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Voice
From the Wilderness Give me a wilderness no civilization can endure. — Thoreau What set Warner Creek apart from every other campaign to save a threatened jewel of wilderness? We won! A record-setting 11 month blockade against an illegal salvage logging rider aimed at a highly protected resource natural area kindled an inner fire that neither the snows of Warner Creek and a blizzard of lies nor the actions of a few snitches will ever snuff.
As an activist filmmaker, eco-herbalist and deep ecologist, I have been drawn to stand with extraordinary humans in defense of some of the most awe-inspiring sacred groves that no longer exist. We are kindred tribe sharing grief and creative remedies at the funeral for all that is wild and free. We carry these lost places forever in our hearts. And we never forget. Judging from Kera Abraham's valiant attempt to "blackwash" the Warner Creek story, garnering corrections from those who were there and inflammatory rhetoric from apathetic slugs who wouldn't save their mother from a burning house, I feel the community is being wrongfully polarized. To the latter and Kera, the sensationalista of EW, I say, "Pika poo!" (To Kera's credit her reporting on successive parts improves greatly). In those forgotten early summer months at basecamp — before the arrival of camo-clad, wannabe warriors — diverse faces flickered in the firelight. There was no dress code before team Tim & Tim showed up in their newly donned, darkling costumes. Back then, there was only one Mick Garvin — the genuine article — soon to be locked down in the road as a visual aid to the bioregional maxim of staying put to make a difference. Ex-forest worker turned forest protector, Mick is one of those rugged individualistic bumps along the jagged backbone of wild country. We had consensus to present our diversity and peacefulness as opposed to the macho monkey-wrencher image often used to trash enviros. (Mick was the exception as he can't help looking dangerous.) I remember the day Subcommandante Ream showed up in basecamp with media in tow, hanging a traverse in a tree so he could dangle while being interviewed in camo and that soon-to-be-ubiquitous bandanna over the face. Reporters started coming just to talk to our newest silver-tongued apparatchik, who was previously a Freddie working for the EPA with an entirely different clothing line. This kind of Barnum & Bailey activism amounts to little more than prostitution of principles for a seven-second sound bite that would only bite us back. Many of the peaceful voices like Shannon, Jan and Spruce, who did not fit with Ream's freshly brewed, eco-freak image, began to disappear from around the fire. The hunger strike was intended for hundreds, including colleges across the U.S., but Ream railroaded, "I'm starting MY strike tomorrow! Who's with me?" Shannon Wilson began and ended it with Ream to save face from the consensus bashing of Ream's lone wolf tactics. That's heroism.
Tim Lewis would never have said he was the one who "circled the scene with his video camera" on that fateful day the graders turned tail and retreated. I was the only one filming during this climactic moment, and much of my footage appears in Pickaxe. Lewis and Andy Pratt came much later, shooting in 16mm — the lucky bastards. I also led many herbal walks through the burn and gathered data on plant recovery. When a badly misinformed Frieda told us there were "no green trees in the burn," we took the Freddies and Friedas on a walk to see just how much they were duped by their superiors — a walk of anger, tears and empathy. The truth grew talons and dug in like Satyagraha. "Fire is the midwife of the forest," whispers Tim Ingalsbee in my dreams. "Not one black stick!" answers a chorus of coyotes. And I'm sorry James Johnston didn't arrive till it was too cold for him to have sex — although naked fire dancing, primal ooze wrestling and wild, steaming serial monogamy between couples is hardly an orgy. Try an EF! Rendez-Vous next time, and don't be late! Also missing from Kera's fable were the real stories of the "drunken men ... talking belligerent smack." First of all they were mostly boys with major huevos to come near our fully fledged free state. Secondly, all the curious locals who journeyed up 2408 to the gate went back down the mountain forever changed. I videotaped many of these miraculous confrontations, and there is a tangible epiphany felt by all once they realized we weren't being paid $10/hour, nor did we initially close the road to the public. Bristling turned to joviality as we offered stale bagels (an improvement from moldy) and a handful of kicked-down chip crumbs and thanked them for having guts. One night we were almost raided by government commandos crawling the scrub with night sights. We picked up nervous chatter on our radios begging to cancel their mission as we were "too tight and organized. They're EVERYWHERE and FAST! Abort. Repeat. Abort!" Knowing they were afraid of us seemed comforting. Other highlights came later, like Jim Flynn's Spicy Balls (he took about 20 cans of industrial mace to the genitals for the lost oaks of Broadway). But if I were to cast a trophy in honor of Eugene's newly manned fearlessness, it would have to be that long-haired naked guy in socks running wild and free through Washington Jefferson Park and directly into the center of the biggest police tear gas cloud since Tianamen. Everyone thought it was me, but I am ashamed to say it wasn't. There was one early summer night, before base camp, when we just slept anywhere in the road behind the gate, gazing up at the quilted starlight, feeling very safe, and the most ginormous goofy limbed cedar fell on its own, shaking the ground and stirring up inspired talk of the blessing we just received. I often meditate on the sound of that tree crashing to earth unmolested and the numinous silence that followed. A.F. Nash, aka Otter Brightwater, lives in Eugene. He can be reached at otterbrightwater@yahoo.com
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