Waterways

     Scenic, delightful waterways are products of precipitation and the lay of the land.  Precipitation falls to Earth, seeps downhill by the force of gravity through soil, sand or rock and emerges from them as trickles on the ground in valleys between various sized slopes.  Those tiny rivulets, where sphagnum moss and certain kinds of salamanders live here in eastern North America, for example, eventually join to produce little brooks that come together to form streams that merge to create creeks, then rivers and estuaries before entering the oceans.  Watersheds look like bare deciduous trees, with the tiny twigs being the rivulets and the trunks being the rivers going into oceans of soil.
     Crayfish and stream-lined minnows live in the cold, clear fast-moving brooks.  Suckers and trout reside in bouncing, musical streams.  Dippers and Louisiana waterthrushes are small birds that raise young in stream banks and catch aquatic invertebrates to feed their young.
      Eels born in the Atlantic Ocean come up rivers in North America and Europe to feed, grow up and make the trip down the rivers to spawn in the ocean.  Salmon, on the other hand, hatch in streams, go down rivers to the oceans where they mature then come back up rivers and streams where they hatched to spawn and die.  
     Meanwhile, the sun's energy and wind constantly pull some of that water as it flows along waterways back into the sky where it forms clouds of water vapor.  Eventually that vapor condenses and falls again as rain, snow or sleet, continuing the water cycle.
     That precipitation, the water cycle and the waterways it produces sustains life on Earth.  All life needs water to survive.  Fish, tadpoles, many kinds of insect larvae, a whole host of other aquatic creatures and water plants live in the water, including waterways large and small.  Mink, herons, bald eagles, certain ducks and other critters catch and eat fish and other aquatic life.
     Some North American beavers and muskrats dig tunnels in stream banks at the normal water level, then dip up to create a living chamber to avoid being flooded out by higher water.  The beaver homes, of course, are much larger than those of the muskrats.  And, as we know, beavers' dams transform streams and brooks into ponds where frogs, muskrats and dragonflies live.  
     People use water to sustain life and for recreation.  We like to swim, fish, water ski, ski, ice skate and recreate in other ways in precipitation.  Waterways, impoundments and oceans add much to the beauty of scenery, as does a snow-covered landscape.
     We people have built cities along larger waterways, estuaries and oceans.  There we have drinking and washing water, and for industry.  There we can handily catch and eat fish and shellfish.  And many people build homes along waterways and impoundments for the beautiful scenery and recreation they provide.  But this can be a dangerous practice because of the threat of flooding. 
     We have had handy routes of transportation in the form of boats on the water from the early days of the first civilizations to the present day.  Greeks, Romans and other ancient cultures had ships on the Mediterranean Sea.  Early Scandinavians built large, canoe-like ships of oak that could sail the oceans and navigate shallow rivers.  The first Americans had canoes made of birch bark or hollowed-out logs.  Today we still have canoes, rowboats and boats with engines, mostly for recreation on creeks and rivers.  We even taxi aircraft on rivers for take off.
     Early wooden, sailing ships carried people and merchandise across much of the world, using the wind's power to push those ships across the oceans and estuaries.  Nature, including trees, wind and water made early shipping possible.  And some of those early ships were beautifully built.  Vikings, for example, had dragon heads and tails sculpted before and after their ships to intimidate other peoples, as well as to express their feelings of their power.    
     Waterways have always been beautiful, fascinating and essential to people and all of nature.  They are always a pleasure to visit.