A special place:  Native Americans, namely the Esopus Tribe of Lenape Indians, first roamed the Big Indian-Oliverea Valley, headwaters of a famous trout stream.  In fact the word “Shandaken” is a Native American derivative that means “rapid waters”.  Also local legend--- as recalled in Richard Lionel De Lisser's Picturesque Ulster--- has it that a young Indian girl “of rare beauty named Tawasenta”, meaning Blossoms of Spring, fell to her death from a falls that still bears her name--- Blossom Falls, not far from this place.

In his 1918 classic, The Catskills, T. Morris Longstreth wrote the following about this valley, “Big Injin is the birth-dale of the Esopus, which conjures to my mind pictures equal in charm to those brought back by the mention of the Rondout, the Neversink, and the Schoharie.  Always there was some glimpse of the creek hurrying around the corner.  Instead of the Mountains of the Sky, the Indians might have called the country the Land of Little Rivers, for down each glen sprang some brook to join the bright Esopus. … I could not help exclaiming about their beauty, so intangible, so unpicturable.”

The setting on the upper reaches of the Esopus Creek remains home to wild brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis.  This place is still special, and someday my ashes will be spread here to be among the wild brook trout and spirit of Tawasenta.

A Special Place, 11x14 (NFS):