Pamlico River
Beaufort County, NC

At one time every waterfront farm, cottage, and settlement had a pier thrust into the river. The river was the highway before there were highways and even after. The river was the route the coastal plain was first populated by colonists and even before, traveled by the first people. The river was the way local products were carried to market and shipped around the world.

The river has less commercial value now. It’s mostly used on weekends as a diversion. The homesteads and farmsteads that depended upon the river are gone but remnants of the river’s importance remain, weathered, rotting, fewer with each successive hurricane’s passage.

It was a brutally cold morning. My fingers ached while I held the camera for this photo, but it was worth the discomfort to witness a moment of history before it vanished. An inconsequential moment, perhaps, but the mundane is often the most poignant, like discovering a child’s shoe in the rubble of a ruined house. This pier once served a commonplace purpose. Now it’s more like found art.