For much of my childhood in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, I didn’t talk about the Housatonic River. Unlike the many lakes where my brother and I swam or skated, attended Boy Scout camps, or splashed around for family picnics, the shady and shadowy Housatonic seemed unfamiliar and sometimes downright eerie. The concepts for the banks of the River Eden came from my mom reading “The Wind in the Willows” aloud after dinner — not from encounters with the actual river that flowed 330 meters from our front door.
Later, I came to associate Housatonic with sadness. An arched bridge over it, which I crossed on my walk to high school, marked the transition from home to the anxieties of my teenage years. I also learned that the stretches of river explored by Melville, Ives and Longfellow were loaded with PCBs, an industrial pollutant.
Tourists, taking their cue from the locals, have rarely ventured down the banks of the Housatonic. But in recent years, the cleanup of the river (the next stages of which remain a source of heated community debate) has reminded all who love the Berkshires that the Housatonic needs our attention and—whether by canoe or riverside trail—is richly rewarding. our affection.
“Over the Mountain”
The Hoosie, as the locals call it, rises from several sources in central Berkshire County, joins my hometown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and then parallels the Hudson River to the west and the Connecticut River to the east in its roughly 150 miles. journey south to Long Island Sound.
To experience the river’s highest point—the Housatonic, Mohican for “beyond the mountain”—walk the Berkshire Natural Resource Council’s Old Mill Trail in Hinsdale and Dalton, Massachusetts, a few miles below Muddy Pond, its highest source Housatonic and the beginning of its eastern branch.
This 1.5-mile riverside trail leads through hemlock and shingle to verdant reminders—the foundations of old mills and trenches that once channeled hydroelectric power—of the industry that once capitalized on the Housatonic’s steep descent from Hinsdale in Dalton, where paper for US currency has been produced since 1879. Pick up a brochure or scan the trail’s QR code to better appreciate the area’s natural and socioeconomic history, and don’t forget to sign the journal, tucked away on a pair of benches. Previous entries include “Holy crap it’s cold”, “Thank you to the trail keepers” and “Sasquatch was here”.
Then head south to Hinsdale, where the city’s public library—an 1866 Tudor-style beauty by Leopold Eidlitz, who also worked on the building of the Albany Capitol and the first Brooklyn Academy of Music—is on the right bank of Hoosier. Just across the river you’ll find Ozzie’s Steak and Eggs, where I recommend the Ozzie Platter (two eggs, hash, home fries and French toast, $14.95).
“Outer Rooms” and other Pittsfield favorites
After breakfast, head to Pittsfield. In the West Side neighborhood, the heart of Pittsfield’s Black community, there is no better symbol of the river’s reintegration into city life than the Westside Riverway Park, which opened in 2021.
Tessa Kelly, a Pittsfield native and Harvard-educated architect, was part of her design team. Its goals—the results of a community engagement process—were to facilitate access to the river for a new generation of nature lovers while also creating a space that would support the neighborhood’s tradition of block parties. I love the park’s three grass-covered hills, which create welcoming spaces she described as “outdoor rooms.” Note, too, the performance pavilion, elegant steel trim, and Berkshire granite seating.
Local loyalties have long been split between two restaurants, Teo’s and Hot Dog Ranch. Each specializes in baby hot dogs (a Pittsfield tradition), each has its own secret sauce, and are located along separate branches of the Housatonic. Ms. Kelly is partial to Teo’s — “I’d have a root beer and dogs with my dad after work out,” she recalls — while actress, director and Pittsfield native Elizabeth Banks is partial to Hot Dog Ranch ($1.90 per mini Frank; Tater Tots, $3.50).
After lunch, head to Fred Garner Park, where a short trail leads to the confluence of the west and east branches of the river and the beginning of its main stem. I like to come here in summer, when birds and insects dance and dodge the entwining streams, and in colder times, when crimson leaves or crumbling snowflakes touch the rush to the sea.
In the water
No scenic view beats getting in the water. I recommend Mass Audubon’s summer naturalist canoe trips, which my husband and I took for the first time during the pandemic. As the built world disappeared behind the undulating curves of the river, I gave in to the dreamlike motion—almost effortless, until we finally turned to paddle upstream—and felt more attuned than ever to the ecosystem that bounded my childhood.
