About the Film
Ofield explored the Hudson River from source to mouth, filming river residents, fishermen, Pete Seeger's strawberry festival, model boat builders, ex-loggers, industries and environmental groups and what he terms "living history" -- the folklore of older residents who had experienced the Hudson before the advent of intensive commercial traffic. This clip is from the original PBS hour.
Jack: “I met Pete Seeger while filming “Adirondack Minstrel” as Lawrence Older (the minstrel) had shared songs with him. I learned about Pete’s Sloop Clearwater group that was cleaning up the Hudson River. Pete suggested the film be about the river. I called the NY Council for the Humanities with whom I was just wrapping up “A Leaf from the Town Record” in Hudson, NY for the PBS “Americana” series, and they were interested. So we shot the river from source to mouth and met a lot of interesting people along the way. When we shot Lady Liberty from a helicopter, the Twin Towers were in the background. That footage is now in the Ground Zero museum.”
