Teachings of the Wild

Hunters and conservation leaders find common ground preserving a long tradition

Julie Johnson’s first memory of the outdoors was when she was 12. She would follow her mother, Mary, into the woods in the early fall morning hours to hunt blacktail deer in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. On most hunts, they would stop along their hike to flip through worn pages of bird books to identify songbirds, kneel to identify plants along their path and marvel at shadows lifting off the horizon. The sun would set before they were ready to leave the forest, and they would arrive at camp more often with memories than with meat.

Each of us interacts with the land in ways that have varying impacts, some we may never completely understand or agree on. In a time in which land is not only scarce but continually subdivided, it’s imperative that we each develop a land ethic as we go about interacting with wild places. It is equally important that we appreciate how individuals strengthen their personal connection to the wild, and even more so, how we each choose to protect the land.

Today, Julie is an award-winning nature photographer, working alongside her husband, M.D. Johnson, an outdoorsman and author. Together, they have published six hunting books highlighting stories of being outdoors, their deep appreciation for nature, and what hunting has taught them on the value of life.

Conservation and hunting aren’t always mutually exclusive pursuits. One of Columbia Land Trust’s founding members was a waterfowl hunter, who was inspired to become an advocate for conservation in the Northwest. Historically, hunters and conservation leaders joined with allied interests and contributed substantial achievements toward conservation efforts in the United States, including passing the Wilderness Act of 1964. This landmark bill provided the first definition of ‘wilderness’ in the United States and protected land in perpetuity.

During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt, an ardent hunter, took dramatic action to preserve priority habitats and provided federal protections for more than 230 million acres of land. He ensured the protection for 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reservations, and five national parks. Many of the wild places he helped safeguard are available for recreationists, hunters, and birders to enjoy today.

In the state of Washington, spending by hunters, fishers, and wildlife watchers generates more than $4.5 billion annually for the state’s economy. Hunting activity alone contributed $313 million, with an associated 5,595 jobs, according to a report published in 2010 by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many of the agency’s restoration and wildlife recovery projects are funded by the dues and taxes charged to recreationists, including hunting fees.

Much of the land Columbia Land Trust has conserved was traditionally available to hunting communities with deep-rooted cultural bonds. Treaties with Northwest tribes today provide rights for hunting and fishing across public lands, but as development surges and wildlife habitat is fragmented, available hunting opportunities are diminishing. The Land Trust allows hunting of waterfowl, deer, elk, and turkey with permissions at select conserved sites to respect historical and traditional uses of land, while at the same time managing hunting to meet conservation priorities.

“On our conserved lands, we use the best available science, state and federal regulations, and our own observations to inform our land management decisions property by property,” said Natural Area Manager Lindsay Cornelius, “but ultimately our decisions are driven by the conservation values that drive our work.”

There is no one definitive answer in balancing the needs of ecosystems and human values on the role hunting plays in our Northwest communities. “Our job is to be observant, to experiment, and to be honest about the reasons we make the decisions we make and the values we’re trying to protect by making them,” said Cornelius.

Julie and M.D. illustrate just one way in which a connection to nature can be made and the two are passing on a positive land ethic to those around them. Hunting, along with camping, hiking, mountain biking, and other outdoor recreation, can nurture a profound adoration for places and animals and motivate people to become great forces in defending the wild. For those who hunt, it requires early morning hours, arduous treks, sometimes through sharp plants, stinging nettle, poking branches, and mucky water, and for some people, it is a hard-won meal and a way of life that gives and takes.

The pursuit of each of our wild journeys, whether it involves simply peering through binoculars, finding a trail off the beaten path, foraging wild food, or bringing meat home, can all ignite a deep regard for the wild’s teachings. What matters most, is that we recognize that those wild places, once gone, may never be replaced.

Photo courtesy Julie & M.D. Johnson

Eastern Muse

How an ecoregion spurred a powerful partnership.

The transitional zone of the Columbia River Gorge is where the wet of the West turns into the arid east, where temperate rain forests of Douglas-fir flow into dry ponderosa pine and oak habitat, where unrivaled and irreplaceable native plant communities unfold with botanic beauty and ecological wonder. The East Cascades is also home to Humble Roots Farm & Nursery, a business inspired by the region’s biodiversity.

“I saw changes happening to local landscapes,” said nursery co-owner Kristin Currin. “Instead of talking about what should be done, I just decided to do it.”

