Squaretail Chronicles

A record Maine Eastern brook trout weighing nearly eight pounds darted through my Facebook feed last week.

The photo and story posted by a fellow New England Outdoor Writers Association member told the story. Both were pulled from a recent issue of the Bangor Daily News, which had lifted them from the smaller biweekly Moosehead Lakeshore Journal, which seems to have broken the story.

So why not drag it through the five fingers of Montague and bordering communities?

Caught on January 22 by well-known Greenville, Maine ice fisherman Eric Ward, the record fish was a brook trout for the ages, measuring 25 1/16 inches in length and weighing seven pounds, 10 ounces. The weight topped John Dixon’s July 4, 1959 Moosehead record by two ounces. At 25 ¼ inches, Dixon’s seven-pound, eight-ounce fish was a hair longer, with a girth of 17 ½ inches. The girth of Ward’s fish was not reported.

The largest brook trout recorded in Maine was caught in 2010 at Mousam Lake. That one tipped the scale at nine pounds, two ounces. Maine squaretails grow so large due to high populations of rainbow smelt in the food chain. These forage fish are preferred bait for ice fishermen, and keep big trout and salmon fat during their winter dormancy period.

Known to northern New England anglers as squaretails or brookies, Eastern brook trout (Latin name Salvelinus fontinalis) belong to the char family. They are historically the only native trout in our familiar slice of the Connecticut Valley. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, brookies populate eastern North American waters from the Great Lakes east to the Atlantic Ocean and south to Georgia along the Appalachian Range.

Squaretails are the first trout I learned to catch as a boy, bait-fishing a small, unnamed, mile-long spring brook that feeds the Connecticut River three or four hundred yards north of the intersection of Hillside and River roads in South Deerfield. The spunky, colorful, voracious fingerlings ranged in length from five to seven inches, and kept me and childhood buddy Mike Manson busy whenever our parents dropped us off there.

We’d return home with a creelful of the speckled beauties, which without exception went from creel to sink to batter bowl to a cast-iron skillet flavored with sizzling, splattering bacon fat. Thus the name “panfish,” brookies sweetest of them all, served with sides of thick-cut slab bacon and crispy home fries.

In later years at forbidden sites, we discovered much larger squaretails in the one- to three-pound range. We called them “bakers,” meaning oven fish. But why go there?

No. Check that. I must tiptoe back. I can’t sidestep my youthful indiscretions for this discussion. Why? The statute of limitations long ago passed.

The big brookies we routinely caught a half-century ago from posted, spring-fed impoundments are directly related to my first impression of the record brookie photographed in Ward’s hands. I wasn’t awestruck because I have seen many large local brook trout and heard of many others over the years.

The big brookies we caught were taken on lures in forbidden waters where they grew large. Golden Thomas buoyant spoons were most productive, but Daredevils and small Mepps spinners worked in a pinch, especially when cast at dusk into an 60-foot outflow neck that collided with a cold, shaded feeder stream once known as Sanderson, then Harvey Brook. The action was fast and furious, and the one- to two-pound brookies ranged from 12 to 18 inches long.

Though I myself never caught a fish that compared to Ward’s there, I did indeed hear of one taken by a neighborhood kid who was probably five or six years younger than me. This notable catch occurred in the late ’60s. I would have been about 15, and heard the tale repeated by several witnesses fortunate enough to see the elementary school-aged boy lugging the fish up the hill home on a stringer.

Word was that the fish had to be nearly two feet long because the kid couldn’t keep its tail from dragging on the road.

I know fish stories tend to be exaggerated, but one of the tellers was a state policeman who had given much testimony in his day, not to mention fished the same, productive spot. In passing, he’d pretend he didn’t see me and my friends fishing there. I guess he liked us because we were ballplayers, and he figured we could be doing much worse than fishing.

We referred to that tidy arrangement as “the hot setup,” and had a blast fishing there. In later years, I took big squaretails from that same bucolic spot on White Wulff and Hendrickson dry flies. That was even more enjoyable than open-faced spin-casting and lures, especially on my friend’s father’s Tonkin cane rod.

In advancing years, when old enough to carry a shotgun, I hunted partridge and woodcock in adjacent woods traversed by a major feeder stream. There I discovered a settling pool at the base of step falls, where large, upstream-swimming brookies congregated on their fall spawning run. It was quite a sight to behold, and one that I shared only with the best of friends.

While I doubt I ever saw a seven- to eight-pound brookie in the mix, the visuals imprinted in memory suggests that some of them may have gone four or five pounds; and that was likely the case for that aforementioned kid’s catch that had the neighborhood buzzing.

My point is that back in the day, before acid-rain endangered native brook trout, there was no need to chase off to the blackfly-infested Northwoods for big ones. They were available right here in our own backyards.

I can’t help but wonder how many of the only trout available to the indigenous people who lived here before us are left?

 

Riverbank Bobcat

April 7. Raw and rainy. Eleven-ish.

Out in the woodshed on a morning whim, I’m rearranging what’s left of my winter cordwood supply, heaped against the north and east walls. I can see there’ll be a little left for fall.

I chuck a big, heavy, all-nighter wedge of hard seasoned red oak closer to the entryway when I hear the phone ring in the kitchen. No rush. I’ll check the caller-ID when finished with my chores. The woodburning routine is less demanding come springtime.

Before going inside, I load up an armful of smaller, irregular, knotty pieces – tangled, twisted, and messy with debris. They burn hot and revive a fire when needed. During my daily woodshed chores, I routinely build a little side pile of these oddball pieces to make them easily available from time to time as needed. Kinda like medicine for the daily fire, especially morning’s first on embers from the night before.

Anyway, with my wood-gathering duties completed, I go to the phone expecting to find a familiar name on the caller-ID screen. Nope. Someone new. Last name Richardson, first initial D. Phone number beginning with South Deerfield’s familiar 665 exchange.

Hmmmmm? Facebook friend Peter Richardson, perhaps?

I promptly return the call, and a man answers the third ring.

“Peter?”

“Nope, Doug.”

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t get the first name, and figured it must be Peter.”

“I’m his big brother,” he said – and his River Road neighbor as well, the two residing in adjacent dwellings within sight of Sunderland Bridge.

He went on.

“You’re the guy who wrote an outdoor column in the Recorder, right, and used to report cat sightings?”

“Yep, that’s me. I’ve been retired seven years. What’s on your mind?”

He had a tale to tell. One he believed – correctly – would interest me.

It unfolded on the west bank of the Connecticut River, across the road from his house, where he and three neighbors had been monitoring a bald eagle nest on an island across the way. Following a familiar path to an unobstructed vantagepoint, tripod telescope in tow, they were pleased to discover an eaglet, and were sharing the telescope for close-ups.

As they chatted, Richardson noticed something that drew his attention, nestled into the steep upstream riverbank to his left. There, about 40 feet away, motionless and blending into the backdrop, was the face of what looked to him like a wildcat. Or was it an optical illusion?

When he pointed it out to the man next to him for an opinion, he was assured it wasn’t a log. Sure looked like a cat to his friend as well. When it finally moved, they knew they were viewing a brownish bobcat that didn’t seem unnerved by their presence.

Though I’ve never associated bobcats with the Connecticut River, it makes perfect sense that they’d be attracted to such riverbank environments, which provide tangled shelter and a tasty smorgasbord of prey.

