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The Roanoke River, once a polluted and odiferous mess, is enjoying a new life as an outdoor destination for people fishing, riding, walking, floating or just looking around.
When I was growing up in Salem in the 1950s and 1960s, the Roanoke River was a loathsome place where my mother said I “would get sores” if I wade-fished it.
Mom’s warnings had some basis in truth. On one secret angling expedition where I defied her admonitions, I observed great gobs of foul, foamy blobs floating by as well as dead fish lining the shore. On another, I stepped on a car hood that left a gash on a leg.
Some 50 years later, our urban waterway is a far different place, and on several weekends I set out to talk to folks who enjoy the Roanoke these days.
On a Sunday, I arrive at the Salem Rotary Park access point on Route 419. The first person I meet is Cushing Holland, member of the Andrew Lewis High School Class of 1972 and still a proud Salem resident.
Cushing patiently sits reading in her tan kayak while her husband George and his friend Larry Howell fiddle with their fishing tackle.
“I don’t like to fish, but I do like to spend outdoor time with George,” she says. “So I paddle and read while he fishes. What I like best about the Roanoke is that it’s a small river and easy to float, not like the New River with all those big rapids.”
Next, I talk to George.
“This river is a whole different place than it used to be,” he says. “I remember back in the 1960s when the pollution and smell from the Leas and McVitty Tannery would take your breath away and foul the river. The Roanoke was so trashy that nobody wanted to fish it, except in the spring when it was stocked with trout.
“Now, I love coming here. It’s close to home, and the scenery is great.”
“Oh, and I saw a bald eagle here one time,” chimes in Cushing. “Who would have thought that would ever have been possible.”
I walk over to Larry Howell, clearly a serious angler. Tackle boxes and a rod are neatly arranged on his kayak, and he already has a light brown plastic salamander tied to a jig with a pink head.
“I caught a 16 ½-inch smallmouth bass here once,” he proudly—and justifiably—proclaims. “I’ve got a secret bait.”
“Light brown plastic salamander on a pink jig?” I inquire.
Howell looks to the side, sheepishly grins… then changes the subject.
“I started out fishing the Roanoke from the bank near my home in Wasena,” he says. “The fishing was so good for trout and smallmouth that I decided to start floating the river and been doing it ever since.”
The next person I meet is Jamie Gold from Sterling. While the previous interviewees are all in their 60s and retired (except for Howell who works part-time at a dry cleaner’s), Gold is a hard-charging, 46-year-old D.C. data analyst who travels all over the East Coast to fish. When he could have paddled two nearby, nationally known rivers—the James and New—how did he end up spending this day on the Roanoke?
“I like to fish new places,” he replies, “plus James Revercomb [see sidebar] told me the river from Rotary Park to Wasena offers great fishing and is one of the few places where float fishermen can catch both smallmouths and trout. And he was right, I’ve caught rainbow and brown trout, smallmouth and rock bass, and redbreast sunfish today. I’ve never caught such a variety of fish anywhere I’ve been.
“James also told me that the Rotary float would feel as if I were fishing out in the country and that the shorelines were covered with trees and vegetation. For an urban river, that was hard to believe, but he was right about that, too. I’ve heard the sounds of trains and cars, but once I floated under the 419 bridge, all I’ve come across are a few buildings and you’re the only person I’ve seen. This part of the river really has a remote feel.”
Gold adds that he has experienced two events for the first time: watching a mink capture a fish and a black-crowned night heron stalk prey.
Rain begins to fall, then comes down in sheets, and I don’t see another person until I’m almost at the Wasena access point where I encounter two little boys (in their Sunday-best white shirts plastered to their skin from the downpour), chucking rocks into the river as their respective 30-something parents look on. When I debark from my canoe and approach the assemblage, one of the women shouts, “It’s Mr. Ingram, my Lord Botetourt English teacher. What are you doing here?”
I explain my presence to former student Jenny Powell Brady class of 2000, now a stay-at-home mom who keeps an eye on three-year-old Jamison as he continues to hurl rocks.
Her husband Brian, a small-business investor, approaches, smiles, says that he too graduated from LB, though was not in my English class.
“We come to Wasena Park a lot,” he says. “It’s not far from our home in Bonsack, and Jamison loves the playground. We like the combination of the greenway, a walking bridge, and the water. It’s so nice to have a place like this in the city.”
Andy Brady, a cellular retail store manager, and wife Mariah, a physical therapist, who live “just 100 yards from the park,” then introduce themselves and their three-year-old son Cormac.
