Conklin Run

Conklin Run is one of the thousands of streams that drain down the mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania, forming the Susquehanna River watershed. A section of Conklin Run flows through eighty-four acres of forest that my father bought to protect Lake Mokoma. He and my mother gifted the land to my siblings and me, our precious legacy. Later, my husband and I moved to an adjoining property. After a hard rain, I can hear the creek roaring in the valley below our house.

I walk down our driveway and through the hayfield to the clearing we call Turkey Hollow. I can cross the creek in high water without getting my boots wet on a series of boulders laid by my son and grandson. Turning left, I can follow the creek to the lake. Turning right, I can follow the creek uphill to its origin in Cranberry Swamp. Storms, snowmelt, and human intervention have changed the course of the creek over the years.

I have been exploring and photographing Conklin Run for over twenty-five years. I relish my daily time alone in the woods and I challenge myself to see something new in what is so familiar. The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan provides advice in his book Space and Place: “Long residence enables us to know a place intimately, yet its image may lack sharpness unless we can also see it from the outside and reflect upon our experience.” My parents’ thirty great-grandchildren, all under age fourteen, are discovering the wonders of their heritage. I now photograph Conklin Run through their eyes.