February 5, 2013 Down by the Riverside

"I'm gwine to lay down my burden
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
Down by the riverside
I'm gwine to lay down my burden
Down by the riverside.
Ain't gwine to study war no more."

I discovered the trail down the banks of the Congaree off the Canal walk in Columbia.  A winding walk, in the cool moist river air, arched with now leafless trees clothed in ivy, with hundreds of birds sailing in and out and around while I disturb their paradise.

At the end of the walk are the locks of the canal, the dam and the fishway.  This fishway is constructed in a fashion similar to the Saint Ours Fishway on the Richelieu River in Quebec.

10,000 to 3,500 years ago there was a Native American settlement just across the river where now three story apartment buildings loom.  Here on the trail side were seasonal settlements, a mere 3,000 years old where the early Americans came to fish seasonally.  Points for hunting and scraping and use as tools were found across the water.

My mother said that when she was a child "down home" in Lancaster County, they frequently found arrowheads in the woods.  Now it is more difficult.

I would like very much to find an arrowhead.

Already, azalea, forsythia and flowering quince are blooming in Columbia.