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Inland waterways festival underway

Photo by Michele Newbanks David Argo of ORSANCO of Cincinnati adds fish to the mobile aquarium Friday afternoon in preparation for Saturday's festival.

Even before the fish were added, people were being lured in by the bubbling sounds of the mobile aquarium being set up for Saturday’s Inland Waterways Festival.

The 2,200-gallon tank was brought to the festival by the Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission in order to educate people about what fish can be found in the Ohio River.

The festival is free and will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Ohio River Museum on Front Street in Marietta. The event, which is held every other year, is a celebration of the waterways that helped shape Marietta.

Although the aquarium is a big draw for the event, fishing isn’t the only river activity represented at the festival.

MOV’n Dragons, Mid-Ohio Valley’s dragon boat team, will have a table set up at the event to give information on the dragon boats and the group’s Saturday community paddles.

“We’ve been involved several times throughout the years,” said Marietta resident Cathy Rees, excursion leader for the team. “We’re one of the water activities on the Muskingum and that makes us part of the river family.”

She said the team is involved with the festival because they get to show people what they do on local waterways.

“I just really appreciate that in our beautiful small town, we have so many river activities. People are out boating and rowing,” she explained. “We’re really lucky to have (the river). I really appreciate our water activities and our parks. It’s what makes it so special here.”

The river also brings out the storyteller in many people, including Dayton resident Stephen Hollen. Hollen has portrayed Mark Twain for 13 or 14 years.

He said Mark Twain, also known by his real name Samuel Clemens, was a river boat apprentice from 1857 to 1859 and was a river boat pilot on the Mississippi River until 1861.

“Had the Civil War not broken out, he probably never would have done anything else,” Hollen said.

Twain’s love of the river didn’t stop at being a pilot. Once he became an author, some of his most famous works were based around the river.

“He wrote about the river in Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer,” Hollen added, noting Twain even lived on the river in Hannibal, Mo.

The river was an important aspect of commerce in Mark Twain’s day.

“We forget that before trucking, commerce was on the river and railroads across the nation,” he said.

Unfortunately, not every river-based organization will be in attendance this year. Jeff Spear, president of the Sons and Daughters of the Pioneer Rivermen, said members of the organization will not participate this year, as the festival was trimmed down to only one day instead of the usual two.

Michele Newbanks can be reached at mnewbanks@mariettatimes.com.

If you go:

• What: Inland Waterways Festival.

• When: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

• Where: Ohio River Museum in Marietta.

• Cost: Free.

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