Disney Comes to the Haw

Disney Comes to the Haw

by Robert Martin

a Carolina Paddler article

∞  “Imagine living in an inspired location where the beauty of nature and allure of new discoveries beckon.”

Sometime in the near future, construction will begin on Asteria, a 4000 unit community where Disney Imagineers plan to develop the community of the future. There will be single family homes from 1 million to 4 million dollars and condos starting at $800,000. These 4000 units will sell for a total of somewhere around 5 billion dollars, not including a membership fee of $20,000 per unit to join and an $11,000 annual fee. If you want to see it all then go to https://www.storylivingbydisney.com and embrace the wonder of what is to be.

The website boasted all of the trashcans would be spaced the same distance apart and, a big thing for me, they are going to have a machine that puts scents into the air in the development. Fresh flowers, pine scent or pumpkin spice, anyone?

The ecological impact on our beloved Haw River is in question. The project will need about 4-6 cfs of fresh water daily and will generate about the same amount of wastewater, not to mention the fertilizers and insecticides for the grounds. This doesn’t sound like much, but Asteria will not be the only development in Chatham Park North. I think they will need a new wastewater treatment plant nearby.

What impact will this new development have on our paddling experience?  Goofy, Donald, Minnie and Tinkerbell all have nothing on us paddlers. I paddled with Goofy once on the Nolichucky–that dog can’t roll. The next question is how will our paddling impact the new development?

I just deleted a long tirade on how this new Disney on the Haw is bad but I have to confess my real reason. The development threatens Squaw Valley, our secret place on the Haw where we go to cook out and camp. You might think it was named “Squaw Valley” by some misogynistic open boater who undervalued the contributions of native American women, but the river picked the name.

Gary Cousino was salvaging lumber caught on a log jam. He found a wooden sign that read “Squaw Valley” so he nailed it to a tree and the campsite got it’s name. Back in the 1980s, when I was just starting out  in whitewater kayaking, it was just a rumor. A secret place known only by the local boaters. It remains secret even now so I will not divulge the location. Suffice to say, it’s on an island between two islands, and cannot be seen from either shore.

There are rapids above it and rapids below it. The fire ring is made of stone hand layed by Brooks Burleson, one of the greatest openboaters I have known and a highly regarded stone mason. When Brooks was young, he thought nothing of picking up 100 lb. stones from the river and making a fire ring. Brooks’ fire ring on Mountain Island will be there for a thousand years and the one at Squaw Valley could be too.

I remember the day I was first taken to the camp. I was the only kayaker in a group of open boaters. As I walked back into the woods on the island I came upon a grisly sight. On the trail, there was a hiking stick embedded in the ground and on top of the pole was a human skull (a Halloween plastic model ) and in the skull’s mouth, a model of a World War II German ME-109 fighter plane, with one wing torn off. At the camp there were two tables and bench seating around the monumental fire ring. On a tree next to the fire were all of these mushroom looking things, complete with eyes! I asked, “What are those?”  All Cousino said was, “Butt babies”.

The old textile mill at Bynum, in an effort to stay in business, decided to make novelty plastic butt dolls. Their refined name was “Tushkins”. They had feet and eyes and a butt, about the size of an apple.

The mill kicked out thousands of butts and never sold many.  When the mill closed boxes of Tushkins still littered the grounds.

As Gary Gurkin started the fire, all of these coolers showed up from the open boats. One guy had bacon-wrapped dove breast stuff with jalapenos, another had marinated venison tenderloin. Cousino had a bushel of fresh Pamlico oysters and another open boater opened a can of beans and put it by the fire to heat up. Or was that me? I had a diet Coke and a Snickers bar. There wasn’t a lot of room in my kayak for food.

Food wasn’t the only sustenance in those coolers and a great merriment began. Gurkin reached under one of the tables and pulled out a bottle of Tequila and offered everyone a hit, but there were no takers. The bottle had been there for decades and only once in a blue moon has anyone taken a sip.

When the feast was ready we all chowed down. I had never eaten such a delicious meal cooked over an open fire. I walked by the fire and one of the guys said “Gi-chew-summim-beans.” I realized he was offering me beans but I had to decline, having no place to put them. He said “If you take that Diet Coke can and model it into the shape of a bowl, you can Gi-chew-summim-beans.” That’s when the guy with the dove breast walked up and said “Are y’all trying to make a bowl out of a Coke can?” I said “Yeah”. He said “You don’t need to do that, I got a ready-roll in my dry bag. I just didn’t think any of ya’ll smoked.” I looked at the guy with the beans and we both started laughing. Great party!

Squaw Valley has been there for 50 years and even though our numbers have lessened of late, we still keep it up. I hope some day a younger generation will take over maintaining the camp. Some irresponsible people have been visiting the camp. The Squaw Valley sign was stolen and vandals left a mess.

This is why I am not happy about Disney on the Haw. Cousino’s camp is a very special place to me. It is a place where no matter what is going on in the world, you are safe there. No one will judge you; you can say what you feel and be at peace.

Some of the best times in my life have been paddling with the Carolina Canoe Club. I have made friends from all over the world. These are people whom I trust with my life because they have rescued me in times of peril as I have for them. I thank you all!

No matter what you smell like.

-Robert Martin

Carolina Paddler: Just as we were posting this story, extra information came in. Here are some memories and a sketch by Brooks Burleson.

Cousino was really into decor. Feel. So he brought out these WW2 models to go with the Squaw Valley sign. He added a very odd looking stump that looked like it came out of a horror movie. The thing looked like it had four sets of testicles. I did stick art. Others brought oddities pulled out of the Haw.

Gary built most of the benches with help from me and others. Because there was an old dam that ran through there and adjacent mills,  we had plenty of stone available. Because I couldn’t sit still anyway I started lugging out large stones to make the fire pit as impressive as possible.

Gary was always bringing oysters so he started the oyster shell midden which became a legendary addition. The new Squaw Valley location was much better than the old. Much more protected from floods. We always built a fire but at times it would be too wet to get a quick fire going. So the idea came to me to collect bundles of kindling, wrap them in a large sycamore leaf and hang them on an adjacent limb. So we would have dry kindling next time. There would be several hanging on the limbs and it looked sort of cool so we just left them. They’re still there. It all just became interesting decor and a great place to hang out with good friends and to be ourselves.

-Brooks Burleson

CP: Do you have memories of Squaw Valley, butt-babies, unique decor?  Send them to editor@carolinacanoeclub.org and we’ll revisit the SV.