The Wolf River:

Both a Treasure and a Tragedy

Martin Stuart

How does one begin to discuss an experience as powerful as my last two visits canoeing upon the Wolf River? To be perfectly honest, I think like most things of this nature, words will never truly do the journey justice. One month ago, the college kid in me was dreading the thought of waking up at 8 am on my Sunday mornings to go out in the hot mugginess and then to canoe for 7 hours straight rather than sleep in. However, a strange feeling overcame me as I finally laid eyes on the river that first morning after the hour long drive; I felt oddly at peace, but excited at the same time.

Once we had pushed out onto the river, I just began to take in the almost mystic environment of the large overhanging trees and ominous birds and bugs all around. I also noticed that much of the class seemed to bond very quickly out in the mix of the organisms we had all just been learning about in class. It was biology, and more specifically ecology, right in front of our very eyes. A better learning environment couldn’t have been possible. The water was clear and cool, so I didn’t mind the few occasions where balance couldn’t be maintained in the cypress knee areas, known as the ghost river section. I also found that the lunch and the few areas where canoes had to be lifted over obstacles served as a great bonding time for the class out in the natural environment which we were attempting to understand better.

The one really tragic part of the whole experience between the two weeks however, was the degree of difference between the up-river portion and the down-river headcut portion. Seeing the sewage and headcut’s degradation upon the river’s ecosystem was almost like night and day. It was really not the same river anymore, but rather a tragic reminder of human’s all too present negative impact on his surroundings. Sure we flush the toilet every day, but do many people ever have to paddle along in the same sewage that they flushed. How on Earth did tricycles, furniture pieces, and beer kegs ever make their way into this once pristine environment kept so close to Memphis? Probably the eeriest thing was that in the presence of these foreign knickknacks, the absence of living creatures pervaded. For every piece of trash there was one less bird, bug, or plant. It was truly both a majestic, but also all too tragic of an experience to visit the Wolf River, because it serves as both an example of nature at its most pristine and at its most defiled. Nothing could have been better for both showing me how ecology is relevant in a real life setting, and how important it will be for humanity now and in the coming years.