Oregon's Wilderness Footprint
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Oregon Wild Winter-Spring 2014 Volume 41, Number 1 Happy 50th to Wilderness AND AN OREGON LEGACY 1 Winter-Spring 2014 Volume 41, Number 1 Working to protect and restore Oregon’s wildlands, wildlife, and waters as an enduring legacy for future generations. Main Office Western Field Office INSIDE THIS ISSUE 5825 N Greeley Avenue Portland, OR 97217 P.O. Box 11648 Eugene, OR 97440 Phone: 503.283.6343 Fax: 503.283.0756 454 Willamette, Suite 203 Here’s to the preservation of the world {4-7} www.oregonwild.org Phone 541.344.0675 Fax: 541.343.0996 The e-mail address for each Oregon Wild Conservation & Restoration Coord. Doug Heiken x 1 Keeping it Wild: Volunteers of the Year {12} staff member: [email protected] Old Growth Campaign Coordinator Chandra LeGue x 2 (for example: [email protected]) Hornets, bourbon, and other reflections {15} Membership Associate Marielle Cowdin x 213 Eastern Field Office Wilderness Coordinator Erik Fernandez x 202 16 NW Kansas Avenue, Bend, OR 97701 Phone: 541.382.2616 Fax: 541.385.3370 Director of Finance & Admin. Candice Guth x 219 Communications & Outreach Tommy Hough x 223 Eastern OR Development Director Jonathan Jelen x 224 Wildlands Advocate Tim Lillebo Wildlands & Wildlife Advocate Rob Klavins x 210 coVer photo: ben canales Crater Lake National Park is an Oregon gem. Conservation Director Steve Pedery x 214 Southern Field Office But to ensure its protection, along with hundreds of other wild areas that give our state its character, we must make 2014 the Year of Wilderness. Klamath Advocate Quinn Read x 226 P.O. Box 1923 Brookings, OR 97415 Phone: 541.366.8623 Executive Director Sean Stevens x 211 Wildlands Interpreter Wendell Wood Oregon Wild Board of Directors Daniel Robertson, President Brett Sommermeyer, VIce President Pat Clancy, Treasurer Vik Anantha, Secretary Megan Gibb www.facebook.com/OregonWild Leslie Logan Patrick Proctor William Sullivan @oregonwild Jan Wilson Oregon Wild is a tax-exempt, non-profit charitable organization. Newsletter printed on New Leaf 100% recycled, 50% post-consumer, FSC certified paper with soy based inks. Oregon Wild is printed locally by Environmental Paper and Print, an Oregon Wild donor and business partner. Winter-Spring 2014 Volume 41, Number 1 2 From the Director’s Desk Keeping time in the Wilderness Sean Stevens, Executive Director ive decades doesn’t seem like much for anthropocentric definition, calling it, “an Oregon Wild in 2014, we have plenty to an 800-year old cedar. For a river that’s area where the earth and its community of celebrate. We’ll celebrate like humans do beenF carving a canyon for millions of years, life are untrammeled by man” (maybe – parties, telling stories, and giving thanks a half-century goes by in a blink. Congress knew that women had a lighter to the dedication of so many. Personally, I touch on the land). will remember that any good anniversary But, for us humans, fifty years is a long time. must be equal parts celebration of the past Two generations. More than half a life. In essence, Wilderness is better off without and recommitment to the future. In other us – and our chainsaws, oil derricks, The disparity in the way we experience time words, Oregon Wild isn’t done yet – not by concrete dams, and bulldozers. Yet, even as a long shot. compared to how the natural world around we try to define Wilderness as apart from us does is profound. It reminds me that us, it is the connection we feel to these As for the wilderness itself (areas already human efforts to define wilderness are special places that inspires us to work to protected or waiting for their day in inherently confounding endeavors. protect them. Congress), the celebration will be muted. At different times in human history We’d like to think that the wolf howls and Without this deep love of the wild, a rag tag the owl hoots will be a little louder in 2014 wilderness has been: a dangerous place group of students and activists would not waiting to be tamed; a bounty existing to be – that the mountains will shine a little have gathered forty years ago to form the brighter in the winter sun. In reality, the exploited; and a haven for solitude and group that would become Oregon Wild. We adventure seekers. It has also always been river will keep cutting through the canyon, wouldn’t have been able to protect almost tree rings will form at the same pace, and defined more in relation to how humans two million acres of Wilderness – from the treat it than for what it actually is. each living thing will fight for survival North Fork John Day to the Sky Lakes unaware of the occasion. Fifty years ago, when Americans demanded Wilderness. We