It is obvious that humans have had some very large impacts on the Salmon Hole. The first thing you notice is the dam. During high runoff periods water spills over the dam and I have noticed that at this time there is a strong smell, I can’t explain it but it is very disgusting. To go along with this smell there is trash from the runoff as well as people littering. I went down to the Salmon Hole a few days ago with a friend so we could get some more photos for the final post of the semester and we went and explored both sides of the Salmon Hole. We took in the beauty and started to look around at the town to see the impacts. We noticed many brick buildings that used to be old factories and are now stores or apartments. One thing that is still in use though is the power plant. The dam is part of the power plant and the town was built because of the river. Without the river the factories wouldn’t be there and the dam wouldn’t have been put in to get the power. My friend and I are always interested in the fish ladder they have for getting fish over the dam. As we continued to explore the dam we found some very interesting signs that described the town through the years. The signs describe both how the power plant and fish ladder work but also the history of the area being settled, and the Abenaki being pushed out and to Quebec. The signs then go further and explain how Winooski became a mill town for flour and the river was used as the power source. Next the area went into a bust period where the need for milled goods became nonexistent which took away the areas source of income, but all was not lost. Now the town is back in good condition and has been since the second boom during the world wars where the demand for mills came back up. This is very typical of the northeast. Over the course of this semester I have learned that humans have changed the Salmon Hole and in some respects destroyed it by littering and blocking the river. This is all for human gain but at some point we started to realize the damage and start to fix it. Hopefully this will continue and the littering and smell will go away in the future. There is obvious change happening and this reflects the typical change that the whole US has embraced to start fixing things we have done wrong. I have attached the photos I took that show the Salmon Hole, the River Walk, the dam, the fish ladder, the signs and a potential rock wall or foundation we found.
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