The cat, wearing a blue tag on each ear, just calmly laid there, cleaning itself as the four eagle-watchers quickly switched their focus. All four studied it with their naked eyes, and discussed it as they alternated closer looks through the scope. One even took cell-phone photographs that showed up on Facebook soon after my phone conversation with Richardson ended.

Curious to the four observers was the fact that the animal, though well aware of their presence, seemed relaxed. Why didn’t it flee? Injured, perhaps? Then it calmly rose to its feet and sauntered away at an angle from the intruders. No sign of a limp or unsteady gait. It appeared to be perfectly healthy.

Richardson returned home perplexed. He was certain what he had witnessed was not typical bobcat behavior. Given that the animal was tagged and the number was discernable through the scope, he called MassWildlife’s Connecticut Valley District office in Belchertown to see what he could learn. Possibly state wildlife biologists were conducting a bobcat study, and would be interested in his observations.

To his good fortune, the call came into the district office at a hectic time and was answered by none other than district manager Joseph E. Rogers. What better source than the boss?

Apprised of what Richardson and friends had seen, Rogers wasn’t surprised. Though MassWildlife is not currently tagging bobcats for a study, state wildlife biologists in Connecticut are, and a similar sighting had recently been reported in Hampshire or Hampden County. In Rogers’ opinion, it was likely the same cat. He thanked Richardson for reaching out.

Richardson’s wife Kathleen emailed Rogers the four-digit number on the cat’s ear tags, in case he wanted to dig deeper and confirm his initial presumption that it was the wayward Connecticut cat on an upstream journey.

A few days after the sighting, late afternoon-early evening, my phone rang and Richardson’s name again appeared on the caller-ID. I answered. He wanted to report new information he thought would interest me. Rogers chased down the cat’s identity. The tags were not from Connecticut.

Let Rogers’ April 9 email to Kathleen Richardson explain: “It took me a couple of days to track down, but I was able to ID the tag numbers for the bobcat you reported. It appears this was a bobcat treated at Tufts Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic and released in Belchertown this past winter. It’s good to know the animal is healthy. Thanks for reporting the sighting.”

So, there you have it. Mystery solved.

Apparently, the bobcat remains semi-comfortable around humans after being fed and nursed back to health by Tufts veterinary personnel. That’ll likely change if the animal stays out of harm’s way and continues reacclimating to the wild.

That said, one can never confidently predict such outcomes. Some rehabilitated wild creatures make it. Some don’t.

Opening Day Stirs Fenway Memories

Four o’clock. Opening Day. Settled into my power recliner, my wife lounging eight feet to my right in its twin leather companion, computer tablet propped up on her lap. The Red Sox and their new flame-throwing phenom, lefty Garrett Crochet, are facing the Texas Rangers in Arlington, Texas.

Half taking in the pre-game festivities over the top of her device, my wife entertains a thought and asks, “Have you ever been to Opening Day at Fenway Park?”

“Nope, can’t say I have,” I responded, immediately drifting off into a raging stream of memories from America’s baseball cathedral that endured till the final pitch.

Funny how an innocent question like that can trigger a vivid journey down memory lane. So, I figure, why not share some of the recollections I judge appropriate, if even barely so, for a family newspaper? And while we’re at it, if space constraints don’t obstruct our path, maybe even random memories from other New England sports venues – such as the moldy old Boston Garden, Harvard Stadium, and the low-budget Schaefer Stadium in Foxboro, where I spent many a sun-baked Sunday afternoon on the east side, shifting in discomfort on Section 218’s aluminum bleacher  seats.

Yes, those were the days at Foxboro, and I was there – often struggling outside the south entrance before the game to get face-value $18 apiece for two extra tickets. When barterers tested my patience with offers of half-price or less, I sometimes just gave the tickets to a couple of kids who looked like they’d appreciate the generous offer, and ended up joining us for the game.

The problem with a narrative like this is that the best stories can never be told in print, even if the statute of limitations has passed. Far too scurrilous. After all, one has an adult reputation to protect. Trust me, many unprintable reputation-busters arose from the permissive Seventies – when stadiums were stuffed with cussing, cigar-chompin’ men akin to racetrack “railbirds,” and, if you can imagine, coolers stuffed with food and beverage were allowed through the Foxboro turnstiles.

Those were wild times, indeed. Maybe we can circle back if space permits.

I have vivid memories of my first trip to Fenway – purely kids’ stuff. I was 10, in the company of my father, younger brother Bobby, and South Deerfield pals Frannie Redmond and David Zima. Reserved-grandstand seats were $2.25 a pop back then, souvenir programs a prohibitive 15 cents. My father knew the ticket manager and, with our seats on the first-base side, arranged a pregame meeting with budding star left-fielder Carl Yastrzemski near the Red Sox dugout. The Minnesota Twins and slugger Harmon Killebrew manned the visiting dugout.

I brought Yaz’s Topps baseball card to the game to try and get it autographed. Unsuccessful, when we returned home, I stapled it to the program cover and tucked it away in a scrap book. Decades later, when my brother was the golf pro at the International in Bolton and got to know Yaz as a member, he got it signed for me with a “HOF ’89” tag signifying his Hall of Fame induction year.

By then I had been to Fenway several times with my dad and brother, but can’t say any of those visits were particularly memorable. However, that cannot be said of the times I attended games in my teens and 20s with friends and without adult supervision. Many of those adventures were memorable but not for print.

I can tell about the 1972 twi-night doubleheader I attended with older St. Joe’s of Thorndike Tri-County League baseball teammates, on the way home from an independent Saturday road game against the Amesbury semi-pro baseball club. Back then, with attendance sparse by today’s standards, you could still get good seats at the ticket windows leading into the ballpark.

On this day, with a few beers under our belts before we passed through the gate near the Green Monster, our second baseman, a garrulous, fun-loving, black Vietnam veteran from Amherst, got into an argument with a police officer that quickly escalated. Uniformed officials had a way of sparking spirited reactions from some Vietnam vets, and my teammate was one of them. To make a long story short, he never made it into the ballpark, and was instead cuffed, stuffed, and loaded into a paddy wagon to – if memory serves me – Boston’s Fourth Precinct jail, where he spent the night as a drunk-and-disorderly.

When we called the station in an effort to bail him out, we didn’t take the bait to come and get him. Sounded like entrapment to us. Not something you soon forget.

The very next year, on a free catered bus trip for St. Joe’s players to another Saturday game, I arranged to meet my college buddy and teammate at the game, got carried away, and missed the bus home. Undeterred, we hit the Commonwealth Avenue bars after the game and spent the night in Boston. Early the next morning I hitchhiked home to South Deerfield, threw on my uniform, and drove to Thorndike in time for batting practice before our weekly Sunday doubleheader, the park equipped with a full bar and concession stand behind the backstop.

Prior to my arrival, the hilltop park was buzzing about my whereabouts. The loyal, colorful, alcoholic grounds crew was concerned: Would I or would I not show up for the game? Was I alright? As I pulled into a parking place along the right-field line, the fellas gave a smiling standing ovation.

I don’t recall how I performed on the field that day. Probably not well. Out late and up early, I was not in high-performance mode, but ready to give it a go nonetheless. Story of my young baseball life.

I also had some memorable Fenway visits with my sons. Among them was the famous October 16, 1999, ALCS Game 3 “pitchers’ duel” between Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez, won by Pedro and the Sox, 13-1. Clemens lasted two innings and was serenaded with chants from opposite sides of the field of “Where is Roger?” “In the shower,” long after he had settled in the clubhouse.

