We spent an inspiring (if painfully beautiful) City of Water Day canoeing in the Gowanus Canal with our fiscal sponsors (and rad humans) the Gowanus Dredgers.
The canal smelled like tar and was full of dead fish from post-rain sewage run-off (CSOs)- and yet, the crabs and egrets hung on because nature is resilient. It was an inspiring day because we have a huge admiration and affinity for activating underutilized, neglected and often discarded spaces like superfund sites, abandoned lots and the unfinished urban shoreline/parking lot full of abandoned trucks that is our own North shore launch site.
We are inspired by the comprehensive ways in which the Dredgers bring awareness to the extremely pressing environmental and infrastructural issues which precipitate superfund sites like the Gowanus Canal. Kayak Staten Island hopes to take a page (or five) from their book in our own efforts to engage our local community equitably and meaningfully and not just with kayaking – but with concerts, arts programming, dance, citizen science, education, environmental stewardship and other eclectic offerings, like the Dredgers do. We look forward to bringing some of that ingenuity, resourcefulness and creativity to our community and to helping Staten Islanders fall in love with our waterfronts.
