“A major part of our work is — and always has been — reconnecting people with their Hackensack River,” said Sheehan. “Come hell or high water; pandemic or fire, it’s what we do and what we’ll always do.”

Hackensack Riverkeeper Reopens Its Paddling Center
TAP into Hackensack

My AllTrails app keeps recommending to me the Hackensack Meadow Paddle, and a friend recently stumbled upon the Hackensack Riverkeepers‘ recently re-opened paddling center in Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus. So the three of us went out in kayaks for an adventure.

I didn’t take my camera, though we saw plenty of wildlife, some impressive root systems on the reeds, and timbers that supported the rebuilding of the Hackensack swampland.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

And while I may have had my concerns about going on this little adventure, as unathletic and unusually out of shape as I am, this was not us:

Laurel Hill Park

Since we were there, and it was barely past noon and nice weather, my partner and I decided to take a walk along the waterfront in Laurel Hill Park. Turns out it’s got quite a history. What’s a nice flat park now was once Snake Hill, a place of penitentiaries, sanatoria — according to Secaucus town historian Dan McDonough, “Anybody could sign somebody in. However, you would need three doctors to sign you out” — and the quarry that eventually brought the whole mountain down.

All that remains of the granite hill is this quarried cliff behind the ball fields:

Still, it was a lovely little community park for a walk in the summer sun after our paddle.