The Keeper

Cantankerous, charismatic and passionately committed, river keeper John Lipscomb reflects on 25 years patrolling the Hudson by wooden boat, logging more than 80,000 miles. Like rivers everywhere, the Hudson — America’s First River and birthplace of the environmental movement — boomed as a growing population used it for transportation, sustenance and, for decades, a dumping ground, and it paid the price in contamination. For nearly three decades, Captain John has been the river’s poet laureate and literal “eyes on the river,” leading its fights against industrial and human pollution, absorbing the losses and celebrating the wins. The work has never been finished, and never will be. Today he’s one of more than 300 “keepers” worldwide still watching over their rivers.