The Portage Path, Cuyahoga, & Tuscarawas

My mother told me that many Native Americans passed over the place where we live. There’s a place called the Portage Path. They used the path when they were switching rivers—from the Cuyahoga River to the Tuscarawas River and they traded with white men there as well. There is a statue in Akron, Ohio that depicts a Native American lugging his canoe over his head as he switches rivers. 

Cuyahoga supposedly means "crooked river" from the Mohawk name "Cayagaga." But the Mohawk people have no relation to this region so this connection has no factual backing. This is interesting to me because my teachers, parents, and the internet pass on this theory as the correct one. There are many possible origins of "Cuyahoga." It is said to come from the Seneca word "Gayó'ha'geh" meaning "on your chin," the Wyandot language words "kaye'ska" and "hake'nya'a," "here, small," or the combination of two Cayuga Iroquois words: "Gihe'hoga," meaning "Elm Tree River." It fascinates me that there are so many possible answers to this question. 

The Tuscarawas River means "open mouth of a steam." The name is commonly attributed to the Delaware Native Americans, but it is originally a Wyandot word. The Tuscarawas River was named in 1760 by foreign settlers. Before it was named "Naguerre-Konnan" an Iroquois or Wyandot word meaning "place of the beaver." When I was in seventh grade, I went to CVEEC (Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center). I saw the chiseled stump of a tree that was made by a beaver. I was amazed at the little ‘c’ shaped wood chips made by the creature’s teeth. Before that, I wasn't even aware that beavers lived in Ohio. I'm sure I read about it somewhere but experiencing the wonders of nature in the wild was something that deeply moved me.

Winter in Northeastern Ohio

Winter is the longest season in Northern Ohio. When Ohioans go outside and the breath gets snatched from their lungs and their nose hairs freeze upon the first inhale, they know the season has reached its climax. Most people are able to ski until May. I was born on May 10^th, and last year it snowed on my birthday. I haven’t been skiing since my early years of high school, but I can picture every slope effortlessly in my mind. It is a small resort compared to places in Colorado or New York. All of Boston Mills could fit in a single cell phone picture. The skinny, steep, strip of land sandwiched by the Cuyahoga National Park. The notorious flammable river in front, and the thick forest behind.

That’s how the National Park was created. There are slivers of it here and there, parts of it cut out for suburban developments. In Peninsula, at a different side of the river, shops and restaurants were built for the bikers, walkers, canoers, and kayakers that visited the valley. My Grandparents house was one of the suburban developments that coexisted with men’s creations and untouched nature. Their hilly backyard is Cuyahoga National Park property. Their neighborhood built on a giant slope in the land. The slope dipped and went back up again like a giant ‘V’. Most of the land is like that on that side of the park. When I was younger and spent a lot of time there, I was always afraid the house would slide down the hill one day, and crash into the sharp incline that began the property of the Nation’s Park. I hated hills and mountains. I dreaded the possibility of slipping and falling and gaining a great momentum that sent my stomach up to my throat. Needless to say, I only like to ski on the kiddie slopes. The thirty-five-degree angle ones.

Chief Pontiac

Chief Pontiac stood lookout on the top of Boston Mills Ski Resort before there were mechanical ski lifts and busy snow machines. Before the ground he stood on became a blue square called “Buttermilk.” Or maybe it’s at the top of the other blue square, “Peter’s Pride.” Buttermilk got icier and steeper over time and Peter’s Pride was snowboard territory. I’ve skied both and felt a unique presence on Peter’s Pride that I wasn’t alone. I would look over my shoulder for a friend that wasn’t there or feel the weak breath of a ghost fog up my goggles. Peter’s Pride seemed longer than the other runs. It was wide, long, and lonely. Both Peter’s Pride and Buttermilk are the highest points of the land. It made sense to me that it would be Ottawa Native American territory. If not there, was there any place in Northeastern Ohio that was better?

It was my mother who told me this. Once when I was young and forgetful and another time when I expressed my interest in the valley. I never found any article online backing up her story. She was told this story when she began teaching at Brecksville Middle School in the nineties by a senior teacher on a field trip. I soaked up and believed every word. There was something old and wise about the hills when they were naked for the summer season and not covered in people and snow. They were yellow from the wear of the winter with patches of sunny light green. It was very easy for me to picture Pontiac standing there, sturdy legs, and a valiant torso, watching for signs of the British. I could see it so well in my head that sometimes when I drove by, squinting, I could just make out his figure. 