More common are Berkshire Rivers Fly Fishing’s catch and release trips. (Fish caught in the Housatonic in Massachusetts should not be eaten.) Harry Desmond, the owner, fished with his dad throughout his childhood in the Berkshires before moving to Montana in 1998. After training as a fishing guide and working in Yellowstone, he returned home in 2009, and soon began operations to introduce locals and visitors alike to the Hoosier and the trout, bass and northern pike that now thrive there.
Based on the weather and water conditions, Mr. Desmond chooses a river landing as his starting point. From there you’ll float downstream to finish at another (half-day trips, $350 for two). Mr. Desmond also offers customized experiences for veterans, Gold Star families and trauma survivors. “I promise to hold space for them, a safe space on the boat, outside of their daily lives,” he told me. “Fishing is meditation through activity,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll ask a guest, ‘what were you thinking?’ And the best answer is ‘nothing’.”
Time-strapped visitors to Berkshire may find themselves torn between natural splendor and cultural pursuits. They will find both at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge. While Rockwell is not known to have painted the Housatonic, his museum sits above some of its most captivating meanders. Pick up art supplies from the gift shop and perch on the museum lawn or riverside meditation bench. Once the plein-air masterpiece is complete, have a picnic on the Butler Pedestrian Bridge. My mother and I used to come here often during the years when her health precluded long walks.
From Stockbridge, head south to Great Barrington, home of the Housatonic River Walk. Beginning in 1988, Rachel Fletcher—a theater designer, activist, and late-1970s resident of the former Midtown Manhattan church turned nightclub Limelight—dedicated three decades to organizing the cleanup of a section of the river that had been polluted by negligence. Over lunch and a walk this spring, he described a time when household waste was routinely thrown into the river and the burned remains of a pharmacy were simply pushed to its bank. Volunteers removed tons of trash — rusted appliances, a safe, countless spam containers — and built a walkway. The first section opened in 1992. “It was 136 feet long,” Ms. Fletcher said. “I thought, if nothing else, it’ll be a nice little park.”
Today, the River Walk—fans include author and environmentalist Wendell Berry—includes about half a mile of shaded riverside walkways lined with native plants maintained by volunteers and Greenagers, an organization that connects young people with conservation and agriculture . The upstream section begins at Green Branch Urban Farm Apothecary & Provisions at 195 Main Street. You’ll soon pass below 15 Dresser Avenue, the former home and studio of Hungarian-born photographer Lucien Aigner — known for his shots of Einstein and Haile Selassie.
Along the river you will see the foundations of the workshop where in the late 19th century William Stanley Jr. — known for vacuum-sealed beverages — developed practical electrical transformers that would revolutionize life by allowing efficient transmission of power over long distances. The Stanley factory in Pittsfield was acquired by General Electric in 1903, eventually employing about 13,000 people and supporting the middle class of my childhood. it also became the source of PCBs whose removal from the river remains incomplete.
As Mrs. Fletcher and I looked out over the river, I thought of my hometown downriver and its long-closed factories. I also remembered my parents and their deep love for the Berkshires. After they died, it seemed fitting to scatter a handful of their ashes in the river that runs so close to the house.
I asked Ms. Fletcher about the sources of her Hoosier devotion. He cited civil rights leader and Great Barrington native WEB Du Bois, who wrote that he was “born of a river of gold”—the Housatonic, discolored by mill waste. In a 1930 speech, Du Bois urged his city to take care of its neglected artery—to respond to its “kind invitation” and let it become the center of “a city, a valley … a new measure of civilized life ».
After a brief silence, Ms. Fletcher, who is 76, also shared a story from her childhood in a Baltimore suburb. When she was 8 or 9 years old, her father found her playing near a sewer outlet in a neighborhood stream. She never forgot his angry and terrifying tone as he forbade her to ever go near it again.
“I guess I waited until I got older and found a scaled river my size,” he said with a smile. “And so maybe this clearing was in the back of my mind, something I’ve always expected to do.”
Mark Vanhoenacker is an airline pilot and author “Skyfaring” and “Imagine a city.”
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