wouldn’t have saved the last protections for what was left of our pristine of Oregon’s old-growth before it was all lost The celebrations are good for now, but the public lands, Congress responded by to the chainsaw. Wilderness is forever. enacting the 1964 Wilderness Act. They With the 50th anniversary of the gave Wilderness (with a capital W) a very Wilderness Act and the 40th anniversary of Carla AXtman Niagara County Park 3 Winter-Spring 2014 Volume 41, Number 1 Here’s to the preservation of the world – a happy 50th to Wilderness Marielle Cowdin, Membership Associate “Peace will come to the hearts of men already knew the Indian paintbrush, Audubon looming above. With each when they realize their oneness with the my grandmother’s favorite. As we challenging step I began to relish the universe. It is everywhere.” meandered through the old-growth fact that I was transforming into a – Black Elk pines in Colorado’s Indian Peaks tiny speck. Perhaps I’d turn invisible. Wilderness, I thought about ast July, I found myself in mountain lions and black bears. We Winded and wind-burned, I Oregon’s Eagle Cap on a solo started at high elevation and reached scrambled up the final boulder field. trek.L I’m generally not a morning tree line quickly, greeted by the My muscles ached and it took me a person, but on this particular day I strong, icy breeze of the alpine few moments to fully grasp my was compelled to break camp for an tundra. The tiny and delicate flora surroundings, but a breathtaking early morning trail run along that hid nestled around each rock panorama all at once unfolded. Hurricane Creek. I checked my watch held my attention at each switchback Colorado’s Continental Divide is a - 7:30 A.M. - but the sun seemed and I could see the top of Mount true wonder of the natural world, a high. As I started up the trail the formidable ocean of undulating rock hush made me feel I had discovered nature’s morning ritual, and I feared somehow my presence would disturb the quiet sequence of events. But I carried on, splashed through an icy creek and tried my best to run nimbly through the woods and across the meadows. The stillness was both peaceful and unnerving. Pausing for a breath, I admired the swath of Indian paintbrush at my feet. It beckoned like a soft bed of vermilion and for a moment I wasn’t in Oregon anymore. I was back where Wilderness first took hold of me… I was fourteen. My mother pointed US forest serVice Khristian Snyder Wildflower meadow Eagle Cap circa 1900. out the wildflowers and medicinal in the Three Sisters Wilderness. plants by their scientific names, but I Winter-Spring 2014 Volume 41, Number 1 4 and snow stretching into infinity. I inspires us, and the stage on which all against the current of industrial realized I had completed my first life begins, ends, and finds peace. growth and private interests – the Put on your Wilderness party hat! 13,000-foot summit and I hardly felt Wilderness is the core of everything winning battles fought make the October (TBD) attached to the ground. In truth I was living, and still, is so much more. Wilderness won all the more sweet. Call of the Wild annual benefit a bit nervous that the wind would As we enter 2014, we deserve to savor (Portland) pick me up and send me hurtling Before I could walk, my parents hiked half a century of protections, enjoy Whether you can make it out to through the space below like a rogue Colorado’s rugged wildlands with me our wilderness in the coming year strapped to their backs and the sweet these special events or not, we balloon, but feeling all at once (see sidebar), and reflect on how it want to hear from you! powerful and completely powerless smell of Ponderosa has been the smell came to be. Former board of home ever since. As I’ve continued member Jim We know that each of you has a was exhilarating. Baker enjoys exploring the wild, I’ve felt the The Wilderness Act of 1964 set a an early Oregon special connection to our Wilderness is… satisfaction that comes from hardship, precedent for our relationship with Wild celebration. Wilderness landscape that can be from struggle and perseverance; the the American landscape. It expressed in many ways. Please As a concept, wilderness manifests so For the 50th anniversary of the send us: richness of food, the sweetness of established the National Wilderness many things. Wilderness is adventure. Wilderness Act and the 40th water; the energy that circulates from Preservation System, initially • Stories about your favorite Wilderness is art – it is poetry and anniversary of Oregon Wild, we’ve air to lungs, sun to eyes, earth to toes; protecting 9.1 million acres of federal Wilderness experiences (and let music, prose and paintings.