Archive for the ‘Winter in Oysterville’ Category

Calling all fishers with tales to tell!

Tuesday, February 13th, 2024

A story waiting to be told!

The March 6th History Forum will be taking a look at fishing in Pacific County — fresh water, saltwater, by lines and nets and baskets and traps from the traditions of  our local Chinooks to the development of the commercial and sports fishing that we know today.  Hopefully, we’ll take a look at the changes in processing and conservation, as well. This is an “All-Call” to any and all who have stories to tell and memories to share about an industry and an avocation that touches all of us who live in Pacific County.

Fishing on Sand Island

Wrote Lucile McDonald in her Coast Country (Binfords & Mort, 1966):  “The Chinooks carried on trade in dried salmon, sturgeon, smelt, and seal meat taken from their own waters; dentalium shells from the Strait of Juan de Fuca; dried shellfish, strung on sticks, from Willapa Bay… The men fashioned the cedar-log canoes and the women dried berries and blubber.  To this day Pacific County is noted for some of these products — salmon, oysters, and cranberries;, and ‘chinook’ is a well-known word to Western fisherman.”

But, how have the old ways changed over the years — for the Chinooks and for the settlers who began arriving in the 1850s?  (And, I can’t help adding. as I consider all of the new construction in our area:  the “settlers” are still arriving.)   There are among us, fishers whose parents and grandparents were also fishers. and who have grown up with the stories of the past and, perhaps, struggled with the changes in this traditional, yet viable and ever-evolving industry.  I do so hope we can get a few to come to our History Forum to share their stories.

At First Salmon Ceremony 2023

Please help spread the word!  Invite the fishers you know to join us on the first Wednesday of March  — from 10 to 12 at the Oysterville Schoolhouse.  Perhaps they remember the Salmon Derbies that took place from 1948 through the late ’50s at Derbyville near McGowan.  Or maybe you were one of the lucky Ocean Beach High School kids who worked at the hatchery in Chinook.  Or maybe you know someone who is a devoted fisher along the banks of Black Lake or perhaps a retired gillnetter or an avid sports fisherman.  Or maybe you know someone who works for Fish and Game who could add their part of the picture.

Thus far,  award-winning author Irene Martin of Skamokawa plans to join us, hopefully with her husband Kent who is a fourth-generation Columbia River gillnetter.  The two of them fished together in Alaska, the Columbia River, and Willapa Bay for over forty years.  Kent is a fourth-generation Columbia  River gillnetter.  I can’t wait to hear their stories.  And as many others as we can gather ’round!  Mark your calendar and talk it up!

 

Grief Therapy? Try working on your income tax!

Monday, February 12th, 2024

February 12, 2024

Published in 1998 “Thank you for giving Lottie a home,” the letter said.

“They” say the grieving process can take two years or more.  Some say there are five stages to get through.  Some say there are seven.  And dealing with a suicide, they say, is different.  No one talks about a double suicide, perhaps as many as ten years in the planning, to be done when both parties were “at the top of their game” and “in the peak of health” with everything pre-arranged right down to leaving their home to their cat-sitter so the cats would have the security of a home they had known for years.  And the provision for friends — a letter mailed to arrive after it was all a done deal.  My letter began, “Dear Sydney, It’s time to say goodbye.” Followed by a few thank yous for shared good times and favors.  Handwritten on a page from a lined yellow note pad.  Two signatures.  Over and out.  No forewarning — not ever.

Birthday Visitors- August 2017

Depending on whose list you look at, the first stage in grieving should be “shock” or “denial.”  Sorry.  Once again, I don’t fit the mold.  My reaction was anger pure and simple.  It still is — with quite a dollop of bitterness.  All I could/can think about is what a selfish, uncaring thing to do.  And why did they tell Nyel (and me) so many times that they admired how we dealt with his years of illness and injury?  Admired us?  Or thought we were examples of what they chose not to deal with?  Certainly we weren’t “the role models” they said we were.  They were liars.  Frauds.  Not the good friends we thought they were.

On Two Legs with Michael and Petra, 2014

Still… I’m trying to cut them a little slack.  Perhaps they didn’t truly believe (though they said they did) that we are all connected — that our lives and the way we live them are intertwined on this earth — that we need one another and that faith and charity and all the rest of it can only be expressed with and to the rest of humanity.  How selfish to check out when they were in their prime, flipping off those of us who loved them.  Yes, I’m angry.  I doubt that I’ll ever move past that.

Or, actually, maybe I have already done so — if there’s a stage of grief called irony.  When the letter arrived, I had just begun to pull together all those pieces of “stuff” that I need to send my CPA.  Yes!  It’s income tax time and as I work on it I wonder if that was one of the many things they “took care of” before they checked out. Or did they just blow off that responsibility along with their friendships?  Was their grand gesture just a giant copout?  (If you are tempted to answer… don’t.)  We were good friends (or so I thought) for a quarter of a century and for almost half that time they were secretly planning their time “to say goodbye.”

