NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS
Southern nature writer and filmmaker Bill Belleville and Equinox Documentaries, Inc. announce the national release of “In Marjorie's Wake.” On January 31, 2009, “In Marjorie’s Wake” will be released to PBS stations throughout the United States. The release, which will be in both Standard and High-Definition (HDTV) formats, is good for 2 years, making the film available for broadcast across the country until 2011.
“In Marjorie’s Wake” is a documentary recreating Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ 1933 journey down the St. John’s River, as chronicled in the “Hyacinth Drift” chapter of Rawlings’ book, Cross Creek. Equinox is most excited to now offer the HD version; the higher quality of digital broadcasting will really bring the beautiful imagery of the St. Johns River to life.
The film stars Florida native Leslie Poole, a writer and professor of Environmental Studies at Rollins College and PhD student in environmental history at the University of Florida, and Jacksonville resident Jennifer Chase, a musician, playwright and educator with Florida Community College. The film was scripted and co-produced by nature writer Bill Belleville; it was directed and co-produced by PBS veteran Bob Giguere.
To make sure In Marjorie’s Wake is broadcast in your area, contact your local PBS station. Tell them you want to see In Marjorie’s Wake and let them know it will be available on January 31, 2009.
For more details about the film, see http://equinoxdocumentaries.org/blog/?cat=2
SPEAKING OF DRIFTING....
Author John Lane on Historic Paddle from Spartanburg to the Atlantic
In John’s words:
“In the winter of 2006 at the South Carolina Book Festival I ran across a book from 1941 called PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA by Holling C. Holling. This children’s picture book is the story of a little carved canoe with a toy Indian in it named, you guessed it, Paddle-to-the-Sea. The story starts in the Nipigon country north of the Great Lakes when a young boy drops his toy canoe into a tumbling mountain stream. With many adventures along the way (including a plunge over Niagara Falls) the toy canoe at last reaches the Atlantic, earning the birthright of its name. I understand PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA was very popular in its time. It was a grand adventure story for young kids, but it also taught them about watersheds and how all streams eventually find the sea.
Reading this book I realized that the story contained a great concept we can universalize: go out behind or in front of your house and find the nearest stream or lake or estuary and follow it downhill (no matter how slight the grade) as far as you must to get to the ocean. Find the way the water flows and follow it. If you can do it in a boat it’s best because more than likely, if your stream is big enough to float your boat, you are in one of the last great commons known to mankind: navigable waters. As long as you stay with the flow you have every right to be where you are, paddling to the sea.
In South Carolina the state owns the water. Private property owners only control what happens above the “high water mark.” If you camp on sandbars and the edges of low islands you are perfectly within your rights. Paddling on the streams and rivers is our birthright. We claim something deep and important when we do it.
After being inspired by PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA I had one six-day tune-up float to Columbia with a group of good friends during spring break 2006. In the summer of 2007 I had one serious planned and outfitted solo attempt short-circuited by a heat wave and historic drought. Then I abandoned the idea of paddling to the sea for about six months in early 2008 because I just didn’t see how I could bring myself to do it alone.
Alone? Yes, I felt for a time I needed to do this one solo. A long solo canoe trip was the one thing that had somehow slipped past me in my 35 years of experience with rivers. I figured I needed to check that one off my adventure list. Alone sounded great in concept, but I’m an extrovert. Finally about six months ago I realized that I was going to do this float, and I didn’t have to do it alone. I could sign up the two finest river rats I know, Venable Vermont and Steve Patton.
With that settled, I set it up so that Venable would paddle with me from Spartanburg to the upper reaches of Lake Marion, and Steve would come down, meet us at the Highway 601 bridge, and accompany me the rest of the way to the ocean.
So “Paddle to the Sea” has passed the concept stage. I’ll be on the water for 11 days. By the time you are reading I’ll have my itinerary up on the website, www.blog. mypaddletothesea.com. I’ll try to update it whenever I get phone service along the way. When I get back I’ll upload pictures, and even put up some video, and you can see the whole trip unfold. As my little literary friend Paddle-to-the-Sea would remind me, it’s downstream from here.”