Pachamama Pelican Momma Mississippi River, Sea to Shining Sea, Water Connects Us All, Winter Solstice 2025, watercolor, 13x13, John Ruskey
Happy Canoe Year to all!
Sharing something as a happy. This piece of artwork comes from our last expedition of the last year — aweek on the water in two voyageur-style canoes with a group of fun-loving, song-singing, storytelling, hard-core paddling adventurers! 11 of us total in 2 of our handcrafted Voyager style canoes. We put in at Gretna, New Orleans, and sailed past the French Quarter, and around Algiers Point, and on downstream into the effervescent luminosity of the birdsfoot Mississippi Delta, a great way to end our year, and lay the pathway forward into the new year.
We were witness to a never-ending cascade of creatures, both large and small, who we shared the river with. Insects, birds and fishes were our constant companions, even amongst the dense stretches of petrochemical industry, and bulk transportation moving coal, scrap metal, corn, beans, rice; also humongous container ships, and an occasional monstrous cruise ship.
The further downstream we paddled into the marshlands of the lower Mississippi, the wilder it became, and the more wildlife we experienced: Ibis, Roseate Spoonbill, and many other Waders, Shore Birds, Birds of Prey, and Waterfowl of all shapes & sizes. Giant flocks of Cormorants, Geese, and Pelicans created a constantly changing dramatic spectacle. Every day along our route they grouped together and divebombed the water, gulls joining in, and no doubt predatory fish attacking from below.
Somewhere along the way, at one of our camps (little shelves of sand tucked in into tiny harbors, or bays, along the route), the conversation evolved from something about the migration of the White Pelican, the largest bird in the entire Mississippi Valley, with a 9 foot wingspan, into composing artwork for a body tattoo. Natalie asked me bluntly, “can you do a body tattoo?” I've never done that previously, but I'm an artist who likes a challenge, and so with input from the group I started making sketches -- sketches became paintings, and rectangular became square, and then square became round. I don't often do paintings on round canvas, but somehow it was the ideal shape for this subject.
Pachamama Pelican Momma Mississippi River is an adult white pelican migrating several thousand miles north to the south, superimposed over the middle of North America, including everything from drainages leading into Hudson Bay, and the Arctic Sea, to the Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic seaboard, with the peninsula of “La Florida” extending southeastward. The Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway are present to the northeast but the focus is on the vast drainage of Momma Mississippi, the second largest river drainage in the world, and here depicted includes everything from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian, and many of the major rivers and tributaries along the way, including the Missouri, Platte, Arkansas, and Red Rivers coming out of the Great Plains, and the upper Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers coming out of the North Woods, with the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers reaching into the western slopes of Appalachia.
All of these drainages connect world-important biotas, from the Taiga & Boreal Forest & North Woods, to the Gulf Coast Piney Woods, which EO Wilson described as the “long landscapes,” those that are critical to the survival of creation, with their millions and millions of acres of healthy woodlands, wetlands, waterways, that provide migratory routes for creatures like the White Pelican at continental scale. These are the lungs of the earth, and the homes for billions of living beings.
Simultaneously, this artwork illustrates several 2,000+ mile paddling expeditions led by eco-adventurer Natalie Warren. First: several decades ago from home base Twin Cities, she paddled up the Minnesota and connected through Lake Winnipeg to Hudson Bay. (You can order her book “Hudson Bay Bound”Here, or on Amazon). Second: in 2013 Natalie and 11 others paddled Source-to-Sea down the Mississippi to New Orleans. (That was the genesis for our end-of-year adventure — connecting the very end of the river that they missed in 2013, from the Crescent City, New Orleans — to the wild open Waters of the Gulf of Mexico.)
Shout out to “mi hijita, la bonita” María Cory Dack, who was on board, (Ecuadorian by birth, her hometown is located at the far western point of Lake Superior). Also kudos to “Mayfly” Ceili Hale, who very competently captained 29-foot long Big Momma Mahogany voyageur canoe. Great appreciation to Michael Orr, and Iberville Landing, and special thanks to Momma Marylee Orr for a wonderful thanksgiving under the towering trees. Long Live LEAN!
Nice one. In 1963 the Brown Pelican became extinct on Mobile Bay due to DDT coming down the rivers. The population is now over 5,000 breeding pairs.