A great rusted chain hangs loosely across the gap of stiff metal barring that borders the concrete of the Oxford Mills dam. A cheap hand-painted "No Trespassing" sign feebly holds to the chain by worn and weathered string. The sign is useless, however, as the river is at its mid-summer low and there has not been a heavy flow over the dam in a month (that and it couldn't keep a five year old out).

I step over and set-up my tripod on an overcast day that has threatened but never delivered rain since dawn. I put a circular polarizer on my Nikkor 1.8 50mm first, then my Cokin filter system, and finally the red filter. I really need the tripod now as I have just dropped my exposure by four stops.

I take exposure readings from the shadows of the trees to the right, to the left, the river and the sky and average out the exposure, and then underexpose it by a stop and a half. When I close the shutter, I have on film not the tepid filth of the Kemptville Creek, but the blood-waters of the River Acheron.

No longer does its course take it winding through the suburbs of the small south-eastern Ontario town, hanging onto the capital city by the 416 highway like a growing fetus to an umbilical cord; rather, this river runs through the vast Lands of the Dead in Hades to the Acherusian Lake where the ferryman waits for his dues. This river segregates those poor souls in the Vestibule, doomed to wander for their selfish indecisions in life, the lowest form of the damned whom even Satan cast out of his realm, from the tortured shades embraced into Hell's hostile bosom.

Into this river flow fire and the wailing cries of the eternally pained.

This is the River Acheron: the River of Woe.

For comprehensive information concerning Greek mythology especially dealing with the afterlife, including excerpts from primary sources, visit http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Underworld.html.