My Watermark is the St. Clair River, Michigan.

The St. Clair River is not a Great Lake, and the St. Clair River is very special to me. I grew up along the St. Clair River, and the little story I wanted to tell you is about: my grandparent’s home was on the river, and I spent summertime swimming off their steel seawall, and they had a pipe extending from their steel seawall that I would climb out of, jump off of, climb back on and off again; and it wasn’t until many years that I learned that was a combined sewer overflow outfall.

I swam in the river constantly; it wasn’t always I was swimming in polluted water, it was very often clean. It was only after having rained, of course. But the river, where my family fishes, it’s just a vital part of our lives.