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The Herring Run LbNA #3081

Owner:Mary Manatee
Plant date:Oct 29, 2002
Location:
City:Bourne
County:Barnstable
State:Massachusetts
Boxes:1
Found by: FelixPezGirl
Last found:Aug 31, 2017
Status:FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
Last edited:Oct 29, 2002
The Herring Run Letterbox

(Bourne, Massachusetts)

This is one of several letterboxes that The Yachtsman and Mary
Manatee have set out near the Cape Cod Canal.

The HERRING RUN LETTERBOX: Bourne, MA (Barnstable County)

Placed on October 19, 2002 by The Yachtsman and Mary Manatee

Most of us do not consider the alewife part of our regular diets
today, but in Colonial times they were a prize catch. Native
Americans taught the early colonists to use them as fertilizer in
their gardens. It is said that colonists used a "barrel per
household" over the course of a year. In addition to being used for
fertilizer, they were also used as bait, and were smoked and dried
for eating over the long winters. Alewives, or Alosa psuedoharengus,
are members of the herring family, and have traditionally been among
the most abundant fish in the world. Some people believe that their
name came from the fact that their large bellies make them look like
female tavern keepers of Elizabethan England - hence "alewives". They
are anadromous fish, meaning that although they live in the ocean for
most of their adult lives, they return to the fresh water stream or
pond in which they were born to spawn. In order to do so, they must
travel upstream, not only fighting the direction of the water's flow,
but in some cases jumping up over fish ladders and rocks.

When they reach their home ponds, the female alewives will lay up to
100,000 eggs. Any adults that survive the trip home, and any
predators along the way (such as gulls and man) return to the sea.
After hatching, the fry live in the freshwater ponds until fall, when
they follow the path of the adults and got to the sea. The
definitive book about the migration of these anadromous fish is "The
Run", by John Hay of Brewster, MA.

The Bournedale Herring Run, in Bourne, MA is an artificial
watercourse created by local engineers after the building of the canal
destroyed the natural run into Herring Pond. Park in the large lot at
the Herring run Recreation Area on the mainland side of the Canal,
which is roughly halfway between the Bourne and Sagamore Bridges on
Route 6 at the traffic light. The fish ladder lies to the west of the
Visitor Center (and rest room) facility here. At the base of the
ladder next to where it leaves the canal and begins its climb up to
Herring Pond, there is a descriptive sign with a lot of information
about man's historical and present day uses of alewives.

After boning up on alewife information, travel west on the canal
access path for a short distance to the entrance of the Bournedale
Interpretive Nature Trial, which leaves the paved access path to the
right. The first interpretive sign that you'll pass describes the red
cedar tree. After passing this sign, the trail navigates a bend with
a lookout over the canal to your left. When you spy the trunk of a
small pine tree in the center of the trail, look to your north for a
fallen log. Your prize lies under the northeastern end of the log.

After stamping in, you can continue westward along the trail for
several miles enjoying periodic views of the canal and learning about
a number of different local plant specimens. The trail eventually
ends at the Bourne Scenic Park just before you reach the Bourne
Bridge. Return to the parking lot as you came from any point on the
trail, or climb up to several scenic vistas, or down to the canal
access path and turn eastward for your return.





Originally posted Wednesday, November 06, 2002