Green is our open space: color our waters sparkling blue.
BY DON DOUCETTE
The Friends of the Ten Mile and Bucklin Brook shared table display and conversation space this past Saturday at the first Hike Attleboro Day held at the Attleboro Land Trust, Richardson Nature Preserve in Attleboro.
TEN MILE HERITAGE TRAIL MAYBE
The day was perfect as the afternoon’s wet weather held off just long enough to complete the event. Green trees and green lawn space in the shade, butterflies and birds and a general sense of peace was welcome relief following our year of pandemic isolation.
The conversational range this past Saturday exhibited a real sense of community including a healthy exchange of ideas. Subject matter was wide ranging and riveting including wisdom about our natural world, history and culture – as if we all sat around the old communal checker board.
Hiking was the theme for the day and we got around to discussing the following subject associated with hiking spaces and hiking realities.
During the mid-nineteen nineties, I had a vision for a hiking trail placed through the heart of the Ten Mile River Watershed and during that time as a board member of the former Ten Mile River Watershed Alliance, I advocated for just such a resource.
I convinced my friend, Mark Benoit, to come along on a kind of proving ground hike parallel to the entire length of the Ten Mile River – headwater to Narragansett Bay. Our intent was to enjoy ourselves while proving that a linear Ten Mile River Heritage Trail was a realistic expectation and…doable. We accomplished our goal in two days during the month of June, 1995…Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon with a brisk Bay breeze blowing in our faces when we reached the Seekonk River at Omega Pond in East Providence, Rhode Island.
During the remainder of the nineties decade I attended a number of (many) hiking trail planning sessions – specifically during February and March,1999, several meetings sponsored by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, Department of Environmental Planning convened – our collective goal, create a greenways and trail vision for Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands.
I ultimately submitted a proposal that someday a Ten Mile River Heritage Trail be considered for development. That it connect in the north with the already established Warner Trail.
Several decades have passed and the trail theme seemed to lapse locally to dormancy until Saturday last when our Hike Attleboro Day event was the catalyst to once again jump start conversation about a possible pass-through Ten Mile River Heritage Trail becoming an actual reality.
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”
Friends of the Ten Mile and Bucklin Brook
Citizens of the Narragansett Basin