“I was a child before the flood...”
With this arresting line, George Peabody begins the long poem that looks back at the life of a great river before it was damaged by a headpond.
Building a dam at Mactaquac in the mid-1960s destroyed the annual regeneration of salmon in the central watershed of the Wolastoq. The annual salmon migration for upstream spawning had been a prime feature of the region’s natural abundance for centuries. In addition, when the water rose behind the dam, intervale land long farmed was lost. With one blow, Mactaquac Dam took out two major features of a sustainable, self-provisioning economy.
Remembering a way of life along the natural river, the author then draws the thread of memory to the building of the dam. With precise images he recounts the consequences of such ecological thoughtlessness.
Author: George PeabodyLanguage: English
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Chapel Street Editions
Publishing Date: March 29th, 2022
# of Pages: 48