|
Canoeing in the Holyoke Neighborhood
|
The Elder Rand Place.
|
An Afternoon Group at Prospect Park.
|
When one approaches Holyoke, from the north, and looks from the car window across the river as the train keeps its swift, curving way along the water’s edge, he sees several lonely little cottages among the trees on the opposite bank. And if curiosity impels to inquiry, he learns that these are canoe lodges. Close below the tracks, a little above the dam, as the train swings into Holyoke, is another building with mammoth letters on its side proclaiming it to be the Holyoke Canoe House. If one gains admittance there, he would find inside stored along its walls, the half-hundred canoes belonging to the club members. On the opposite bank is the canoe house of the South Hadley Falls club, "Red Cliffe" by name, and on the bluff a half-mile above is the Sytoneha Lodge. This has its perch just at the foot of the rapids where the backwater from the dam ends. It belongs to the older members of the Holyoke club, who on pleasant summer afternoons resort thither, and after the voyage across the quiet waters in their little cockleshell canoes, find relaxation and enjoyment in the easy chairs and hammocks on its broad piazza. Within is a room given up to the kitchen, whence comes, as the sun declines toward the western horizon and sends its searching rays farther and farther under the spreading piazza roof, a rattling of dishes and clink of pots which makes most delightful music to the ears of the waiting canoeists outside. For where does food taste better than off on the edges of civilization, with a little gentle exercise for sauce thrown in beforehand?.
|
A Back Street Roadway.
|
Misfits.
It was a new England deacon who said, "We are thankful for one spark of grace, and are confident that it will be watered." But it was a minister who one day announced to his congregation. "You will be sorry to hear that the little church of Jonesville is one more tossed upon the waves, a sheep without a shepherd."
|
The Elder Rand Place.
|
A Quiet Day up the River.
|
Autumn Fields, East of Ashley Ponds.
|
A Waterside Avenue.
|
© Laurel O’Donnell 1996 - 2006, all rights reserved
This document may be downloaded for personal non-commercial use only
and may not be reproduced or distributed without permission in any format.
This is an edited adaptation from the original publication.
|
|
|
