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HOUSATONIC  RIVER WALK
GUIDE UPSTREAM

... the Housatonic River should be a clear and limpid stream,
flowing gently through grass, trees and flowers;
flanked by broad roadways and parks
as the lifestream of the town.
                       -Great Barrington native W. E. B. Du Bois, 1961

Welcome to RiverWalk, a greenway trail created by volunteers who live in and around Great Barrington. River Walk follows the west bank of the Housatonic River between Cottage Street and Bridge Street. There are six sites along the upstream portion of trail, marked A through F on the map. This guide describes the historical and environmental features of River Walk and explains some of the technical means taken to build the trail and to restore its natural setting. You are beginning at site A at the River Walk entrance on Main Street.

A: ENTRANCE FROM MAIN STREET

You are about to enter River Walk through the gate of Riverbank House, presently owned by the Orion Society and the Myrin Institute. In 1988, the property was owned by the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires. Sixteen volunteers removed fifteen tons of accumulated rubbish and demolition debris from the riverbank at the rear of this site. Since then, approximately 1700 volunteers have continued the effort, collecting an additional 335 tons of assorted debris and building a half mile of nature-viewing and walking trail.

Many sites along the Housatonic River have been abused by dumping. Long after the Native American Mahicans settled the river valley here, the Housatonic became a "working" river, abused by years of industrial neglect and spoiled by dioxins, raw sewage, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and everyday household waste.

Like Great Barrington, a number of other towns were built with their backs to the river in its neglected condition. Yet the river remains a natural treasure with spectacular views and such wildlife as bald eagle, osprey, kingfisher, egret and great blue heron. River Walk volunteers are working to reclaim the river and bring it back into our lives.

The bulletin board on your right presents a photo history of the River Walk project and the names of its volunteers and contributors.

As you walk along the trail, please remember that you are crossing various private properties and are here as a guest.

B: EROSION CONTROL AND TRAILWAY CRIBBING

Steep riverbank slopes are especially vulnerable to erosion. The two main causes of erosion here are water run-off from rooftops and shortcuts heedlessly blazed off the trail. Above the path, water from the rooftop of Brooks Drugstore is dispersed along a cascading pattern of stones before reaching the soft soil below. In other places, water is channeled through pipe under the trailway.

Since 1950, this site was occupied by Melvin's Prescription Pharmacy and then Brooks Drugs. When the building was severely gutted by fire in 1978, the charred debris was bulldozed over the bank. Twelve years later, 108 River Walk volunteers representing dozens of community organizations removed over seventy-five tons of demolition debris and storm-damaged trees from the bank. After the clean-up, the steep bank was stabilized, seeded, mulched and landscaped.

The first 136 feet of River Walk trail opened to the public on November 1, 1992. To create the path, lengths of old utility poles had been notched and nested with short cross ties to form a bed of cribbing. The cribbing sections were filled with rubble and top-dressed with gravel. Large cribbing stones from Butternut Basin were installed to retain the bank above the trail.

Upstream, beyond the "River Walk To Be Continued" sign, a new section of trail is planned behind the Orion Society offices.

Signs, like the one warning that river fish are contaminated with PCBs, are posted along the Housatonic River from Pittsfield to Ashley Falls. PCBs are toxic and are a suspected carcinogen. Used as insulating fluids in electrical transformers for forty years, large quantities of PCBs leached into the river from the power transformer division at the General Electric plant in Pittsfield. In a settlement agreement reached in 1999, GE agreed to clean the first two miles of highly contaminated river in the vicinity of the Pittsfield plant. You can read more about GE's history at Site E.

As you proceed along the path you will pass a stone seat dedicated to the memory of Dale Schneider, a local environmental columnist and artist who was killed in an automobile crash in 1992.

C: WOODEN BENCH AND BOARDWALK

As you sit on the wooden bench, you can look down on the large rock embankment installed in the 1950s to prevent the river from changing course and eroding its way toward Main Street. At this kind of curve, the river tends to flow faster along the outside of the curve, picking up sediment and depositing it downstream along the next inside curve, where the water moves more slowly.

One of the most fragile areas of the riverbank lies just behind you. Additional utility poles were placed to secure the steep slope. Daylilies, ferns, myrtle, forsythia, shadblow and brambles were planted to help retain the soil and vegetate the riverbank.

