Updated March 18, 2008 URL
is http://www.tentativetimes.net/porter/meander1.html
Rainbow Bottom Walking Tour
The following nature walking tour's author is unknown.
You will want to see the the page with a
map
of the Geneva area that appears on the reverse of the
walking tour handout detailed below. Maybe you would like to print
it out and refer to it as you read.
Nature-ly Limberlost
Walking Tour of Rainbow Bottom
When Gene Stratton-Porter moved to Geneva Indiana in 1889, she immediately became aware of the bird population which inhabited the area. Many times, both as a child and an adult, sick or injured birds that were brought to "the Bird Woman" for healing were kept as pets.
While living in Geneva, however, Mrs. Porter came to the realization that wild birds belonged in the wild, and the best place to enjoy and observe them was in their natural habitat. It was then that she began to seriously study the bird life of the Limberlost, and strove to share her knowledge and appreciation of such natural resources.Her earliest articles were published in popular nature magazines of the period; but when suitable illustrations became an issue, her fledgling career was threatened. She refused to illustrate her stories with readily available photos used by publishers at the time. These were photos of stuffed and mounted animals kept on file for the purpose of illustrating nature articles.
Not only was Mrs. Porter appalled by the idea of killing an animal to learn more about it, she protested that the dead museum pieces hardly resembled the living animals and were poor illustrations for articles trying to educate individuals about natural history ---- there was nothing natural about them! She was just as opposed to capturing live animals and photographing them in staged settings.Unwilling to compromise her ideals, she experimented with photography as a means of securing lifelike, realistic illustrations for her articles. Today's televised nature programs allow us to observe the natural history of far-off, exotic places from the comfort of our living room. Photographs utilizing the latest in modern technology bring details to view that would otherwise be overlooked. But just before the turn of the century such field photography was not done, and Mrs. Porter's innovations in this area were far ahead of their time.
She captured with camera and pen the beauty and intrigue of an area destined for destruction --- the common lowlands, swamps and river bottom surrounding a small rural community in northeastern Indiana. Her skill and devotion to this work not only immortalized an otherwise obscure part of the country, they provide detailed descriptions of the natural history of this area near the turn of the century.
The Rainbow Bottom area was the setting in two of Gene Stratton-Porter's books --- Song of the Cardinal, published in 1903, and At the Foot of the Rainbow, published in 1907.
Excerpt from Song of the CardinalThe Wabash rounded Horseshoe Bend in a silver circle, rimmed by a tangle of foliage bordering both its banks; and inside lay a low open space covered with waving marsh grass and the blue bloom of sweet calamus. Scattered around were mighty trees, but conspicuous above any , in the very center, was a giant sycamore, split at its base into three large trees, whose waving branches seemed to sweep the face of heaven and whose roots, like miserly fingers, clutched deep into the black muck of Rainbow Bottom.
It was in this lovely spot that the rainbow at last materialized, and at its base, free to all humanity who cared to seek, the Great Alchemist had left his rarest treasures --- the gold of sunshine, diamond water-drops, emerald foliage and sapphire sky. For good measure, there were added seeds, berries and insects for the birds; and wild flowers, fruit and nuts for the children. Above all, the sycamore waved its majestic head.
And an excerpt from At the Foot of the Rainbow
The ice-covered Wabash circled Rainbow Bottom like a broad white frame, and inside it was a perfect picture wrought in crystal white and snow shadows. The blanket on the earth lay smoothly in even places, rose with knolls, fell in valleys, curved over prostrate logs, heaped in mounds where bushes grew thickly, and piled high in drifts where the wind blew free. In the shelter of the bottom, the wind had not stripped the trees of their loads, as it had along the river. The willows, maples and soft woods bent almost to earth with their shining burden, but the stout, stiffly upstanding trees, the oaks, elms and cottonwoods defied the elements to bow their proud heads, while the three mighty trunks of the great sycamore in the middle looked white as snow, and dwarfed its companions as it never had in summer; its wide-spreading branches were sharply cut against the blue background, and they tossed their frosted balls in the face of heaven. The giant of Rainbow Bottom might be broken, but it would never bend. Every clamberig vine, every weed and dried leaf wore a coat of lace-webbed frostwork. The wind swept a mist of tiny crystals through the air, and from the shelter of the deep woods across the river a Cardinal whistled gaily.
These and other descriptions of Gene Stratton-Porter's Limberlost Territory allow us to step back in time to experience our natural history near the turn of the century. In less than 100 years, much of what Gene Stratton-Porter described in her books has been destroyed or altered. The remnants that survive allow us to reflect upon the past as we walk with the author in her efforts to
"lead afield every individual I could influence; but with such reverence instilled into his touch that devastation would not be ultimately complete.
WABASH MEANDERS
[Note: I am unable to reproduce this map for the Internet due to the quality of the copying machine it comes from. But there is another map available, as noted above.]
The topographical map included with the Rainbow Bottom tour is dated 1960, and is on a 5 foot contour interval. The BM 832 means bench mark 832 feet above sea level. The Wabash Moraine is in the upper right corner where the Wabash Township, section 15, is located. Rainfall in the immediate area of #15 will flow to Lake Erie, but rainfall anywhere else on the map will flow to the Gulf of Mexico.
The Berne Sewage Treatment Plant empties its water into the Wabash River near the new bridge. On days when the Wabash is at base flow, this clear water can be seen mixing with the suspended sediment in the Wabash. The water quality has been improving in the Wabash with the move toward conservation tillage and the Conservation reserve program.
The covered bridge rests over an oxbow lake formed when the new channel and bridge were constructed. Removal of these meanders shortened the distance the water had to flow, but it removed nearly one-half of the river's water capacity.
NATIVE PRAIRIE
Prior to European settlement, tall, warm-season grass was the native vegetation in areas of the Limberlost absent of hardwood trees, swamps and marshes. Big Bluestem grass may grow to a height of 7 feet in its native habitat. Early settlers replaced this vegetation with grasses they were more familiar with.