Last days at the Oregon Coast Tidepools and Forests and a Ghost Story

See the story below for the names of all these wondrous creatures.

 Great Ancient Giants Oregon's Islands

River Lighthouse at Bullards Beach

The Last Days along the Oregon Coast (Cape Lookout to Humbug Mountain Beach State Parks

A Pacific NW Ghost Story

The year is sometime in the last part of the 19^thCentury, the small Tidewater Crow sat on a cliff overlooking waves hitting the rocks jutting out from water below a bay. She didn’t know the name of the bay, the rocks or the cliff; the rainforest which crept onto the cliff was her home, but she like to venture out on the edge and soar above the cliff whenever a storm was brewing.

She lived in a huge twin cedar nurse tree in a tiny niche high in the branches; the two trees were connected by roots which grew into each other.  It was her retreat where she raised her young and escaped predators. A nurse tree is very special, it gives life to other life. She was not alone in her roost but others of her kind flocked nearby in what is called a murder of crows.

After a storm Tidewater Crow always found good things to scavenge along the sandy beach; some of things were food, some of the things were baubles for her nest. She knew that some of the baubles came from ships sunken at the end of their journey across the seas from the orient.

Tidewater Crow watched a little child looking in the Tidepools.  She wanted to warn the child to watch for the waves as a storm would bring much stronger and larger waves, but her kind had lost the ability to talk to humans thousands of years ago. Her squawking could not even be heard above the crashing of the waves.  She knew the Tidepools to be alive with orange bright ochre sea stars, red sunflower stars, green and pink anemones, hermit crabs, black leather chitins, mussels, gooseneck barnacles and black turban snails, but they couldn’t talk either and say to the little child, ”Hang on tight like we do.” Being intelligent like all crows, she knew that waves were alive as well but the controlled by the Storm, the Wind and how high they came ashore was controlled by the Moon. Waves had no ability to fly like her in any direction.  They could only move the way they were directed. So she worried about the little child. What was he looking for?

The sky became darker, the wind and waves higher and stronger and a great crash swooped the child off his feet into the surf.  Crow could not see the little child anymore who must have been swept out to the ocean or bashed into the rocks.  The little child she knew did not have the ability to swim under the water like her friends the whales. 

Tidewater Crow made a sad caw and cried salty tears.  She mourned her inability to warn the little child. She retreated to her niche as the storm grew louder and the wind stronger.

The next day was sunny and bright in the afternoon. The storm had left everything glistening with water.  And Tidewater Crow went down to the cliffs and saw to her delight and surprise the little child again. “How did you survive?” ask the Crow in her mind.

The little child spoke and Tidewater Crow almost fell off her branch that edged out over the cliff. “I can hear anything alive if it talks to me sometimes,” laughed the little child.   The storm was too loud if you tried to talk to me yesterday.  I was happiest here where my mother and father were happiest so I came back here to play in the Waves and wade in the Tidepools. My mother is here as well, see her over there watching me.

Tidewater Crow saw a small woman in deerskin dress, her hair was braided with blue and red beads.

“We live among the People …they don’t know we are here because we are ghosts, said the child, and that is why I survived.  I could not die because we both died years ago. I wish we could warn them of what will happen in another 5-100 years. The white man will come more in numbers and cut down the greatest trees, hunt the elk, ermine, and bear and fish the sea taking more of the life than they need. I know this because I traded with them along this coast in my adulthood. I was educated by them and lost myself for a while, being as greedy as them. The lumbering has just started but is going to continue and the rainforests will start to dwindle.  There will be no place for the People and they will be treated unkindly by the white man. But there are a few who will work for another 100 years and save what they can. I looked in the Tidepools now for changes. Could you learn the way to talk to them again to warn them, I am but a ghost and can’t cross the divide, but you are alive?

Tidewater Crow made a sad caw. “No she said, I can’t warn the People or the white man either; they will have to learn from their mistakes and they will.”

Note from Stefani:  Can you guess who is the little boy and Native woman?  Sacagawea and her son Jean Baptiste Charboneau’s story is so unique and sad in many ways.  Without her Lewis and Clarke’s mission would have been a failure. Lewis and Clarke took Charboneau on as a translator because Sacagawea (one of his two wives) was pregnant and that would show the Native Americans they met that their exploration mission was a peaceful one. At the end of the mission Clarke convinced Sacagawea and her husband to leave their young son with him while they went back to live with Hadasita. Clarke was good to him, but the boy never really learned about his own traditions from his mother.

We camped in many places along Oregon’s fascinating 362 mile coastline which at first glance reminded us of the beaches at home, but then looking again you saw wonderous islands of rocks.  Our favorites for hiking and the beach were Cape Lookout and Humbug Mountain which had Tidepools, a Mountain Trail covered in shamrocks and ferns and Stream falling to the ocean).  We liked for biking South Beach and Bullards.  Bullards the best because it was near Bandon which is near nice Wildlife Refuges (Simpson Reef-the island rocks where seals and sea lions loft around-Bandon Marsh- a birder’s paradise, Oregon Islands NWR-tall high islands that reminded of us whales and ancient giants), a nice lighthouse and you couldn’t hear the fog horn.

 You will note I am capitalizing what most English teachers would frown about, but there is a reason.  I have come to believe like many Native Americans that most of this wonderous Earth is alive. All along the coast you can see where the forests have been lumbered.  I don't understand why clear cutting is still allowed?  Well, I have hope someday soon we will learn.

Hope you like the all the photos.  Next stop Crater Lake, Oregon and Volcano Lands.