Tambra Sabatini
A few years ago, my youngest daughter Natasha began showing me pictures and telling me about this “gi-normous” floating island out in the Pacific Ocean that was nothing more than a toxic debris field of plastic: plastic water bottles, plastic soda and juice bottles, plastic..plastic…plastic. Toxic plastic barely breaking down in shape, but disintegrating in substance into minute chemical particles that leach into the water cycle of the entire world. Scary stuff.
Flashback:
When I was my daughter’s age, I happily spent my days riding my horse through the surrounding forests along the old lease roads, or often, I would just take a quick hike into the woods behind my grandparents house to one of my favorite locations in the whole wide world…at least the one I could get to the easiest.
This was a very special wild spring that bubbled up out of the deep earth right underneath a giant old oak tree. Such a truly magical spot! What made it even more special though was that in ancient times (who knows exactly how long ago), Native Americans gathered around this little spring to chip arrowheads and, I assumed, drink the crystal clear water while they would work and visit with one another. Although I have native Choctaw in my lineage, the tribes that visited this location were far removed from my grandmother’s native lineage, but it didn’t matter to me. Those ancient peoples revered that spring, I had no doubt in my heart about that as I eagerly searched for, and sometimes found one of those ancient flints.
I didn’t mind the natural “trash” that I sometimes found at the spring in the form of arrowheads or honing rocks or other natural items that hinted at a more naturally-attuned culture. The horrible story my daughter shared with me about our oceans just makes me sad and even more determined to reduce and eliminate my own trash, and especially plastic consumption.
Wild spring water has always been in my life, even during the two decades I lived in the highly-congested suburbs of Washington, DC. There is just something so compelling and magical about finding pure cold spring water and enjoying the clarity, the fresh, oxygenated taste that even in those years in suburbia I would sometimes hit the mountains to find those springs that only the locals knew about.
These days, I have a lot more quick access to some beautiful wild springs, and I take full advantage of bringing home gallons of this magical water in large glass bottles. Never a fan of water bottled in plastic, I have actually come to the point in time where I would prefer not to drink water if I have to drink it from a plastic bottle. The taste of the plastic is so heavy, and if the bottles have been exposed to light, the chemical breakdown is really evident even in one quick slug of the lifeless water found in the plastic bottles. Here is a quick link* to a nice 1-gallon glass water bottle. Another source is to check with local restaurants for large glass pickle jars or similar glass bottles. Links for larger sizes are also listed below.
I don’t want to spend any time on all the negatives of plastic and bottled water, I really want to encourage you and challenge you to do some adventuring and locate your own sources of wild spring water!
So, outside of avoiding all of the chemicals and fluorides and the rest of the horribly awful toxic load found in our community water systems and bottled waters, why seek out wild spring water?
For starters? Those negative reasons alone are enough!
But, seriously, the mineral attributes of wild spring water, the oxygenation that is inherent in these natural waters, those alone are the primary reasons.
Plus, the primal adventure of seeking out your own wild spring water? Priceless!
Especially if you are able to map out and go on a wild spring water quest with your children and include them in the adventure! There is something totally elemental about encountering a wild spring and drinking from it that liberates your mind and your body, as well as quenching your thirst. It is as though our bodies recognize this primary element and celebrates the real stuff. Maybe this is all in my own mind, a leftover fragment of my own wild childhood and the blood lineage of my own native ancestors…but then again…maybe you should go on your own wild water adventure!
How to Locate Wild Springs
Often when driving along rural roadways you might see a random pipe with water pouring out from a hillside. The locals know where to get the good water. Their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents have known for many years and protect these wild springs and work to keep them open for everyone to share and enjoy. So keep your eyes open, there are far more of them than you realize.
But, in case you are sitting at home, maybe even in the suburbs without any rural roads to drive along on a daily basis, check out the website at: www.findaspring.com
Find A Spring is an excellent resource with wild spring locations mapped out all around the world, so if you are travelling somewhere and want to locate some wild spring water nearby, check out the site (just leave the plastic bottles at home!). Granted, some water sources are better and healthier than others, and Find A Spring provides a great service of providing as much known information about the quality of the water as is known. If you ever have any questions about the safety of a water source, take a sample and get it checked out. There are a number of resources within every community for water safety sampling. At the same time, if it is clear that the spring is being well-maintained and used frequently, you should feel pretty certain that the water is far more pure than any water found in your average tap water or those plastic bottles of water folks slug down without any thought.
Enjoy and be refreshed!
Happy Adventuring!
Tambra
While I think a 5-gallon glass carboy is a lot to handle and store, a 3-gallon glass carboy is another excellent option for storing water. Remember to keep the water stored in as dark/cool of an environment as possible.
If you are interested, there are also glass personal water bottles on the market now as a better alternative to plastic bottles:
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