I Am the River: Sarah E. Ray and the Bob Lo Boat

I am the river. Blue and green, fast and flowing,
sweeping river grasses aside . . .
moving between Lake Erie and Detroit.

The Detroit River has long had a story to tell. It has seen a time before people. And it has seen many faces cross its waters, from Indigenous people guiding canoes to settlers on its banks and freedom seekers riding the underground railroad north toward liberty, with Bob-Lo Island at the river’s end, so close to Canada. At one time, a giant steamboat carried hundreds of e...