The stony spine of the river is exposed. The Maggie-Maggie is a torrent gushing through Mahone Bay in the spring and fall. In summer it is a lazy stream. But this is the worst drought since they started keeping records 130 years ago and the river is almost dry.

Someone has been assembling stones on the Maggie-Maggie’s backbone. I’m amazed at the sentinels of rock balanced and held in place somehow by gravity. This arrangement is aesthetically placed – not like the over abundance of inukshuks that have sprung up everywhere there are rocks to find. These stones have been placed by an artist. They’ll be washed away when the heavy fall rains come, but for now, the drought persists and the stones still stand.

We walk almost daily along this precious wooded river on the Wentzell lands. We watch the shrinking pools and the trickle that feeds them. We found dead fish, deprived of oxygen in the  I discovered wild spearmint growing among the river stones.

I’m enormously grateful that my shallow well at home is fed by a small spring and somehow still gives us water. We have enough. For now.