Belmont Roots May/June 2021

Now that the weather is at least occasionally balmy, local organizations are contriving new events that bear some resemblance to past years’ experiences. You may not get the thrill of the crowd cheering as you finish a race, or the warm glow of watching other concerned citizens clearing garbage from your favorite outdoor spaces, but you will get out of your home.

The Charles River Watershed Association’s Annual Run of the Charles has “a virtual twist” this year. Register for the fundraising 5K or one of five different paddling races any time before Sunday, May 23. You and your paddling team (if you have one) will track your own times and submit them to have a chance to win. The Mystic River Watershed is sponsoring a similar Virtual Herring Run and Paddle any time between Sunday, May 9, and Sunday, May 23, but with a single 9-mile paddle route and a 5K run.

Photo: Charles River Watershed Association

If you’re more of a slow-but-steady paddler, or not even a paddler at all, you can enter the 3 Rivers Challenge on the same site. Track every hour you spend on the Charles, Mystic, or Ipswich Rivers “paddling, walking, biking, fishing, or simply skipping rocks,” and you could win any of a variety of prizes. Enjoying all three rivers wins you 30 bonus points.

Blueback herring. Graphic: Ellen Edmonson and Hugh Chrisp.

You can even experience the wonders of spring fish migrations from the comfort of your own screen. The Mystic River Watershed Association is sponsoring a Herring Day of Counting on Friday, June 11, 8AM–9PM. You can join legions of volunteers counting fish in recordings from the underwater “fish cam” at the Mystic Lakes dam. Count as many or as few videos as you wish. Videos only last somewhere between 20 seconds and one minute, so you don’t have to worry about missing something if you need to take a break to marvel at the awesome natural processes that drive thousands of herring to swim away from their ocean homes to the Mystic Lakes every year to spawn and die.