#scienceandmemory

It’s been three weeks since I first arrived in Coos Bay. I wanted to immerse myself as much as possible in the place I am writing about, the South Slough Estuarine Research Reserve. On the second weekend, we spent a full day there, but it wasn’t enough time. Both Jessica and I knew we needed to get out on the water, so she arranged a kayak trip for us with the reserve’s education specialist.

On Friday, we returned to the slough, to the spot at Hinch Bridge where Noah gathered beautiful drone footage. Instead of trekking through muddy, waist-high grass, we loaded ourselves into kayaks and set out to experience the place from a new perspective. In the water, in a kayak, you can be quiet. You can slip through the waters in a way that to me feels more aligned with the natural world. We saw about five great blue herons, or at least a couple of the same herons multiple times. We saw purple martins, a small bird that the reserve has created nesting boxes for along the creek.

Our guide, Eric, was kind and brought us kayaks from the reserve to use. As we paddled against an incoming tide and wind, he explained to us how they’d restored habitat by leveling what used to be diked areas along Winchester Creek. They created three different levels of marshes, from high to low, to see how aquatic life used marshes in slightly different elevations. Their hypothesis is that the lower marshes provide better access to fish and crabs because when they flood with the tide, small tidal creeks are created that act like little transportation waterways out of the main creek and into the marsh habitat.

We paddled until the wind became too strong, and we could see Valino Island ahead of us. This area is so incredibly beautiful. I feel as though experiencing it on the water, experiencing that tide rushing in, watching Winchester Creek swell and swallow up the mudflats and sandbars, was vital to my ability to write a compelling story. Now, it’s time to finish my draft!

Fun fact: Valino Island used to be host to a speak easy during Prohibition and a brothel during the logging days of the late 1800s through early 1900s.

I’ve been fascinated with hands ever since I saw a New York Times Magazine photo project on the hands of shoe shiners. There’s a story behind every scar, every crease and every callus. The pair pictured above belongs to Mike Lane. He’s been a crab fisherman for over thirty years on the Oregon Coast. Last weekend, Mike showed us his boat and gave us lots of information about the crabbing industry and the ways it strives to remain sustainable. It was fascinating to see how science and business blend to keep the crab industry going in a time when fisheries are struggling to remain strong and consistently profitable.

Being able to do this kind of hands-on work (excuse the pun) has pushed me as a photojournalist in ways I didn’t know existed, creating those lasting marks on my education and understanding, with a quirky story behind each one.

It’s taken me too long to write a blog post, but it’s for the best reason possible. I’ve been immersed in this project of deep learning, collaboration, and creativity. Surfacing for a breath of air seems impossible; my other classes are fading on the back burner.

Last weekend we piled mountains of camping gear into vans and cars and embarked on this thing we call Science & Memory. We feasted on junk food in the cars and discovered new parts of Oregon gazing out the windows of the 3-hour ride. 

We stopped and photographed elk at the reserve along the way, all of whom seemed to have their rear ends facing the photographers.

By the time we arrived at camp, we were sticky with the remnants of pastries from a local bakery.  We scrambled to claim spots and pitch tents or hang hammocks. Before seeing Sunset Bay, Coos Bay and the places we had all been researching for the past weeks, I think we were all experiencing anxiety. We were anxious to finally start what we are tasked with doing: creating beautiful, long form and multimedia science communications rooted in place and memory. It felt ambiguous before we arrived, and our stories seemed as cloudy as the waters of the estuary we are writing about. But after being in the place, after experiencing it; after diving into the waves of Sunset Bay for a snorkel with new friends, things began falling into place like puzzle pieces. Team members bonded and brainstormed. We discovered each other’s talents and that we all care deeply about what we are doing.

I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together, but I also don’t want this journey to end.

In case you missed the sunrise this morning...

More adventures in timelapse photography. I still have so much to learn. 

We intended to hike to Crater Lake yesterday, but somehow ended up on top of Eyak Mountain.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  No complaints. In the words of one of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams, “I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.”

Time is a curious thing here, in this land where humans have lived for ten thousand years and geological forces have shaped it for millennia before that. Time is a difficult concept to grasp, to begin with, and when we bring in the conversation of climate change, it becomes even more unfathomable.

Which environmental changes are simply flukes, and which are longer, significant trends? How can we know? How can we be sure? It seems the only way TO know is to look at things in terms of time, to compare the present to the past. And herein lies the very heart of Science and Memory: Both science AND memory are vital to our understandings of time and the changes that we are seeing.

Science lends us the numbers, data, and documentation. Memory lends us the traditional ecological knowledge that goes back farther than science can reach, and tells the larger story that the numbers and data cannot convey. Science gives us information, memory gives us context. Science provides the evidence, memory paints the picture.

Timelapse photography has always fascinated me, and so one of my goals this summer is to work on perfecting the technique. With every timelapse I take, I am surprised by what it brings out, revealing things that we would never notice otherwise, in our normal experience of time progression. The spiraling way a gull swims in the water, how the oystercatchers run along the beach, the way the trees shimmer in the wind when morning sunlight falls upon their leaves, or how the clouds cloak the mountains in such tender a way. When we speed up time we can see these things, and yet in our normal lives it is nearly impossible, unless we sit somewhere long enough and just watch.

The great irony of climate change is that even though it’s nearly imperceptible on our human timescale, we must think beyond timescales in order to respond to it. If we could take a timelapse of our entire human history, perhaps it would seem more tangible and we could all – myself included – better understand the urgency to change the societal infrastructures that continue to accelerate disruption to our climate.

Until then, I suppose I will have to satisfy myself with capturing the smaller pieces of beauty and magic found in our world, appreciating what we have, and what we are fighting to save.

Three weeks ago when I first arrived in Cordova to begin work on my master’s project, I was walking along the docks taking photos when I met Captain Anna Young. She noticed my camera and told me she was a filmmaker.

“Hey, me too!” I said.

“You know, I’m looking for someone to sail to Valdez with me to help work on my new film,” she told me.

I wanted more than anything to go with her. Alas however, I could not commit to a month at sea, but instead I spent the entire day hanging out with her, listening, and filming a piece about her and her story.

Captain Anna is the prime example of how you cannot separate out humans from our environment. She made her entire living as a mariner since the 1960s, fishing in Alaska, working on boats, and now, at age 70, she’s taking up sailing.

The Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill in 1989 destroyed her livelihood, along with all the fishermen whose lives depended on the natural resources of Valdez Narrows. After the oil spill, she went into a deep depression, but found art, writing, and filmmaking as a way to heal the emotional damage that had been done while she fought back to restore the other parts of her life lost in the disaster.

Something about Captain Anna captured my heart. I went back to the harbor a couple times to find her again, after that one day sailing with her. The first time went back, I found her boat, but not her; the second time a few days ago, the boat was gone. My guess -- and hope -- is that she's on her way to Valdez now, following her dream.

Bon voyage, Captain.