Final Posting! :/
On Friday, May 6th I visited Salmon Hole one last time before the end of the semester. It was bittersweet since I’m now leaving and now the greenery is just returning to Salmon Hole. However, I was fortunate enough to get to see some of the plants come back on my final visit this year. This time I decided to visit with a friend, and we sat and had a little picnic and spent some time just sitting and watching at the Salmon Hole. On our visit some of the species I saw were Coltsfoot, Meadow Buttercup, Ostrich Fern, Field Horsetail and Dogwood. When I was walking by the shore of the river, I noticed some tracks that were going up and down the shore and I think that they look like Muskrat tracks, I have also seen Muskrat swim down at Salmon Hole before so it’s not unlikely that one has been roaming about. Yesterday when i was sitting there and looking around at my spot and noticing the natural features and also the industrial area that is very close by, I was thinking about the culture and the history of my place. I was thinking first about Indigenous usage of the land and how they would travel up and down the Winooski and what this land meant to them and then I was thinking about the industrialization of the area and the history of the Mills located nearby. There is a lot of culture as well as trauma attached to this place for many individuals. I feel like Salmon hole is a place that I’ve come to know well over this year, but I still am struggling with my sense of belonging there. I feel that it is the Indigenous Abenaki people that should be there and appreciating the land that is so incredibly significant to their culture.
