Beginnings are apt to be shadowy, and so it is with the beginnings of that great mother of life, the sea. (The Sea Around Us, p. 3)
Rachel Carson was born on May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She is probably most remembered for Silent Spring, her 1962 book that led the US to ban DDT. Silent Spring helped sparked the modern environmental movement. She began her career in the mid-1930s with the US Bureau of Fisheries (now the US Fish & Wildlife Service) writing scripts for Romance Under the Waters, a series of educational radio broadcasts. After the success of The Sea Around Us, which spent 86 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and which won the 1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction, she left the Fish & Wildlife Service and bought a cottage on Southport Island, Maine.She lived there until she died in 1964.
Two years after her death, Congress established the Coastal Maine National Wildlife Refuge, which was renamed the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in 1970 to recognize both Carson’s dedication to conservation and her long connection to the coast of Maine. I’ve walked the Carson Interpretive Trailin Wells, Maine at least once a year since the early 1990s. Returning to the trail is like meeting an old friend. Every year the scene is familiar and timeless, but every year both of us have changed a little. Still, the affection grows deeper.
The Merriland River and Branch Brook wander through cordgrass, forming the eastern and western boundaries of the upland trail. Just beyond, they join to form the Little River, which bends lazily through the salt marsh on its way to the Gulf of Maine. A simple scene, but one that I treasure.
I took the photo at the top of this post a few days ago. It shows a view of the Merriland River from the Carson Interpretive Trail.
