Preface

Summary

The glorious Hudson! No river in the United States has been more loved, nurtured, ridiculed and defended, and more often written off for dead. The Hudson is replete with legends and lacks only one about a raft with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn; but its own may be more fantastic. To native Americans it was the wondrous Muhheakunnuk, “great waters constantly in motion” or “the river that flows both ways.” To the Dutch settlers of the valley it was a fertile wonderland, with many legends emerging from their lives and travels in the Hudson Valley and surrounding forests, fields, and mountains. Beneath the noisy bowlers that, according to legend, caused the thunderclaps atop Storm King Mountain, lay the sirenic fairies luring ships to the rocky shores of the Hudson Highlands, sending them to the deep watery grave of World's End. It is a river that held the key to the geographic unification of the nascent American revolutionary colonies and also the place where great environmental controversies led to a modern-day sturm und drang, giving birth to an era of environmental activism. If this is too burdensome a legacy to bear, the Hudson also gives us its lightness of being: A fall day in a kayak or a ferry ride, or a refreshing swim, or even a big fish to catch.