Water Along Once Rails
May 24th, 2013 | by Middleton Stream Team
Granite ledge was cut for the Essex Rail Way in the 1840s before Nobel invented dynamite. Judy Schneider photo
The Water Closet, May 24, 2013
There is a little used or known path of once great importance passing diagonally across Middleton in long straight lines with a couple gentle curves. Many of us hope it will become known and important again. It already is to us Stream Teamers.
Middleton Rail to Trail Advisory Committee1 chairman, Derek Fullerton, spoke to Town Meeting last Tuesday night of the half-year old committee’s work to date and plans for the future. His report was well received; no one spoke in opposition to Middleton’s five miles of old rail bed being converted to a path for all. (more…)
Alaska, Salmon and the Ipswich River
May 20th, 2013 | by Cynthia
The film sea-swallow’d reveals the lives of people living in Bristol Bay, Alaska, a vast wilderness and the world’s most productive salmon habitat. The fate of the people, wildlife, land and water are all in the balance vs. the proposed Pebble Mine, projected to become the largest mine in the world.
Sunday, June 2, 7 – 8:30pm,
Gould Barn, 1 Howlett St, Topsfield
Join us for a viewing of this new short film by film maker, writer and fly fisherman Ryan Peterson. An interactive discussion with the filmmaker and Executive Director Wayne Castonguay will follow. Spectacular Alaskan wilderness photos will be shown during the discussion of the surprisingly similar challenges facing rivers in Alaska and the Ipswich River, including impacts on communities, dams and fisheries.
RSVP to cingelfinger@ipswichriver.org or call 978-412-8200
Paddle trip and Dock Opening Celebration this Sunday
May 17th, 2013 | by Cynthia
Canoe dock at Riverbend — members use our boats for free!
Join us this Sunday, May 19th for the Annual Winthrop Street to Riverbend paddle trip and the Dock Opening Celebration. From our stretch of river you can see turtles, cardinal flowers, silver maples, and perhaps even a river otter. Canoes will be available for paddling what many people say is the most beautiful section of the river. Celebrate the river together, enjoy DownRiver Ice Cream, go for a paddle and NEW this year: tour our new property. It doesn’t get much better than that!
RSVP to cingelfinger@ipswichriver.org or call 978-412-8200
Remembering the Mother’s Day Flood of 2006
May 17th, 2013 | by Middleton Stream Team
Peabody St Landing, Mothers’ Day Flood, 2006. This flood broke all records for the Ipswich River. J. Schneider photo
The Water Closet, May 17, 2013
Since mid-March this year, the start of spring, we’ve had fewer than three inches of rain. The Ipswich River is a couple feet lower than usual for mid-May. This Mother’s Day in the Closet, after finally receiving some much needed and welcome rain after six weeks of very little, we hearken back to the record Ipswich River flood on Mothers Day, 2006. Here is the Water Closet published in the Tri-Town Transcript the week after the great flood that swept two people to their deaths. Especially note the amount of precipitation in just 23 days of that May. (more…)
