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04/11/2024 12:00 AMAbout 2.4 million people live within a few miles of the Connecticut River, but most of us rarely see it except when we are crossing over it on a bridge, says author Patrick J. Lynch in his newly published book, A Field Guide To The Connecticut River: From New Hampshire to Long Island Sound.
“You will see no mighty vistas as at the Grand Canyon or Yosemite, yet the quiet Connecticut River has had far more influence and importance to United States history than all of the national parks combined,” he writes. “For 10,000 years before the Europeans landed, the river was the life-giving backbone of the Algonquin peoples of central New England. In American colonial times, the river was crucial to commerce, and its rich riverine meadows were the birthplace and breadbasket of New England’s prosperity.”
The river has faced many challenges, not least among them the many dams, some of which provided power that fueled early industry. It is traversed by bridges, some of them so poorly designed so as to create obstructions that are hazardous to wildlife and humans alike. Like many other elements of the natural world that surrounds us, the mighty river is greatly affected by human-created changes in our environment.
And yet, says Lynch, a resident of North Haven who has written a series of field guides that allow us to learn more about the natural wonders around us, the Connecticut River remains both “a local and national treasure,” one that was named a National Blueway in 2012. That means that all 410 miles of the river, along with its 7.2 million acre watershed covering parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, is part of an initiative “to establish a community-driven conservation and recreation agenda for the 21st century,” according to the federal government.
Our region has benefited greatly from the Connecticut River, and the existence of the many organizations that put its preservation as a priority is not only heartening, it’s one of the reasons why it was recognized by the federal government as a National Blueway.
But Lynch reminds us we must attend to our natural environment, including the Connecticut River, its ponds and lakes; the rivers and streams that connect to it; the marshes, swamps, and vernal pools that occur nearby the river; and the entire Connecticut River estuary, the most pristine large-river tidal marsh in the Northeast. We ignore its health and well-being at our peril.
Understanding The Problem
Early on in his new book, in the preface, he writes that the region’s geologic and human history “reminds us that we live on shifting ground.” One of my first questions, as someone who lives nearby the water, is whether we should be worried. That leads us into a conversation about rising sea levels and climate change.
“You know, this saying has been around for at least a decade, but if you’re not terrified, you don’t understand the problem,” he says.
I erupt in nervous laughter at that.
“It’s true,” he says. “I don’t do a lot of talks about climate change because it’s an unrelentingly dismal story, and it’s not getting any better.”
But his work studying the natural world and the impact of people on that natural world that sustains us, has also led him to this conclusion: “There are many things we can do to protect the natural environment, from a purely pragmatic point of view. I mean, regardless of how you feel about, you know, taking a walk in the woods or appreciating the river for its aesthetics, if you want to save your house, you have got to preserve those watersheds that act like giant sponges and buffers against severe weather.”
Part of the problem is that, as our area of the country and as our specific communities become ever more developed, we keep paving things over. We make exceptions here, there, and everywhere about this wetland and that, thinking it’s a small thing. But the small things add to a big thing. And then when we get two, three inches of rain in a short period of time, we have water seeping into our basements, into our backyards, threatening our septic systems, and inching up to the edge of main roads and thoroughfares, sometimes covering them after a routine rainstorm.
“When we have these big, wet storms, the water just runs off lickety split,” he says, due to the pavement and other development. “It’s not absorbed into the environment. It’s not absorbed into the groundwater. It has to go somewhere. And you don’t want that somewhere to be your basement.”
Climate change, sea level rise, and the importance of providing public access to natural environment, including the Connecticut River and Long Island Sounds shoreline, have long been key issues for Lynch as he’s written his field guides, which includes A Field Guide To Long Island Sound. But if his books sound the alarm and, relying upon science and research, outline the problematic issues, they also serve as eloquent love letters to the natural world that surrounds and sustains us.
Implicit in his books, at least for me as one of his avid readers, is that if we fall in love with the natural world too, that perhaps we will be compelled to act in its best interest, which means we also will be acting in our own best interest, and in the best interests of those who will come after us.
