Blog #9: New York City

New York City. 
NYC. 
The Big Apple... over the next week we would not only take a bite, but devour the whole thing, core and all.

We finished our river journey at the Gowanus Canal, one of the most polluted waterways of our country. We were shocked to see the shimmering veil of oil dance away from the disturbance of our paddles as we skimmed across the murky surface. The smell that hung in the air was no longer the crisp salt spray lifting from the bay, but rather the pungent odor of a mixture of chemical and rot. We would learn that the eutrophication in the canal is so dense that fish regularly die from de-oxygenation. We carefully navigated around the shopping carts and circuit boards that had been discarded in the dark waters. At the dock we had a moment of silence, to reflect on the distance we had travelled. We had journeyed from the cold snowy reaches of northern Quebec, and then by canoe from the Richelieu River in Quebec to Manhattan (though we were technically staying in Brooklyn) in 37 days. This moment marked the end of our time on trail. We left our boats and entered a new realm; the city.

At the docks we were greeted by the Rosenbaums, our host family for NYC and an Ecuador Semester family from 2017. Soon we were walking toward Red Hook Farms' composting project. We were sent in groups of two and told to navigate ourselves to the address by 10am. This became a common theme of our time in the city. We often walked to our destination, if time allowed, or used forms of public transport like bike, gondola, or the subway.

At the farm we spent the morning working to beautify the garden through weeding, trail clearing, and painting structures. We learned how beneficial urban farming can be for both the environment and the local community. The property that the farm now sits on was once an abandoned baseball field, and through the effort and will force of the volunteers there is now a striving farm. Ninety percent of the soil foundation comes from compost, and it now supports a CSA, Fresh Food Boxes, and several farm stands. In the second half of the day we worked with Domingo at Red Hook's main composting project, and learned about NYC’s largest completely renewable energy compost site. The sheer scale of the compost mounds in the windrows fascinated us. Domingo taught us that if the recipe of compost was right then it wouldn't become anaerobic and that was why it didn’t smell bad. We turned compost and sifted some of the final product to ensure no worms were left behind and that the large chips were separated.

We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to see some classic sights of the city like Central Park, Times Square, and Broadway. Each of these places had something to teach us. In Central Park we saw nature in the city- though vast and tumbling in places, also well-manicured. We were delighted to see so many people dancing, laughing, and enjoying their green space. In Times Square we encountered the opposite of our winter experience; in Uapishka, silence is the dominate sound, our voices a rare and mellow accent of its quiet grandness. In the city, silence never visits, not even for a moment. The bustling of cars and the scraping of shoes on pavement echoed off the concrete earth. Roused voices spring from every passerby. The sensory overload was far from the life we’d been living for the past 4 1/2 months. On Broadway we learned about the United States Constitution through Heidi Schreck’s play What the Constitution Means to Me. The culmination of the play saw her and her young co-star having a debate-style conversation on how our generation will play in the shaping of our future government, a dialogue that left us with much to consider and discuss among ourselves.

On our fifth day in NYC we had what seemed in retrospect an almost impossible day. We started in pairs walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to the bike rental store. From there we biked up the west side of Manhattan to Inwood Hill Park where we gathered to complete a service project with the Department of Parks and Recreation, removing an invasive species from the hillside. When all the work was finished we split back up and biked to Williamsburg for a 2-hour art class on ethical photography with Kroka summer alumni parents, Eileen Quinlan and Cheyney Thompson. Later in the week we would integrate their teachings into a navigation project. From their house we had one hour to bike across the Williamsburg Bridge and back to the rental store before 7pm. In total we biked approximately 47 miles.

One of the projects we enjoyed most was our neighborhood navigation solos. For class that day each group of two was send to one of six neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan: Brighton Beach, Greenwich, Sunset Park, Chinatown, East Harlem, and Harlem. We observed the culture and infrastructure, as well as class and racial distribution. It was a positive experience for us to look at the city through this lens in order to recognize the privileges, bias, and injustices that we have encountered and carry with us. Besides this academic outlook we also took time to connect with strangers, take fun photos, and one group even went for a swim.

A favorite service project of ours was the Billion-Oyster Project at Governors Island. It was there that we learned the amazing restorative power that oysters have in their ecosystem. A single oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day. If there were 1 billion oysters in the New York harbor then it would only take 3 days to be completely filtered. That is mind-boggling! The project currently has 28 million oysters in the harbor. To assist their efforts we made oyster habitats to be placed in the Hudson near where the Tappan Zee Bridge once stood.

Our trip back to Kroka Base Camp consisted of one very long train ride to Bellows Falls, a time we used to finish up our academics. At the station we met a trailerful of bikes that would aid our travel to Kroka, 14 miles away (uphill, of course). This was the final part of the final stretch. We were riding into the end of expedition. We gathered in a circle to give our gratitude for all of our journeys in a brief song, and set off. We had two hours before sunset and we were pushing to make it in time for dinner. Our legs and lungs burned with the effort, but our eyes were too focused on seeing the seasonal changes in the familiar land to notice. As we rode, we passed by landmarks that had once distinguished the beginning of our expedition: Lake Warren, and Rogers Road. We were coming home. As the sun set and we came down the final hill to Kroka Base Camp our voices turned to joyous shrieking. We had made it back after 3 1/2 months of being away.

Now home at base camp we will spend the remainder of our time doing service, finishing academics, and relishing the moments we’ve had together and the ones we still have before going home.

We have come full circle.

-Zaboski