“Mariah and I come to ride bikes, visit the playground, watch baseball games, and for Cormac to play in the water,” Andy offers. “We don’t have to put swings and a slide in our backyard. We just come here to do those things and meet other families with children. This is where Cormac learned how to ride a bike. Living in this neighborhood is a real quality of life issue for us. Wasena has pretty much everything a kid could want.”
A Saturday Walkabout
The next Saturday, I walk the Roanoke River Greenway in Salem along West Riverside Drive. The first person I see is April Griffin, Salem resident and English teacher at Northside Middle School.
“I come to the greenway to get exercise and walk my poodle Scrap,” she says. “The wildlife is another important part for me. I’ve seen great blue and green herons, mallards, wood ducks, and once heard a pack of coyotes near Timber Truss.”
Griffin adds that sometimes she brings her sons (7-year-old Leland and 9-year-old Emmett) down to the river to fish.
“When one of the boys catches a fish, that’s when my 11-year-old poodle starts acting like a puppy with his continuous barking,” she says.
I amble up the greenway for a while. I see two older gentleman fishing from the bank, three sub-teen girls floating by in inner tubes, a teenage boy and girl swimming together, and hear a catbird’s raucous scolding from my entering into its domain. I then come across Steven Cage, dressed casually in blue shorts and shirt and wearing sandals.
“I’m out exploring Salem today,” Cage responds when I ask why he’s here. “I usually walk the greenway near Elm Avenue. The Roanoke River Greenway has such a nice blend of the manmade and the natural and the presence of the river really enhances the walking experience.”
Cage, a lifeguard at the Kirk YMCA on Fifth Street, then leaves the walkway, strides purposefully through an opening in the vegetation, and heads for a small rock next to a water willow bed. Sitting, he pulls out a cell phone and begins taking scenic photos of the Roanoke.
“I enjoy the walking, but my favorite thing to do here is take pictures,” he says without my asking. “I once took a picture of a great white egret.”
I next encounter Sarah Sammet, an athletic-looking millennial rapidly cycling down the trail.
“I bike the trail two or three times a week for the exercise,” says Sammet, as she wipes the perspiration from her face, takes a swig of water, and tells me she lives in Roanoke and works at Boxley Concrete. “The trail is safe, there’s no trash, and the online maps are great. Gotta go, bye.”
And she’s off in a rush. The next person that cycles by is Kim Tresky who becomes bubbly with enthusiasm when I explain what I’m doing.
“This is too funny,” laughs Tresky, a Salemite who is a math coach for Roanoke City Schools. “This is the first time I’ve ridden a bike on the greenway. Usually, I walk it with my husband Billy.”
Tresky goes into detail on how a friend gave her the bicycle and how much she enjoys teaching.
“At first today, I had on my earbuds listening to music,” she continues. “But the sounds of the river, and the birds and the wind whistling through the trees are so much better, right? That’s why we go outdoors, right? Oh, I’m sweating. The views of the mountains,—wow!”
And off she goes as well. I talk to one last person, Rachel Grinnell, a claim service specialist at Allstate. But in this instance, it is she who initiates the conversation. At the edge of the river as I look longingly into the river to see if I can see some fish, I hear her.
“May I pass you and borrow some water,” says Grinnell. “I need to wash off my dirty flip flops and put on my clean ones. Been fishing for trout…didn’t catch any. Last week, I caught a couple of nice rainbows.”
Grinnell, who lives in the Glenvar area, says she is a hardcore angler who will fish any body of water she comes across. It is then I explain how I’m interviewing people for this story.
“I know the history of this river’s pollution,” says Grinnell, another millennial. “And I know that the mollusks that now live here are a sign of clean water. When I see a painted turtle sitting on a log or a blue heron hunting in the water willow, I know those are good things.”
Grinnell pauses to wash her flip flops, then, unprompted, resumes chatting.
“Let me tell you where to go to catch some big sunfish and redeyes [rock bass],” she says. “Go right under the Apperson bridge. Oh, and there’s a great swimming hole upstream from there. Look for a swinging rope coming down from a big tree.”
On my way back to the car, I spot a waving Sarah Sammett, cycling even faster than the first time I saw her.
In Retrospect
My late mother probably would not believe what the Roanoke River is like today. Indeed, its rebirth has been remarkable. I talked to everyone I met on a rainy Sunday and the first five folks I encountered on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and the enthusiasm expressed for the waterway and greenway was amazing, as was the great diversity in ages and backgrounds of the individuals I encountered. The Roanoke surely endured problems in the past, but its future as an integral part of the Roanoke Valley’s charm seems assured.