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Ron Huber arrives in Oregon from Maryland April 29 1985. Getting to and through Oregon 4/29/85.
Son of a gun! Trip's end, I'm just outside of Corvallis, Oregon,
soaking in some coffee before going to meet the mysterious Ecotopians
of Cathedral Forest Action Group and Oregon Earth First!
Oregon has unrolled past my eyes
through the windshield of my red VW rabbit like a many-plotted movie.
Sage desert, intimations of the Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh's countercultural
kibbutz to the north, then scrubby dry conifer mountain forests.
Stopped for the night a quarter mile down a dirt road from the
trans-Oregon highway, about 30 miles east of Burns, Oregon. It was10
pm, I suddenly felt I might be pushing Red Rabbit too hard, so I just
as suddenly turned off the highway just before a sign saying Burns
Ranger District. Onto the gravel road, dousing my lights as another car
came grinding up the highway only a short way along the road. I came
upon a puddle of unknown depth/muckiness, so got out and probed it
before driving through; it was only two inches deep, rocky bottomed.
Splash through and drove a little way down, out of sight of the highway
and thus unlikely to be hassled. Out of the car, deep
plugged-Eustachian tube silence, till I popped my ears, then scratchy
thrumming of frogs in a tiny stream a little downhill. A truck grumbled
through low gears as it passed the turn off and went down towards
Idaho. Then heavy star silence, with frog accompaniment... I
evoked the wilderness god, attuned to the slow biopulse of the late
night desert. A large cloudmass overtook the moon, tried to swallow it
but the moon's sharp edge cut the cloud like a mill saw. On a hill of
my road, isolated conifers looked down at me; almost like a theater. I
played a song to them, an instrumental on the pathos of my brother's Roger's recent death in my arms. When
I walked along the road further into the forest, I had warrior energy
coating me as I strode, grinning wildly, seeking some trophy beyond the
pair of beer cans I'd picked up. Suddenly, an odd low 'clank' upset my
poised confidence. The hillside trees now seemed to hang over me
hungrily; some strange surging force prickling my back as I
walked/jogged back to the security of my car & western mind set. Morning. Snug in my rabbit's belly.
Did a wind sprint, easy to overexert in the thin higher altitude air!
Puff puff out of shape.. Then off on
the last leg...Zoom into Burns, where after gassing up and discovering
my tire gauge to be 5 lbs off, I ate a breakfast of lima beans while
watching an enormous rail crane atop a great gantry grab mouthfuls of
logs, raise them and slowly move them to another pile. Then I saw the
entire gantry itself was on twenty foot wheels, and moved! As big as
the space shuttle, and high above, a man sat in a glass box running the
giant mechano-beast. On through
magnificent vistas of severe mesas in the distance and suddenly the
Cascades rear their snowy selves in the distance, the final barrier
before the west coast. Through the high desert to Bend,
Oregon, finally.
After fruitlessly searching the Bend library's
newspaper racks for news of the Cathedral Forest Action Group toward
which I was heading, I motored onward into the Cascades. I took the
Middle Santiam route: easy to see why Oregon Earth First! wants to keep
them whole and roadless. For a diversion I went down a narrow
paved road called Jumpoff Joe's, just south of a mountained named Three
finger Jack. It was a one laner with frequent turnouts to let vehicles
by each other. A short distance down, I edged around a stopped logtruck
and a jeep wagoneer with a scowling burly mustachioed fellow in it. I
went down and down the winding road, beeping a warning around the blind
curves. Finally decided to head back to Route 20 and started to turn
when Scowler scowled by in his truck. Then
back up to Jumpoff Joe and down, down, down gorgeous deep forest
valleys into the Willamette Valley. Snow covers the forest floors in
the Middle Santiam in late April. Swaying down the curves of Rte 20
with trucks looming behind you leaves little time for looking at the
depths of the forest beyond quick snatches. Only very occasionally does
a denuded ridge, clearcutters' aftermath, appear. Quite probably they
use the out-of- sight, out-of-mind principle, keeping a vision buffer
of from a few hundred yards to a mile of uncut forest to preserve the
appearance of primeval forest to the traveller speeding by in his car. I
feel daunted by the task: so many millions of dollars and political
power invested in scraping away the Gaia-form and replacing it, if
necessary legally and justified by the profit and loss picture, with a
crude approximation monoculture. What can our poor selves do against the technoid fantasy? Now
that the journey to Oregon Earth First! is essentially ended, I must
enter a new group dynamic, which is often complicated, especially in
the urban milieu. However, the earth first! news article featuring the Cathedral Forest Action Group, that'd inspired me to trek across North America, suggests a different breed of
activist at work, not clinging quite so tightly to inflexible civil
disobedience process as the antinukers back in Seabrook, New Hampshire
and the Live Without Trident! anti-sub set up in Washington state, nor quite as wild as EF! is said to be. A little more ...maneuverability. That's reinforced when I finally reach
the place: comfortably Low Rent wooden frame 2 story house badly in
need of paint, dandelions filling the lawn, a treelined quiet street.
