By Mark Yokoyama
You don’t need a lot to make salt. It takes seawater, a shallow pond and sunlight to evaporate the water. It takes a few months that are dry enough for evaporation to outpace whatever rain is falling.
The Amerindians who lived on St. Martin named it Soualiga, or “land of salt” in the Arawak language. They were harvesting salt on the island long before the first Europeans arrived. But as far as we know, they were simply taking advantage of the salt production happening naturally.
Although much has changed on St. Martin, some ponds still produce salt under the right conditions. This dry year has been perfect. While ponds connected to the sea have remained full, several are dry or nearly so. Chevrise and the airport pond of Grand Case are two of them.
On Chevrise, there is just a tiny bit of water left. The pond bed around it is dusted in a white coating of salt. Beyond that white area is cracked brown dirt. This mud dried before the salt was concentrated enough to crystalize.
In Grand Case, the area of the pond near the airport road has quite a bit of salt. Some areas are pretty dry, with large crystals in a crust on damp mud. In other parts, salt crystals and the last of the pond’s water make a salty slush. The crystals glint in the late afternoon sunlight.
Less than 100 years ago, thousands of tons of salt were being produced in Grand Case each year. It is within the living memory of some on the island, but it feels like another world to most. St. Martin has been made and remade since then.
Somehow, amidst a million modern crises and concerns, the salt itself has returned. It has returned of its own accord. It sparkles in the sun as if to remind us that no matter what we do, no matter what we change or destroy, St. Martin is still a land of salt.
Here is a link to an amazing video of the Salt history by Dr. Jay Haviser of SIMARC, the St. Maarten Archaeological Center, click here.
