College student will canoe historic Wampanoag path

Tyack, 20, will start at the Driftway in Scituate, winding his way on the North River through Marshfield, under the Union Street Bridge and by Couch's Beach, and then into Hanover, Pembroke, Bridgewater, and Middleborough. He'll paddle through ponds and tributaries like the Nimascat - "the place of fish" in the Wampanoag language - to the Taunton River, and finally Narragansett Bay.

He hopes to land at Dighton Rock State Park, near where King Philip lived.

Tyack expects the trip will take three or four days, with a big chunk of time spent carrying his canoe over 20 portages - over roads, dams, and culverts built since the Wampanoag heyday. An experienced waterman who grew up playing in a fat yellow "pokeboat" near his home on Third Herring Brook, Tyack says his biggest challenge will be poison ivy along the less traveled parts of the route.

His goal - beyond raising $10,000 for the North and South River Watershed Association - is to raise awareness of the historic passage that few people either know about or travel.

"I'm really excited to explore all this area of the South Shore that I've never been into, and to experience it on this passageway that was used as a highway by the Wampanoag, instead of in a car," he said.

Ramona Peters, a Wampanoag who made the trip in a handmade dugout canoe 33 years ago, applauded Tyack's plan and predicted he'd have a fantastic, and occasionally surreal, experience.

The route goes through marshes teeming with wildlife, and then a few miles later passes roads lined with offices and fast-food restaurants. "It's almost like a time warp at times," she said.

Peters made her 18-foot canoe from a white pine donated by Vernon Lopez, the current Mashpee Wampanoag chief, and spent two weeks burning out the tree's insides before deciding to take it the full route of the passage.

She said she arrived, by coincidence, at the starting point to find her father - the tribe's medicine man - her aunt, and another Wampanoag official dressed in full regalia taking part in the official dedication of the historic passage. The late Thomas Clark, a professor of education at Northeastern University and a local history buff, also was there, and he was instrumental in getting the route recognized, according to his wife, Patricia.

Clark researched the history of the route and the way it intertwined with that of Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief when the Pilgrims arrived.

Massasoit's oldest son, Wamsutta (or Alexander as the colonists called him), died mysteriously in Duxbury in 1662 while being questioned about a rumored plot against Colonial settlements. The younger son - Metacom, or King Philip - took his brother's body home via the passage.

The Wampanoag later used the route during King Philip's War, a bloody yearlong confrontation between Native Americans and colonists.

When King Philip was killed in 1676 in the Great Swamp Fight, his body was taken back as a war trophy by way of the passage.

Clark was a Boy Scout leader of Norwell's Troop 66, and he would lead groups of scouts up and down the passage on Memorial Day weekend canoe trips.

"After three days, everybody came out nasty - covered with leaves and bug bites . . . and pretty sweaty and gross," said Peter Kelly-Detwiler, who made the trip in the mid-1970s. "You had to bring bow saws and axes because you had to literally cut your way through. In some parts, you just pushed your canoe through these tight corners and nasty little critters. It was great fun.

"It is really amazing that you're in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the country and you can take a canoe where you can't hear people, can't see much evidence of people. And you're right in everyone's backyard," he said.

Kelly-Detwiler said he hopes Tyack's trip will raise awareness of "this great trek in our backyard."

Tyack just returned home from Pomona College in California, where as a "water fellow" he outlined ways the school could change its landscaping to save water.

He did similar work for the watershed association as an intern last summer, and also led canoe trips for its summer camp. That's when he decided on his fund-raising plan.

"We typically overlook the natural wealth of where we live and how much it means to us; giving money to organizations that act to protect such natural wealth, however, is an investment in a bright and better future, one with clean water to swim in, healthy fish and clams, and beautiful rivers to explore," he said in a fund-raising letter.

He's getting ready for his trip by driving the route's unfamiliar areas.

His father, Peter, a marine biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, will go along for the first leg. His uncle Seth has signed up for another part of the trip, as have other friends and family. Tyack and whoever is with him will camp out along the journey.

"Maybe this could become a tradition for the watershed [association] to do," Tyack said. "Maybe the Taunton Watershed Association could send someone the opposite way."

The North and South River Watershed Association has invited members to a "sendoff" for Tyack on June 2 at 2 p.m. at the Driftway Park in Scituate. Information about the fund-raiser can be found at the organization's website at www.nsrwa.org.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a May 31 story about a Hanover college student's plan to retrace the Wampanoag Canoe Passage gave the wrong location of King Philip's death. The Wampanoag leader was killed Aug. 12, 1676, in Mount Hope, R.I.