Island Breath: Imagining Chautauqua

MAKING THE FUTURE MANIFEST

SOURCE: JUAN WILSON juanwilson@mac.com

POSTED: 4 July 2005 - 11:00am HST

Imagining Chautauqua

Button Valley: Hay bales buzz in sunlight as a wall of cool pines splits the yellow field in two.

by Juan Wilson on 4 July 2005

Given the changes that we can expect in Hawaii in the next several years, we ought begin a new process of imagining what our future should be so that there will a chance it is something we expect and desire. It could be called a redefinition of our dreams.

Over ten years ago a group of our friends tried to imagine a "green" future in our small rural corner of the world... Chautauqua County, New York. Four of us got together to write it down.

The following is a fictional account of the future in the region around Chautauqua Lake in the year 2021. This story was developed from material originating with the Chautauqua Greens in 1991 that was an attempt to envision the future of the region generation from then. We are about halfway to that goal now. Click on image below to read...

Imagining Chautauqua

Photo by Virginia Wilson "Laundry at the Farm" 1956, Panama NY

The image at the top of the page is of Button Valley. It was taken on trip around the Chautauqua Lake Watershed in 1997. Button Valley contributes water to the Little Broken Straw Creek on its way south to the Broken Straw and finally to the Allegany River. This is a view looking away from the Chautauqua Basin from near the rim of the watershed. The Chautauqua Watershed line passes just behind us, crossing Eddy Road, a bit up the hill. We are looking southwest from Eddy Road, which is off Route 474 in the town of Harmony, New York. For a sequence of images around the hundred miles of the Chautauqua Watershed trip click bellow:
The Gobbler: Cowing Road.