In 2003, Currin purchased land that seemed to suit her future nurseries needs but discovered a low-producing well couldn’t properly irrigate her stock. She sold vegetables to restaurants to offset personal food and living costs as she diligently cared for her growing garden. Eventually, she moved her inventory to a rental property nearby.

Currin and her partner, Andrew Merritt, worked hard to remove invasive grasses and improve the oak woodlands on the new plot and watched as their native plants thrived. In 2005 the nursery was finally incorporated.

Meanwhile, the Land Trust was working to conserve meadows and riverbanks just miles away. Today, Humble Roots and the Land Trust have paired up to replant the region’s disturbed natural places.

“There are no large wholesale nurseries that cultivate the plant species truly local to the region,” said Land Trust Natural Area Manager Kate Conley.  “Without local stock, our plant survival rates would be lower.”

Over the past two years, the nursery has supplied more than 1,200 plants to revegetate the river’s edge at the former Hood River Powerdale Dam and pipeline sites.

The nursery is also working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish new populations of a rare plant called northern wormwood (Artemisia campestris var. wormskioldii), which could potentially thrive on our Pierce Island property. Historically, the plant was recorded at several sites along the Columbia River, but dam construction and subsequent flooding extirpated the population.

We never know who is just over the hill or across the river working for the same undertaking. It’s a firm belief of ours, that not only can we be so moved by a landscape that we build our entire lives around it, but that in turn, the land can be moved by the people working to save it.

Learn more about Humble Roots Farm & Nursery at humblerootsnursery.com.

Photos courtesy of Humble Roots Nursery.

Rewilding Our Lives

Urban residents bring the wild home.

I walked into this story knowing I would meet some charismatic people working to turn their backyards into wildlife habitat. After all, there are more than 3,000 properties in the Portland metro area enrolled in the Backyard Habitat Certification Program. I didn’t expect that I would walk away personally affected by the people I met.

I began with a trip through the hectic, suburban streets near Gresham to meet Eric Oswald, a deep-voiced, middle-aged man working toward his first backyard certification. We walked through his freshly tilled quarter-acre lot to observe his work, each step punctuated by an earthy aroma. Months prior, he had removed large swaths of invasive bamboo and peeled up almost 7,000 square feet of sod, creating a clean slate for rain gardens, bat boxes, and frog ponds.

He was eager to show me his red-osier dogwood and western redbuds, planted that week. New pots of trillium, ninebark, and mock orange had been set in patterns across his plot, waiting for their turn to meet the ground.

“I never understood what it meant to come out here and get my hands dirty.” He paused for a moment and gazed down at the soil.

“Now I do.” Oswald spent thirteen years in recovery from addiction and is now a drug and alcohol counselor, finding personal therapy in the dirt. It was evident upon meeting him that he wasn’t a typical gardener. “I think I’ll call the habitat my university.” He chuckled. “I’ll create a sign out front that says ‘Caution: Animals at Life.’” I left Oswald’s home feeling stirred by his accomplishments. It’s no easy feat to turn a regular lawn into a refuge for wildlife in a bustling city where very few others are doing the same.

I continued my backyard journey, 11 miles west to Janet Gifford’s Northeast Portland house. She welcomed me into her pale yellow home and put a teakettle on the stove. Gifford exuded the warmth of a longtime friend.

She pulled a pencil-marked paper from a stack on her dining room table and passed it over to me. In January, she recorded 83 birds of 12 different species visiting her platinum-certified backyard in under 45 minutes.

Then she asked me if I knew about mason bees, with which I had little familiarity. Her eyes grew large and a grin stretched across her face. “One mason bee does the pollination job of sixty honey bees,” she said, pointing her finger at me.

We walked out to her shed, where a wooden heart hung from a rope above her workspace. Her daughter had made it 15 years back as a field instructor in Outdoor School. Gifford pulled down a shoebox from a high shelf and set it on the counter. Inside the box were half a dozen reused tin containers. The top of each tin had several drilled holes. She took a few tins out of the shoebox and began slowly opening them. Hundreds of mason bee cocoons nestled in between soft squares of tissue. At that instant, I felt a mysterious warmth spread upward from my feet, ending in a gentle squeeze around my chest.

It wasn’t until I was driving home that I identified the feeling: nostalgia in its truest form. Tears welled up at this realization; Gifford’s mason bee cocoons had dug up something that had lain buried.

