GOOSE POND

Goose Pond

Story and Photography by Michael Webster

Slideshow Hosted by PhotoShelter

The early morning sun rises as a big red disk behind the trees, its intense light casting mysterious shadows deep into the underbrush. There is so much water in the air, the light practically has to swim to get to the pond. In these hours, the black water of the sloughs and their tributaries reflect a stunning array of cool greens, hot reds, brilliant yellows and fleeting blues.

What residents of Posey County, Ind., call Goose Pond is actually a series of small cypress sloughs that form a geographic curve about four miles long. Cypress sloughs are areas where water naturally congregates, slightly lower in elevation that the surrounding land. Situated in a lonely area just east of the town of Mt. Vernon, Ind., near the Ohio River and often inaccessible due to backwater or mud, Goose Pond is little known except to old hunters and fishermen and people interested in ancient American history and archeology. But it is a place of incredible natural abundance and beauty.

Bald cypress, a majestic tree that dominates the slough, is rarely found this far north. A deciduous conifer, cousin to the California redwood, it is best known for its weather resistance and is often used to build boardwalks or decks. For nature enthusiasts, bald cypress is known for its "knees,” branches of its root system that rise out of the ground into the surrounding mud or water. Their purpose is unknown, but scientists speculate that they may provide additional oxygen to the tree or help anchor it in the soft, muddy soil in which it thrives.

Wildlife abounds in the isolation of the slough as well. "I see beaver, snakes, coon, and possum. I've seen quite a few copper belly snakes on the pond. And of course there are a lot of deer and wild turkey,” says a nearby landowner. “In the last few years we've started seeing some bald eagles. There are at least three pair of geese that nest on the slough and stick around to raise their young. Last year we saw a family of bobcats—a mother and three young ones. There's a fairly big beaver hut out in the slough by the old duck blind. And the fall is awesome. The leaves on the cypress turn a reddish brown color.”

The Nature Conservancy, an organization dedicated to preserving the Earth's plant and animal diversity, has purchased a portion of the slough and hopes to purchase more. While the conservancy sometimes restores properties by removing invasive species and/or reintroducing native plants, other times it simply leaves properties as they are. At Goose Pond, its current strategy is to leave the sloughs untouched. "Goose Pond is a unique ecosystem," says Jesse Moore, manager of Southern Indiana properties for The Nature Conservancy. "[It is] home to plants and animals that need this environment to survive.”

Unfortunately, Goose Pond as we know it probably won't be around for much longer. Flooding from the Ohio River, more frequent in recent years, deposits up to two inches of silt every year; eventually, the slough will be filled in entirely. Much of it is already choked with invasive lily plants and silt from the backwater.

“Since I've been down here in ’98, I've seen about a 40 percent increase in the lily pads,” says a neighbor. “It used to be you could get out there in a boat without much trouble, but now you’ve got to fight through those lilies. It's silted in to the point where a lot of the fish don't hang in there much anymore. The crappie and small pan fish are mostly gone.”

For archeologists, Goose Pond echoes with history. It abuts the Mann site, which was the center of the Hopewell culture that dominated the Midwestern United States for 700 years until around 500 A.D. "The Mann site is worthy of being designated a world heritage site,” says Mike Linderman, Western Regional Manager for State Historic Sites at Angel Mounds. “It is up there with the Mesoamerican pyramids or cliff dwellings in the Southwest. It’s that important