In Search of Hemingway's Meadow: A Return to the Big Two-Hearted River
(By Jeff Day)
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The stream is a wild stream now, full of stream-bred brookies and browns, though in Hemingway’s day, it had been stocked with rainbows. Long before that, it had flowed through a forest of white pines five feet in diameter, so tall and dense that the needles blocked out the sun. Then, in the 1800s, the trees were cut for lumber, and fire after fire burnt off the topsoil. The forest had become a meadow by the time Hemingway fished it, and it is a meadow now, full of blueberry bushes and tall, wild grasses.
Big Two-Hearted River, one of Hemingway’s first successful short stories, is based on a fishing trip Hemingway took to Seney, Michigan. Hemingway described the land, the stream, and his equipment so meticulously that you could—and Day did—use it as a blueprint to recreate the trip. When Day stepped out of his world and into Hemingway’s, he learned something Hemingway already knew. We are closer to Eden in the woods, and we are closer to our fears.”