Also, four years earlier, the post-1994-’95 Major League Baseball strike fan-appreciation doubleheader against the Seattle Mariners, offering $1 general-admission tickets to all on a first-come, first-served basis. I took my family and a group of Frontier Youth League players to the games and, at their request, arrived early to secure primo box seats behind the Mariners dugout. The kids wanted to get a good look at Ken Griffey, Jr., and possibly even his autograph.

Unexpected was the nearby presence of a loud Griffey-hater mercilessly haranguing the young Mariners superstar with vicious banter, including the nickname “Whiffey” as he returned to the dugout between innings, knelt in the on-deck circle, or returned to the dugout after strikeouts.

The man was there for one reason: to get under Griffey Jr.’s skin. It worked. Though big leaguers are expected to ignore such catcalls and insults, Griffey violated the etiquette by engaging in continuous exchanges with the obnoxious fan, who was finally ejected by security guards during the early stages of Game 2. I was surprised, having seen much worse fan abuse aimed at visiting players over the years.

Whew! Enough already. No time for the “Foxboro chronicles.” Just as well – such narrative would require a deep dive into full Hunter S. Thompson-style gonzo mode. I’m not certain a small community weekly is the place for that.

 

Questions and comments are welcome at gary@oldtavernfarm.com.

Montague Reader Offers Plain Truth

Spring is in the air and I’m a bit on overload. Thinking. Always thinking. Reading. Absorbing a 24/7 news feed that can be frightening these days. Exhausting, too.

I tried to ignore cable news after the election, which is next to impossible without a change of address to some secluded ramshackle shack along a cold, clear, drinkable spring creek. You know the drill. Living off the grid. No modern devices or distractions. Quiet introspection. But what good does that do? And where, exactly, does it lead?

I’ll begin this week with brief mention of two books I’ve read since I last appeared in this space. Then I’ll circle back to a topic introduced a couple of weeks ago, when I trolled for reader insight about a gruesome scene I happened upon many decades ago in Turners Falls.

For those who missed it, I told of a mass dog grave uncovered by a Montague DPW bucket-loader operator cutting into a steep, sandy escarpment along the eastern edge of the old Montague landfill dump near Judd Wire. I was sitting in my dump truck, awaiting a load of sandy fill as I watched the scene unfolded. Although I did ask around for information at the time, no one seemed to have a clue why it was there.

Keep that image in mind as we switch gears to a brief discussion of the two recently-published books I read. Most recently, Adam Plunkett’s biography, Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry. Before that, Brian VanDeMark’s Kent State: An American Tragedy. Both got good reviews in The New Yorker magazine.

I’m not a Frost fanatic or poetry reader; just knew there was an Amherst connection and figured why not take a closer look? I now know a lot more about the celebrated New England poet, who, according to Plunkett and biographers before him, had his warts. To be expected of artists, no?

I struggled with Plunkett’s analyses of poetry style, rhythm, and form, focusing instead on the autodidactic poet’s idiosyncrasies, his family life and path to literary immortality. Worth the read.

Before that, I breezed through Brian VanDeMark’s Kent State, examining the unfortunate May 4, 1970 crowd-control fiasco I remember well. On that dreadful day, I was a rebellious 16-year-old nearing the end of my junior year at South Deerfield’s Frontier Regional School. The previous summer I had wandered about sopping wet in the fabled Woodstock music festival’s rain and red-tinted mud.

I guess I was biased and had long ago passed personal judgment on Kent State. In my mind, I could find no justification for Ohio National Guardsmen who killed four and wounded nine unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War. It viewed it as an unjustifiable overreaction, but was curious what this new biographer had to say about it a half-century later.

I almost didn’t follow through on my purchase when I looked into VanDeMark and found his Texas pedigree and current faculty status at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Did I really need Kent State analysis by a Texas scholar teaching at a military college? I hesitated and swiped.

In retrospect, I’d say VanDeMark tried to play it fair but, in setting the stage, overstated the dangers presented by radical Sixties activists. Plus, I found him a little too supportive of the weary, inadequately trained, weekend-warrior Guardsmen who pulled the trigger, not to mention the commanding officers. Some of the soldiers faced criminal charges and were acquitted.

As I read, I couldn’t help but wonder if we’re not headed toward another similar occurrence in these hair-trigger times of deep political divides and animosity. In my day, there were plenty of right-leaning, love-it-or-leave-it citizens who unequivocally defended the Kent State Guardsmen. Reactionary supporters of Pres. Richard Nixon and Alabama segregationist Gov. George Wallace were congratulatory, willing to proclaim deadly force against hippie malingerers as long overdue.

Do you think today’s neo-Nazis, KKK, Christian nationalists, Proud Boys, and other hard-right-wing activists think any differently? I’d honestly say these gun-toting, 21-century vigilantes are even more hateful and violent, answering calls for action armed, dangerous, and with bad intentions.

But let’s not get carried away with that. Back to that mass doggie grave on the sandy plain south of Turnpike Road. I knew the furry body parts cascading down the steep sandbank and dangling from the bucket loading my truck were primarily dogs. Roadkill? Veterinary burial place? Something else? Mum was the word when I made inquiries.

Now, nearly 50 years later, thanks to my media query, I’m confident we have the answer. It came via email from a professional Montague woman and longtime resident. There is no need to name her. She’s lived in Montague for at least 50 years.

Rather than paraphrase what she had to say, I’ll present it as it arrived last week in my inbox:

“I’m wondering if this is the same place I went to with my two children seeking our beloved missing dog about 1977. Pretty sure it is. Met the dog officer there and gave him a full description of our unusual buff-colored blue-eyed husky. A beautiful, gentle dog. The officer denied seeing him and pointed to outside kennels holding a few dogs before going back inside. Ours was not there.

“As we were leaving, we heard a familiar howl coming from another outbuilding on the property. Entering, we found our dog tied up in this empty barn, hastily freed him and left the property. Looking back, I wish I had confronted the situation more, but the energy was not comfortable. I still get chills wondering what fate was in store for our pet in that strange place!”

So, there you have it. I do believe we have our answer. That pathetic mass grave we accidentally exposed was on the old Montague dog pound site. Some such places marched to a different drummer back then, when stray dogs were captured, held briefly, and likely shot. Someone I asked that day at the town yard had to know, but decided to play dumb. Why open a smelly can of rotting worms?

Had my source not recognized the plaintive howl emanating from that out-of-the-way barn, I may have seen decomposed body parts of her family’s “unusual buff-colored husky” dangling from the bucket or tumbling down the steep, unstable, sandy escarpment supplying me with fill.

Now it’s history – the dog officer likely dead and gone. Who knows? He may have hated dogs – and loved his job.

The Beat Goes On

When you’ve worked a beat for nearly a half-century as I have, and enjoy deep roots therein, upturned stones of investigation can trigger vivid memories.

This is such a circumstance.

It started with word of a supposed archaeological site in South Deerfield, about to be disturbed by the construction of a new dog shelter. When I caught wind of it, I immediately dug deeper because I didn’t recognize the address in my original hometown founded by ancestors. When I finally located East Plain Road, I initially decided to back off from it as a column topic – the site was a little out of range, in my opinion, for a small weekly newspaper serving greater Montague.

That changed, however, when I discovered a solid Montague link. The proposed facility is intended to replace the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office regional dog shelter located on Sandy Lane in Turners Falls, just a hop, skip, and a jump across Turnpike Road from the old Park Villa outdoor movie theater.