Unconscionable.

Standing Room Only Tonight in Ilwaco!

Saturday, February 10th, 2024

Joel Underwood

When you’re one of the shorter ones, it’s hard to see everybody in an SRO crowd but, even so, it seemed like everyone I knew was at the Joel Underwood concert tonight in Ilwaco.  The event was a benefit for the Ilwaco crabbers whose crab pots were lost and whose livelihoods were threatened in the devastating fire at the Ilwaco Landing two weeks ago — just days before their season was to open.

The concert was held at the River City Playhouse in Ilwaco, the venue arranged for and organized by Sue and Bill Svendsen of the Performing Arts Center, Long Beach.  And although it was billed as a Joel Underwood Concert, four other musicians joined him on stage during the course of the evening. “I gave each of them a call,” said Joel, “and each of them said ‘yes’ before I finished asking!”

The communities of the Peninsula (and beyond) were well represented  — scores of people there to support the crabbers and to hear Joel’s amazing music.  We weren’t expecting bonus musicians and the enthusiasm increased (which seemed impossible) as each additional player came onstage.  Steve Frost, Daryl Beau, Barney Petrine, and Don King each played, sometimes singly and sometimes with Joel and, finally, in a grand finale, they all played together!  Wow!

Left to Right: Don King, Barney Petrine, Joel Underwood, Daryl Beau, Steve Frost

And, of course, Joel saw to it that the audience also got into the act.  We sang, a bit tentatively at first, but eventually our voices rang out and… were there a few dance steps happening here and there?  “Mr. Bojangles” and “If I Had A Boat” were probably my favorites.  Or maybe best was Joel’s rendition of “The Frozen Logger” reworked as “The Frozen Crabber” in honor of the occasion.

All in all, it was a fabulous evening!  I enjoyed every minute of it and it seems a bonus, indeed, that it was all for a good cause!  And, to my neighbor Cyndy, a special shoutout for treating me to a great evening which included an early gourmet dinner and being chauffeured in her all-electric (and a bit mystifying) car!  Who’da thunk I’d be so lucky?

And which stories would you choose to tell?

Friday, February 9th, 2024

Plywood Mill

I’ve been thinking a lot about our February 6th History Forum — the one on logging that I wrote about on February 7th.  Like many who attended, my expectation (and, truth to tell, my hope) was to hear from old loggers about their experiences in the woods as high- climbers and choke-setters and whistle-punks.  Instead, we heard a lot about the corporate era of logging — the rise of Weyerhaeuser, Crown Zellerbach, and Rayonier in the 1930s and the gigantic impact of new materials developed in the 1940s making the manufacture of plywood and other modern building materials possible.

Not quite the romantic logging stories some of us were hoping for.  But wait!  Haven’t I been the one urging my readers and friends and history buffs to write down their history — if for no other reason than to record it for their own children and grandchildren.  And that’s exactly what Mr. Nott has done with “The Logging Eras of Pacific County Washington.”   Not as romantic sounding, perhaps, as stories about the Spruce Division during World War I, but it’s history that will soon be lost as we march ever more quickly toward replacing our forest products with those that are of  manmade materials.

Columbus Day Storm — A Game-Changer

Yes! Roy Nott had exactly the right idea and Steve Rogers is already working toward publication of  Mr. Nott’s treatise in the next Sou’wester.  Maybe in time for distribution at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific County Historical Society!  And how’s that for perpetuating the history of Pacific County!  Three Cheers for the History Forum, for Roy Nott, and for Sou’wester Editor-in-Chief Steve Rogers!

All I can say is, “More  More!”

Despite Murphy’s First Law…

Wednesday, February 7th, 2024

Logging Truck – Spruce Division

Today’s History Forum was one of the best yet — not necessarily subject-wise (although that was fabulous) and not necessarily because of the visual aids (there were technical problems).  But this Forum, our sixth, definitely involved the most participation– conversations, questions and answers, “show and tell” items, and general give and take — of any of our Forums to date.  We are all finally getting the hang of what a Forum is!

According to the OED, A forum is a place, situation or group where ideas and views on a particular subject can be exchanged.  A History Forum is a community for historians and history enthusiasts.  And that was us today in the proverbial nutshell — about thirty-five of us, I think, although it never occurred to me to count.  Among those who spoke of their experience in the timber/logging industry was Steve Rogers of South Bend who described himself as “the son of a son of a logger’ and whose father had the last logging operation on Long Island here in Shoalwater Bay.

