Pacific Northwest summer travels: crows, salmon, transit and more
Hello friends,
Welcome to my little newsletter. I am not quite sure what this is going to turn into yet but for now my goal is to share thoughts on the various topics I am interested in. These include subjects like geography, ecology, gardening, art, transportation and cities. I will also use this space to let people know what I am up to!
Writing a newsletter is part of a larger goal to have the internet be a place for creative expression rather than just consumption of whatever the algorithm throws at me. We will see how it goes!
Sara and I spent a week in Oregon last month. I always enjoy visiting the Pacific Northwest in the summer (as long as there aren’t wildfires nearby). The weather is cool and sunny and everyone wants to be outside all of time. I lived in the Portland area when I was a young so it is always nice to go back and visit.
We spent a few days on the Oregon coast in the Manzanita, a small town of around 600 people. The air was cool there with high of around 18 C. It was a welcome break from the southern summer. We hiked along the mountainous coastline which had spectacular cliffs and old growth conifers. On the trail we encountered many species of birds that I had never seen before (outside of the board game Wingspan!) including Stellar's Jay, Swainson's Thrush, chestnut-backed chickadee, red crossbill, and a violet-green swallow. We also saw a bald eagle perched on a rocky cliff. In the evening, we could walk down to the beach and have a glass of locally grown pinot noir from a winery. It was a very lovely place to spend a few days.
The view of the Pacific Ocean from Ecola State Park
Cape Falcon in Oswald West State park
Salmon Forests:
One of the main reasons I love visiting the Pacific Northwest is the beauty of the forests in the region. These lush ecosystems are partly a result of the salmon's role in connecting land and sea.
Each year, throughout the Pacific Northwest salmon make the journey from the ocean upstream to their spawning grounds. Because salmon spend most of their life feeding in the ocean waters their bodies are in rich in the nutrients that the ocean provides such as nitrogen and phosphorus. When a salmon swims up river, not all of them make it because hungry bears are often waiting. In fact, bears are considered ecosystem engineers because when they catch a salmon they will bring the fish from the river into the forest to eat. The decaying salmon's body will then enter the soil and provide nutrients to the trees. These nutrients are a major reason why the trees in this region grow so tall.
This relationship is circular, as healthy ecosystems are, in that the trees that are fertilized by dead salmon are then able to provide shade and shelter for more salmon to journey upstream.
Salmon require unobstructed rivers in order to reach their spawning grounds, but many rivers in the Pacific Northwest have been dammed. This is why removing dams and giving land back to indigenous people is so important to the health of these ecosystems. A beautiful example of that is here.
I would reccomend reading this article if you're interested in reading more about how salmon relate to the health of pacific northwest forests.
Transit and bikes:
We next spent a long weekend in downtown Portland at a hotel located near multiple light rail lines. This gave us the ability to travel to neighborhoods all over the city. Being in nature and hiking is one of my favorite things in the world, but there is something really relaxing about being able to go a few days without having to be in a car.
On Friday night, we took the light rail out to a neighborhood in southeast Portland and stopped at a brewery for dinner. The brewery had dozens of bikes parked outside. Afterward we explored the neighborhood and were able to take bus rapid transit (BRT) back to the hotel. The bus line had 12 minute headways, impressive bus shelters at each stop and signal prioritization. All of this made for a fast and stress-free trip back to the hotel.
Obviously there are still a lot of gaps in Portland's transit system, but to enjoy an evening so easily without a car was a really wonderful experience. I think people underestimate how much living in a city or neighborhood that doesn’t require a car can improve one's overall well-being. This is one of the argument mades by the book Happy City, which I read about 10 years ago. The ideas in the book still stick with me.
Ten years ago was also when I initially got into urbanism, public transit and biking. At the time, I was only a few years out of grad school where I had done research on road design and pedestrian safety. I had also recently started doing transportation research as my job full time. In my leisure time, I sometimes volunteered for the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition's bike valet at neighborhood festivals and joined group bike rides like the mobile social.
All of this had made me feel passionate and optimistic about the future of transportation in our cities. Over the years however, this feeling has dissipated as infrastructure investments in Atlanta such as MARTA expansion and new bike lanes have not yet lived up to their initial promises.
Visiting Portland was a reminder that even midsize American cities can make transit systems and bike networks that help people more easily live without a car. I will note that it does help that the state government in Oregon actually funds their public transit system, unlike Georgia.
Since funding for transit and bike infrastructure is increasingly hard to obtain right now, it is even more essential for us to advocate for these projects. They can make our cities safer, provide an affordable way to travel, improve our collective well-being and help the climate.
A Friday group ride rolling through SE Portland
Hanging out at a brewery surrounded by bicycles
Urban Crows:
The main attraction of the weekend in Portland was Project Pabst. A music festival in a park on the downtown waterfront. Some bands we enjoyed included Japanese Breakfast, Wednesday, Gustaf, Built to Spill and Devo.
An unexpected highlight of the festival happened in the evenings around sunset. Over the course of about an hour, hundreds and hundreds of crows flew west over the Willamette river to roost for the night.
I have been sitting with a lot of climate grief this last year after Hurricane Helene and the wildfires in Los Angeles. I may write about this subject more in the future, but Western Carolina is a place I have visited many times over the last 15 years. It is a region that really means a lot to me and it was devastating to see the storm's impact on communities. This is a stark reminder of just how precarious and out of balance things feel right now.
Something that has grounded me in the face of this anxiety and grief is noticing all the positive ways that we can relate with the living world. This initially stemmed from my experience gardening and seeing how what we plant can also provide habitat and food for moths, bees, butterflies and birds.
I had a similar feeling seeing all the crows flying together and making a home in an urban environment. I was reminded that it is possible to inhabit this world with other living beings and maybe all thrive together.
If you're interested in learning more about Portland's urban crows, I would recommend checking out this website
Crows flying across the Willamette river. Death Cab for Cutie was playing their set while they flew overhead which felt pretty surreal. I mean look at the Transatlanticism album cover!
Other things I have enjoyed lately:
- Is A River Alive? by Robert MacFarlane. If the topic of salmon’s relationship with rivers and forests interested you then I would recommend this book. The book discusses the rights of nature and efforts to protect rivers around the world.
- Chanterelles! This rainy summer has made it so that we have been able to forage them pretty regularly. A highlight was making chanterelle pizzas using an outdoor pizza oven!
- Biking to legacy park and walking around the lake. There are so many wildflowers in bloom there right now.
- The double rainbow I saw last week.
- Japanese Breakfast was a highlight at Project Pabst and I have been listening to this song a lot since.
- If climate grief is a feeling that you can relate to then I would definitely recommend Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy. It gave me all the feels.
- August is when elderberries are ripe in the south so this song was on repeat.
- Game Changer on Dropout has been my favorite show lately. I would highly recommend if you're like me and enjoy silly games and laughing.
Miscellaneous pictures
I wish I could have gone on this group ride
Vern
A mural in the Goose Hollow neighborhood. More info can be found here
double rainbow!
A hike earlier this summer on the AT near Helen
Bird Island Nature Reserve, NC
Talk to you soon,
<3 Derek