Though I was learning of the shelter for the first time, I was familiar with the sandy plain on which it lies. I got to know it from my brief days of employment (1978-79) as a laborer and truck driver for the Montague DPW.

I would not have known the sheriff’s shelter site had I not often visited the adjacent old town landfill during my dump-truck-driving days for road boss Charlie Richotte, back when Joe Janikus and Denny Choleva ran the office. A matter of convenience, my address was then just down the road. I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in the sprawling residence of widowed Irene Martineau on the end of South High Street in Montague City.

I took the temporary job while approaching marriage after a swashbuckling, here-today, gone-tomorrow life on the road. I had closed my last fundraising deal and moved in with my working wife-to-be. During this brief period of unemployed freedom, I was wearing out a path to Powertown barroom poolhalls.

When this malingering lifestyle lingered, my fiancée tired of the destructive routine and, as only a social worker could do, suggested I “find an effing job.” Soon I was a member of the Montague road crew.

My first job was extracting heavy, broken cement guardrail posts on Turners Falls Road and replacing them with heavier new posts. I enjoyed the strenuous labor, and it quickly whipped me into shape after four years of unhealthy living and sedentary office work. Let’s just stay that those smoky offices, motel lounges, and restaurants are no formula for staying fit and trim.

But we won’t go there… back to the proposed South Deerfield shelter site and, especially, to the old Montague landfill.

First, the reason for my interest in the supposed archaeological site – overgrown tillage and peasant cover I often hunted before the construction of the South Deerfield Emergency Veterinary Clinic. I wondered if maybe, just maybe, the supposed Native artifacts surface-collected there during a fairly recent walkover may have been gathered from the place called “Indian Plain” on a few 19th-century deeds I had read from the general neighborhood. Ever since stumbling across that forgotten place-name in a town I know well, I have tried unsuccessfully to pinpoint it, and this clue seemed like good evidence to chase.

I searched out the man holding the artifact assemblage. His home lot abuts the proposed shelter site on the opposite side of the dead-end East Plain Road. I remembered his home being built by town pharmacist Billy Rotkiewicz in the 1980s.

My source happened to be a vocal opponent – not unusual among neighbors of such development projects. We spoke on the phone and, with deadline looming and time running thin, I was unable to connect enough dots for that week’s column. Instead, I teased it as an outtake before ultimately deciding the story wasn’t for me.

Enter Reporter editor Mike Jackson, with whom I discussed the tease and from whom I learned that the shelter being replaced has a Turners Falls address. Its location immediately brought me back nearly a half-century to the adjacent, old Montague landfill, and to a fair-weather day I spent trucking sandy fill from its eastern perimeter to a construction site.

If memory serves me, to get there I’d travel a dirt road within view of Judd Wire, following a slim border of tall pines a few hundred yards before dropping down into a sandpit. There a bucket-loader awaited me. I’d swing the truck’s nose right and back into a spot against a steep 15- or 20-foot escarpment to accept bucket loads of fill.

On my second or third refill, I watched the loader blade tap into a vein of what appeared to be the morbid, dried-up remains of many buried dog carcasses. Boney body parts and chunks of furry pelts dangled out of the bucket as others tumbled down from the fresh cuts in the sandbank.

Not a pretty or expected sight – nor one that would be soon forgotten by anyone who, like me, had grown up with pets.

I never really made much of it, or put an honest effort into determining exactly what we had tapped into, but I never forgot it, either. So, now that nearly 50 years have passed, why not troll a bit? The statute of limitations passed long ago, and anyone directly involved has likely expired.

The problem is I that don’t know the whole story, only what I saw. The bucket-loader operator shared my cluelessness as to the reason why the carcasses were there, and so did everyone else I queried. Then I just let it slip away, until this recent reminder.

Remember, that scene unfolded before I was a reporter. I was young, untamed, and hadn’t yet figured out who I was. My job priority was facilitating the fastest track back to the office for 4 p.m. punch-out time.

Who knows? Perhaps our mass-grave discovery that day was an old veterinary burial pit for euthanized pets; maybe a hidden roadkill dump on an out-of-the-way, town-owned, sandy outwash plain. I don’t believe the sheriff’s dog shelter was there yet, but isn’t it interesting that it ended up there?

Now that I’ve finally shed light on the incident, maybe a reader or two has insight. If so, don’t hesitate to contact me at the email address below. Maybe community memory will finally provide answers.

I guess by now it’s now old enough to qualify as history, no?

Memory Valley

Monday morning. Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX rout in the rearview. Cold and calm. Skies icy gray. Intermittent flurries flying. Fresh snowbanks framing roads.

Splendid day for a road trip.

No sun. Classic bluegrass spinning. Loud. Stimulating. Stringed instruments trading the lead, helping to ricochet spontaneous thoughts through the rocky, vegetated canyons of my mind.

What random thoughts entertain a solo, septuagenarian traveling man on such a ride? Bear with me. That’s precisely why I’m here. I’ll try recapture snippets from that heavy-footed journey up the slice of our Connecticut Valley I call home.

Call the mission pickup and delivery. Destination: Plainfield, New Hampshire. Awaiting me there at an auction house less than 90 minutes’ north was an Oriental rug I bought from the comforts of home during the second half of the runaway Super Bowl. I had found it in an online 600-plus-lot listing, registered for the sale, and suggested to my wife that a distracted Super Bowl marketplace could be the perfect place to buy it as a replacement for a threadbare Oriental that didn’t us a dime.

We both liked the rug, particularly its large, solid, light-blue central field surrounding a small medallion. The design was remarkably different from any of our Persian rugs, and the first of its style I remember laying eyes on. Why not go for it?

I can’t say we stole it. There were 26 bids – two of them mine. Still, when the hammer fell, I felt confident we had done well. Had we purchased it at one of those pricey retail shops advertised on TV, it would have cost at least five times what we paid. That’s what I love about auctions; that and the action, the banter. Social entertainment.

Soon after my 9:45 a.m. departure from our upper Greenfield Meadows home, my thoughts began to swirl. Across the Pumping Station’s covered bridge on the back road to Interstate 91 in Bernardston, the sight of the Eunice Williams Monument was the impetus. All it took was a quick glance at the steep hill behind it, climbing north from the riverside flat where an Indian tomahawk had abruptly mercy-killed Deerfield Reverend John Williams’ struggling wife.

Weakened by recent childbirth, the unfortunate 1704 captive displayed obvious signs that she wasn’t capable of walking to Canada with her French and Indian captors. Shivering, swooning, and ready to fall after a frigid Green River crossing, she was struck down.

I figured the weather for that tragic event some 321 years ago would not have been much different than what greeted me to the site. The northward trail looked cold and daunting indeed – likely about how it must have felt that fateful March 1 morning.

As I drove past the monument to the top of a gentle slope heading to Leyden Road, my thoughts traipsed to a place called Larabee’s Grove. Definitely a well-known Greenfield placename back in the day, it appears in accounts of the 1884 monument-dedication ceremony as the place where participants gathered before walking a short distance to the engraved stone marker. I have often wondered where exactly that small patch of open woods or orchard stood.

Then I ponder whether those Larabees were from the same bolt of cloth as Sixties slugger Len Larabee, of Greenfield baseball lore. I can’t imagine he isn’t connected to that “Country Farms” neighborhood. Had I been raised where I currently reside, community memory would have answered that question long ago. But I’m a Meadows transplant – South Deerfield was my playground.