Roy Nott of Aberdeen  — whose career with Weyerhaeuser began at their Raymond Sawmill pulling lumber — which he described as “the most boring job he ever had.”  But he stuck with it,  He was a contract logging supervisor for Weyerhaeuser after college and his responsibilities included the Deep River and Naselle areas.  He managed the logging operations for Rayonier on the Northern Olympic Peninsula and went on to become the VP, Pulp and Forest Products for Rayonier with an office in Stamford, Connecticut. — but has since spanned the globe and some 50+ years.  He shared a paper he wrote, “The Logging Eras of Pacific County, Washington,” and I suspect that we will eventually see it as an issue of The Sou’wester, Pacific County Historical Society’s quarterly magazine.

Jean Nitzel of Surfside, after listening to some of the exchanges between members of that corporate lumber world, described her husband Bill’s work as “a real logger” — a choker setter who worked day-in and day-out in the Naselle area, “unless it snowed,” she said.  She remembered a period in the sixties when it snowed for an unprecedented time here in Pacific County “and he got a full two-week vacation!”  Debby Halliburton of Ocean Park talked about another aspect of the industry —  a box factory that literally kept Cathlamet from becoming a ghost town during the Depression.  It’s importance went far beyond the paychecks that people earned– “it created the basis for a real sense of community>”

And Bob Rose talked about the logging operation(s) on the Rose Ranch which has ‘s celebrated its centennial year.  “There were times,” he said, ” when the dairy business was more or less subsidized by our logging operation, even though it’s fairly small.” Dave Williams and Steve Rogers spoke a bit about the forestry conservation efforts of Columbia Land Trust and there was general discussion about the effect of climate change on the growth of “traditional” species and what that might mean for the future.

It was a rich discussion and the time flew by.  Quietly, back in the northwest corner Michael Lemeshko recorded the Forum and he says it should be up on YouTube by Saturday.  Murphy’s First Law, “Anything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong” had struck just as the Forum began when Steve’s Power Point Program could not be run on Michael’s computer and we are all hopeful that the remaining techy magic was working properly. You can check it out by Googling Pacific County History Forum on YouTube!

Our Heavenly Oysterville Sky!

Tuesday, February 6th, 2024

February 6. 2024

Evening Sky

Where was I when the sky was showing off?

Or was Tucker the only one it was struttin’ its stuff for?

Do you think it’s because he has an artist’s eye?

Or does he spend more time looking than the we do?

Perhaps he and the heavens have a special arrangement —

One we aren’t privy to.

But never mind.

We don’t need to know the secret…

Tucker shares with us, anyway!

Thank heavens!  (No.  Thank Tucker!)

 

On being the oldest one in the room.

Saturday, February 3rd, 2024

I wonder if I’ll ever get used to being the oldest one in most of the gatherings I attend.  Not only that, I’m often the only one whose family has lived here through six generations, me being within the fourth one!  Increasingly, I find that in discussions about “recent” history — especially about the history here in Oysterville. our memories are not always in sync and “recent” is a completely subjective and relative term.  ‘

Even more difficult is that I get the distinct feeling that when my recollections are different from everyone else’s that I’m being just a tad patronized as in “she’s just a bit confused.”  So, usually, I avoid these discussions and just listen while the group comes to whatever creative conclusion might work for them.  Last night, though, I sort of forgot my resolve and got into it with several of the Friday Nighters about a situation I remembered very well but the others… not so much.   But none of the rest of them were living here when it happened.

Counting me, there were 12 of us here — half of us living in Oysterville, the other half living south or west of the village.  It was mostly the Oysterville folks who got into the discussion though everyone was interested.  It had to do with the old Bard-Heim Dairy Barn (long gone) and Polly Friedlander’s house (still anchoring the north end of the Oysterville National Historic District.)

The statement was made that Polly’s house was built so that the glass breezeway between the two main buildings would give a “see-through” view of the old Bard-Heim Barn which had been built on the property in 1930.

“Yes,” said I (foolishly), “but the barn had blown down in a storm well before the house was built.

Many voices weighed it.  “No.  That’s not true.”  “Polly told me, herself.”  “That’s exactly why the house was built that way.”

“Maybe it was designed with that idea in mind,” I said (being foolisher and foolisher!) “but the barn blew down long before the house was built.”  And I proceeded to tell about Polly’s attempts to keep the barn standing by hiring a Barn Guru of some sort who was supposed to be propping up the building but, as it turned out, he was painting totems to the barn gods on the posts and beams that had not yet rotted out.  “They would protect the barn,” he told Polly.

