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Books: Outdoors:
One
House
TRASK by Don Berry, 1960. OSU Press, 2004. Paperback, $18.95. Published in 1960 by Viking Press, the late Don Berry's novel, Trask, takes me back to my first literary love, the Western. Set in Oregon in the 1840s, the book is loosely based on real-life trapper and mountain man, Elbridge Trask. Berry's novel follows Trask as he makes an exploratory trip from the Clatsop Plains to Tillamook Bay, accompanied by Wakila, a young Clatsop man in need of mentorship, and Charley Kehwa, a spiritual leader of the Clatsop tribe who sees something special in the white man. Trask is a thoroughly unsentimental and restless man. When he itches to travel, his good humored wife, Hannah, prepares the necessary packsacks, supplies and clothing for the trip into rugged, hostile country where white men have not traveled before. Berry wasn't content to write the travel adventures of three men in the wilderness, although he writes about them and their trip with great dramatic sensibility. Berry was interested in the psychological and spiritual differences between Trask and his Indian guides and friends. Later in the story, Berry mines the interactions between Trask and Kilchis, the leader of the Killamooks, for these distinctions and finds the two men notably honest in their discussion. In its larger context, Berry's story explores the possibilities of a more reasoned path the two nations faced at that moment of history. When American settlers reached the Pacific Ocean, they found a people who had always lived there, and they destroyed the people and the balanced way of life they had perfected. But between Trask and Kilchis, a middle way opened. To solidify their contract, Trask elected to go on a Searching, a spiritual wilderness experience from which the participant returns with a vision that changes his life, or he dies. In 2004, the future of two great civilizations is at stake. Set in an ancient culture where we are the invaders, the drama between warriors plays out with no participant in touch with a way to lift the struggle above the armed conflict from which little good will come. Yet nothing is more desperately needed than a middle path. Trask satisfies on many levels, especially as a novel of place. Despite its Northwest regional setting, it is an ageless story with particular relevance to our time. Highest recommendations.
BOOK NOTES (June 24 - July 29): Silverfish Review Press presents a poetry reading at 5 pm on June 25 at Tsunami Books with Clem Starck, Charles Goodrich, Paul Hunter and Rodger Moody. …"The Role of Festivals in Musical Life" is the subject of The New York Times' classical music critic, chief rock critic now senior cultural correspondent, John Rockwell's speech at noon on June 26 in the Soreng Theater, Hult Center. …Register-Guard columnist Bob Welch (American Nightingale) signs books 2-4 pm on June 26 at B Daltons in Gateway Mall. … William Sullivan (Cabin Fever) shows slides and talks about his new book at 6:30 pm on July 2 at the Eugene Public Library, downtown. …Art and the Vineyard's (July 2, 3 and 4) Oregon Authors Table features Mabel Armstrong, Carol Ann Basset, Joe Blakely, Jo Brew, Tom Cantwell, Lynette Chiang, Judy Dippel, Bob Doppelt, Carola Dunn, Barbara Edmonds, Jan Eliot, Barbara and Daniel Gleason, Sylvia Hart Wright, Scott and Tiffany Haugen, Ann Herrick, Nancy Hopps, David Imus, Leigh Ann Jasheway, Cub Kahn, Lauren Kessler, Robert Kono, Larry McKaughan, Jim Meacham, Don Morehouse, Bruce Holland Rogers, Ed Rondo, Colleen Sell, Alan Siporin, Jesse Springer, Nedra Sterry, William L. Sullivan, Bernie Taylor, Steven Ungerleider, Dean Van Leuven and Bob Welch. …Saudi poet Nimah Nawwab (The Unfurling) reads at 5 pm on July 8 at Tsunami Books. …The Pacific Northwest Writers Association's 49th annual summer conference welcomes true crime writer Ann Rule as keynote speaker at 7 pm on July 17, Hilton Seattle Airport and Conference Center. Dinner tickets, $60. See www.pnwa.org.…Oregon Literary Arts presents Raymond Carver: Carver Country on July 6-25 and Ursula K. LeGuin: Earth Stories on July 29-Aug. 15. Theatrical performances at 8 pm on Thurs. - Sat., and at 7 pm on Sun., at 3430 S.E. Belmont, Portland. (503) 227-2583 for tickets.
Tidbits
Mountain The spring rains are behind us, the weather's warm, mountain roads are clear of snow. Summer is officially here — time to leave the valley and get yourself somewhere high up and far out. A good option for June-July is Tidbits Mountain in the heart of the Willamette National Forest east of Eugene. The four-mile roundtrip to the summit has got a bit of everything: Beautiful forests, wildflowers and dramatic views.
To get there, drive Hwy. 126 east from Springfield for approximately 36 miles. Take a left onto Forest Service Road 15 at a sign for Blue River Reservoir. Stay on 15 as it winds around the east side of Blue River Reservoir. After 4.7 miles, go straight onto FS 1509, a bumpy and windy gravel road that climbs steadily uphill. After 8.3 miles on 1509, take a left at a brown hiker sign onto FS 877. Road 877 is even steeper and bumpier, but in just .2 miles you'll pull off to the left and park at the trailhead. The first half-mile of the Tidbits Mountain trail passes through an absolutely spectacular stretch of old-growth Douglas fir/western hemlock forest. This is the most common forest type on the Willamette National Forest, but it's usually an unequal partnership, with big, fast growing Douglas fir filling in the overstory canopy and smaller, slower growing hemlock filling in the gloomy understory. Here, however, slow and steady has won the race, with a number of mammoth hemlocks forming a co-dominant overstory with the Dougs. You can easily identify the hemlock by its small, stubby green needles, thin gray bark, miniature cones and low hanging branches. In a little less than a mile and a half, you'll reach a trail junction. Stay to the left, and in a few moments you'll break out of the forest and pick your way across a rockslide beneath impressive twin basalt spires. This north side of the cliff face still has some patches of snow across the trail in June. In July there's a brilliant display of flowers, including penstemon, paintbrush and gentians. Ignore the use trails that cut to the left until you see the rotting remains of an old ladder. Scramble up the last 100 feet to the top of the mountain and an old concrete foundation — all that's left of a Forest Service fire lookout tower. On a clear day, looking north to south you'll see Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Three-Finger Jack, Mount Washington, the Three Sisters, Mount Bachelor and Diamond Peak. To the west you'll be looking down the McKenzie River valley towards the Willamette Valley — usually obscured by haze. Almost all of what you see from your 5,100-foot perch is the 1.7 million-acre Willamette National Forest, the largest national forest in western Oregon. The Forest stretches 107 miles from a point east of Salem to a point east Roseburg. It covers all of the central Oregon Cascades from the 800-foot high foothills east of Eugene to the top of the South Sister at 10,000 feet. The high country of the Willamette is the place to be this summer. |
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