What does water mean to you? Author Bonnie Tsui (Why We Swim), actress Joy Bryant, submarine pilot Erika Bergman, figure skater Elladj Baldé, 85-year-old synchronized swimmer Barbara Eison-White, professional mermaid Olivia Gonzales, and more share stories about the many ways water influences our lives. We recommend listening outside, near water if you can. Head to the ocean if you’re on the coast. Or walk to a nearby pond or creek. Sit by a fountain at a park. Or just pour yourself a glass of water.

Field Guide: Water

Jul 21

Audio transcript

From Mt. Hood to the Coast

by Will Matsuda

On a frigid spring morning on Mt. Hood in Oregon, I parked my car and tried to find where one of the mountain’s glaciers melts and forms the Hood River. This was the beginning of a two-week-long journey, following the path of water from Mt. Hood to the Pacific Ocean. I liked to imagine that I was photographing the same droplets of water as they made their journey from the mountain to the sea. When I saw them meet the Pacific, it felt like saying goodbye to a new friend. I look forward to seeing them back on the mountain soon.

Looking south across the Columbia River at Mt. Hood.

Spring snowmelt near Meadows Creek on Mt. Hood, a tributary feeding into the Hood River. Snow at Mt. Hood Meadows ski resort, close to the source of the East Fork of the Hood River – the Newton-Clark Glacier. The East Fork of the Hood River flowing downhill toward the Columbia River. An old stairway descending toward the East Fork of the Hood River. Turbulent water near the meeting of the East and West forks of the Hood River. Both start at glaciers on Mt. Hood. Moss covering a tree along the Columbia River, near Bonneville Dam. Along the Columbia River, near Bonneville Dam. Latourell Falls in the Columbia River Gorge. Sunset on I-84, which runs along the banks of the Columbia River. Lumber and paper mills in Longview, Washington, seen from across the Columbia River in Rainier, Oregon. Sea lions on the docks in Ranier, Oregon. Across the Columbia River, in Longview, Washington, lumber and paper mills line the shore. Terminal 6 at the Port of Portland on the Columbia River. A bald eagle at the mouth of Columbia River. Waves crash at Cape Disappointment, the northern edge of the mouth of the Columbia. The wreck of the Peter Iredale near the mouth of the Columbia River. The ship ran aground in 1906.

On Ice

Story by Elladj Baldé / Photograph by Paul Zizka

Elladj Baldé at Lake Minnewanka, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. “When you’re skating in the rink, it’s so full of chemicals and paint that I don’t necessarily associate it with water. But when you’re outdoors on a lake, it’s clear.”

Thirst

by Richard Misrach

I was driving through the California desert in 2004 when I spotted a blue barrel alongside a tattered flag. I assumed that off-roaders had put it out for some sort of wilderness race. In 2009, when I began working along the U.S.–Mexico border, I discovered more barrels, hundreds of them. A volunteer humanitarian group called Water Station gathers every spring, before the summer heat kicks in, to place jugs of water in protective blue barrels, festooned with flags. Every year, people desperate to get into this country walk for days in extreme conditions, and lack of water becomes critical.

Mississippi River

by Chanell Stone

Vicksburg, Louisiana — Mississippi River (the delta) Warren County

Mississippi, the birthplace of American music and the site of 581 documented lynchings, the most of any state in America. My great-grandmother fled at the height of Jim Crow in the 1950s. This April, I traversed an integrated Mississippi. But the land remains suspended in antebellum antiquity. The plantations stand intact. Confederate flags line the highways.

I drove up from Louisiana, following the river north. As I hit Mississippi soil, something inside me quaked. I was returning to the land where my ancestors were enslaved, lynched, and raped. I felt myself embodying my ancestors’ memory as I peered out the car window, arrested by the state’s beauty — an endless sea of green pines and wisteria, cast in twilight. But it is beauty steeped in Black blood.

The Mississippi River, named after an Ojibwe word meaning “great river,” beckoned me. Its muddy waves breathed and bled past the shoreline, alive with the spirit of my ancestors. I stood before the river thinking of those who used it to escape slavery. Those who were murdered attempting escape. Those who drowned. Standing transfixed, emotions burgeoning, the words of Toni Morrison came to me: “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”

Natchez, Mississippi — the oldest town settled by Europeans along the Mississippi River (the delta), Adams County Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi Port Sulphur, West Bank, Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana Port Sulphur, West Bank, Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana Pearl River, Slidell, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana