Wilderness

A few nights ago we watched the movie "Monumental: David Brower's Fight for Wild America",  released in 2005. It was one of the most inspiring documentaries I have ever seen.  It reminded me that there is so much I don't know about the history of the wilderness preservation movement in my country. There have been decades, centuries, of passionate work which happened long before I, this tree-hugger-hippie child, was even born.  I call myself that tongue in cheek of course, just to make light of the fact that each generation seems to carry the perspective that we create the world we know.

It is an auspicious time to be celebrating wilderness, as the fall equinox has just passed, the harvest is in full swing, the air smells like warm flowers, ripe fruit, dry grass... what else? Memories?

While I am out blackberry picking other years come back to me. I can hear the school bus coming down the road carrying my boys home. I am out in the patch near the house, picking into my big tupperware bowl. They climb off the bus, and wave to me, maybe walk over and pick up an apple off the ground to eat for snack. We had eight old apple trees which always bore every year in the rich aluvial soil of the Elwha River Valley.

David Brower would be elated to know that the Elwha dams, both of them are in the initial process of removal. Twenty years ago I was involved in testimony concerning the community impacted by those dams, as they were directly above our home, and a failure could have been catastrophic. Yet, the very worst aspect of them was that they destroyed an incredibly large salmon habitat. The Indians were wronged immeasurably by their construction.
It seemed like a long shot that we could secure a government decision to remove them. There was a crack in one of the dams, and it was up for being recertified according to safety standards. It could not be certified to codes, and it could not feasibly be repaired.  The time to start the process of lobbying for it's removal was seized.  Twenty years later, removal begins. It has taken this long, and I thank those who stayed with the process. Maybe in our lifetime we will see the return of the legendary "Elwha King" salmon. I dream about that fish, even though I only know it through stories my Indian neighbors told me.

I will go out to pick more berries, to make the seedless jam again, remembering when it was for the kids' peanut butter and jelly lunch sandwiches. I can still bring them jam, even though we are all in different homes now. We remember the Elwha, and watch the news unfold. The largest dam removal project ever undertaken,  a reason to celebrate the equinox.