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From the new world3/17/2023 The polluting of the Hudson River has contributed to the declining fish population there. One dramatic alteration of the Hudson River has been caused by the dumping of pollutants in the water since the arrival of the Europeans in the area. “From the late 19th century to now, that run of shoreline has been heavily stabilized with the dredging of a navigational channel, with stabilization of the shoreline, with the damming of the Upper Hudson River that controls seasonal flooding to reduce it,” he says. Reynolds admits that the Upper Hudson River Valley, a portion of the waterway north of the town of Catskill, N.Y., is also not the same as Hudson initially saw it. Of course, there’s a large section of the Lower Hudson River Valley that has been significantly altered due to its proximity to New York City, the most densely populated city in the United States. “We can take the soundings and the reaches that are described in the log from 1609, as reported and recorded by Robert Juet (one of Hudson’s officers), and sail exactly as he described and precede from Upper Haverstraw Bay right through the Highlands and up into Newburgh Bay with no change.” “We have charts from the 1630s that provide depths and sailing directions that we can follow to this day,” Reynolds says. Only a few buildings and the Bear Mountain Bridge, which spans the Hudson near Peekskill, N.Y., dot the shore. “As you are sailing along the Palisades (cliffs along the lower river in New York and New Jersey), you can look to one side and see one of the densest urban areas in the world and look in the other direction and you’ll see a view that is exactly the view that Henry Hudson saw 400 years ago.” Reynolds also notes that the river is essentially unchanged in the Hudson Highlands, a mountainous region between Newburgh Bay and Haverstraw Bay. “In virtually an entire section of the Hudson River, we are able to sail and see exactly the same circumstances that Hudson saw, even when we are right in the vicinity of New York City,” he says. Reynolds says that even within sight of New York City’s skyline, where skyscrapers rise like jagged crystals, one can take in the magnificent natural scenery that the explorer encountered. Having followed Hudson’s route up the river every fall for the last decade, Reynolds is able to easily reel off a handful of ways the waterway has changed, and stayed the same, since the explorer’s initial explorations of the region. The sailboat was accompanied by a handful of Dutch frigates and NATO naval vessels as it left New York Harbor on its way up the Hudson. In 2009, New York celebrated the 400th anniversary of Hudson’s discovery, which showered more attention on Reynolds and the Half Moon’s annual voyage upriver. Though the Half Moon replica is outfitted with modern technology, including a global positioning system (GPS), Reynolds says the students handle the sails like Hudson’s crew and employ the same navigation tools, including a compass to find their way upriver. This is a veritable Garden of Eden to them.” Every fall, Reynolds sets sail up the Hudson River with a crew of a dozen 12-year-old students in a replica of the Half Moon and traces Hudson’s journey up the waterway. You have these shipbuilding timbers that are available right at the river’s edge. “You have these expansive natural harbors. “Here Hudson comes over, and seeing this North America continent through the eyes of a European has to be stunning,” Reynolds says. Reynolds says that Hudson must have immediately known the importance of his discovery. This replica has recreated Hudson’s voyage up the river to Albany, N.Y., every year since 1999. “Chip” Reynolds is director of the New Netherland Museum and captain of a replica of the Half Moon. The river would later be named the Hudson River in the explorer’s honor. The expedition did discover a river, rippling with fish, that cut through a wooded land bursting with natural resources. They never located a passage slicing across the North American continent to the Pacific Ocean. The Half Moon had been searching for that route, the Northwest Passage, from Scandinavia to present-day Maine and South Carolina. They thought it might be a new route to the Far East. On September 3, 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson and his crew of Dutch and British sailors turned their 85-foot sailboat, the Half Moon, up a great waterway.
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