Over centuries, the rivers quietly steal away pieces of our lives. The possessions we have lost. The objects we no longer need, tossed aside and forgotten. The river swallows it all up and hides it down below. These things belong to the water, now. Until enough time has passed. Until the river decides to give them back.

Look closer. Along the banks of the river, down there in the weeds and the mud, the long-lost objects of our ancestors reappear. They are transported through time, pulled to the surface by the motion of the water and the shifting of the soil. An old brooch. A whiskey bottle stopper. The ornate handle of a drawer. They are dirty, rusted, and tarnished, but the stories of the people who owned them have long since washed away. What’s left is a small treasure. A slender thread tied to the past.

Eau Claire photographer Tina Ecker is always looking, always hunting for unnatural objects down by the riverside. She found almost all the objects shown on the following pages along the banks of our own Chippewa River. For Tina, finding these orphaned fragments of the past – and caring for them – connects her to the city of Eau Claire in a way few of us experience.

Because she can literally hold Eau Claire’s history in the palm of her hand.