HUNTING FOR INDIAN BEADS

It is my understanding that "indian beads" form when globs of clay attach themselves to growing reeds along the lake's edge. As the reeds grows and the water level drops the glob of clay is raised above water level and dries and hardens in the sun. When the reed dies a perfect bead drops into the water where the pounding waves round off the rough edges and wash it up onto the shore. It is a lot of fun to gather them and make them into necklaces. Of course, as a kid I believed they had actually been formed by indians. I used to find them and the hair would stand up on the back of my neck as I thought about how the last person to touch that bead had been an indian living on the shores of the lake hundreds of years ago. I was mistaken about that, but indian beads still hold that magic for me and they are still fun to find. So I took Bowden and Lucy across the lake to NY in my trusty row boat to a shore where I know there are lots of them.

Bowden and Lucy brought buckets to gather the beads into. Bowden suggested that it might be easier to wear them as hats than to carry them.



Here they are just before we embarked from the VT shore. They were obediently following "the Captain's" orders to sit down for the entire ride.




I told them all about the Champlain Monster as we crossed the lake, which was probably not a good idea. I ended up reassuring Bowden over and over again that "champy" is nice and is really not a monster at all, but something of a prehistoric whale. That seemed to put him at ease.

Here they are after disembarking in NY.



I told Bowden to keep his eyes open for arrowheads, because we have found them along the shore in the past, and he kept bringing me rocks of all sizes and shapes and claiming that they were arrowheads. I was sorry to disapoint him. He had better luck finding indian beads. After about a half-hour of looking we spilled out our beads onto a flat rock and admired them.




On the way back Bowden and Lucy "helped row."