The Wildness of a River is Flow – a wild rivers essay by John Roberts

On: July 10, 2025

The Wildness of a River is Flow – a wild rivers essay by John Roberts

You had to be there. At the wild rivers anniversary celebration on June 28, we gathered at the Wild Rivers Interpretive Center in Florence, WI to recognize the extraordinary leadership and foresight of Wisconsin state legislators, including Republican Representative Dave Martin, who led the effort to protect our state’s five wild rivers from destruction.

One of our speakers was John Roberts, a passionate expert in wild rivers. John was our last speaker who led us on a meditation of how one can experience Wisconsin’s wild rivers with all of our senses. It was the perfect way for us to get ready to visit Breakwater Falls and Meyers Falls on the wild Pine River after the celebration.

Several of the event attendees asked us to share John’s reflections, so here’s what he told us. We hope you get to experience Wisconsin’s wild rivers, including the 60-foot, “secret” Breakwater Falls.

John Roberts gives a talk about wild rivers at the Wild Rivers Interpretive Center in Florence, WI

The Wildness of a River is Flow — Ceaseless, Boundless, and Everchanging

It is early morning. In the dark dawning of twilight, there is no color yet, only the beginning of shapes in shades of grey. Still snuggly tucked in my winter sleeping bag under a simple low tarp, ice has formed on the overhang of my tarp and on the ground around me. It is early spring. For months the river has been blanketed below ice, but now, ahead, lies my version of opening day. I am wide awake, waiting for the return of light, anxious for all that it will bring. After months below seemingly solid ice, I have come to the riverbank to see the surfacing, that moment of magical transformation of solid ice into flowing water – the return of river.

I love rivers! I love how uniquely rivers express their version of being self-willed, of being wild. Their magic is in the flow. As long as a river remains a river, the flow of water is the river. It is ceaseless. I can look at a map that is 20 years old, 50, 100, 200, 400 years old, and the river has always been there. This is true, but it is also a mirage. A blue line on a map is not a river. Stand still at any point on the river’s bank and watch. The flow of water comes from around the bend, from the future, from somewhere upriver, into the present, and leaves around the next bend, for somewhere else downriver, into the past. Because the essence of a river is its flow, a river becomes a living metaphor for time. It’s a puzzling thing. Fascinating. We sit by rivers and watch them pass by. The flow of a river never starts and never ends. Time does not stop. From morning to night, day to day, season to season, in times of rain and times of drought, we give the river a name, the Pine, the Popple, or the Pike River, it’s always the same name but it’s never the same river. Ever flowing is also ever changing. “No one ever steps in the same river twice” (Heraclitus).

John Roberts at Breakwater Falls The flowing of water, we call it a river. It is ceaseless. It is also nearly boundless. The last time I was at this very point on the Pine River was two months ago, in January. On the surface, liquid water had changed to solid ice. A blanket of snow covered the ice. Tracks wandered over the surface of the river, as if it were no longer river but land, a treeless path of land through the forest. Under the ice, muffled sounds of moving water could still be heard. The river was still flowing under the treeless path through the forest. In winter we do not see it flowing under the solid ice but we know it does. In summer we see the flow of water in the river, but whether we see it or not, it flows nearly everywhere. It flows through the ground, surfacing as springs, ponds, marshes, and swamps. It flows through animals that drink. The water of the river becomes animal and it moves across the land as animal. It flows up through herb, and shrub, and tree to leaf. The water of the river becomes plant and every green thing, every plant, every fungus, and every lichen, become alive because of the nearly boundless flow of water. All this is the flow of a river. In the flow of water is the magic of rivers. It is ceaseless and boundless. This the source of our fascination with rivers. It is what is special about rivers – that they are able to expand our perception of beauty, of awe, and of connection to animal and plant, to land, to everything above, below, and beyond, and to time, the present, past, and future – this is the fullest meaning of natural and of Wild!

I had hiked in, a mile or so, to the river. There was no real trail, just open forest, bedrock outcrops, and remnant pockets of snow. I know the place well. I had arrived at the river after dark. The warmth of hiking helped to warm my sleeping bag. Then I slept. Now, early, early morning, with one eye open, I peer out not wanting to miss any part of the arrival of light. Sleeping bag still on, I sit up and watch. Upriver is still iced over. Downriver, mostly out of sight, I can hear the sounds of ice pushing against ice. In front of me the river drops over 5-ledges of bedrock. Always beautiful beyond belief, it is a place where the water moves smoothly but swiftly from ledge-drop to ledge-drop with determination and enough energy to crack open the ice cover and send it downriver as large and small floating ice islands. Before me the water is open. It looks dark. It looks heavy and deep – opacity on the move.

Water as invisible vapor constantly rises into the air above all rivers, but this morning, in the cooler air, it condenses into the droplets and becomes visible. As mist, the water of the river floated upon the air. It lies densely in the river valley following its turnings, right and left. Air and river dance as one.

I sit enveloped in the cross-mingling of everything river – as solid land, as animal, as plant, as the mist in air, as time, and now too, as temperature, rising in synch with the coming of sunlight. The river and the warmth mingle. Moods change rapidly from the dark, thick, chilly shades of grey. The rising sun brings red, orange, and warmth. The mist stirs and thins into columns of convection then disappears. The show is over.

The rapid fading of such visible connections leaves me feeling alone until, coming from afar, I see two hooded mergansers swimming upriver. They too are early arrivers to a river’s opening. As divers, floaters, swimmers and flyers, they move easily between what we assume are boundaries. They are river birds returning to the flow of open water. Emerging from my winter sleeping bag, I go to that open water and dip my hands in. I too have returned.

– John Roberts

A group of speakers in front of the Wild Rivers Interpretive Center This message is made possible by generous donors who believe people have the power to protect and restore water. Subscribe to our Word on the Stream email newsletter to receive stories, action alerts and event invitations in your inbox. Support our work with your contribution today.