All photos by Kevin Lynch

Just to get into the spirit of a season as a way to cope with the bitter cold: At bottom of this note, I offer a link to a short blog photo essay with commentary I did a couple years back about a much more benignly amenable winter day.

These were shot on my favorite Riverwest walk, The Milwaukee River Greenway.

Esteemed Milwaukee historian John Gurda has described it this way: “a narrow fringe of green protected from development by flood hazard, topography, and sometimes public policy.

“What’s remarkable is the width of that fringe close to downtown. Between Port Washington Road and North Avenue, the river pitches downward toward the lake, creating fast water and a valley so deep that it’s entirely wooded. That valley is now protected as The Milwaukee River Greenway, an urban wilderness less that two miles from City Hall. If the Greenway isn’t unique in urban America, it’s certainly close.” 1

It feels that way every time I walk it. The river teems with wildlife, fish, including salmon feeding in surging splashes, ducks and Canada geese, and trout fishermen standing in the river that runs through Milwaukee. Slow down and melt into the hillside a bit. You may encounter deer, even though the greenery is never very deep or remote.

But it is hoary and dense, and the winding path can narrow at places to where you feel you’re wandering deep into the heart of nowhere. Or somewhere, long gone. It often feels ancient, with many massive trees fallen, from wind, winter and gravity over decades, and the steep bluff angles, with foliage and deep moss growing from those fallen limbs…some great trunks eroding into mysterious, yawning caverns, evocative at times of long-dead dinosaurs, to me.

Yet in a certain mood you might sense the leaning bluff earth softly shuddering, the craggy limbs slowly stirring, groaning to life.

I hope you enjoy this wintry interlude:  https://kevernacular.com/?p=15369

__________

1 John Gurda, “Paddling through History, A Memorable Day on the Milwaukee River” from Brewtown Tales, More Stories frim Milwaukee and Beyond, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2022, 173