As you leave the bench and proceed downstream to the boardwalk, you are passing from the pharmacy property of the late Melvin Katsh to the grounds of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church. 

Steel sheet piling, installed in the 1950s, was cut through to make way for the boardwalk. The boardwalk decking is made of Trex^TM, a building material fabricated from reclaimed plastic and waste wood. Trex uses no virgin wood and is 100% recyclable.

All along the riverbank, the ecology is very much influenced by man. Much of the soil contains gravel and organic fill, laced with bits of debris that remain even after the clean-up. Many plants which grow here were introduced from far away. Between the oak bench and the river is a Katsura tree which is native to eastern Asia. Its seed may have been dispersed from a tree in a nearby garden.

In fact, most of the plants that you see here are not indigenous and have been identified by state officials as "invasive exotics," plants which grow so prolifically that they degrade the biodiversity of natural habitats. The tree canopy overhead is largely provided by Norway maples. These prolific seeders often take over urban woodlands such as this one. By weeding out the Norway maples to allow native trees to grow, volunteers are restoring a more indigenous Berkshire canopy. The understory of oriental bittersweet is slowly being replaced by young trees and shrubs such as viburnum and shadbush, which flowers early in the spring. The ground layer consists primarily of prolific exotic seeders such as garlic mustard and celandine poppy. They are being weeded gradually, as native woodland plants are introduced. (See the list of plants along the River Walk.)

If you are visiting River Walk in the spring, you will find a deliberate exception to the native ecology. For many years, an area florist donated a thousand daffodil bulbs each spring after taking a first cutting. River Walk volunteers planted the bulbs on the bank.

D: FLOWFORMS AND MEDITATION GARDEN

Below the trail are three concrete sculpted flowforms which were inspired by hydrologist Theodor Schwenk and developed by sculptors John Wilkes and Jennifer Greene. Flowforms derive from the work of anthroposophist and educator Rudolf Steiner. Here, they receive water run-off from a storm drain on Main Street, then direct the flow through a pattern that aerates and helps purify the water before it reaches the Housatonic. Flowforms have been installed throughout the world in banks, schools, health centers, and parks. They have also been used successfully in sewage plants to help process raw sewage organically.

Above you, at the top of the riverbank, are compost bins built by River Walk volunteers and used by River Walk and St. Peter's Church. Organic materials are composted and reused as soil amendments and mulch for new plantings. Below the compost bins, volunteers reclaimed three tons of compost from a section of bank laden with trash mixed in with leaves and grass clippings. To stabilize the slope, sweet woodruff was planted into hemp erosion netting. Three Norway maples were cut down and their trunks were tied into the bank, creating a terrace for new native trees to grow.

As you continue along the walk, you will notice a temporary trail leading up to the church parking lot. This temporary trail will eventually be blocked and landscaped, but it is not in use now. Instead, about one hundred feet ahead of you at Site E, please exit by the permanent stairs to the church parking lot.

As you approach the stone sitting area, you are entering the property of James and Gina Bashour. The meditation garden and bench were created by the friends of Jim Secundy and dedicated to his memory and love for the outdoors. Jim died at the age of forty-nine in 1994 from brain cancer. The meditation garden is planted with hosta, European ginger, astilbe, Solomon's seal, bishop's cap, violet and Japanese maple. It is framed by a wattle fence of black locust posts and maple saplings.

This 277-foot section of River Walk from the boardwalk to the stairs at Site E opened to the public on October 23, 1994. The cribbing stones along this section of trail came from Beartown State Forest and the Bidwell House and Hudson properties in Monterey.

E: A BIT OF HISTORY

The river was once dammed here to power a grist mill which stood on this bank. Right across the river at this point is the site of an old rubber factory, where in 1886 electrical inventor William Stanley developed his alternating-current transformer. He ran wires across the river to light stores and offices on Great Barrington's Main Street. Later, in Pittsfield, he established a factory to manufacture transformers and other electrical products. By the early 1900s he had sold the factory. It became General Electric.

A complete history of the properties along the trail was written in 1995 by historian and River Walk volunteer Bernard A. Drew. Copies of River Walk: History Underfoot are still available.

You are on a trail tread constructed of gabion baskets, geotextile and gravel. Each gabion is constructed of heavy gauge wire and measures 3' wide by 6' long by 1' (or 3') high. Volunteers loaded fifty-two tons of rocks into the twenty-six gabions used along the River Walk trail. The curbing on the riverside of the trail is made of Trex.