I spent my youth in the forests. My grandmother would often find me with dirt on my knees and under my fingernails. I collected moths, praying mantises, and caterpillars and watched them grow and change inside hole-poked mason jars and a large Coleman cooler I had converted into a terrarium. I had connected to nature by bringing it home, like Gifford does. As an adult, I look less closely at nature. Somehow and somewhere, those curiosities had fallen by the wayside.

Each spring, Gifford gives cocoons to neighbors and friends, spreading her little pollinators across Portland, and her backyard has become a model habitat, an archetype for others.

Gifford joined the Land Trust board last summer and is a volunteer technician for the program, and Oswald continues his work toward certification. These are just two of the many people rewilding their urban lives through the Backyard Habitat Certification Program. As surging development threatens the Portland metro area’s remaining green spaces, the program fosters opportunities to reawaken and stir the wild inside ourselves, and to let it influence, one by one, the individuals waiting to be stirred.

The Backyard Habitat Certification Program is a joint partnership between Columbia Land Trust and the Audubon Society of Portland. Illustrations by Melissa Delzio.

Keep Sporting Weird

New Book Profiles World’s Oddest Athletic Pursuits

From ostrich racing to chess boxing, a new photography book documents the world’s strangest athletic dreams.

In 2000, Sol Neelman joined the Oregonian as a photojournalist. Five years later, when a colleague asked him what he liked to photograph the most, his response was off-the-cuff: “Sports and weird shit.” Once articulated, that proclamation took on the glow of truth. 

“I’m proud of the photos I took at the newspaper,” he reflects now, “but a lot of it was boring.”

Neelman soon began traveling the world in search of the craziest and most exotic athletes and sports he could find: outhouse races in Washington state, hog wrassling in Wisconsin, underwater hockey in England, coffin races in Colorado, ancient polo in China, and color runs in Portland. Photos of his discoveries filled his first book, Weird Sports, released in 2011 by a Heidelberg-based fine arts publisher. 

This spring, Neelman raised $27,427 on Kickstarter to fund a sequel, Weird Sports 2. The new volume, to be released next spring, will feature 71 new photos: flaming tetherball in Seattle, ostrich racing in Nevada, chess boxing in Germany, and egg Russian roulette in Wales. 

Why this attraction to off-kilter games? The adult Neelman is a tall 6-foot-3, but as a child, he admits he was an awkward, failed athlete. “I was an only child raised by a single mom,” he says. “Playing sports was the way to hang out with neighborhood kids, even though I wasn’t any good.”

Hiking App Uncovers Over 400 Hidden Viewpoints

Acclaimed Oregon photographer Rodney Lough, Jr. shares 18 years worth of outdoor discoveries with a new phone app.

Standing at the edge of a cliff in Page, Arizona in 2011 with a group of his photography workshop students, Rodney Lough Jr. clutched the shoulders of a budding landscape photographer and said, “stand here.” This is what Lough has always sought: to show people how to locate hidden viewpoints in rarely visited spots.

Lough’s Stand Here app, which took six years to develop and released this month, aims to do just that. It allows users to choose their terrain from short and easy trips to difficult four-day explorations in the US and Canada, 16 viewpoints are in Oregon. The active trail app uses GPS tracking allowing users to check-in at trail heads, and track speed, time, distance travelled, distance to go, and even elevation. No Internet connection is needed as the trail information can be downloaded to your app’s “backpack” before heading out.

“There are already all kinds of hiking apps,” says Lough, “but they don’t tell you where to go to see what’s really beautiful.”

Lough, who has won various prestigious photography awards and had a second photo added to the permanent collection at the Smithsonian this year, has received criticism from fellow photographers with concerns about sharing hidden viewpoints, saying the app could lead to damage and human disruption of ecological areas. But Lough says damage is already happening and hiding the locations does nothing for conservation, but education does.

“The concept is that if I can show people these locations and give people the chance to do the right thing they will have the same experience that I had,” says Lough, who admits some of the destinations are weep worthy. “People will be bound by more than legal or ethical values, they will be bound at a human level to protect these places.”

A free version of the Stand Here app was released in July providing hikers with trail tacking, opportunities to meet people who have seen the viewpoints, how to get to the destination, and what to bring. This month, another version of the app was released with tons of additional research information on the locations, fun facts, and more tracking capabilities each for under a dollar.

To increase conservation efforts for these locations, Stand Here will give ten percent of the net sales back to the trails. The destinations visited using the app most often will get the most back.

A forthcoming version of the app will feature a map of the world where users can pin trails completed, share new trails discovered, and even flag areas that need protection.