the voyage of the swan
May 1 was a national holiday, here and in many other countries, and it’s generally known as International Workers’ Day. So in honor of workers everywhere, we also did not work that day. We went out for an early morning row, and were amazed to be met in the Bacino of San Marco by a very fine, and very unexpected, feathered friend.
We have often seen a pair of swans in the northern lagoon, beyond Torcello, and also on the Brenta river near Malcontenta; one time we counted nearly 50 floating in the distance near Sant’ Erasmo. Lino told me that when he was a lad, some birds that we now commonly see in the city, such as cormorants, egrets, and seagulls, never came to town. You’d see them only in the distance, he says, if you saw them at all. Now they’re everywhere.
But the swans weren’t to be seen anywhere. About 35 years ago, Giampaolo Rallo, now president of the Mestre Pro Loco, then a naturalist at the Natural History Museum, noticed that there wasn’t a swan to be found in the lagoon, “not even if you paid it,” as one account put it. So he got what he calls “this crazy idea” to bring back the swans. On April 13, 1984, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), together with the Gazzettino, launched a drive to find individuals willing to sponsor (fancy word for “pay for”) pairs of swans — not a small contribution, considering that a pair cost the equivalent of $315 today.
Over a period of two years, up to one hundred couples were acquired in the Netherlands and placed in the “fish valleys” of the southern lagoon. “It was a great cultural work,” Rallo explained to a journalist from La Nuova Venezia in 2019, “because we had to teach the respect of all the great waterbirds — I’m thinking also of the flamingoes. But there was real enthusiasm in the city for this initiative and there were important signs, such as the participation of Federcaccia Venezia” (the hunters’ association) “which bought a pair and made their volunteers available to watch over the swans to prevent anyone from disturbing or wounding them.” Who would hurt a swan? Well, hungry people a few generations back had no problem with trying to get these spectacular creatures on the table.
Today there are a thousand swans in the lagoon, and are sometimes seen even in Mestre’s modest waterways. A breeding pair named Silvia and Peter live near the lagoon at Caorle, and are awaiting the hatching of their eleventh brood of cygnets.
My most powerful memory of swans was a moment that was not, and anyway could not have been, photographed. It all happened so quickly.
Years ago, we were out rowing near the island of Santo Spirito on a deep grey morning in winter. Suddenly a trio of large birds flew toward us — three swans — flying so low it seemed we could touch them.
I had never seen swans flying, much less so near. As they passed overhead, their long graceful necks undulated slightly, and a barely discernible murmuring sound came from their throats.
Swans may be beautiful when they’re doing nothing, but when they fly they are magic.
muddy waters
After my post on dredging (which was far too long ago, I apologize), I’m attempting a return with some answers to the question several readers put to me: What happens to the mud that is dredged from the canals?
Bear in mind that Venice has dredged its canals many times over the centuries and deposited the mud somewhere it could be useful. For example, the island of Sacca Sessola was created from 1860-1870 with the mud dredged from the area of Santa Marta during the deepening of the canals of the maritime zone. And it is far from being the only one.
Small digression: “Sacca” (saca in Venetian) is often used to identify such places, but don’t confuse it with sacco, which means “bag.” A sacca is defined as “an inlet or cove of the sea, lake, river, or more precisely the bottom of an inlet or gulf. In geography, the accumulation of brackish water, very shallow, that is formed in sandy areas that separate the branches of a delta, from the resurgence of seawater from the subsoil.” End of digression.
Murano, a natural grouping of lagoon islands, has been amplified with dredgings over the years; if you look at Google Maps (satellite view) you can easily locate Sacca Serenella, a sort of industrial zone to which no tourist would be lured. Murano has also grown on its northern perimeter by the addition of yet another island, mostly barren at the moment, where the Centro Sportivo San Mattia is located.
The cemetery island of San Michele has undergone quite an expansion over the past few years, thanks to dredgings from the city and environs. Puts a perfect, if slightly queasy, spin on the old “dust to dust” trope. I wonder if you could specify in your will that you want to be buried in the mud dug up from the canal nearest to your home.
When there is a large quantity of mud to be deposited, it is sprayed from enormous barges through high-powered tubes, specifically to form new barene (marshy islands). This process was quite a spectacle for a while during the construction of the “Vento di Venezia” marina at the island of the Certosa.
Unhappily, sometimes the mud is poison. I’m not picking on Murano, but canals near the glass furnaces are known to contain arsenic and a few other chemicals not conducive to health. The sediments along the lagoon edge by the Industrial Zone are loaded with heavy metals — pick your favorite, it will be there. Sometimes illegal clammers go there at night, sell the clams, they’re sold to restaurants, etc. You can imagine.
Because the provenance of the mud matters, there is a system by which it is analyzed and classified and, if necessary, treated to render it harmless. This is more than usually important if it’s being sold to farmers to enrich their fields. I haven’t researched the system(s), so please don’t ask me. The point is that they exist.
The mud of Venice. You probably wouldn’t call it poetic, but it’s just as important as the water.
Let it snow
The country has been lashed for a week by a meteorological monster originating in Siberia, and anybody who had to brave the sub-zero temperatures and 30 mph winds didn’t need to be told that it hadn’t wafted in from the Seychelles. Up until yesterday there was snow, it seemed, everywhere but here.
Then finally here it was. I love it, but of course I don’t have to drive in it, or take a train (many were blocked), or do anything other than wrap myself up like Boris Karloff as The Mummy and get out and look at it.
The next day (today), it was melting. I hate that part because it’s ugly and because who knows how long it will be before it snows again? So arrivederci, snow. At least you’re not turning to ice.
true grit
You might not intuit this, considering all that water around Venice, but this is an extremely dusty city. Like any reasonable person I hate dusting, so that might explain my objections to the imperceptible but constant zephyrs of scuz. Everybody outside Venice gets all worked up about the water, but the only thing we’re missing here is the simoom.
A few evenings ago the weather took a sudden turn from the clear and hot to the dark-gray and cold, a maneuver that was neatly accomplished by a blast of wind. I felt the temperature suddenly drop and a tiny but ominous breeze passed across my over-heated shoulders and neck. Reef the fo’c’sle and belay the cabinboy! I raced to shut the windward windows but before I could get to them the aforementioned wind had hurtled through the bedroom bearing invisible (I guess) but extremely tangible clouds of Venetian dust, sand, and general grit.
Sorry to ruin the magic, but the romantic city of canals is made of decomposing bricks, crumbling plaster, flaking paint, eroding stone, and disintegrating mortar and stucco, all of which produces everything from powdery dust to assorted chips, granules, motes, particles, and even the occasional scruple. This medley had been flung across the bedroom floor, chests of drawers, the bed, and — shudder — the pillows. The books I can ignore, but just passing my hand over the once-crisp top sheet was like stroking a grimy park bench under a desiccated purging-buckthorn tree. The only positive thing about this is that, by now, it did not surprise me. I experience more environment-fatigue when the weather’s dry than when the tide is rising.
There is no solution; the stuff comes in even when the windows are latched, just in a smaller amount. I don’t know that anyone has ever thought of inventing dust-proof windows — maybe they have them in Timbuktu. If they have, I’m sure they would cost a lot, when you add in shipping and customs costs. Meanwhile, gnashing my teeth is free.
