Stumped.

Before there was a garden here,  a forest stretched softly to the sea, unmolested by chain fences, ignorant of wild roses and rambling grasses, posing majestically among mossy groves.
Waves of fresh and salt water formed a lagoon here, a bay there. The local population spent summers on these shores, catching and smoking salmon, bass, clams, collecting mushrooms and nuts, drying kelp and reeds, carving shells and driftwood into usable tools and implements.

In winter they lived inland, up river, on the Elk, the Sixes, Hubbard Creek, Floras Creek, away from storms that would blow their huts away.

Old summer villages, excavated and recorded, have left many traces of the bounty provided by the forest and the sea.We have no pictures of the trees or the life lived here.  The two stumps are young compared to  old growth in the vicinity.

After last night' s windstorms, more trees will be cut down.

Today's inhabitants are full timers. They have laid out strong foundations and stronger roofs.
They are making plans for using ocean waves and wind to generate energy to run their many machines, to warm their homes, to create more tools to colonize these wild lands.

Soon, instead of old growth, we can expect to see condos right by the water, stumps eradicated completely, gardens protected from the wind in man-made green houses.

Fishing Season on The Rogue

Here we are in Gold Beach, 23 miles south of us, at the mouth of the Rogue River.  This river is still wild, meaning that it doesn't have damns and distractions.  The adult chinook salmon that enter the river to go spawn in their ancestral habitats are fat and happy at this time of the year.  The first rains have blasted the opening of the river, and here you can see the small boats all trying to catch the big one.

Fishermen are allowed two catches per day.  They hope to get a big one, this time of the year, as the salmon has spent years at sea before returning to spawn.

The female will die after spawning, exhausted by the activity, and at that point she will be a delightful meal for a hungry bear.  Bears have been known to scaveng in town, close to camping grounds before the salmon's return to spawn.

This cycle of life and death takes place every fall.

There is a ceremonial run, called The Run to the Rogue, performed by the native population, the Siletz and other tribes, from their reservation in the north part of the state, down the coast to the Rogue, where their hunting and fishing places used to be before the white men displaced them forcefully.  They gather at Agness, a small town up the Rogue River, barely accessible by mountain roads, where they have a pow-wow, a gathering, called The Gathering of The People.  On their run down the state, they stop at each community, and are welcomed and fed by townspeople, until they reach their final destination.

Should you want to read about The Run to the Rogue, visit our paper or look up "Run to the Rogue" on your google bar to learn about this event and other Native American events and cultural facts.