Incorporating seven years of photography and research, River of Redemption portrays life along the Anacostia River, a Washington, DC, waterway rich in history and biodiversity that nonetheless lingered for years in obscurity and neglect in our nation’s capital.
Inspired by Aldo Leopold’s classic book, A Sand County Almanac, Krista Schlyer evokes a consciousness of time and place, inviting readers to experience the seasons of the Anacostia year, along with the waxing and waning of river’s complex cultural and ecological history.
Blending photography with informative and poignant text, River of Redemption urges readers to seize the opportunity to reinvent our role in urban ecology and to redeem our relationship with this national river and watersheds nationwide.
The book is now available at Politics and Prose, Kramerbooks, and online booksellers like Amazon.
Reviews of River of Redemption
“Krista Schlyer rediscovers a treasure in our nation’s capital, the Anacostia River. A gifted story teller and photographer, she leads us on a moving expedition of human failure and the miracle of nature’s renewal.” –TOMMY WELLS, Director, DC Department of Energy and Environment
“Krista Schlyer has woven her way into the soul of the Anacostia with poetic prowess….a symphony of beauty through words and photos.” –BRENDA LEE RICHARDSON, former Director of Earth Conservation Corps
RIVER OF REDEMPTION SYNOPSIS
Seventy years ago, when Aldo Leopold was writing his prophetic essays in Sand County Wisconsin, the culmination of all his fears was unfolding on the banks of the Anacostia River in Washington DC. The river’s ecological fabric had already been torn from every possible angle. It had been channeled, walled, deforested and dumped on. While Leopold was writing about the meadow mice and oak trees of Sand County, the National Park Service was lending out the banks of the Anacostia as a dumping grounds for the refuse of the nation’s capital. That garbage was burned every afternoon in one of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods. On the banks of the Anacostia came the violent collision of colossal failures in ecology and justice–all brought to a painful nadir in 1968 with the death of a small boy named Kelvin.
Just three hundred years earlier the Anacostia had been a living, breathing artery of life for the Nacotchtank people, but in a wink of time we transformed it into a toxic channel and dumping grounds.
The profaning of the Anacostia was made possible by one factor, forgetfulness.
In our Anacostia amnesia we forgot the beauty of an old growth forest, the joy of jumping in a clean river on a hot summer day, the thrill of seeing a bald eagle soaring high above the earth. We forgot the satisfaction of struggling to haul a healthy fish out of the water, and the simple pleasure of sitting on a riverside and gazing down into a clear water-sky to watch turtles fly with perfect, impossible grace. But most of all we forgot that we are a part of a community of land, water, air, bird, mammal, fish, amphibian and insect. We forgot that this river watershed is our community, a community in which every single resident has both rights and responsibilities for the common good.
River of Redemption is a book aimed at remembering our fundamental relationship with rivers, and imagining a future where that relationship will be restored.
The book was published in November, 2018. You can buy it at Politics and Prose, Kramerbooks and on Amazon and other online booksellers, or order a signed copy today in my Book Store.
You can also read excerpts from the book by clicking on the River of Redemption submenu of the Anacostia Project tab.
KRISTA SCHLYER 
As a child we would go down to “the river” (the Anacostia), every Sunday after church. I am a white woman, 63 years old, who grew up in Anacostia, 1316 Vee Street, SE. I still remember my childhood address! The river was awesome and we would fish, picnic on the banks. Those are some of my happiest memories. Thank you for writing this book.
Jeanne, thank you for posting about your experiences on the Anacostia. What a treasure to have those memories of the river. So glad you like the book.