Adventures in the Dan River Basin
Adventures in the Dan River Basin By Forrest Altman TIME TRAVEL IN THE DAN RIVER BASIN: Getting Acquainted with the Basin’s Rivers Thanks to the studies of our local and regional scholars, we know a lot about the history and pre-history of our area and can go traveling either physically or in imagination. In the bioregion of the Dan, human and other creatures traveled by land and water. Would you like to be introduced to the major rivers of the Dan Bioregion? Even before Europeans had established themselves on the eastern coast of North America, their monarchs had begun to grant them land in the interior, in territory that they had never seen. To find and claim that real (“Royal”) estate, they traveled on land when they had to and on water when they could. You can do the same. By land and water you can escape the 21st century and experience some of the wilderness they traveled. With information provided by the natural and cultural historians of our region, you can travel by car, boat, horse, bicycle, your own feet or your imagination, aided by the work of scholars. Let’s travel the six rivers of the Dan watershed and some of their tributaries. These rivers are: THE DAN The Dan rises from springs on Belcher Mountain, on the Blue Ridge Plateau in Patrick County, Virginia, within view of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Morrisette Winery, and after flowing more than 200 miles through Patrick, Stokes (past Hanging Rock State Park), Rockingham, Caswell, Pittsylvania and Halifax Counties, six counties in two states, joins the Staunton in the waters of Kerr Reservoir (“Buggs Island Lake”).
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