Seeger of the Hudson

Today we celebrate the 90th birthday of a man who has used the power of song to speak to a country built upon the power of the river he lives beside.

Pete Seeger, activist, environmentalist and musician, lives in the home he built for his family on the banks of the Hudson River he helped restore with his sloop Clearwater.

There are two countries rather than one north of Mexico because of two great rivers around which Europeans settled and traded with the First Nations of the New World.

The Hudson was the site of New Amsterdam, later New York. It became the nucleus of New England and other settlements that formed the Thirteen Colonies. Following the first successful revolution of modern times, these became the United States of America.

The Saint Lawrence River was the site of Québec and New France that dominated much of North America for 150 years. When Québec passed to British control, its people were joined by English speaking refugees from the American Resolution. Side by side these evolved to become Canada, the first modern state born without revolution or civil war.

Canada and the United States are vastly disproportionate in population and industrial strength, but the areas of land they occupy in North America are approximately equal.

The boundary between then is a fixed line, much of which follows the 49th Parallel. Yet it is less on the manmade borders than the features of the land, the rivers and the people who live along them, that we must focus in our conversations Over The Fence.

Pete Seeger of the Hudson, a man who has toured the world collecting and sharing songs, is a pathway connecting his country to itself and to oceans of humanity that surround it.

Canada, whose name means “village” and one that grew up along a river and extended to a distant ocean, joins our neighbour in celebrating this elder citizen.