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Chapter 1
Rivers of the Glaciated Northeast
On a striking palette of topography, the rivers run out from mountains to ocean in a remarkably short space. Exceptional variety and scenery result, most of it easily accessible, making the Northeast a fine place to begin a tour of American rivers.
New England is a northern extension of the Appalachian Mountains, but glaciers thoroughly groomed this area as they crept down from the north to cover the land. They churned up the surface, rounded off the peaks, and left a sculptured earth, as though a busload of artists had come to work after the first shift of mountain builders went home. Glaciers likewise swept across New York, and while people consider that state culturally separate from New England, its rivers possess ample similarities owing to the effects of ice.
Though the glaciers of the ice ages buried more than half the continent, most of that expanse lies in Canada. Among the regions of the United States, ice completely covered only the Northeast and the Superior Uplands of the Midwest (even Alaska and the Rockies were glaciated only in certain places). The ice left its signature all over the northeastern riverbeds, which in higher country are paved with rounded, gray cobbles and boulders pushed south. Because of the glaciersâ effectiveness in bulldozing soil, bedrock in New England rarely lies more than twenty feet underground and often juts up to the surface. Where rivers intersect these ledges and veins of resistant rock, sharp rapids occur. The ice also blocked entire passages of rivers and forced them into new routesâcircuitous paths avoiding the advance of the glaciers. After the ice receded, many rivers remained in their new paths, which havenât been worn down to a uniform gradient. Instead the rivers drop over waterfalls of bedrock, force themselves through unexpected constrictions, and sometimes lack the usual orderly progression from narrow to wide valleys as the water moves downhill. This interesting legacy of the ice ages lends a special beauty from the Canadian border to the Appalachians of Pennsylvania.
In longitude, the region extends farther east than any other in the country, while the latitude corresponds to that of central Minnesota and extends south to that of southern Iowa. Though this region, consisting of the New England states plus New York, is small compared with other regions of rivers, it holds importance beyond its acreage. As regional journalist Neal Peirce wrote about the area, âThe visitor feels transported back over time, into the milieu that makes New England such a precious part of America.â
Rivers here flow out from six mountain ranges and a clutch of other intriguing natural features. At the far west, the glaciated land of New York eases down to the plain of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Valley. Ice-sculpted hills ascend to the Adirondack Mountains in the northeastern part of the state. Although separate from the Appalachians in geologic origin, the Adirondacks share the common feature of glaciation. To the east, the Taconic Mountains rise from the Hudson River along the boundary of New York and Connecticut. Farther north, Lake Champlain lies in a north-south trough at the New YorkâVermont border. Farther east, the Green Mountains run north to southâVermontâs backbone stepping down to become the Berkshires of western Massachusetts and the rolling Litchfield Hills of Connecticut. East of the Green Mountains, the White Mountains puncture the clouds of northern New Hampshire, and the arching jumble of the Longfellow Mountains angles northeastward into Maine. At its southern and far eastern edges, New England unambiguously ends at the Atlantic Ocean.
While all the Northeast eventually drains into the Atlantic, the river routes starting from central high points drop off to the full sweep of the compass. In northern New York, streams flow northward to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River; streams of western Vermont likewise flow to the St. Lawrence via Lake Champlain and Quebecâs Rivière Richelieu. Part of the Adirondack Mountains and central New York drains westward and then northward to the St. Lawrence, but part drains oppositely, to the Hudson River and New York Bay. In the New England states, one set of streams, with the Connecticut River as midrib, flows southward from the mountains and empties into Long Island Sound. A second set filters in circuitous routes to the north and northeast and flows to the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine. Thanks to deeply incised embayments carved by glaciers and rivers, the coastline of Maine alone measures 3,500 milesâa greater distance than from New York to San Francisco. Only one river system in the entire East transects the Appalachians: the Hudsonâs palisaded valley slices the great range in two. The Mohawk River, a tributary, reaches across central New York lowlands almost to the Great Lakes.
Creating the regionwide character of rivers, a lot of rain and snow falls on rugged topography and produces many streams. Much of the river mileage lies in mountainous or rolling terrain, and an archetypal view shows rapid waters with the startlingly white trunks of paper birch in front of somber green hemlock or spruce. Streams here generally run clear rather than silty. Villages, towns, roads, and industries crowd waterfronts in an old, eastern style, yet many short reaches and a few long ones remain wild. These are the hallmarks of northeastern rivers, yet diversity abounds.
