MBQ BLOG

Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Dr. George Crozier offers his take — post spill — on damage to the gulf, the safety of seafood, and the possibility of another worst-case scenario unfolding.

As executive director of Alabama’s Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL), Dr. George Crozier has been on the frontlines of the effort to protect sea life and its habitat from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Since shortly after the oil began gushing from the wrecked rig, he and the DISL faculty have been sampling and studying everything from microbes and larvae to oysters and fish.

John Guider did what so many of us would love to do — jump ship, give up the workaday routine, and chase a dream. His was floating the length of the Mississippi River … in a canoe … alone.

In the process, John dodged gargantuan boats, lightning, even a tornado and an alligator. He overcame health issues and his own fears while floating in the middle of nowhere and met people whose stories were those of legend and heartbreak.

The river, as well as the land and people on its banks, helped shape our country. Here are just a few examples how.

The Golden Age of Steamboats
A young riverboat pilot named Samuel Clemens found his fame not so much on the river as writing and lecturing about it. Clemens, who took the pen name of Mark Twain from a term used by boatsmen to indicate water depth, came of age in what has been termed the Golden Age of Steamboats. The powerful and beautiful shallow-hulled vessels fueled commerce up and down the river in the decades leading up to the Civil War, helping to make possible the country’s westward expansion and the trade of the heartland’s agricultural riches.