The French Broad River

Here I am in 2011 newly falling in love with the French Broad River, having just arrived in Asheville.

And below from just this week are some photos of my beloved river taken at Hot Springs.

If you want to honor and learn about the history of this river, read The French Broad (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1955), a nonfiction classic written by Asheville author Wilma Dykeman as part of the Rivers of America Series. The French Broad is a visionary and impassioned plea for a wholistic viewpoint on protecting our river resources.  I am nourished by Dykeman’s work, broadened and awakened to my immediate environment, the French Broad River watershed.

Here’s a taste of her 370 page work: …if the fundamental ingredients of living were sound and good, the furbelows could be done without. Old-timers knew the flavor wheat in bread; knew the taste of water fresh from the earth. Tastes as rare today as the sight of wool carding or the sound of a waterwheel. For somewhere along the way from their time to ours, a bargain was struck. We exchanged the purity of simple necessities for complex luxuries which were never meant to satisfy, but to stimulate our hungers…”

Dykeman loved the same river I love. Each time I run in Carrier Park along the bank of this 250 million year old wonder, I am filled with gratitude. I will miss this river of my heart.