Seven distinct types of river or river reach exist in the Northeast. Moving from west to east, I see that the Lake Ontario streams wind northward through rolling farmland, but in their upper reaches many cut deep, fern-clad gorges. Quite different from the Great Lake tributaries, the Adirondack rivers run clear or amber and flow over steep rapids between plentiful lakes in a region densely wooded by conifers and hardwoods. The St. Lawrence is a waterway behemoth, tidal for hundreds of miles in its lower reaches, and to the south the lower Hudson shares characteristics of a big sea-level river, with steep mountains flanking its sides (the Hudson, in fact, once carried the heavy volume of Great Lakes runoff to sea, as the St. Lawrence does today). As a fourth type of river, the mountain streams of New England tumble over ice-carved landscapes and create the most photogenic mountain-and-river scenes in the East. Farther downstream, valley rivers turn in graceful bends through forests and farms and pass more waterfront villages than do the rivers of any other region. Lower yet, coastal streams meander out through marshes to embayments at Long Island Sound or the ocean; many of these streams cross the sandy and rocky expanses of moraines that mark the southern advance of the continental ice. Finally, the rivers of Maine begin in a system of interconnected lakes with low divides where only a few feet separate headwater sources. They flow as dark waters across ancient granite, similar to Adirondack rivers. The black or copper-colored water results from plentiful dissolved organic matter flowing into the river from wetlands, including those created by beavers. Waterfalls or rapids separate placid reaches, and farther down the Maine rivers traverse hilly country and enter deep inlets of the sea.
Flowing quickly into saltwater, most of the rivers of the Northeast are small or medium in size. But reaching west with headwaters in the heartland of the United States and Canada, the St. Lawrence is the great exceptionâthe only northeastern river drawing water from another region. As the second-largest river on the continent, it averages 243,000 cubic feet per second where it leaves the New York boundary and 348,000 cfs at its mouth at Canadaâs GaspĂŠ Peninsula on the Atlantic. Second-largest in the region, the St. John of Maine and Canada carries 9,730 cfs where it leaves the border of Maine and 17,945 at its mouth in New Brunswick. As the largest northeastern river entirely in the United States, the Connecticut runs with 16,400 cfs. The Penobscot in Maine empties with 14,210 cfs at tidewater, and the Hudson carries 13,700 but seems larger because it flows through a massively deep and wide trench subject to tidal flows from New York City to Albany. The sixth-largest river in the region, the Merrimack in Massachusetts delivers 7,530 cfs to the Atlantic. The Oswego runs to Lake Ontario with 6,690 cfs, and the Androscoggin runs to the coast of Maine with 6,140. The Mohawk contributes 5,750 cfs to the Hudson, and the Kennebec of Maine averages 4,450. High flows in the Northeast typically come in early spring, with a flood season that combines rain and the chill snowmelt of the mountains. As in most of the United States, low flows come in late summer and early fall.
The northeastern rivers were among the first in America to be explored by Europeans. Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1534âonly forty-two years after Columbusâs landing in the Caribbean. Though the first white settlements lay elsewhere, New England is often regarded as the birthplace of European civilization in Americaâthe place where the white culture fully launched its eastern invasion, expelled or killed the Indians, and got its grip on the continent. Early immigrants flocked to the coast and the Connecticut River valley and, later, to the Hudson-Mohawk corridor of the Erie Canal. All these areas now show intense development as the rivers of this region meet the needs of 60 million people. The Northeast capitalized so heavily on waterpower that mills everywhere determined where the towns sprang upâalmost always along a stream, where a rapid or waterfall provided a good head for mechanical and, later, hydroelectric power. Though storms have washed out decrepit old dams, 10,000 impoundments remainâcertainly more per river mile and square mile than in any other region. Dams block single streams again and again. The Kennebec alone has thirteen dams on its main stem. The original Glens Falls of the Hudson, renowned in The Last of the Mohicans, is now unimaginable amid industrial development. Most of the dams, however, are small, owing to their early origins. The immense water projects of the West, Midwest, and South are unknown here, partly because they would have required elimination of many already settled communitiesâanathema to the New England political tradition.
The Mayflower landed here, and New England boasts the birthplace of Anglo influence in America, but the cultural mainstream bypassed the far Northeast as soon as other routes to the interior opened, beginning with the Erie Canal, made possible by the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers in 1825. Railroads later moved migration routes farther south, and trends conspired to move settlers out. While 60 percent of New England had been cleared for agriculture by 1830, the average farmer took his first opportunity to abandon the rocky, glacier-scarred ground and emigrate west. Woodlands now cover 83 percent of New England.
