This is Maine wilderness. There are no homes, developments, or commerce anywhere near here. It was not always like this. Historians and locals tell us there were fields of hay and farmland along both sides of the stream over a hundred years ago. The stream was used to deliver logs from the woodlands to the north to the mills to the south. Over two hundred years ago, it probably looked like this. Nature can come full circle if somebody doesn’t screw it up with uncontrolled manufactured pesticides, fertilizers, or industrial chemicals.

Drifting along the Madagascal stream in the center of Maine, I hear Stephen Stills in my head, “Mother Nature made it green, the prettiest place you’ve ever seen ….”

If you don’t have clean water and clean air, you got nothing; and the jobs, commerce, and wealth you traded for screwing up the air and the water can only be short-lived and eventually of no value.