Afternoon passed. As the sun began to go down, the plane was working again. At last we could start the flight over the narrow strait that lay between St. Kitt's and Nevis, although not without some trepidation about the plane's mechanical worthiness. By the time we arrived at the island, twilight was almost at an end. Our landing lights were men holding torches--kerosene soaked rags on long sticks held aloft.  After a bouncy light plane's landing on green turf, we were there at last.  

This looks a bit more formal than I remember.

We were tired when we reached the guest house Mother had booked in Charlestown. The soft light of kerosene lanterns lit the windows. We'd learn that electricity was a new convenience here, one that came on from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day. Past six, the power was gone and we were in an earlier age.

Charlestown in the 1950's

In the parlor, every surface --a maze of small tables --was covered with a Victorian level of clutter. All the upholstered chairs sported antimacassars. Here another trial lay in wait for us tired travelers. The landlady appeared, declaring that she'd had no idea I was a child--and that she NEVER allowed children in her guesthouse. "Especially not American children!" 

As you might imagine, my Mom reared back into her frostiest lady-of-the-gentry persona and replied to the effect that her daughter was a model child. Besides, she continued, we'd come here all the way from Barbados because of my interest in Alexander Hamilton and heartfelt desire to see his birthplace. At my mother's nod, I presented my ancient novel, and told the landlady how excited I was to be visiting Nevis, the place of my hero's birth. As much as my mother, I wanted a place to rest my head after a long day of anxiety and uncertainty, but knew I'd have to be as persuasive as possible.

After flipping through the book, the woman handed it back to me and said we could stay overnight. The next morning during a boarding house breakfast where I was careful never to speak unless spoken to and to say "please" and "thank-you," our hostess said she'd decided we could remain. Later in the morning, we went down to the broken seawall in the picture, wearing clothes over our swimsuits, and carrying our towels. In those days, walking around in just a bathing suite was "not done." And there I am, instead of my usual solemn, preoccupied self, wearing a big smile.  

I remember the overcast that often came in the afternoons, as clouds gathered around the volcano. There were black sand beaches which in those days we had mostly to ourselves. I remember bathing in the hot springs in town. Again, clothes over bathing suits, we made our way to the place, led by a tall man who was the caretaker of the ruin of the once famous spa hotel. It had been visited by many famous travelers in the 19th century, but now it had crumbled away to a wall here and there. Blue sky rolled overhead as we inched our way into the hot water. 

I also remember hearing drums, high up on the volcano on a Saturday, sounding down to us from beneath a wall of fog. This was the old time West Indies, before jets made a vacation "down de way" a mere jump from North America.

  Update the car in the background of this picture to a 1940's model, and this would have been a typical scene. The elemental roar and hiss of a gigantic field of cane on a windy day, I'll never forget. I've often wondered if Hamilton ever thought with regret of the tropical world from which he'd come, one so different in climate and vegetation from his adopted home, especially at a time when the earth was going through a cycle of extreme cold. How he must have suffered in those first years in America, just trying to acclimatize, wintering in places like Valley Forge and Morristown! 

So, Happy Birthday, Alexander! It's a bit early to be doing this before January, but here goes, anyway. I've literally spent a lifetime thinking of you.  :)

Hamilton ("Mrs. Washington's ginger tomcat") and me at work, early 2000's

~~Juliet Waldron

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