Out Home

Requiem for a Small River

Requiem for a Small River WE GREW UP ON THE BEST PART OF THE RIVER, where the North Fork of the Skunk, also called the Cha-Ca-Gua, began to break out of the terminal moraine of the last glacial advance into central Iowa. The little river had a good gradient there, and as prairie streams go, it went pretty good. Down a rather narrow valley, flanked with low ridges of bur oak and pasture, the Skunk sauntered along through groves of ash, elm, and cottonwoodas unhurried and independent as its namesake. There were a few places, our favorites, where it flowed beside limestone ledges fed from deep springs, or over sheets of bedrock used as wagon fords. It slid past loam cutbanks and clay cliffs where it dug holes almost as deep as the river was wide, under log drifts where big catfish lay, across flats of bright sand with their schools of redhorse suckers, and then ran off down sloping floors of glacial pebbles, ankle-deep and laughing. On the inside of each deep bend was a sandbar-and to country boys, deep water shoaling into sand can mean only one thing. 67 Requiem for a Small River Wi (;UW UfON rllli ..n ' ....TOFTHI .,VU, where the North fork of the Skunk, also c.>.lled the Cha"Ca·Gua, bepn to break out of the terminal moraine of the lut glacial .advance into central Iowa. The little river had a good gradient there, and as prairie Slreams go, it went prfily good. Down a ralher nanOw valley. flanked with low ridges of bur wk and J'O-sture, Ih" Skunk .auntered along through grove. of ash. elm. and cottonwoodas unhurried and independent as its namesake. There were a few places, our favorites, where it flowed beside limestone ledges fed from deep SprinllS, or Over sheets of bedrock used as wagon fords. It slid paSI IQnd to country boy., deep water ih""ling into liand can mean only one thing. " Requiem for a Small River Wi (;UW UfON rllli ..n ' ....TOFTHI .,VU, where the North fork of the Skunk, also c.>.lled the Cha"Ca·Gua, bepn to break out of the terminal moraine of the lut glacial .advance into central Iowa. The little river had a good gradient there, and as prairie Slreams go, it went prfily good. Down a ralher nanOw valley. flanked with low ridges of bur wk and J'O-sture, Ih" Skunk .auntered along through grove. of ash. elm. and cottonwoodas unhurried and independent as its namesake. There were a few places, our favorites, where it flowed beside limestone ledges fed from deep SprinllS, or Over sheets of bedrock used as wagon fords. It slid paSI IQnd to country boy., deep water ih""ling into liand can mean only one thing. " 68 JOHN MADSON For three months of the year those sandbars were peopled with small boys-naked, raucous, undisciplined, and wonderfully free boys with sun-bleached hair and skins burned dark except where overall straps crossed their shoulders. We had Barebutt Beach #1 at Maxwell's Bend; up near Olsen's Farm was Barebutt # 2. I was always partial to # I, myself. It was near a melon patch. South of there a few miles the valley widened as the Skunk entered a much older bed. In times past, that broader valley had been an impassable bog of quicksand and prairie sloughs. Tile drains solved the slough problem, but there were still those June floods when the river came swelling up out of its channel and over the floodplain to reclaim its own. That part of the Skunk was channelized and tamed before I was born, which is getting to be a few years, now. Draglines had cut a long, straight channel and deepened it; spoil was heaped high on the banks for levees. Bends, deep holes, riffles, sandbars, log drifts-all normal river features vanished . The channel was now deep and straight, and high water sped down it like a sluiceway. The river lost its identity as a river, and no longer held interest for man, boy, or fish. I cannot recall anyone ever condemning that barren stretch of river or the process that made it what it was-it simply did not exist for us. No one trapped, fished, or swam there. It was tacitly regarded as the lower limit of the real river, as if the Skunk had suddenly drained into a blankness. And so we grew up with the images...