Not long after filling my tank in Bernardston, at a rare gas station where self-service is prohibited, I was heading north on the Interstate. Soon, heading down the hill to the first Brattleboro exit, I passed the “Fort Dummer” sign, which always stirs my historic juices. The French and Indian War fort was built in 1724 and survived about 50 years.

My first thoughts went to Major John Arms, a distant Deerfield relative and one of Fort Dummer and Brattleboro’s first settlers. His tavern was “Bratt’s” first, located a bit upriver from the fort on the river terrace that today holds Brattleboro Retreat. Arms Tavern was known as a favorite watering hole of Ethan Allen his Green Mountain Boys.

From there my thoughts jumped like an ovipositing mayfly to Ebenezer Hinsdale (1707-1763), the intemperate, Harvard-trained Deerfield chaplain and Indian missionary born in captivity at sea – his parents had been 1704 captives – and stationed by 1731 at Fort Dummer. He eventually built an estate that still stands as a museum across the river in his namesake Hinsdale, New Hampshire.

Though I have no direct genealogical links to the Hinsdale family, it sure seems like I do. For nearly 30 years I have called a historic Hinsdale dwelling my home, resting on the 1770 homesite of Ebenezer’s slightly younger brother Samuel. So, I guess I have blood in the game.

The ride from Bratt to Bellows Falls, Vermont and Charlestown, New Hampshire was unusually uninspiring under low, gray skies. That customary first glimpse of Mount Ascutney’s peak from a Route 91 highpoint outside of Putney was invisible, totally hidden behind cloud cover that day. Its absence was disorienting.

With that temporary issue in the rearview I was on my way to 91’s Black River crossing, just west and in view of Charlestown’s reconstructed French and Indian War Fort at No. 4. It’s a place where my roots lie deep through sixth-great-grandfather Lieutenant Isaac Parker, a Massachusetts soldier from Groton. I have regularly visited the museum for reenactments and other activities, especially when my grandsons were young, but also to catch up on new scholarship.

Unfortunately, historic Charlestown is a black hole of New England genealogy due to a mid-19th-century fire that destroyed the earliest vital records. Many a professional genealogist has met his or her match there. Though the aggravating void doesn’t affect my Parker family much, the same cannot be said for the many families they married into. These vexing gaps reach into my Whately Sanderson family – not to mention those of Deerfield miller Adonijah Taylor and his brother-in-law, brief East Whately resident Nathaniel Sartwell, both of whom share Fort No. 4 legacies.

I never pass No. 4 without thinking about its first blacksmith, Mayflower descendant Micah Fuller. I am certain his daughter Lois Fuller married a great-uncle of mine named Joseph Sanderson but, much to the chagrin of Joseph’s descendants trying to establish Mayflower roots, it has not been proven and may never be. Birth records for Micah Fuller’s children vanished in Charlestown flames.

Which brings us to the last part of my journey thought train I’ll share. It involves a peculiar house painter named John MacAulay, who dropped into my life for five years at the starts of our current millennium. He lived in his GMC van that was often parked in my backyard overnight when the weather was right for painting. He dropped dead from heart failure about 20 years ago at a Greenfield laundry mat. He was 66.

John’s spirit always visits when I climb Springfield Mountain, just up the Interstate from Charlestown exit. He grew up in Springfield, Vermont and is buried there. Someday I intend to find his grave.

I paid John by the day, cash, and often fed him as a gratuity. When my wife and kids were away I’d grill something over which to chat in the carriage-shed seating area. A HAM radio operator, John introduced me to the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones before he became well-known, and also spoke often about the Rothschilds, diabolical bankers, and the Illuminati. Alive today, John would be a card-carrying Trump-cult member.

One day our carriage-shed discussion turned to hunting, and he told me a hair-raising tale about his late father’s Vermont bear-trapping exploits on Springfield Mountain. When a scouting mission revealed evidence of a monster bruin feeding regularly through an upland nut grove, he set a trap anchored with a towing chain to a heavy log he believed only a bulldozer could move.

When he returned the next day, the trap and anchor were gone, leaving a trail John claimed “could have been followed by Helen Keller.” Supremely cautious and alone, John’s dad followed the trail much farther than he would have imagined in his wildest dreams and killed the beast with his 30.06 rifle.

John was a boy at the time. He didn’t remember the bear’s weight. Just the massive carcass. A crowd pleaser, he said.

A good place to end. With a classic North Country hunting yarn that just keeps on giving every time I climb the central Vermont mountain on which it unfolded, likely before I was born.

Meanwhile, our new rug lies on the dining-room floor. A perfect fit.

Chalk it up as another worthwhile trip up a valley stained deeply with my DNA. That said, I don’t ignore the humble people who were here to greet us. They left indelible reminders of their ancient presence with petroglyphs pecked into Bellows Falls bedrock.

Vacant Archaeological Salmon Evidence Explained

Venerable, retired, Connecticut Valley archaeologist Peter Thomas has chimed in on a perplexing regional Atlantic salmon puzzle that keeps on giving and won’t go away.

The question is: Given that we know spring salmon-spawning runs once populated New England rivers, and that salmon was a valued food resource for indigenous and colonial inhabitants alike, why is there virtually no archaeological evidence?

Thomas, responding by email to my last Montague Reporter column (January 23), doesn’t think it’s rocket science. But first, a little refresher on previous discussion in this space.

Even though salmon evidence is rare in New England’s archaeological record, we can recite a long list of regional salmon falls and rivers – including some right here in the Connecticut Valley – which strongly suggest salmon presence. Yet still, no archaeological remains, according to UMass anthropologist Catherine Carroll Carlson, who reviewed reports of 75 known fishing sites for her 1992 UMass doctoral dissertation, The Atlantic Salmon in New England History and Prehistory: Social and Environmental Implications.

Carlson’s findings were not welcomed by altruistic fisheries biologists working furiously at the time to restore Connecticut River salmon. Instead, her conclusions were greeted by catcalls, boos, and hisses, and publicly dismissed as invalid by critics with jobs and blind crusades to protect.

Loud and clear, these critics could hear the death knell sounding on their struggling federal and state Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Restoration Program, which was finally abandoned in 2013 following a failed 46-year effort.

My most recent foray into this issue wondered aloud why a certain ubiquitous Connecticut River conservation gadfly was so threatened by new research aimed at tweaking Carlson’s conclusion that, because New England salmon remains are almost non-existent in the archaeological record, so, too, were salmon.

She even went so far as to opine that New England salmon populations were intentionally overstated by colonial promoters attempting to entice restless European emigrants to a new and faraway land of unimaginable abundance. So deceptive were these promoters that they named the previously unknown American shad “white salmon” as a disingenuous drawing card. Those smaller, plebian shad, she said, were the staple of New England’s annual anadromous fish runs; not Atlantic salmon – king of North Atlantic gamefish and table fare of royalty.

She was right. Shad runs did indeed dwarf accompanying salmon runs here. But when you toss in peripheral perspective from personal accounts like The Diary of Matthew Patten of Bedford, New Hampshire, 1754-1788, it’s quite apparent that salmon were not, as Carlson claims, “insignificant,” but a valuable food-resource worth targeting for the larder.

So, why are their remains so scarce in New England’s archaeological record?

Thomas – with digs at Riverside/Gill and the Sokoki Fort in Vernon, Vermont to his credit – says there are two good reasons, both relating to “a lack of evidence of specific activities surviving in the ground for archaeologists to excavate and interpret.”

During his two “very limited” Riverside excavations adjacent to the well-know fishing falls on the Connecticut, Thomas encountered three to four feet of black, organically-rich soils containing high levels of mercury and iodine derived from marine fish species.

