AUGUSTA — The Spring Running will be held on May 20 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Edwards Mill Park in downtown Augusta and Old Fort Western, a National Historic Landmark. Edwards Mill Park is the site of the dam that blocked the passage of migrating fish for more than 150 years.

The Spring Running: A Festival to Celebrate the Kennebec River's Herring Revival will not only celebrate a new season of fishing and farming; it will honor the historical, cultural, ecological and economic rejuvenation represented by the return of the Kennebec River's herring run in Augusta.

Events will include a bateau display, a touch tank, demonstrations of fly tying and fly casting, fish smoking, net repair and construction, gyotaku (fish prints), and traditional barrel construction and preservation of fish, as well as the additional attractions of the River (farmers) Market and Old Fort Western.

Nearly seven years ago, on July 1, 1999 at 9:06 a.m., the Edwards Dam was breached, restoring 17 miles of the Kennebec to a free flowing state and reopening prime spawning habitat for the first time since 1837. Ten species of migratory fish that had been blocked by the dam were now able to make their way upstream. These include the shortnose sturgeon, Atlantic sturgeon, Atlantic salmon, striped bass, and three species of river herring, alewives, blueback herring and American shad.

Larry Morse, founder of the River Market, Augusta 's downtown farmers market, conceived of a community-wide celebration of the spring herring run. Morse and his wife Susan operate Laughingstock Farm in Manchester . Their son, Dana Morse , of University of Maine Sea Grant and Cooperative Extension, supported the idea. In his role as a community educator, he envisioned business, education, nonprofit and government representatives coming together to promote understanding of the connection between a sustainable and healthy river, and sustainable and healthy communities.

Dana Morse pitched the concept to a very receptive Augusta city council, with support from Maine Rivers and Kennebec Valley Trout Unlimited (TU), among other organizations. TU decided to join Morse's effort and move their Winslow Alewife festival to Augusta . “This gave us a real leg up,” said Morse, since TU already had vendors and demonstrations.

The planning has been a team effort, stresses Morse, a result of having “all these great minds around the table.” Additional organizations joined the City of Augusta , Kennebec Valley TU, and Maine Rivers in the effort, including the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Old Fort Western, the River Market, Time and Tide RC&D, the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute, and the Capital Riverfront Improvement District.

The event's emphasis on education and stewardship, Morse said, “put it right in line with what I do for daily work.” As an Extension Associate for Maine Sea Grant and UMaine Cooperative Extension, Morse is based at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole , and conducts educational, outreach and applied research programs in aquaculture and fisheries. “I don't have all the ideas,” stressed Morse. “My Extension role is to keep people communicating and working together—to harness the brain power and energy of all these different groups. The power is in the partnerships.”

Morse credits his father with naming The Spring Running . The name embodies the renewal of the river and return of the spring run of shad, alewives and herring, but it also speaks to the hope and potential for the revival of the river corridor's communities. He noted that “The Spring Running” also happens to be the title of the last of Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in The Jungle Book . “I grew up on Kipling's stories,” he remembered.

In Kipling's story, although Mowgli loves living in the jungle, he is weighed down by a great, nameless sadness. “Tonight . . . I will make a spring running . . . I have hunted too easily too long.” He runs and runs, out of the jungle and past the northern marshes to a place he has never been, and stumbles upon a human village. Ultimately he realizes that he must return to human community; it's inescapable. 

Morse commented, “At some point, people will realize that environmental stewardship is not just something to do to feel good about ourselves; they'll realize that environmental stewardship is something we have to do, it's inescapable.”

For more information contact Dana Morse at 207-563-3146 x 205 or dana.morse@maine.edu, or visit http://www.springrunning.com.