The Cahaba: A River of Riches | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine

Description

The Cahaba: A River of Riches

Randy Haddock stands on a muddy riverbank in central Alabama, looking over his favorite place on earth. Haddock, a slight, spectacled biologist with a trim beard, smiles as he hoists a canoe over his head, carries it to the water and launches it almost soundlessly into a calm stretch of the Cahaba River.

Between brilliant-green margins of broad-leaved trees, the Cahaba flows from its headwaters near Springville through the suburbs of Birmingham and into the heart of the state. The river slips southward with barely a murmur, unnoticed by many who live nearby. But Haddock, who has plied it for 20 years, knows the Cahaba as one of the grandest places in North America.

Biological splendor is usually associated with faraway places and fabulous creatures, rain forest river basins or African elephants. The close-to-home grandeur of the Cahaba is more subtle, counted not in jaguars or monkeys but in snails and mussels. To those willing to ...

Original URL

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/River-of-Riches.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/River-of-Riches.html