“Based on the numerous stone tools we found,” he wrote, “Native occupants had fished at the falls for some 9,000 years each spring.”

Yet, while no one has ever challenged the fact that massive runs of shad and alewives (and lesser numbers of salmon) ran the river each year, there’s a lack of identifiable remains. The reason, according to Thomas, is that “no unburned bone of any animal – fish, mammal, reptile or bird – has survived in these acidic soils. Tiny fragments of heavily burned fish bone are present, but species identification is not possible, with one exception. Two small, football-shaped bones, called prootic bulla, are found in the head of each shad, of which 72 were recovered. In short, lack of identifiable salmon bones does not mean they were not caught and eaten along with other species.”

Archaeologists rely on the stone tools they recover to identify or surmise site activities. Thomas says literally thousands of stone points have been recovered over the years around Riverside, confirming that occupants were heavily engaged in hunting.

“However, with the exception of stone net sinkers,” he says, “all fishing gear consisted of bone, antler, wood or plant fibers – none of which survived in the ground. This absence has also led to a gross underestimation of the significance of Native fishing.”

In recent months, Thomas and fellow retired archaeologist Stuart Fiedel have combed through many additional riverside site reports. They have found that these reports are consistent in revealing an abundance of stone hunting tools but few fishing tools, except for the aforementioned net sinkers.

So, chalk up these recent Thomas/Fiedel findings as food for an addendum to Carlson’s dated dissertation – likely with more to come.

Stay tuned.

Why Not Dig Deeper Into Salmon Mystery?

Wedged inconspicuously into a slim, dim, and dusty space between a wall-length book cabinet and the northeast corner in my study hangs a framed, matted, five-by-seven-inch pen-and-ink sketch of a younger me signed by late Manchester Union Leader illustrator John Noga.

Despite ultraviolet-protective glass, the paper has taken on a warm sepia tone that speaks to its age. It was drawn more than 40 years ago for the “sig” accompanying my monthly Connecticut Valley column in Massachusetts/New Hampshire Out of Doors. Owned and operated by publisher/editor Bryant “Red” Chaplin, the popular regional publication was known to readers as MOOD.

I was pushing 30 at the time of the sketch. I wore a full head of curly hair and a trim beard and mustache, with a glint of the devil in my eye.

When I catch a glimpse on my daily rounds, it often evokes memories dating back to my early freelance-writing days, when I dared to question the viability of our ambitious state and federal Connecticut River Atlantic salmon-restoration program, ultimately derailed 13 years ago due to poor results.

Back in the 1980s I was the only mainstream media voice – or New England Outdoor Writers Association (NEOWA) member – openly questioning a salmon comeback. I presume older members preferred to believe misleading press releases and promotional words of wisdom from hopeful fish and wildlife agencies and salmon organizations. Veteran outdoor scribes in the cocktail lounge might’ve admitted it was pie in the sky, but figured why not be supportive and give it a chance?

Chaplin and I forged a great working relationship during the 10 or 11 years we shared before his 1992 cancer death at 65. We often chatted on the phone and always took full advantage of our social interactions at the annual three-day NEOWA meeting and banquet at the Sheraton-Boxborough. Born with deep Yankee roots in 1926, he was two years older than my father.

One time during a typically spirited phone call, I worked up the nerve to ask Red what he did with his columnist sketches. When he generously offered to send me mine if I wanted it, my answer was yes, sure, if he didn’t mind. He promptly made a copy for his files and dropped the carefully packaged original in the mail.

It is the best gift I ever received as a journalist, working long, erratic and thankless hours for meager pay.

I immediately took my treasure a mile down the road to Andy’s Frame Shop, across the road from the South Deerfield cemetery where my ashes and those of my wife and sons will eventually lie in the Sanderson plot of my grandfather, his parents and two sisters.

A glance at my youthful portrait stirs memories from the late 1980s, when Chaplin defended me in a dispute precipitated by a fellow MOOD columnist. My foe, a police captain from Northampton and a loyal Atlantic Salmon Federation member, was longer-tenured than me and fed up with my salmon-restoration skepticism. When he threatened to resign if I wasn’t canned, or at the very least silenced, Red assured him he’d hate to lose his taxidermy column yet would not satisfy his demand. He was in the business of selling papers, he informed him, not refereeing political dustups between his freelancer staff.

Which brings us to the present day, and a January 9 Reporter op-ed in which ubiquitous Connecticut River activist-gadfly Karl Meyer took exception to my continuously evolving opinions about the status of our prehistoric salmon runs. He is apparently unaware of new research by two retired, respected archaeologists with impressive chops who are studying old records to reassess and further clarify our prehistoric New England salmon runs.

The impetus was their doubts about the accuracy of former UMass anthropologist Catherine Carroll Carlson’s 40-year-old characterization of ancient New England salmon runs as “insignificant.” This conclusion became the unchallenged backbone of her 1992 doctoral dissertation, The Atlantic Salmon in New England History and Prehistory: Social and Environmental Implications, which sounded our salmon-restoration death knell. Her assessment was based primarily on the rarity of salmon evidence in the archaeological record she reviewed in reports from 75 known prehistoric Northeastern fishing sites.

The question now entertaining erudite Ph.D.s Peter Thomas and Stuart Fiedel is: why so few New England salmon remains, and quantifiable reports? We know from credible colonials that salmon were not only here but plentiful enough to be viewed as a valuable food resource to transplanted Europeans and indigenous natives alike. So, why the scarcity of archaeological evidence? They speculate there’s a good reason that we’re all missing.

Who can blame them for their dogged determination to answer this vexing mystery?

Let us not forget that Carlson’s thesis, and other academic reports like it, are never to be viewed as the final word, but rather as a starting point for future discovery. She was at the time a young doctoral student trying to earn an advanced degree, not a venerable archaeologist with mountains of experience behind her. On the other hand, Thomas and Fiedel are grizzled veterans at the twilight of their careers. They’re not trying to invalidate or undermine her work, just fine-tune accuracy.

Look at it this way: Carlson planted the flag, they’re advancing it. Why is that so threatening to Meyer and his self-professed “Connecticut River hero, who grew up in the Great Northwest of legendary salmon runs she knew well?” Is it possible that comparisons could have clouded her perspective with preconceived, provincial opinions? Maybe. No shame in that.

The last time I looked at the Thomas/Fiedel work in progress, it was surprised to discover it had grown to more than 200 pages. I knew it underway because I am always poking around for new information, and have contributed occasional insight. No doubt, Carlson was on the right track when her findings were radioactive to tunnel-visioned Connecticut River salmon-restoration officials and the “high-cotton” choir singing praise of their altruistic program. But they need to be tweaked.

Although I can’t prove it without exerting more effort than it’s worth – and doubt Meyer would ever admit it – I’m quite confident he learned of Carlson’s bombshell scholarship from my old Greenfield Recorder column, “On The Trail.” At least I know that’s how we first met, when he reached out to me by email. That would have been around 1988, long before he embarked on his busy freelance-writing tour about 25 years ago. By that time salmon restoration was on its last leg, and I had moved onto other topics.

Don’t forget, the 1980s and early ’90s were the glory days – if there was such a thing – of the failed Connecticut River salmon-restoration effort. Critical voices were then rare indeed – and frowned upon by the many true-believers offering blind support. A record 529 salmon were counted migrating upriver during the 1981 spawning run. Then came the second-best run of 490 11 years later, in 1992, the year Carlson’s Molotov cocktail hit the street.

