The feeling of home is one that is essential to happiness. In my early youth I felt it strongly: in the garage with my dad and grandpa, wondering through the creek behind my house, and especially when riding bicycles all around town with friends. I believe that this sense of place is an inherent part of being a child, and not all carry this essential feeling of belonging throughout their entire lives. I lost my sense of place as I first entered adolescence. But in the past few years I rediscovered it, and it was like being a child again.

I believe my sense of place was rediscovered on my first visit to Taughannock Falls around the age of 16. My family, although we acknowledged the value of nature, never truly immersed ourselves in it. And then I insisted that we did, that we should go hiking. And so we drove to the place that instilled a profound love for the region I live in. This place was Taughannock Falls, just a 30 minute drive south of our home. All I knew were yards and corn fields and small town streets, and now here I walking along a stream fed by a magnificent waterfall with trees towering over me clinging to the walls of the gorge. I was taught about how glaciers shaped the area surrounding the town where I lived, which is on the northern tip of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes, but seeing the actual effect it had on this specific place was astounding.

Walking through the open forest overlooking the falls is when I fell in love with the Finger Lakes. I began reading more and more about my rediscovered home, and I began going out to see it more as well. I began going kayaking and taking note of the magnificent birds (bald eagles, common terns, blue heron’s, osprey) that I have never seen before, although they are dependent on the same lake my town sits on. I realized the significance of this area in the history of America: it was practically the birthplace of human rights in the country; the Erie Canal split the town in two; and the Haudenosaunee thrived here not long ago. Not only was my home significant in history, but also ecologically/biophysically. With the landscape we’re left with now, it’s hard to imagine bears and wolves once roaming here. One of the most significant characteristics of the region is the Montezuma wetland, home to a vast diversity of bird species, and once spanning a far greater area than what it is now (with the construction of the Erie canal, the Cayuga lake delta was dammed). All of this information fills me with pride, but most significant is the feeling I get when I am there.

On the morning of July 5th, after sleeping in a tent on a vantage point overlooking the lake to get a view of the thousands of fireworks being set off all around the lake, I drove to the lake with my kayak at around 6 in the morning. It was foggy on the lake, it looked as if a cloud was just lying down on its surface, and I decided to row to a shallow creek to try to catch some bass. On the return trip I went deeper into the fog, and experienced one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. Terns and osprey were out in abundance for some reason, and at any given moment there were 5 plunging into the water all around me and then coming up moments later with bass and pickerel and perch and carp and it was astounding. Before this I occasionally saw birds doing this from afar, never like this. I felt an amazing sense of pride for my home on Cayuga Lake and the region that contains it, a pride that I carry to this day, because I know that both the animals and people that depend on it are beautiful and this is where I feel at home.