![]() ![]() But the picnic table they built there washed away in a flood. When my parents bought the Sahalie property ten years ago they had been caught up by a dream of escaping there too. I went to refill her coffee cup from the stove, thinking her cautious response might be right after all. Well, he escaped with his life at the end of the book, didn’t he? We’d be as snug over there as Robinson Crusoe on a jungle island. You could bring your plant press and wildflower books. My parents have a big wall tent we could borrow, and a Dutch oven for baking in the campfire too. From there we can ferry in everything we need for the summer. ![]() This time we wouldn’t have to hike in along the old gas pipeline. On that trip I had felt like Meriwether Lewis on an expedition into a hidden green world. Would I ever be able to explain the spell of the Sahalie? When I had first seen the valley on a family boat trip I was fifteen. Look, there wasn’t even a trail-just some sort of bulldozer track that went straight up and down the hills. The mud almost sucked off my rubber boots. I’ll never forget the time you took me in there. ![]() My parents still have property over there, remember? When you say ‘out in the woods’ do you have some particular forest in mind? It might be interesting to go camping for a while, she ventured. We both needed a summer escape, but could hardly afford tickets to the movies. This year we were out of money, desperately studying for teaching jobs. The previous summer we bought student-standby tickets on the Queen Elizabeth II, sailed to France, and bicycled a thousand miles across Europe. Although she serves as a voice of caution to my impetuousness, she has joined me on wildly improbable adventures more than once. But she did not laugh-and this is one of the reasons I love her. Say that again? Janell looked up from her university homework.ĭo you want to build a log cabin out in the woods this summer? I slid my notebook across the kitchen table of our Eugene, Oregon apartment to show her the doodle I had sketched of a one-room log house.Ī log cabin, she repeated slowly. Whether you set down roots or pull them up, whether you build fences or dream of bridges, the Sahalie owns everything in its misty, moss-draped world. Only gradually do you learn the truth, that the river has owned this valley all along. Giant Sitka spruce stand 200 feet tall on either bank, gangly limbs reaching out as if to shake hands in triumph over the silenced stream. Suddenly it plays old and sleepy, lazing backwards almost as often as it slithers toward the sea. But then look: For the final fifteen brackish miles it will fool you, this great green river. It hisses past the remnants of the old Sahalie Indian Reservation and coils around the forgotten farms at tidewater. The muddy green Sahalie River writhes through the rainforest canyons of Oregon’s Coast Range like an angry bull snake. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. A Meander Tour ( August 2002) Chapter 1: A Castle in the Air The Sahalie Spirit ( June 1994)Ĭhapter 27. To Elsie With Love ( June 1991)Ĭhapter 26. Beaver in the Refrigerator ( August 1987)Ĭhapter 25. A Different Cabin ( July 1985)Ĭhapter 23. A Bird of a Different Feather ( July 1984)Ĭhapter 20. Great, Grand Parenting ( July 1984)Ĭhapter 17. The Niemi Spruces ( August 1981)Ĭhapter 16. ![]()
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