Elk Rock Island
I stood atop the western edge of Elk Rock Island and watched a green Willamette River drift by below me. Across the channel, some of the most expensive and exclusive residences in Oregon stared at me. What goes on in these mansions? I'll never know.
It was a cold weekday morning. It was my first visit to this superb natural area hidden inside urban civilization, miraculously preserved decades ago because an Oregonian donated the land to the state with the stipulation it could never be developed.
I'd already walked a mile to reach the island and encountered only four octogenarian hikers, five squirrels, four geese, and not a single piece of trash.
There was absolutely nothing pressing to do, except, of course, witnessing the ongoing disintegration of civility and decency in American life. That's not much of a pastime, so I wanted to go into nature for a break.
So explore Elk Rock Island I did. I took trails and avoided poison oak. I inspected the charred evidence of the fire that ripped through her in 2020 and closed the park for a year. I saw the beginnings of a driftwood fort. City kids were making forts! I was thrilled. As Gandalf once said, “Hope is kindled.”
An hour or so passed and I had emptied my mind to all but the trees and rivers. I thought I'd seen a sea lion undulating upriver to Willamette Falls to piss off the fishermen by eating their fake hatchery fish and prompting the fishermen label them “greedy.”
Nothing human had interrupted me except the pleasant sight a woman tossing sticks into the channel for her burly black dog to retrieve.
I rounded a turn on the trail and looked up to a grove of maples and Doug firs that graced the very top of the island. The entire grove was surrounded by Oregon grape and poison oak.
Then I SAW IT: A lone orange tent and 50 feet away, a canopy staked out over a lone blue tent. A few feet away, rested two collapsible lawn chairs decorated with University of Oregon corporate logos.
Goddammit! Can't these dumb shits at least camouflage the encampment? There was loose brush and branches all around. That's Natty Bumppo, B Western and Cub Scout 101.
I was:
Pissed...fucking pissed.
Catapulted out of nature and back into the American shit.
I didn't want to see this, right then and now, or ever in a place like this unless it's the end of the world. It was pollution, physical and mental.
It occurred to me as I watched the mini encampment, that this was the first time since writing about the New American Diaspora that I was truly angry at the actions of the homeless. They could have their streets and underpasses and sidewalks, but not the top of Elk Rock Island, or Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, or the riparian areas along Johnson and Crystal Springs creeks. Why was that? They could defecate on the cities but not in the watersheds, was that it? Fuck up the businesses but not my beavers and waterfowl!
Everything is connected. I know that. But I didn't want it to connect this morning.
I stood there thinking. I wondered if I should investigate? Yes, I should. What would I say to the residents should we meet? I had no idea.
A reconnoiter was called for, so I reconnoitered, and discovered a narrow path through Oregon grape and poison oak, over a downed log, that led into the encampment. I took it.
The area was completely devoid of trash. Both tents were zippered shut. I heard no voices. There was no extra gear anywhere or provision like water or propane. The encampment has the unmistakable vibe of being abandoned.
I thought about calling out. I thought about knocking, but how does one knock on a tent?
My mind was roiling. I didn't knock and left. Then I stopped and ignored Bob Dylan's immortal advice: don't look back. I could break down the tents and canopy in ten minutes. I could bundle it and the canopy together with fabric. I could rig up a travois from a collapsed lean-to nearby and haul all the shit, including the chairs, off the island. DIY. Vigilante community service. Cleanup complete. No posted warnings. No cops. Direct action. Out, out of this damned spot! Draconian? Cruel? A violation of privacy on a public space? Is there such a thing?
I didn't do it. Maybe I'd pull a General MacArthur later, maybe with a confederate, maybe make a novel date out of it.
I turned around and left Elk Rock Island, my mind filled with thoughts, again, always, of the New American Diaspora, the very thoughts I hoped to have purged temporarily.
But they cannot be purged. The library or the national forest. The grocery store or a port. Early morning walks. Late night dreams. By the shore of a lake or in the parking lot of a wellness center. Breakfast joints or churches. The river or the record store. I'm thinking of Miles Davis or I hear Metallica from inside a tent. Heaven or hell and everywhere in between.