While the land has partly reclaimed itself as a result of simple neglect, rivers have enjoyed active restoration efforts that transformed industrial sewers to clear waters again (though they lack the biological health they once had). Efficient development of rivers once symbolized Yankee ingenuity and ambition, but now protection and restoration of streams exemplifies a new northeastern persona. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else in the country, local groups work to protect the natural pieces that remain and to reclaim some of what was lost. Chiefly used to transport logs and pollution only twenty years ago, the rivers now transport canoes, and the culture of this craft is nowhere else so evident. One might occasionally see canoes on cartops in other regions, but Maine is full of them.
As one might expect of a region where extraction of resources began with the Pilgrims, all the northeastern states show a âmatureâ economy; commodity goods available for the picking were long ago exhausted, except for timber in Maine, which continues to be recut and recut. Reflecting the Northeastâs 300-year history of settlement, development straddles the rivers in town centers, but the streams remain pastoral or wooded idylls across much of the countryside, especially to the north. In much of the region, however, the quality of life now attracts large influxes from the nearby megalopolis, which threaten to destroy the same qualities that attract people. In all these respects, the Northeast may offer a window to the future of other regions in America. Ultimately, the Northeast may be more of a pacesetter than the much-touted California, whose endless boom and hype have turned into a sourness that few regions seek to emulate.
In this bastion of conservatism, as traditional as a field of Vermont Holsteins, some northeastern states have pioneered steps to manage their water and land progressively. The Maine legislature in 1971 required that municipalities zone property within 250 feet of rivers and other water bodies and created a commission to review large developments in unincorporated areas. The governor and legislature adopted a list of sixteen streams for protection in 1983. Vermontâa national leader in environmental legislationâenacted a state land-use planning law in 1970. The Green Index rated Vermont and Hawaii as having the finest environmental conditions in America; New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maine all ranked among the top twelve states.
Though much of the Northeastâs original river life has been overrun, the current rate of loss is probably less than in any other region but Alaska, and the restoration rate is probably the highest in America. Yet substantial threats and degradation continue from new development on floodplains, water pollution, dams, and introduced species that decimate native life.
For an overview of some of the Northeastâs most interesting rivers, I begin in the southwestern corner of the region. A large set of New York rivers drains north to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence basin, some of them flowing from surprising gorges and lakes. The Genesee River, for example, cuts a deep trench in Letchworth State Park and eventually flows into Lake Ontario with 2,780 cfs. Just to its east, waters that once flowed south to the Susquehanna during the ice ages now flow north. Eleven of these streams drain the glacial Finger Lakes into the flat shore of Ontario. The Seneca River is the largest and flows into the sizeable Oswego River. Northward, the Black River drops from whitewater in the western Adirondacks and carries 4,020 cfs to Lake Ontario. Nearing the St. Lawrence, the Grass, Raquette, and St. Regis Rivers, all with sizeable flows, run in unusual parallel routes within one 7-mile-wide corridorâin effect, a single valley with four rivers in it.
The St. Lawrence system infiltrates deep into the northern Midwest and includes all the Great Lakes and the extraordinary short interconnecting rivers between them. The Niagara is the best known of these, linking Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. This river is unique not only as a honeymoonersâ hot spot but also for its shortness and volume; its 33 miles flow with an average of 200,000 cfs. Carrying far more volume than any other waterfall in America, Niagara is about 160 feet high, 1,060 feet across one portion on the American side, and 2,200 feet across another section in Canada, the two pitches separated by Goat Island. The Falls draws 10 million tourists per year, more than any other natural attraction in America, but the cataract is not the spectacle it once was. Utility companies divert half its volume of water in summertime daylight hours and three-quarters at night and in winter. Through erosion of its bedrock, the Falls has migrated 7 miles upriver in a process that will in geologic time drain Lake Erieâquite an event for the imagination to grapple with. Below the Falls, thunderous flows persist through the 200-foot-deep, 7-mile-long Niagara Gorge, one of the most awesome pieces of turbulent water on the continent.
When the water of the Great Lakes leaves Lake Ontario, it is called the St. Lawrence River, which for 112 of its 750-mile length defines the international border. It lumbers past the Thousand Islands, which total about 1,700, counting all the rocky outcrops. Dammed twice, the river enters the province of Quebec where it is known as Fleuve St. Laurent. Farther down, wide tidal flows run more than 400 miles from below Montreal to the Atlanticâone of the first routes u...
