God bless the beasts and the children

Oregon or the Grave!

FFeet up, windows down, the sky above us stretched out in blues and pinks –is it possible to see into the future? It seems possible with a sky like that. Due east, Devendra Banhart! Take me there with your trilling voice, my Lord.

The Columbia river starts in British Columbia and rushes southward to the Pacific, delineating Washington from Oregon along the way. For eighty miles between The Dalles and Boardman, OR, it runs along I-84, a smooth stretch of road that rocked me gently to sleep. This interstate is also known as the Old Oregon Trail Highway 6, and on it we moved directly against the flow of history as we headed east. I imagined passing by remnants of The Peoria Party, with their flag proclaiming “Oregon or the Grave!”, followed by weary Elm Grove families in covered wagons. In 1848, someone found gold in California. Hundreds of thousands joined the westward migration, borne along by the mighty Columbia.

In the 1840’s there flourished an energetic certainty that the US was destined –even preordained –to expand across the continent. This concept of “Manifest Destiny” was used to advocate for or justify our acquisition of new territories. In the famous 1872 painting by John Gast, a goddess-like Columbia, representing America, leads settlers westward; she is stringing telegraph wire and carrying school books. A closer look reveals that the bison and Native Americans flee before her seemingly angelic visage.

In today’s world, the idea of a God-granted duty to change or displace other people seems childish; in my world it’s an outright farce. But I do confess an attraction to the idea of Destiny. I suppose this makes me religious in the sense that “destiny” implies a natural order to the universe. So much of our religious feeling, it seems, comes from the dueling emotions of fear (of chaos) and yearning (for order). Old religions always have a method of divination, don’t they, a way for us to peer into the order of things: bones thrown, arrows tossed, tea leaves spread onto a wooden tray. Out of this random chaos comes order, or at least that’s what the numerologist says before taking your money.

I often wonder what my destiny is. Is it a “sealed fate”, or do I get to participate? Is there a cover charge at the door? I don’t want so much, really. To eat just enough, to hear quiet music nearby, to have good friends and see them healthy and loved by others…

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At the Bagby Hot Springs

TThe Bagby Hot Springs are located in the Mount Hood National Forest, approximately sixty-seven miles southeast of Portland. Long used by native americans, they were named after Bob Bagby, a hunter and prospector who stumbled upon them in 1880. A bathhouse was built in 1920, but it was destroyed by an unattended candle in ‘79. Today, The US Forest Service maintains three bathhouses with the help of volunteers who live on-site.

Despite what the internet says about the Springs being “easy to locate,” we found ourselves winding up and down about twenty forest roads, some with paper plate signs (one of them saying, simply, “Mother”), until stumbling –like Bagby himself –onto the trailhead. It’s a 1.5 mile hike to the Springs. With our tent, food and clothes on our backs, we searched for the fabled Bagby campsite, about a quarter-mile past the baths. The topo map we had was useless, and after an hour of hiking we decided to make camp in a level clearing by a stream. Kate made an excellent fire, I roasted broccoli on a stick. Have you seen this movie? It captures the Babgy Springs perfectly:

When I was a kid, one my my earliest heroes was Grizzly Adams, from the TV show. He had left civilisation for the wilderness (something about being wanted for a murder he didn’t commit) and enjoyed a nigh-telepathic bond with animals. His demeanor was always gentle, thoughtful, and he looked vaguely like Kenny Rogers, another icon of my childhood. I had fantasies of running away into the woods, subsisting on plants and fungi, and, like ‘ol Grizzly himself, communing with the creatures. The television series lasted two seasons, just enough time for the transformation to take place: on the outside, I still looked like a little girl, but on the inside…I was…JUNIOR GRIZZLY! Of course, the real James “Grizzly” Adams was a deadbeat dad who trapped wild animals and sold them to PT Barnum’s Traveling Show. In the seventies, that would have made an unpopular show.

Kate and I woke early the next morning to break camp and make it to the baths before anyone else. It was a chilly monday morning; the likelihood of people visiting the Springs at this hour was low, and we hadn’t seen any other campers. Of course, being women, we constantly have to make concessions to our sex and consider the risks in any given situation. We know where our codiac mace is at all times. But Junior Grizzly does not like having to make concessions. She would rather take a few (calculated and juicy) risks and lose from time to time, than live a caged life. Whose world is this, anyhow?

Laying in a hollowed-out cedar log, steam rising into the cold morning air, I tilted my head to hear the chirp-chirp of Oregon birds. “This forest is a cathedral,” I thought. I looked at Kate, who had fallen back into her log so that only her bent knees showed. Even her knees are beautiful. Kate says that she is an ugly woman, but I know in my heart that’s not true. Her words, her thoughts, her smile, her shoulders in the sun. It is simply not true.

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