Pontiac was half Ottawa and half Chippewa and born around 1720. Ottawa and other Native American tribes were pushed farther away from British settlement and ended up in Northeastern Ohio. Pontiac believed that British goods were evil and that their inventions infuriated the gods. He urged other Native Americans to keep their distance from them. But when the British became hungry for more land, Pontiac countered.  He fought hard for Ohio’s land with the help of other tribes. He was killed after surrendering to the British by another Native American. The murder had no clear reason at all. Was the murderer hired by the British? A different tribe wanting to weaken the Ottawa? Native Americans feeling wronged by Pontiac’s surrender? There wasn’t much information surrounding his life to determine anything concrete. And who would be left to document important events if all the English-speaking people were on the opposite side of the battle? How could the British have known about their enemy if they were too busy killing and kicking them out? I only have my mother’s stories to hold onto. I can only rely on word passed down from parents to children to know about the ground I stand on. I’ve learned the most about Ohio from my mother. 

Cuyahoga River

I wasn’t alive when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire. But, looking back at photographs, I can taste smoke in my mouth, and smell the horror in the air. Late June in 1969, oil covered debris floating on the Cuyahoga River caught fire by the sparks of a passing train. The fire was said to have reached over five stories high. Surprisingly, that wasn’t the River’s first fire. There were thirteen since the year 1868. My mother wasn’t alive to tell me about the fire in 1969 and my family wasn’t in the United States in 1868 to pass down the story of the thirteen fires. I was always under the assumption that there was only one fire in the Cuyahoga. I’ve traveled and seen my fare share of dirty rivers. But as a kid I bathed in the Cuyahoga. She was my babysitter, my best friend, and my most beautiful muse. She was the closest body of water to me. Growing up I never knew anything else.

In 1929, five people died in a Cuyahoga River fire. 1952 is the picture journalists use when they want to paint the most shocking picture. 

That year there was more 1.3 million dollars in damage. It was the 1969 fire that received attention nationwide. After more than one-hundred years from the first fire, people decided that they wouldn’t stand for water pollution. Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes, the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city, went to Congress after being ignored at the state level. Congress responded by creating an Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. The Clean Water Act of 1972 and the first Earth Day in 1970 was inspired by the excessive pollution of the Cuyahoga River.

Cleveland is an industrial city, forty-five minutes away from my side of the river. The Cuyahoga River than runs through Cleveland is bound to be subjected to pollution. The idea of city life is dirty. Cars, trains, busses, professional sporting events, restaurants, and bars. There are more people and more opportunities to litter. My mother was strict. We weren’t allowed to litter in our own rooms. I remember going to Cleveland and being shocked at the homeless people on the streets and the plastic bag tumbleweed and the sour smell in the air. I thought the Cuyahoga River was always brown with dirt and moving fast like there were jets under the surface. I refuse to believe that my side of the river was flammable too. There hasn’t been a fire on the Cuyahoga River since 1969.

After years spent clearing out the imperfections in the Cuyahoga River, the Environmental Protection Agency announced in Spring of 2019, that fish caught in the river are finally safe to eat. Now there are more than sixty different species of fish in the water.  

Chippewa Creek

When I was younger my mother and her kids and her friends and their kids would go to Chippewa Creek every summer. We called it the “clay slide.” After the getting off the road, entering the creek, and walking another two hundred feet there sat a giant slab of clay. It nestled with its back on the creek bank and melted into the water like Gabba the Hut. I was so amazed upon seeing it for the first time. In my eight-year-old mind, it exceeded science and existed only in the world of fantasy. I couldn’t comprehend its being there. The clay was grey with undertones of blue. It was cold looking in the summer heat and the stone color bled into the water, making it impossible to see below. Someone lost a shoe in the sticky opaque mess of water every time.

There were rules set for Chippewa Creek. No shoes, no nice clothes, and no submerging yourself deeper than the neck. Drinking the water was never mentioned because that was just common sense. I know my older sister did, she liked the water more than fish did. Plus, after sliding down the clay mound and plopping into the shallow water below, no one was safe from ingesting it. It was better than drinking the stale, sitting, brown water that the stream couldn’t touch. Bugs covered the top like a film of saran wrap. Snakes loved that water. I caught a crayfish in that water

Time makes everything smaller. I went back eight years after the last time I was at Chippewa Creek. It was still mostly empty, and a new group of kids were playing in the clay stained water. But it was wimpy. There was less water, and the clay slide was reduced to a clay carpet. The whole place looked more like a river of rocks and pebbles than a creek. The only thing that was the same was the mating bugs and the stagnant water. It was a sight that made me feel sorry. I wanted to walk up to Ms. Chippewa and say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” My mother didn’t say anything even though she grew up here. No, “the water used to overflow out onto the road when I was your age.” It was ninety-four degrees, but she refused to get her feet wet. I went home dejected after what I thought would be a happy reunion with an old childhood friend.