Kid Scientist II - My First Islands

Port Byron, Illinois Hardiness Zones 2; ⒸPlantmaps Tower Rock; ⒸSleepysavage PD-US Port Byron, Illinois; Hardiness Zones; ⒸPlantmaps Mississippi River Side Channels; Ⓒformulanone (CC BY-SA 2.0) Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Fish Refuge Panorama; ⒸRoyalbroil & USFWS (CC BY-SA 3.0) Provisional Head of Navigation of Wolf River; ⒸGary Bridgman 1998, Oxford Town, Wolf River Conservancy (CC BY 2.0) Madrid Bar from New Madrid, Missouri; ⒸNyttend PD-US LockAndDam15, rock Island Illinois; Ⓒ Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS NPS PD-US Islands in Mississippi River Dubuque Iowa; ⒸPreston Keres, USDA, PD-USGOV Island in the Mississippi River, Marshall Bay, Ontario; ⒸEdwin Lester Brittain Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 Dead Zone redemption; ⒸRobert J. Hurt Previous Next "The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder."

Ralph W. Sockmanwas the senior pastor of Christ Church (United Methodist) in New York City, United States. He gained considerable prominence in the U.S. as the featured speaker on the weekly NBC radio program, National Radio Pulpit, which aired from 1928 to 1962, and as a writer of several best-selling books on the Christian life. Faith is an island in the setting sun, But proof is the bottom line for everyone."

Pail Simonis an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music. "In the islands of the Aegean Sea, every island is full of graves."

James Theodore Bentwas an English explorer, archaeologist, and author "You can't totally rebel, otherwise you have to go live on your own, on a desert island. It's as simple as that."

Patrick McGoohanwas an Irish-American actor, director, screenwriter, and producer of film and television. "England in a way is lucky. It's an island, so the frontiers are given by the sea."

Salman Rushdieis an Indian-born British-American novelist and essayist.[2] His work, combining magical realism with historical fiction, is primarily concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, with much of his fiction being set on the Indian subcontinent. "We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."

H. P. Lovecraftwas an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos "The general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously enough, on the direction of the wind."

John Millington Syngewas an Irish playwright, poet, writer, collector of folklore, and a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival.  "The conductor's stand is not a continent of power, but rather an island of solitude."

Riccardo Muti is an Italian conductor. He currently holds two music directorships, at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and at the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini. "The rain, which had continued yesterday and last night, ceased this morning. We then proceeded, and after passing two small islands about ten miles further, stopped for the night at Piper's landing, opposite another island."

Meriwether Lewiswas an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark Previous Next

Kid Scientist II - My First Islands

In the late 1960's my river-rat father, who was born on the banks of the Mississippi River in Andalusia, Illinois, decided he wanted his three sons to live that legacy, too. So we purchased some riverfront property in Cordova, Illinois.

Complete with its own "beach", we were perched on the Illinois-side banks of the Mississippi River. A slough of islands lay between us and the Iowa shoreline, a vast floodplain of wetlands with a maze of inlets and small islands peppering it with mystery and portent perfectly suited for a 'tween adventurer like me. 

I think Dad’s US Naval background figured into this move since we bought our parcel of land not long after taking several trips on his former Marine Corps cousin's houseboat “Liebchen”. He had taught us to row a few years earlier in the Wisconsin Dells, and motoring was apparently his idea of seamanship's next logical step. 

Then along came a 16’ aluminum Crestliner with a 50 hp Mercury, and my father took charge of the first of many “Captain’s Workshops” in my life. But it wasn’t until some family friends added their 12’ Sears & Roebuck johnboat, powered by a 25 hp Johnson outboard, to our flotilla that my true island adventures began.

Allowed to take it out alone for prescribed routes and strictly enforced periods of time, all those islands first became Robinson Crusoe’s lost world to me. I soon realized that I was actually following in the canoe wakes of Marquette, Joliet, and LaSalle. 

Anyone thinking kids don’t listen in class is all wrong, for what had been mere textbook history for me up until then came alive when I thought of all the actual places my family had visited that carried the names of those three intrepid Mississippi River explorers. 

I circumnavigated the chain first to get a picture of this area in my head, then scrounged up a chart from a nearby marina’s dark and moistly-murky boathouse. Armed with this fragile but useful new exploration tool, I went looking for places my shallow draft would allow me entry.

I can’t regale you with all my “voyages” into the jungly and mosquito-ridden forests of oak, elm, birch, pine. Not to mention every member of the poison ivy family known to man. I can say, however, that's when I first began to feel the tug of the sea.

I witnessed the flights, hunting forays, and even nests of what I had always thought lived exclusively as seabirds clearly living amid this "...Mississippi darkness rollin' down to the sea..." 

Later on in life I became a biologist, working and teaching in both marine and fresh-water environments. This early experience in observing ostensible seabirds alive and well in my fresh-water world opened my eyes to science and took my imagination to ever increasing heights of wonder and awe for the natural world. 

This river, this "Father of Waters” (along with all "his" island sons and daughters), touched my life in a very deep and meaningful way. I’m still an explorer, a seeker of things unknown to me, and am forever grateful to this natural wonderland of my youth for that.