Nobody's home.
Guilded to the place by Donna, a gentlewoman I met at the I-5 exit toward Corvallis, we drove to the Cathedral Forest Action Group office, deep
in the older residential part of town and knocked.
Notes and ecological
exhortations covered the door and foyer. The major note gave a list of potential
occupations one might get involved in: painting, cleaning, finding a
permanent site for the base camp, many other items. I
turned the knob; the door opened. and we were in a cluttered yet neat
office/house, filled with typewriters, stacks and stacks of brochures,
publications, mailings, posters and other organizer stuff. Overall a
feeling of fully engaged hip intelligence...Nobody being around, I left a note and
Donna took me on a brief tour of some of the alternative sites in town:
coffeeshops, bakeries, bars, etc. Then I took her to her farm home and
met Quimby Goat, Mr. Appleby the cat, Jimmy & Marcellus, dogs. I
picked some nettles for dinner. Earth First! The
next day back to Cathedral Forest Action Group HQ, where again, nobody.
My note however, had been amended several times, all of them urging me
to call them. I called the first number, for "Lou", and got Sam who
said he'd meet me at the Beanery, an uptoned coffeeshop hangout favored
by the hipster set. Sam's a
treeplanter by occupation, about to head out into the hills. Sunburned
weathered features, blond beard and longish blond locks with the Oregon
drawl that immediately recalled my old friend Autumn. His enormous
brother from New York was with him at the Beanery. He gave me some
lowdown on the situation, mostly of how the authorities had generally
been busting people at blockades and giving them 5 day jail terms with
30 days suspended as long as they stayed out of the Forest Region in
dispute. Sam wasn't at all into getting any of that. We
chortled together over Ned Ludd's ecotage column in the Earth First!
Journal and Sam told me that Mike Roselle was in town, being a radical
energy rouser. Getting things moving.
Then I went back to Earth First! House and in a few moments Brian came in. Bearded, piercing intelligent stare, gentle yet forceful, I liked him at once. He, and Andy Bortz, were founders of Cathedral Forest Action Group.
After that first greeting and explanations we got down to business. I
have him a list of my skills and he jotted them down and was delighted
by my willingness to do research for him. Brian's a grad student in the
forestry division at OSU. Next Freda
walked in, accompanied by a brace of big fidos. Introductions and all,
and we got into a 3 way chat as they tried filling me in on the local
situation. Good brainstorm session. Freda is slightly pregnant,
beautiful deep brown eyes and the fine complexion of Pacific Northwest
women. I made a list of the
researchables and Brian pointed out the features of important areas on
both a big satellite mosaic of Oregon and a trail map. After watching
an EF! slide show on the Old Growth, which Freda narrated from a
script, we travelled to the post office, then a thriftshop. where I
bought a small wood bowl for eating at the E-House. Back to the house, and further
discussions with Brian on his research topics, then I went to OSU's
library through the throng of students, searched out Willamette
Industries' [major corporate villain in the Santiam tree slaughter]
annual report, xeroxed the list of officers and Board of Directors.
Looking for the corporate interlocks-Willamette Industry and other
megacorps And searched out an article on the company in Barron's
weekly.
After a few hours I went
back, met dark-souled poet Ken and another active person. They'd both
participated in the take over of Montana Senator Melcher's office. We
talked, then went to Squirrels, a bar, got mightily beerified and
discussed the possibility of Melcherizing Les AuCoin, then returned ot the CFAG office
and played guitar and hand drum music till a neighbor appeared, flushed and bright
with nervous tension, who asked that we stop as her 11 year old son was
trying to sleep. Okay, okay.. Sleep.
Morning Ken gets up a little after
me, grumping about the early hour (its 7 am-ish) and prepared a repast
of coarse cut fried taters with red pepper and onions, and eggs.
To the Woods
We'd determined to go to the Middle Santiam today, and Ken Day went to pack
some stuff of his at another location, preparatory to moving out.
Before he returned, Freda, who wanted to brainstorm up some poster
ideas for a Bull Run watershed rally, B.R. being the water source for
most of Portland, Oregon. She came over just minutes after Ken's
return. The two of us still somewhat hungover from the night before,
our brains didn't storm too well. We headed for the hills.
