The Alewives are Running!

The alewife population is being restored to a few rivers in Maine. A small tributary of the Penobscot is one of those rivers. It passed into an living museum and historical reenactment education center called Leonard's Mills. The place is spectacular in many ways: a working water powered wooden saw mill, a covered bridge, a fall re-enactment harvest festival, and a spring running of the Alewives event. This was the first time we saw the latter, and oh boy, was it awesome!

Here is a random shot of an airborne alewife making it's way upstream as if white water pulled it upward!


The good folks (like Tony Dowler) at Leonard's Mills also organized a 5k run at the same time. So we organized some Ale-Wives to Run in the Alewife 5k. Here they are and their junior supporters!


At the start line...



Our ale-husbands and faithful ale-children waive on our running alewives!


After the race, we check out the stream.


It's teaming with fish, as this boy's net attests.


Because there were one good way for fish to go, and one dead-end (literally), kids were encouraged to grab a net and scoop them from the dead end whitewater into the fish ladder, pictured here.


This is Ale Wife #3 scooping two more alewives to safety.




They were also smoking the fish for food.


Liam catches more.


And drops them safely in the fish ladder.


THIS. THIS is the Lombard Log-Hauler a steampunk wonder of tracks and locomotive-locomotion!


Here's a short video of the beauty.


And here is a video of the fish, in slow motion.  Wowzers!