This summer five students and one trip leader at traveling along the Connecticut River to develop an intellectual, emotional, and embodied understanding of this watershed as both a socio-ecological entity and a metaphor for something larger–a paradigm for living well in a place wherever we go. Please enjoy this final blog post from the trip leader and students as they explore the question “Is a river alive?”—a guiding prompt that shaped their experience and deepened their connection to the river, each other, and the landscapes they traveled through.
Ms. Goodale: I saved room in my dry bag for one book during our paddle trip down the Connecticut River– Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane. I started the book before our departure and had the experience of reading the opening chapter alongside our five students’ response to the title’s central question. As we traveled from the river’s headwaters to the sea, my evening reading carried me to distant rivers in Ecuador and India—places where rivers are no longer seen as resources to manage, but as companions woven into people’s thoughts, songs, and stories. By day, I noticed this question flowed into our routines with speakers sharing their unique perspectives, often unprompted, suggesting the centrality of Macfarlane’s inquiry. Guests that seemed to represent opposing sides joined together to answer the question in a way that expressed their deep gratitude, connectedness, and love for the Connecticut River and its surrounding watershed. As you’ll see in the final student responses below, this recurring question helped the group explore our relationship to place and places, transforming the river from a mere backdrop into an enmeshed member of our paddling community.
Ruby: Throughout this trip we have debated whether the river is alive or not. I personally think it is not. I think the water, in a scientific way, is not actually alive. However, I think the river is one of the only things keeping everything around it and in it alive. The people need the river for drinking, agriculture, electricity, and recreation, like swimming and fishing. Animals need it for drinking, eating, breeding, and overall health. Plants need water for life too. So no, the river is not alive but it is the key piece keeping everything alive.
Avi: My initial answer is no, the river is not alive. But it is not not alive either. The river just is. It’s not alive in that it doesn’t make choices or search for food. However, it is alive in that it remembers and speaks about its stories. How do I know this? It talks. Watching her slow meander from the mountain valleys to the lively cities, I read the book she wrote on the banks and in the trash flowing downstream. When I walk down to the river, I listen to her words and have all the stories I need. With that, I ask again– is the river alive– and reconsider to answer, yes.
Nikita: I look at this question and pass my notebook to the left asking friends for inspiration. This book has been crumpled by each of our paddle-roughened hands, each name inscribed on the back cover. Our group has grown with the river, from our first journey up to the Fourth Connecticut Lake, where the headwaters were little more than a mountain stream, and each of our friendships were still but tentative threads. These threads have strengthened as the river has swelled and grown greater. We sit on our penultimate bus ride now, heading to the Long Island Sound, where the river will empty to the sea. All of us will disperse as the water will, getting into our respective planes, cars, and buses, heading home. How can the river be anything but alive when our lives are so intertwined with its waters. It gives us life through all of its limited resources, and its generosity must inspire us to give back. To preserve the life so imperative to our own survival, the river lives yes, but it is no thanks to our harsh touch. If we wish for this cold mountain water from the tip of our country to continue making its effervescent journey to the sea, we must learn to give back to the giver.
Cormac: Through a traditional scientific approach, a river is definitely not alive. It does not fit the necessary criteria for life, as it cannot reproduce nor can it respond to stimuli. With this in mind though, nearly every speaker we had on the trip said otherwise. Even those who have studied ecology and environmental science claimed the river is alive. And sure, if you look at this question with a broader approach, you can see that a river can be healthy or unhealthy, or that it changes its shape and path over time, interacting and modifying its surrounding environment, something characteristic of living creatures. The river is also full of living things. But if a river is alive, where do we stop considering something as living? Should a beehive be considered its own being, as it fits all of these same criteria? What about civilization as a whole? If yes, where do we stop? Should the entire planet be seen and treated as living? Does this extend to the solar system, galaxy, and universe as well? At some point, the meaning of a living being is entirely lost, and for this reason I believe the river is not alive.
Ms. Goodale: As I share these final thoughts from students, I’m finishing the remaining chapters of Macfarlane’s book. These pages describe salient rivers in Canada and England, and I am fortunate enough to enjoy them along the stretch of the Deerfield River that passes through campus. I’ll give the final word of the trip to Macfarlane: “Rivers run through people as surely as they run through places… Water’s source matters. Its course matters. Each river is differently spirited and differently tongued– and so must be differently honoured… Animacy can still re-enchant existence. To imagine that a river is alive causes water to glitter differently. New possibilities of encounter emerge– and loneliness retreats a step or two. You find yourself falling in love outward…”
