Ray is from Salem, NJ, and walks his dog every morning either here or the next end of the road over. We got to chatting about why I came here by canoe and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. He asked if I needed anything. I was in bad need of fresh water and asked where the closest stream is. He said nobody comes down here this time of day that would bother my stuff so he would be happy to take me into town to the general store. I grabbed my tech bag and water bottles and hopped in his Hummer.
Greenwich, NJ, is an adorable little town that at one time, prior to the 19th Century was a boom town based on the harvesting of Atlantic Sturgeon. Ray pointed out the remnants of this industry with the old railways and sites of long-passed, abandoned piers sticking above the water.
The Atlantic Sturgeon is an ancient and revered species that dates back to the time of dinosaurs over 70 million years ago. That is an old fish! The Delaware River once supported the largest and most profitable population of the species but it collapsed prior to the 19th Century due to overharvesting and poor water quality.
Today there is a ban on catching this species along with research to encourage a comeback. The largest Atlantic Sturgeon on record is 14 feet long and 811 pounds! My understanding is that they were mainly harvested for the eggs, the fine food of cavier.
I get dropped back off, water bottles full, to enjoy this beautiful place and see some stuff. I observe from my watching post 8 purple sandpipers; over 510 snow geese; 1 great blue heron; 1 bald eagle; 2 harriers, one a male; and over 100 canada geese.
I am starting to think about getting ready to go since it takes about an hour to pack all my stuff, when another car pulls up, this time with Bob Clark and his dog Buck to take a walk.
Bob has visited Hawk Mountain a number of years back, taking some visiting family to our wonderful mountain. He provided me some more background on Greenwich. It was founded by William Penn as a sister city to Salem, 1684 or so. The main street, called Ye Grete Street, is so named from that time. The oldest home still existing today is dated between 1690 and 1710. Several years older than Schaumboch's! One of their tourist attractions is the Tea Burner monument that stands in town. After the Boston Tea Party there were several other sites that conducted this rebellion protest, and this was one of them. Bob mentioned that this was once the Royal Point of Entry back in the day.
Next dog walker was Steve Hancock with his two dogs, Goose and Nyla. Bob and Steve were friends and Bob mentions, "Hey Steve, this guy came here in a canoe!" This stirred up much conversation about why. And much about Hawk Mountain. Steve once conducted a walking fundraiser for his son's grammer school where he walked from Northern New Jersey to Cape May Point! Look on a map, that is a long way.
Both of them mentioned that this was a historic site we were standing at, not from the sturgeon industry, but from a local legend, Leon "Goose" Goslin, a professional baseball player over 50 years ago that when retired from playing ball had a small fishing operation out of this point. When "Goose" passed away the locals put up a monument in his honor at this very spot. It is rumored that inside of this structure is a time capsule which includes a fine bottle of whisky. Due to vandalism it was moved to Hancock Harbor. Don't worry, I got a ride there from Steve and got a photo for your viewing pleasure.
This is now in front of a little historical arrangement with this old house boat.
On my morning rounds with Steve, Goose, and Nyla, we ran into several folks doing some hunting in the surrounding area. One of these characters was Steve Barndt. So as was now custom of Mr. Hancock he went on to introduce me to his friends and explain what I was doing there in this part of the world. Mr. Barndt went into a story about his visit to Hawk Mountain in 1966. He was up there with a friend and they camped overnight, while hiking on the mountain his friend stepped over a rattlesnake and it gave him a little warning shake descriptive of its name. This made his friend jump very high and away from this wild piece of Pennsylvanian forests, unharmed are both friend and thankfully creature also.
Another very unique point of Mr. Barndt is he is an official member of the Kempton Yacht Club. Yes, I stated that correctly, the Kempton Yacht Club. For those of you that do not know, Kempton has had a Yacht club for about 25 years now, made up of farmers and other Kemptonites that wanted the salty sea air hitting their faces. Probably because geologically the Hawk Mountain region was once the edge of a large shallow sea bed. We in Kempton just cannot get away from the calling of the sea!
Bob is busily retired, indicated that his "to do list" is far more than he could ever do. Steve is still employed for the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service as a soil technician. I believe we have got to get these folks up to the spring party as well.
Now it is time to get going and make some miles. The tide is just approaching the back of the boat, which means time to get going. That way I start at high tide and catch the most of the outgoing tides.
I want to thank Hawk Mountain board member Ferdinand Thun for supplying me all my tide charts. As I have mentioned prior, many have been great supporters of this trek and Ferd not only gave a generous financial donation but also provided some very important logistics. THANK YOU FERD!
I head out from this gorgous spot to somewhere south on the large Delaware Bay. I end up making some serious miles this afternoon well into evening. Along the way I encountered a number of fly by ducks and shorebirds. I got to capture this spectacle right at dusk near Cohansey Point. You make the estimate how many, 800? More? I am only catching a glimpse in the camera lens of what was there!
JOIN THE JOURNEY!
Todd Bauman
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