Driving back up to school this morning after a night at home, I turned to my right and looked at the Delaware River. I really looked at it. I never before realized this, but I had only been seeing it up until yesterday. I considered my drive up to school to be a beautiful scene, but hadn’t necessarily honed in on the incredible, awe-striking, significance of the river itself.

Kayaking down it yesterday definitely opened my eyes to a few aspects of the river that I had not previously considered. For one, it is vast. Noticing the river in my peripheral vision never quite allowed me to understand how wide it is. Although I knew that the Delaware River stretched as long as it does, actually powering myself to traverse only a fraction of it solidified the awesomeness of its size in my mind. Secondly, the river is living, thriving history which still influences human and natural civilization today. As was said yesterday, the water in the river has been around for all of earth’s history. Those molecules have touched the underside of George Washington’s boats, entered the pores of logs that were being shipped down the river to build homes in Philadelphia, and have incurred drops of beer spilled from groups of tubing partiers (not that we’ve seen any of that….).

The natural world, bodies of water in particular, have experienced all of human and natural history with a front row seat. And they are not in museums tucked behind a glass case and shielded from any more human experience. They are there to see, touch, immerse yourself in, kayak on, fish in, and become part of. For a second, think about how tightly we protect historical artifacts from other humans. Now add up all of the history that the Delaware River has seen and compare that to the painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware that is currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. If anyone tried to touch that painting, security guards would tackle him/her. However, all that painting saw was the original painter, the oil paints on its surface, and the inside of museums. It’s truly a privilege that we get to interact with the same substance with which all of history interacted.

I also want to express my agreement with Eiseley concerning the timeless nature of rivers. Before the kayak trip, I was entranced by his description of feeling evolution and dynamism in the river. During the trip, this line rang through my head: “Its (water) substance reaches everywhere; it touches the past and prepares the future; it moves under the poles and wanders thinly in the heights of air” (16). I, too, felt connected to history as well as the future. I was thinking a lot about the potential pipeline that would cut right through it. Would it intrude upon the river in a visually obvious way, or be more underground? Would the engineers use the utmost care in sealing it tightly, or could one mistake damage the river permanently? Humans have used this river for mighty purposes and have managed not to ruin it too badly. Could one false move change that forever?