I, of course, could not come up with exact dates so I backed off — feeling inept in front of so many younger and more certain voices.  Today I searched my files and found a clipping from an old Chinook Observer showing the barn with this caption:  “The landscape of Oysterville was forever changed during a 1990 storm when the 60-year-old Bard Heim Dairy Barn blew down, a victim of years of deferred maintenance and neglect. It was one of the last barns in the area and had come to symbolize the generations of farmers who had tended the uplands while their neighbors had worked the oyster tidelands in the little community by the bay”

And, I found a copy of an email sent to me by Polly on December 12, 2004,  about a decade after the house was completed:  ...the Bardheim Cottage was built in 1994 as I mentioned.  It is on the property dominated by the Bardheim Barn for so many years.  The fenced garden was created in the corral and the decayed fence replicated.  It was one of the two first houses built under the current Design Review Guidelines.

Yep!  I feel better now.  Sometimes when I’m outnumbered like I was last night, I feel like maybe I am slipping a cog or two.  Well, at least I know now that I wasn’t when it came to THAT particular issue!

I

Thanks for all your kind remarks!

Friday, February 2nd, 2024

February 2, 2024

It’s been a bit busy here this week — people to see, places to go, catching up to do.  No special reason.  It just happens sometimes. Usually those sorts of weeks are a pain in the tush.  But not this one.

For whatever reason, this was the week when my mail was full of kudos and compliments from unexpected quarters — mostly about my “Saints or Sinners” stories that have been appearing in the Chinook Observer each week for the last few months.  Not only have a number of readers weighed in with plaudits and pleasant remarks, but even some descendants of those saints or sinners have written to corroborate information and to let me know of their appreciation.

I probably speak for most writers when I say that positive feedback is not all that easy to come by and is much appreciated when it does arrive.  You’ve probably noticed, yourself, that most often the “Letters to the Editor” are more critical than celebratory.  But, what has come to me lately through Face Book or in response to my blog posts are comments and remarks that warm the cockles of my heart.  Thank you!

I try my best to respond to each person who reaches out.  I’m not always successful, though, and for that I am sorry.  Please do not give up on me!  I’ll try to answer your questions, and let you know how much I appreciate hearing from you.  In large measure, your feedback keeps me going.  Woot!  Woot!

Abnormally quiet today in Oysterville.

Tuesday, January 30th, 2024

January 30, 2024

It seemed extra quiet in Oysterville today.  Somehow, I expected more traffic, more looky-loos driving by.  But I didn’t see even one car.  Not that I spent my day looking out my west windows at the street, mind you.  But after a lifetime of feeling the rhythms of the village… you just know.

About one o’clock I walked down to Michael’s place to take a look for myself at what is left.  I wasn’t even within sight of the house before I smelled the aftermath — that acrid smell of a big burn.  Even as I thought that, I wondered how I knew to call it “acrid.”  I don’t think I’ve ever smelled that particular odor before, yet it was distinctive and the name seemed obvious.  (Later I looked up the word acrid and found this: Acrid exactly fits the smoke from a fire—a burning building or forest, for example.}

Garage unscathed? We can but hope.

I was pleased to see that the Fire Department had posted the area with KEEP OUT signs and even more pleased to see that the garage seems to be completely intact — although I don’t know what smoke damage might mean to photographs and negatives — if indeed the smoke filtered through.  (Though I’ve been in his house several times over the years, I’ve not been in the garage building. My understanding is that the area above the garage has functioned as Michael’s photography studio. )   When Bob Duke wrote yesterday:  “Not all of his legacy is lost. Volumes of his aerial photos of the lower Columbia are archived at the Heritage Museum in Ilwaco” I was relieved.  But at the scene of the fire yesterday, Michael said that all his negatives had burned… I wondered if he had kept those in the house or had, perhaps, been working on them there.  I’m hoping that when he made that particular remark it still looked as though the garage building would soon be involved and he was second-guessing.  And that it turned out better than he had feared in the midst of the confusion and fright.  I hope so.

Meanwhile, I understand that Michael is situated in Ocean Park and that friends have provided him with clothing and food for the short term.  Meanwhile, Oysterville neighbor Betsy Nordquist has organized a GoFundMe site for Michael.  The link is:  https://gofund.me/2100b5f1 and all contributions are greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

…but for the grace of god…

Monday, January 29th, 2024

January 29, 2024

We all live in wood houses in Oysterville.

We warm ourselves in front of woodstoves and fireplaces.

In our gardens are the vestiges of the orchards of a hundred years ago and more.  Old, gnarled trees that speak to us of our ancestors.

The woods march right into the village from the west.

Alder trees hurry to fill in the cleared areas.

We live with wood.  We depend upon wood.  And we are ever-vigilant about fire.

But this morning, Michael said, “It got away from me.  I was starting a fire in the woodstove and it got away from me.”

We are so glad you and Linus are safe, Michael.  It all could have been so much worse.

 

A GoFundMe Site Has Been Set Up for Michael
https://gofund.me/2100b5f1