Landscape as process

Whilst discussing the merits of going to natural places in their most revealing moments, our friend Marley Ford mentioned an account by the American naturalist and writer, John Muir, of an afternoon spent at the top of a tall Douglas Fir (chosen on the basis that Muir “felt sure of its elastic temper”) in the midst of a ferocious wind storm.

As we girded our loins to kayak up a dynamic river system that was still in flood, we could scarcely claim to share the same sense of adventure as Muir swaying at the top of a Californian forest.

That said, the river was still moving along at a reasonable clip and the normal line of the riverbanks was totally indiscernible, with its course having ballooned out to turn adjacent basins into temporary lakes.

The purpose of this foray into a flooded landscape was to observe the kinds of processes that one normally hears about whilst crouching beneath a roof. Processes such as the deposition of silt (which brings increased fertility to the inhabitants of swamp and riverine forests) and the scouring of riverbanks, which provides opportunities for native herbs of these habitats (such as Viola lyallii – a species that is rare in the north, but endures in this river system).

The magnitude of silt that provides regular fertility for species like Hoheria angustifolia, Coprosma rotundifolia and C. rubra (a naturally uncommon shrub that is particularly rare in the north) is indicated by the conspicuous flood line in the image above.

All of which leaves me with the sense that John Muir might have been more interested in the rushing torrents associated with that particular marker than the day that we chose to enter that river.