One of my favorite places to paddle in the Northeast is on the Swift River below the Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown in central Massachusetts.   

I like it as much for the human-made river art along it as I do for its gentle current and narrow, twisty turns.

It’s not a long paddle.  Put in at Cold Spring Street and go upstream a few miles until you are stopped by the current, shallow water, blowdowns, or groups of fly fisherpersons and then paddle downstream to the dam and back up to the launch.  It’s a pleasant few hours.

Because the river comes out of the bottom of the deep and large Quabbin Reservoir the water is delightfully cold in the heat of the summer and relatively warm enough in the winter that most of it doesn’t freeze over—or so say some of my hardier Northeastern friends.

Three branches of the Swift used to course through the Swift River Valley, passing several small towns and joining up to become one river that emptied into the Ware River just north of Three Rivers, MA.  That all changed pretty drastically in the 1930s, when two dams were built, towns were moved and the valley flooded to create the Quabbin Reservoir, Massachusetts’ biggest inland lake and a water source, through an aqueduct, for Boston and 40 of its suburbs 65 miles to the east.   Water in the Quabbin Aqueduct actually flows uphill for part of its route through natural siphoning action.

That changed the landscape!  The process took a long time.  It was first envisioned in 1893.  The work started in 1930, the damming was completed in 1939 and the valley finally filled with water in 1946.  Along the way, the politicians in Boston were happy, the Swift River Valley residents were unhappy, buildings and cemeteries were moved, and four towns–Greenwich, Prescott, Dana, and Enfield–ceased to exist.   

And 75 years later it all looks so natural and permanent, like nothing ever happened!  Except for some old roads that dead end at the water’s edge and the occasional basement cavity that wasn’t filled in.

But back to the point of this.  One or two of the households along the river enjoy yard art as much as I do and have the advantage of a river bank to use as a setting.  Here’s a collection of the pieces I have seen in my half-dozen times on the river.

This dragon was new to me this year…

…and so were these guys…

…and this collection.

The couple below has been around for a while. One year in the early spring when I floated by they were still covered with a tarp protecting them from the snow. That care has paid off. On the left as they appeared several years ago and on the right what they look like now. The paint job has held up well.

This dragonfly, however, has lost some of its wing fabric over the years.

Sadly, the folks below weren’t around in any form this year…