Other than those two record runs, success was thin, with one string of three consecutive counts of 300 or better between 1985 and 1987. There were only two others, for a total of seven over a 46-year experiment ending in 2013. The total salmon count during that entire 46-year effort was 6,098, a number that wouldn’t have been sufficient annually to justify ending their endangered status and opening a sport-fishing season.

Truth be told, our Connecticut River restoration program never had a chance. But it wasn’t because salmon weren’t here to greet European explorers. Greatly complicating matters were factors like industrial dams and pollution, climate change, regional water temperatures, and gluttonous colonial overharvest that stacked the deck against sustainability. Many biologists knew this, but were reluctant to say it out loud. I believe one of them was Meyer’s trusted source and friend Boyd Kynard – a top-shelf fisheries biologists and, incidentally, one of three advisors who approved Carlson’s dissertation.

As far as I can tell, Kynard was never a loud, confrontational critic. Just a calm, diplomatic voice of reason who didn’t hesitate to warn his scientific brethren that Connecticut River salmon restoration might not work.

Why Meyer insists on accepting Carlson’s findings as the final word on regional salmon research is beyond my comprehension. The program’s demise is old news. That horse left the barn long ago. Why not explore something new?

Wouldn’t it be interesting to figure out why – even though salmon absolutely did seasonally populate many New England rivers – their remains are virtually nonexistent in the archaeological record?

Wouldn’t Mr. Meyer be better served by focusing on his loud shortnosed-sturgeon crusade and leaving ample space for new scholarship aimed at solving a confusing salmon mystery?

 

Gramly’s Mastodon Adventures Bearing Fruit

I feel like I’ve been swept into the mainstream of a raging archaeological/anthropological torrent that just won’t let go – no sturdy, overhanging tree limbs to snag or flotsam to maneuver to shore.

Hopelessly suspended in this roaring swell, I hear interesting cobbles of information tumbling past me on the invisible streambed. All I can do now is find a way out. There I can wait for the stream to clear. Then, perhaps, gather visible submerged clues.

I was first sucked into this maelstrom months ago by embarking on a fresh look at ancient weirs still discernable on some New England streams. That includes a few in the Connecticut Valley. The immediate question was: were they the work of Indian fishers, or enhanced versions of indigenous weirs taken over and annually maintained by colonial settlers?

The answer, according to the few scholars who’ve written in obscure sources about weirs, seems to be all of the above. I can accept that.

A follow-up question was: Why are they pointing downstream, an obvious difference between New England weirs and those documented along the upper West Coast of North America? We did attempt to sort that out and move on. Bigger fish to fry.

As an offshoot, we re-explored a topic I have probed under evolving views for nearly half a century. That is anadromous fish, including Atlantic salmon, that historically and prehistorically populated the Connecticut and many other New England river systems each spring. That was before capitalistic Europeans did their best to wipe them out with gross overharvest of fish and forest, impenetrable dam obstructions blocking spring spawning runs, and wanton pollution. Conservation and sustainability were not in those folks’ lexicon. Blinded by shortsighted greed, they aimed at maximum profit.

A question yet to be answered is: Why have salmon remains been thus far almost totally absent from New England’s archaeological record? Well, I’m afraid that’s above my pay grade. Perhaps it has something to do with Indians’ reverential riverside disposal of salmon remains compared to those of shad, sturgeon, herring, and eels, which do exist in the record.

Maybe we’d find the answer if archaeologists still fearlessly excavated sites like they did before the restrictions and oversight of 1990’s Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) cramped their style.

One expert who would agree with that assessment is Harvard Ph.D. archaeologist Richard Michael Gramly, known to friends as Mike. I have known him for 10 years – ever since we met at the famed Sugarloaf (or DEDIC) Site – a sandy, outwash plain on the southwestern skirt of Mount Sugarloaf that was seasonally visited by bands of Paleoindian caribou hunters dating back some 12,400 years before present.

By the time we met, Gramly had for some 40 years been actively exploring ancient caribou-hunting sites ranging from northwestern Maine to our slice of the Connecticut Valley. I was witnessing his second Sugarloaf Site dig during the fall of 2013.

Shortly thereafter, he pulled together a group of investors who purchased at auction the excavation rights to skeletal remains of an ancient mastodon discovered by a Middletown, New York farmer digging out a spring hole. Working there in 2014 and 2015, he uncovered many ground-breaking discoveries, and has ever since been on a mastodon crusade. Now 78, he fears there’s not enough time to get him where he wants to go.

I feel privileged to have been on the receiving end of a steady flow of fresh Gramly insights about the interactions of Paleoindian hunters and ancient proboscideans – mostly mastodons, but wooly mammoths, too. He’s fully involved in the elusive, esoteric study of ritualistic mastodon hunting as a rite of manhood. Radiocarbon dates tell him this activity dates back some 15,000 years, which ruffles the preened feathers of some respected scholars deep in experience and expertise pertaining to the peopling of the Americas.

Thus far, Gramly has uncovered not only previously ignored and/or undetected evidence of ritualistic mastodon hunting, but two apparent in situ shaman sled burials in the eastern United States: one in upstate New York, the other Kentucky. Included among his cutting-edge discoveries are artifacts made of bone and ivory, including sled runners and carriage parts, a diadem, tools, and recently even a stone cobble worked into a Venus figurine.

Now, a new wrinkle has come to light, forcing Gramly to adjust his ever-evolving hypotheses surrounding the shaman sled burials he identified from the Hiscock Site in New York’s Lake Ontario region and Lower Blue Lick in northeastern Kentucky. Dutch anthropologist and American academic Harold E.L. Prins delivered this new twist in his scholarly December article titled “The Sami Drum: Shamanic Journey of Another Kind,” appearing in Shamanism Annual, the Journal of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

Prins’s article discusses rare, sacred, exquisitely-painted drums used by Sami shamans in the pre-Christian world of Arctic Scandinavia. Most of these early, spiritual, Lapland relics were long ago destroyed by Christian authorities trying to rid their world of pagan symbols and devil worship. Featured with the symbolically illustrated drums are Y-stick reindeer-antler hammers used as drumbeaters, introducing a new interpretation for caribou-antler artifacts recovered in association with the Hiscock sled burial.

Gramly and righthand man James B. Harrod, a world religions expert, had previously speculated that the antler Y-sticks discovered at the burial site had either been vestiges of a shaman’s headdress or ceremonial staff. Now a third possibility for at least one remnant initially thought to be a damaged Y-stick. A shaman’s drum stick, perhaps?

Hmmmm?

“Yes,” was Gramly’s email answer. “The T-shaped Hiscock-antler Y-stick with a moose effigy carving was likely a drumbeater. When I wrote it up years ago, I did not recognize its significance. Remember, this is a continuously-evolving body of interpretation.”

Yes, indeed – precisely why it interests this retired old hen-scratcher most attracted to the unknown.

Reevaluating New England Salmon

OK, at long last, time to revisit and reassess, as I promised many weeks ago, the uncertain topic of New England’s prehistoric and early-historic Atlantic salmon runs.

This subject was a staple of my weekly Greenfield Recorder outdoor column “On the Trail” in the 1980s and 1990s, when an aggressive, ultimately unsuccessful Connecticut River Atlantic salmon-restoration program was trying to justify itself. By the dawning of our new millennium the tide had turned against the altruistic effort’s feasibility.