Cruising stonate through Sweet Home, Lebanon and tiny Cascadia. We went
a few hundred yards up the wrong road before heading uphill up Rte
2047, which would take us to within a quarter mile of our destination:
the Cutting Edge, where the forest primeval still was, in an area where
a blockade camp might be set up. As we chugged along, on all sides were
steeply rolling hills, bizarrely shorn of their forests, steep hills,
gentle ones, canyons, all stumps and torn brush.
Right
away we passed one of the company trucks, radio equipped, halted just a
short way into the ex-forest. Its no game, I throught to myself,
shifting into second gear, where I'd be for most of the journey, except
when I had to crawl up or down incredibly steep hills in first, often
only a foot of gravel to the side before precipitous drops down
hundreds of feet of sheer cliff. One certainly tended to drive
conservatively in these parts. Whew. More than once, Ken coughed a
warning as we skittered a bit too quickly along a slope. Some
of the sloping roads covered with jagged cut rock were almost too much
for Red Rabbit, but apart from one time when Ken had to get out, we
passed most of the road with only a couple thwacks to the
undercarriage.
Then we were there. O mystic moment,
stumbling stonedly over the hummocky ex-forest floor, covered with
sun-poisoned undergrowth turning yellow under the suddenly powerful
solar radiation, down to the trees.
I picked a great big one, climbed over the moss-covered dead branches
at its base and Hugged! And became an official old growth treehugger.
Rested that way, face in the papery deeply
cloven bark coating the tree for several minutes, inhaling the mix of bark and traces of the insect, fungi and moss cohabitants. Then when I moved
back, a herd of half a dozen or more elk skittered out of concealment
only ten feet away before stopping only ten yards off. Motioned Ken
over, we both grokked their hesitant beauty and as we stepped around
the Big One, another rearguard elk burst out before us and joined the
others.
We
stomped around in the first quarter mile of forest, checked out the
stream that thundered a short way in and after a while beat a retreat
to the car. It was five oclock and we cursed the fact that we'd brought
no gear with us and headed back in post-stonate silence, stopped for a
few groceries and went back to Earth First! House in Corvallis.
Mary Beth Nearing is back, just out of jail. Quick intelligant eyes, long hair cut short in front and a humorous mouth. So tired, I lest a mass of felafel sitting in a bowl in the kitchen, lay down "for a few minutes" and swoke next morning.
Good brainstorming session with MB, a relentless clear visionary,who, with Brian, is the pragmatic leader to Brian's clear logic. Just out of jail for trespass, she having driven here via the mid Santiam area, she sparks immediacy into the affairs at CFAG, always with a quick empathic grin. She'd fasted in jail: "I always fast in jail. The food is shit anyway, For me though, they were going to organic rice. Didn't work."
Sunday morning. 6:45am Wake up shivering in my inadequate sleeping bag; frost condensed breath as I write. This morn is to be a first, minor confrontation with forest service types: House Creek Campground, site of the CFAG gathering to coalesce ideas and directions for the proposed blockade of the Mid Santiam later in the month of May, has been closed by the park authorities: in order tthat the environmental folk not organize there?
What will we be greeted by? Judging by past actions as related to me, won't be the most friendly...So what? Fuggem. Hanta Yo, y'all.
A central problem for CFAG is discerning ways to increase public awareness of the clearcuttery going on only scant miles from here, and to raise CFAG's visibility. Out of sight, out of mind, you know. I'm trying to make some poster prototypes showing furious animals demanding that responsible humans get off their duffs and and help save the animals' forest homes. A savage looking bear being one, always with the cathedral forests in the background.
Another prototype direction being DEFEND ME - a feminine looking forest filling much of the picture while DEFEND ME is stated as an incontrovertible, bold, singular plea.
...Slowly the CF-ers assemble. It is Sunday and there are plans to spin, ideas to thresh, away form the minutiae and hurly burly of the cities, and House Rock Campground is a sylvan setting on a fine day in May.
I'm ganetic, caffeinated, bacchan. An odd dynamic balance, after sailing up the firry canyons beyond Sweet Home and at first I feel disoriented, prey to the travellers bane, unfamiliarity overload. I take refuge in the source, a spring arising deep inside the very House Rock of the campground, baptizing myself in the primordial waters flowing fom the rear of the cave, where, allegory of allegories, there is light beyond the source of H2O as though suggesting the steady state theory of cosmogenesis.
I start to feel the arrival of others, of fellow travelers in the eco-parade. I know but a few: MB, Ken, Brian, all near the core of matters; Freda and Lou, slightly more distant orbits near personal foci; Leo, met briefly, reminding me of Legolas, tall, strong, blond, cleanshaven, long-locked Elf King or crown prince, intelligent empath.
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