June is also National River Month.
Basia Irland is an American artist, environmental activist, writer, and educator whose work and career focus on rivers and watersheds, water scarcity, climate change, ecological restoration and waterborne diseases.
In “What Rivers Know: Listening to the Voices of Global Waterways,” Irland asks, “What if rivers could talk and tell their stories?” and writes their stories as the voice of a river. Below text is one example from the publication, and the last image is the accompanying image for this river.
“According to geologists, I am one of the oldest rivers in the world, having flowed for millions of years. As an old-timer, I have a low gradient with slow erosion, whereas younger cousins flow more quickly, tumbling down to the sea carrying lots of sediment. My waters flow south to north for 218 miles and helped shape the Appalachian Mountains. I am the French Broad River, named by French settlers in the region centuries ago at a time when I was one of the two broad rivers in western North Carolina.
The Cherokee have a variety of names for me: Agiqua in the mountains, Zilicoah above Asheville, and Tahkeeosteh after Asheville. As with most indigenous groups around the world, the Cherokee go to the river to pray and perform submergence ceremonies. The phrase “going to water” in the Cherokee language is synonymous with the words for bathing and submerging. Historically, the tribe recognized my floods as a natural part of any river’s cycle and did not attempt to dam or divert my waters. They knew, too, that I brought rich soil for agriculture when I flooded, and fresh sand for floors of their dwellings.” (from “What Rivers Know” – p.57)
Irland, Basia, Lucy R. Lippard, and Sandra Postel. 2025. What Rivers Know : Listening to the Voices of Global Waterways. First edition. Texas A&M University Press.
Irland, Basia. 2018. Reading the River : The Ecological Activist Art of Basia Irland. Museum De Domijnen.