Although I continued to studiously track, compare, and contrast the annual spring spawning runs of shad, salmon, blueback herring, and sometimes lamprey eels up our Connecticut River basin, it was by then clear that the salmon program was fast-tracking to its demise. So, I backed off and let others run with the baton.

Finally, the feds pulled the plug on salmon-restoration in 2013, by which time the paltry number of annual returns could no longer justify the expense.

Readers may recall the impetus for my most recent foray into regional salmon runs after years of back-burner neglect. Reading a 50-year-old book about New Hampshire’s frontier settlement, I noted a reference to the 18th-century diary of a Bedford, New Hampshire man named Matthew Patten, who counted among his many annual chores fishing the spring Merrimack River anadromous fish runs, including salmon.

Patten also occasionally fished for non-migratory native fish such as pickerel, perch, and hornpout, but not as aggressively, while capitalizing on occasional summer salmon found secreted in small, cold-water-tributary lairs awaiting fall spawning.

I bought a copy of the Patten diary, discovered it contained no index, and spent three days compiling a hand-written version for future reference, recording mostly fishing data but also miscellaneous items of personal interest – like, for instance, a heavy June 30 frost today unheard of.

I soon introduced Patten’s 1754-88 diary to my scholarly friend Peter Thomas, a retired archaeologist and historian. Immediately intrigued, he one-upped me by finding an online copy and laboring to produce a useful, 75-page, annotated digital index, along with two Excel spreadsheets tracking Patten’s many fishing activitie. He and fellow retired archaeologist Stuart Fiedel, both PhDs with many years of field experience, found the “new” information relevant to their current, ongoing examination of historic and prehistoric New England anadromous-fish migration, particularly in the Connecticut Valley.

Though I haven’t yet carefully dissected the spreadsheets, I’m sure they’ll become useful at some point.

Thomas and I have discussed anadromous fish runs and ancient fishing practices for the approximate 10 years I’ve known him. He led an archaeological dig at Riverside/Gill in the 1980s that revealed much evidence of Native American fishing long before European colonists reached our shores. Likewise, his Hinsdale, New Hampshire dig at the Sokoki “Fort Hill,” overlooking the confluence of the Ashuelot and Connecticut rivers, revealed some fishing culture. Plus, our recent discussions have focused on the dynamics of ancient weirs still discernable in some Connecticut Valley rivers.

My own recent research hit a brief snag with too many irons in the fire, so to speak. The most impactful wrinkle was an unexpected communication glitch between me and US Fish and Wildlife Services Connecticut River Coordinator Ken Sprankle. After years of easy exchanges, he was suddenly unable to respond to my queries when his government server blocked responses to my private email address linked to an old business website.

When we finally connected by phone and I mentioned the Patten diary, it immediately rang a bell. On the spot, Sprankle pulled from his office bookshelf a 21st-century source previously unknown to me. A glance at the index, footnotes and bibliography revealed that, as he suspected, Patten was an important source.

The book, Fishing in New Hampshire: A History, was published in 2003 and authored by Granite State historian and novelist Jack Noon. The introduction alone, by celebrated American author John McPhee, immediately validated the book in my mind. Then, when I read promotional snippets of praise by reviewers on the opening pages, one of them was none other than my old North Country pal, the late John Harrigan, former editor/publisher/outdoor columnist at Lancaster, New Hampshire’s Coos County Democrat newspaper.

Noon’s paperback has achieved “rare book” status in the online marketplace, inflating its cost and confirming its value as a source. Then again, the steep cost could merely reflect a tiny print run. I hunted down a reasonably-priced copy, bought it, waited for it in the mail, and couldn’t put it down once I opened it.

Noon introduces a refreshing new spin on ancient New England salmon presence – one in sharp contrast to anthropologist Catherine Carroll Carlson’s thesis that, yes, they existed, but in insignificant numbers compared to other anadromous fish. This opinion that shook the salmon-restoration world was based solely on the curious rarity of salmon in the archaeological record.

Of course, that begs the question as to whether the absence of salmon evidence in New England’s archaeological record proves they were irrelevant. Noon doesn’t think so, and frankly, I have evolved to agree.

My opinion has changed over some 40 years, especially since striking up friendships with a handful of professional archaeologists in recent years.

Initially, because Carlson’s scientific findings supported the position I was piecemealing out weekly in my Recorder column – based on second- and third-hand reports from published town histories – I was quick to take her bait hook, line, and sinker. My support of her thesis was only buoyed as she sharpened her attack in various scholarly journals between 1988 and 1996.

Convinced by the start of this new millennium that the Connecticut River salmon-restoration failure was a settled issue, word of Noon’s 2003 book somehow escaped me. It apparently received no attention from the New England Outdoor Writers’ Association. At least nothing I recall. Maybe the snub had to do with Noon’s non-member status. Had the organization’s newsletter mentioned Noon’s book, I wouldn’t have missed it.

Noon does cite Carlson in his bibliography, listing only her Fall/Winter 1996 Federal Archeology piece, “The Insignificance of Atlantic Salmon.” By then she had published her 1992 doctoral dissertation The Atlantic Salmon in New England History and Prehistory: Social and Environmental Implications, and was dancing in the end zone with a thesis damaging to the struggling salmon-restoration effort.

Otherwise, Noon pays Carlson no heed, totally ignoring her hypothesis in favor of his own reasoned approach: that there were lucrative annual salmon runs on many New England rivers up and down the coast, ranging as far south as the Connecticut, Housatonic, and Hudson rivers. The problem, according to Noon, was that unlike Native Americans whose cooperative, part-of-the-whole lifeways respected conservation and sustainability, Europeans exploited and soon destroyed the resource with wasteful commercial harvests in nets and seines aimed at maximizing profits.

As these interlopers overharvested forests, created insurmountable mill dams, polluted salmon streams with gill-clogging sawdust, and fished with apparatuses that invited waste and overharvest, they also made no effort to record and quantify for posterity the 17th-century anadromous-fish runs that greeted them here.

As to why only a few of the 75 Northeastern fishing sites listed in Carlson’s study produced salmon evidence, well, that may forever remain a mystery. Perhaps it had something to do with the reverence Indians held for salmon, which were less plentiful and more valued than their anadromous companions. Maybe they disposed of salmon remains with ritualistic respect and dignity compared to more populous shad, river herring, and lamprey eels, whose processing scraps found their way to garbage pits when not used to fertilize horticultural plots.

Although it’s probably now too late to determine why Atlantic salmon are absent from our archaeological record, we know they were here, and were treasured by Indians and colonials alike before they disappeared due primarily to foreign exploitation of the fish and their precious spawning channels.

I think Carlson, a West Coast native intimately familiar thick Pacific salmon runs, took a provincial attitude and overstated salmon insignificance here. I wondered how she had missed the insights of Patten’s diary – and found that actually she hadn’t. When, however, she did choose to mention him in her “Where’s the Salmon?” chapter published in Holocene Human Ecology in Northeastern North America (1988), she did so by lifting a June 7, 1785 entry that buttressed her argument that shad and eels were far more abundant than salmon.

Carlson probably stumbled across that Patten reference in passing, and used it without ever taking a deeper dive into the journal. Or perhaps she did dig a little deeper, found the diary lacked a convenient index, and pushed it aside in the rush to complete her dissertation.

Too bad. For had she thoroughly investigated Patten, she would have found that New England salmon were far from rare and insignificant. Human greed and a new commercial paradigm did a sorry number on a valued indigenous food resource in an exploited, colonized land.

 

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