Looking at the events pile up on the fall calendar, we made a set-in-stone, weather-forecast-be-damned camping date. Which was why we were one of only 2-3 tent campers as the rain fell and the mercury dropped to just above freezing. We retreated home for the night, then returned in the sun for hiking, foil dinners, and a trip to the interpretive center. Well, if everything had gone perfectly, it wouldn't have been a camping trip. My youth experiences included butterfly bandages, swarms of yellow jackets, and falling out of a pop-up camper. I was reminded of how utterly toast we would be if we ever needed to live off the land again (post-apocalyptic style). I think I'll make a good environmental scientist, but I'd be a pretty poor survivalist WTSHTF.
We did manage to track down a very important family site. On a drizzly rainy Tuesday afternoon in October of '05 I asked Miss Crump to start a journey with me. Seven years in, and somehow it keeps getting better.
As I learn more about geomorphology (watersheds in particular), I thought the history behind the creation of this reservoir somewhat ironic, or comitragic, taking the long-view of natural history. Europeans came and, in one matter or another, stole the land from the Miami Indians. They drained the wetlands and chopped down the forests, both of which were crucial to natural flood control of the river. The subsequent floods (of increasing magnitude and frequency because of anthropogenic changes) posed a threat to the downstream communities of Wabash, Logansport, and Peru (in Peru, 78% of homes were built in the floodplain... I remember going there in college and seeing recent flood damage). So in order to save these towns, three towns in the path of the reservoir where bought out and moved (what wasn't moved was flooded). Three dams in the area were completed by the late '60's. Saving three towns by flooding three others. "Controlling nature" because we had made nature more uncontrollable. Creating recreation opportunities (lake-boating, lake beaches) and creating habitat by destroying recreation opportunities (river fishing, river canoeing, river sandbanks) and destroying natural habitat (the river ecosystem). Anthropocene indeed. But it remains somewhat natural nonetheless, even if heavily altered and constructed.
Due to the drought this year, several roads and building foundations of these drowned communities became visible:
