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At Northampton, Massachusetts
Taken on a balmy late-October day, this shot shows the Mt. Holyoke Range mirrored in the calm waters of the Connecticut River at Northampton. The Range and Mount Tom, a similar formation on the west side of the river, are familiar hiking and recreational resources for residents of Massachusetts' Pioneer Valley; the river is commonly used for boating, fishing and water-skiing. The river has deposited rich topsoil across its fertile floodplain, making the region an agricultural producer since long before European settlers arrived. Picturesque farms, often with vintage 18th-century houses, dot the rolling countryside along the mountains' feet. Northampton, the 'shire town' or county seat, is the home of Smith College and cultural capital of the Valley--a rural area with no shortage of cultural riches. The area is also a hotbed of innovative lifestyles and technologies--has been so, in fact, since the very early 1800s, with a variety of communes, religious communities, a successful satin-making cooperative, and pioneering institutions of women's education, plus a wealth of more conventional industries and thinkers.
This area is where your photographer got his start in life.
Photo copyright © 1982 by Larry Neilson