Two towns, two river carnivals

Floating down the Petaluma River at the Rivertown Revival. (Crista Jeremiason/PD)

Imagine a tale of two rivers going back to the turn of last century: First, picture the lazy green waters of the Russian River snaking through Healdsburg in 1908, the inaugural year of the Healdsburg Water Carnival.

NOTE:  Healdsburg Water Carnival has already passed.

This was back when cottonwoods lined the banks at least 10 trunks deep and giant sturgeon hovered along the river bed. The railroad bridge already spanned the divide, but no houses lined the west bank as they do today.

To the south, the Petaluma River in the early 1900s was really just a muddy tidal slough that fed into the San Pablo Bay. Dozens of flat-bottomed schooners shipped eggs, grain and livestock from the bustling south Sonoma County port town to San Francisco. It would be years before a 1950s act of congress would annoint the slough a “river.”

Now, flash forward over a century to this weekend and next weekend, as two popular water festivals —the Healdsburg Water Carnival and the Rivertown Revival in Petaluma — try to re-connect people with their history and the often overlooked ribbons of water that flow through their communities.

“At that time the river was much more a part of people’s lives,” says Holly Hoods, Healdsburg Museum historian. “It was where everyone in town learned to swim.”