At the top of the bank, water run-off from the church parking lot is routed through a surface drain, where oil and sediment are trapped before the water discharges into the river.

As you pass the wooden stairs leading up to the church parking lot, you are entering the property at 31 Dresser Avenue. While excavating soil to place a gabion in this area, a River Walk volunteer found a Native American hunting spear point..

F: TRAIL TO BE CONTINUED

At this site, volunteers removed more than ten tons of assorted household rubbish, including numerous Spam and Schaefer beer cans from the 1950's, as well as assorted shoes and plumbing parts.

Upstream, many votive candle shards, plastic flowers and slate roofing tiles were taken from behind the church. Perfume bottles, decanters and boxes of cigars were removed from the old Melvin's Pharmacy, together with a 1961 Town of Great Barrington bicentennial coin and a large concrete safe.

You have reached the end of the upstream section of trail, but work continues. Downstream in 1989, seventy students from the Searles eighth grade class cleared 300 feet of riverbank by their school at Bridge Street to make way for a riverside nature trail and canoe launch. Volunteers recently completed an additional 1200 feet of River Walk trail along the riverbank at the school and at Berkshire Corporation just north of the school. [See River Walk Downstream.]

First, they selectively removed underbrush, dead and fallen trees, and grape and bittersweet vines, and carried the debris away. They installed the trailway, using various leveling and cribbing techniques and applied a gravel tread surface. Meanwhile, taking care to prevent the erosion of exposed soil, they continue to restore and landscape the riverbank. Benches, signage, fencing, lighting and other finishing touches were added for your enjoyment of River Walk.

We hope that volunteers will one day complete a River Walk trail between the Cottage and Bridge Street bridges. Meanwhile, an expanded river greenway for biking, jogging and other uses is planned from Bridge Street south to the Senior Center and beyond.

VOLUNTEERS

River Walk is a community project directed by Rachel Fletcher and created by 1900 volunteers.

The River Walk trail is designed by Peter Jensen of Openspace Management. 

The landscape restoration is directed by Monica Fadding of Marconica and Heather Cupo of Plant Euphoria.

Volunteers with more than 100 hours in the field include Gail Berneike, Don Bernier, Glen Chamberlin, Peter Ghani Champoux, Ann Condon, Dana Cummings, Bernie Drew, Monica Fadding, Rachel Fletcher, Peter Jensen, Bernard Kirchner, John Mallory, Tony Manzon, Will Marsh, Judd Reiss and Comstock Small.

Young people with more than 50 hours in the field include Andrew Baxter, Jessie Drew, Erik Jensen, Alden Johnson, Willa Johnson, Ben Kalish, Hannah Kirchner and Ben Passmore.

Inventory of trash removed by River Walk volunteers between 1988 and 2003:

255 - tons of rubble/garbage
10 - tons of metal
82 - tons of wood waste and fire wood
3 - tons of compost

GRAND TOTAL: 350 total tons

A FEW NOTES ABOUT TRAIL ETIQUETTE

- Please remember that you are passing through private property and are here as a guest.
- Please remember that it is unsafe to use the trail during icy conditions and therefore the trail is closed during the winter months.
- Please remember that the path is constructed for walking and nature viewing only. River Walk does not yet have a bicycle path. Please do not bring bicycles to any part of River Walk.
- Please use the proper entrances and exits. Stay on the delineated trail where it is safe to travel.
- Riverbank slopes are sensitive to erosion. Please do not climb on the bank.
- Please respect the desire of others for a smoke-free environment.
- Please help us to keep River Walk clean. Carry out what you carried in.
- Please consider picking up any litter you may see along the trail.
- Please leave the flowers for all to enjoy.

CONTRIBUTIONS

River Walk is a project of the Great Barrington Land Conservancy. Conservation leases and easements granting public access to the trail are managed by the Conservancy on behalf of the local community.

Donations are tax-deductible and may be sent to:
Housatonic River Walk
P. O. Box 1018
Gt. Barrington, MA 01230 USA

For further information about River Walk,
please contact Rachel Fletcher,
413-528-3391, or river@gbriverwalk.org.

Excerpt by W. E. B. Du Bois reprinted with permission of the family of the late George P. Fitzpatrick.

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© copyright 2001 Great Barrington Land Conservancy