These past couple of weeks I’ve been busy with midterms (my professors decided, as a courtesy, to schedule their exams two weeks before spring break, instead of the typical week before. Which would be nice if it weren’t -all- of them doing that) and various ecojustice activities. I’m involved in a local group that offers tours of the wetlands area in the city of Lawrence, which has become controversial because of fights over a trafficway proposal. The remaining wetlands are about 5% of what it used to be; this fact notwithstanding, the department of transportation would like to build an eight-lane trafficway through a part of this remaining portion. Thus angering ecologists and researchers as well as Native Americans, who view the wetlands as sacred. There’s a lot more to say about this issue; I’ll probably try to devote another post to it soon when I have more time.

My group takes people out to the wetlands and show them around, educate them about the issues, and hopefully get them thinking. Last weekend was this semester’s wetlands outing. I made sure to bring along the sweet Canon A70 my sister gave me for Christmas, but unfortunately I suck at photography and the pictures all have this weird bluey hue because I fubbed up the settings. Also, (very) unfortunately, I’m a little clumsy with the camera, and thus am no good at taking photos of miraculous occurences. As I’ll explain in a bit.

Despite all the work I’ve done with this group, I’d never really gone that far into the wetlands before this weekend. Usually, previous outings have stuck to the boardwalk area at the main entrance - occasionally we’ve gone a bit further, but nothing more than that. This time, however, our little band of six went all up and down one side of the wetlands, spending about four hours in total at the site (!) - most people get tired after about two and a half.

The first thing I noticed about the wetlands was how unusually, uh, wet they were. In the past when I’ve visited, it was a lot drier. The boardwalk area (which I didn’t get a photo of) in particular is pretty flooded. What was the cause of all this? Only the beaver, that noble creature, could be capable of such a transformation.

We came upon this beaver dam in the river - probably the clearest view I’ve had of a beaver structure that wasn’t displayed on the Discovery channel. Here’s a view of it from the other side:

You can’t really see evidence of this in the pictures I took, but how the beavers get such large trees down is by gnawing a layer of bark from around the bottoms of the trunks. In a year or so, even the biggest cottonwoods are weakened from lack of nutrients, and the little guys are able to gnaw through the rest of the tree and take it down. There’s a park in Lawrence close to the river (further upstream) where the city has put fencing around each individual tree to keep the beavers from denuding the landscape.

On the way out here, our guide told us about the legend, shared by a few American Indian tribes, of the great six-foot white beaver that lives out here and takes care of things. He’d heard about it from his professor. The other day, the guide asked the professor if the six-foot white beaver was still out there - the professor’s response was, “oh, for sure, but I think it’s turned cinnamon now.”

As we stood there listening to the tale, one of the girls pointed and said in a rapid hush, “look!” We fell silent and watched as a beaver slowly but gracefully clambered up the wooden dam. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a beaver except for in kids books and the aforementioned Discovery channel. I certainly didn’t expect to see one so close - he came no further than a couple of yards away from us. And I definitely didn’t expect it to be so fat. As soon as he waddled up to the top of the dam, he slipped into the water, and swam past us quietly, leaving a trail of air bubbles.

All the while, I’d been trying to surreptitiously unzip my camera pouch and turn it on without alarming the beaver, but finally I thought better of it and decided that I’d be content with just watching, rather than risk scaring him off with the little fake digital lens opening sound. Sigh. If I end up going back soon (hopefully, I’ll be able to), I’m going to bring a tripod and sit out there, camera trained on the dam, until he or his chubby brethren come back.

After that, we hiked a little further, past a dump (!), until we reached this absolutely gorgeous spot on the banks of the river, under a shade of tall cottonwood trees. I snapped some photos, but once again, I am really not very good at this photography thing at all and this hardly does any justice to how beautiful it looked to our tired, got-up-at-6:30-a.m.-on-a-Saturday-selves:

The sun had been up for awhile, and the breeze was light - a welcome change from the renowned Kansas gusts that had been blasting sand into our eyes for the past few days. Migrating geese honked at us as they flew past. Really, though you can’t really tell from the photo, the place looked like it was plucked from a scene in a charming little nature movie, maybe of the Milo & Otis variety or something. I could have spent all day out there, and we very nearly did.

After this point I dropped my camera off in the car (another mark of a novice photographer). Probably for the best, though, as at that point, we crossed 31st st. to visit an area called the Medicine Wheel, a sacred place just on the other side. Another beaver had built a dam under 31st st. that flooded the grassy area just north of the road. The fact that the water was about calf deep didn’t stop our group - we took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants, and waded across to get to the wheel. I’m not the prissiest girl when it comes to getting dirty, but I haven’t gone around outside barefoot for a prolonged time since elementary school. The water felt cool, cleansing - and really, really friggin’ cold! It was also full of mossy algae, which I was reluctant to step in at first but not after I found that it was actually warmer to walk on.

We continued, barefoot, to the medicine wheel, which I’d never seen before. I pictured a wooden structure for some reason (probably my Western mindset kicking in), but it actually is a grassy area into which a quartered wheel has been mowed. The four directions are marked by stone pillars, upon which people leave offerings. I’m told that there are different rituals that different tribes observe (and not all tribes use medicine wheels), but that one should always enter from the east, and walk around it clockwise.

Afterwards, we waded back through the glacier-cold water and algae soup, ran across 31st st. (concrete and gravel are not kind to bare feet), and drove back home, to the center of Lawrence - Walgreens and stoplights and SUV soccer moms. The change was a little abrupt for our group, who had been out immersing ourselves in nature all morning. It still boggles my mind how close the wetlands is to the city - or, rather, how close the city is to the wetlands. I love this town, but it’s sad how it keeps growing and expanding rapidly, threatening to devour this little natural gem that few Lawrencians actually know very much about. Such has been the way of the past few decades.

Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been doing lately. I’m getting ready to go on break, back to northern New Mexico for an Alternative Spring Break trip. For those of you that don’t know what ASB is - it’s an alternative (hurr, hence the name) for college students that don’t necessarily want to go drinking in Cancun or Padre, but want to volunteer their time off working in various communities around the country. We’re going to Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian conference center near the town of Abiquiu, where Georgia O’Keefe spent the last years of her life painting cow skulls and desert landscapes. I went last year. I miss it dearly and would like to get back. I’ll try to get (non-shitty) photos of the area and post them upon my return - I doubt I’m going to have time to get another post in beforehand, but we’ll see.