A Gorgeous Natural Artifact
Lynch says that the Connecticut River is not only a huge part of New England’s current landscape, but that it is also a huge part of its historical and environmental landscape.
“At 410 miles long, or 406, depending on whose number you use, it’s one of the country’s biggest rivers,” he says. “I sometimes almost apologetically describe our New England landscape as being somewhat less spectacular than, say Yosemite, or the Grand Canyon or whatever. But then it occurred to me that the Connecticut River, even though it really doesn’t have a national park or anything, it is more important to United States history than all of the other national parks combined.”
He says that the river’s role on the early development of the United States and its continuing impact on New England is remarkable. “It doesn’t get nearly the respect it deserves,” he adds. Part of that does have to do with public access, particularly in the northern stretches of the river. “It’s particularly hard to access in northern New England and in Massachusetts… and it’s just a shame because the river up there is just stunningly gorgeous.”
He not only is happy to tell you that, but he shows you that. The first pages of his books include full-page, full-color photographs of the Fourth Connecticut Lake in Pittsburg, New Hampshire, on the Canadian border with Quebec and the first few feet of the Connecticut River just south of that. Additional photos take us along stretches of the river too wild for kayaking but perfect for trout fishing. Lynch guides us through these gorgeous natural environments, providing us with commentary along the way.
The rest of the book is organized around natural environments, not geography. When Lynch started his field guide series, he considered doing it by geography but realized that he would end up with just snippets of this-and-that information.
“So what I wanted to concentrate on was giving people a better sense of what you’ll see when you walk into a river marsh, for example,” he says. “I really wanted to emphasize the environment and ecology and explain how the major elements that you see in each environment relate to each other.”
How We Can Help
He has chapters on The River Landscape; Weather and Climate, Environmental History; Ponds and Lakes; Freshwater Guides; Rivers and Streams; Marshes, Swamps, Vernal Pools, and Bogs; and The Connecticut River Estuary.
Vernal pools. I just love vernal pools; I tell him, those ephemeral, seasonal, changeable shallow pools full of tiny life that occur around our area, especially in the spring, only to dry up in the summer.
He says the spring is a great time to enjoy them. “The wood frogs and peepers are coming out soon,” he says. “They are a tremendously important freshwater environment, but almost in a stealth way because they don’t persist beyond mid-summer. But those are exactly the kinds of environments I wanted to talk about because you can find a vernal pool virtually anywhere. It’s not like you have to go to some exotic place way deep in the woods of New Hampshire to find out. For more people, they can find one less from a mile from where they live, even if you live in a town.”
Pointing people to these little freshwater miracles, Lynch figures, might be a good way to encourage them to get involved caring for the future of the river. We talk a little bit about how we can do that. One way is to get involved on a local level in your town or city’s wetlands committee or commission, or at least by attending the meetings and learning about the specific challenges in your town. He also suggests the organizations Save The Sound (www.savethesound.org) and the Connecticut River Conservancy (www.ctriver.org/).
“Save The Sound is focused not only on Long Island Sound but all of the rivers that empty into it, so that’s a great organization,” he says. “And the Connecticut River Conservancy. There are divisions in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and well up into Vermont and New Hampshire. So, there are plenty of places if you want to get involved in direct advocacy. And, when things do come up in your town or your local area that have to do with the local wetlands and protecting them, get involved with that.”
He says it matters and we can make a difference when we learn about someone illegally dumping to fill in a wetland. Do it for the Connecticut River. And do it for you and your neighbors.
“That may be the difference between your house surviving in the future and not surviving,” he says. “Those wetlands are incredibly important to us in terms of buffering the effects of these big wet storms and whatnot. And so all of us have a direct interest in what happens to rivers and streams and wetlands. When you see these stories, react to them. Tell your town officials, your state officials, your federal officials, ‘I don’t like it when I see that people are doing these things illegally, and people just shrug their shoulders about it. Tell them, ‘My house matters to me, and I don’t want it to flood.’”
Upcoming Talks
Lynch will be discussing his book at a series of upcoming talks: