In the Forest
18/07/13 07:03
We made the move to the southern end of the Puget Sound yesterday. We are camped in a magnificent piece of the Olympic rainforest near Olympia. The trees here are so tall and the vegetation so lush that our campsite is always in the shade. It is probably ten degrees cooler here in the trees than it is out in the direct sunlight. It is a beautiful place.
O course, it is not home. One of the things that we would notice, were we to stay is that it rains a lot in this place. The trees and undergrowth need lots of moisture and we are on the wet side of the mountains. This is the driest part of the year for this area. By late September it will be raining nearly every day. I don’t know how I would adjust to that kind of weather. I’m used to living in a place where it is sunny most of the time. But I know that each place has its own beauty. There is evidence that people have lived in this region for tens of thousands of years. It is likely that this is one of the first places on the continent to have human inhabitants.
There are a lot of people here now. Yesterday’s drive took us down Interstate 5 through Seattle. There is plenty of traffic in that city. People adjust to commuting in all of that traffic, but I don’t think I’d enjoy that part of city life. We chose the time of day carefully so that we would pass Seattle at midday, between the heaviest times of traffic. Our son tells us that if he has a meeting in Seattle that ends at 5 p.m. he can either get in the car and spend two and a half hours in traffic or find a place to sit and have coffee or a meal for an hour before starting out. By six the trip is an hour shorter. Either way he gets home at 7:30. Waiting before departing he arrives less frustrated and with more energy. People who live in densely populated areas learn to make adjustments like that.
I’ve never been a city person. I grew up in a town with less than two thousand people. We did live in Chicago for four years and Boise for ten, but the rest of the time, we’ve lived in places with less than 100,000 people. Most of my life has been spent in parts of the world where people have room to spread out. When we moved to North Dakota from Chicago, some of our Chicago friends couldn’t understand why we would want to live in a place with so much empty land and so few people. We couldn’t understand why someone would want to live in an apartment filled with people in the middle of a city where there were so many folk that there was hardly any open space. I’m sure that I could adjust to living in a different part of the world, but there are definite advantages to living in a place that is not so heavily populated.
There is a great advantage to the temperate rainforest for those who live in the urban areas, however. The rainforest absorbs sounds. Despite its location relatively close to the hustle and bustle of Seattle, Olympic National Park is one of the places on the earth with the least amount of human-caused sound. Even a relatively small grove of trees, like the one where our campground is located is a quiet place. We are not far from Interstate 5 with its constant around-the-clock stream of traffic between Seattle and Portland. It is one of the nation’s great truck corridors. Loads are in constant motion. The terrain is hilly so the trucks are opening up their throttles to go up the hills and forced to use their compression brakes to adjust their speed to the traffic. The highway has four lanes of traffic in each direction in this stretch. But here in the trees, we can’t hear the road noise. We don’t hear our neighbors in the campground. What we do hear is birdsong and the gentle rustle of the breeze in the treetops. It is a peaceful place.
I’ve been reading legends from the indigenous people this week. The coastal tribes have a different language than the tribes of the plains and their stories describe different animals and situations. Among the tribes of this area are the Twana, Suquamish, Snohomish, Lummi, Chinook, Kittitas, Puyallup, Snoqualmie, and Skagit. One of the traditions that these tribes share is that when elders told stories, the younger listeners were expected to voice their appreciation for stories by making comments to demonstrate that they were listening carefully. The typical response in several of the languages was “Ah-Mo.” I don’t speak the languages, but I imagine that it sounds like a sigh and a request for more in the same breath. The tradition is that as the evening wore on and the children became tired, their responses became less and less frequent and when they failed to speak their response the parents knew it was time for them to be put to bed.
I suspect that a longhouse in the midst of the rainforest would be a great place for storytelling and for sleeping. The shade of the trees would make is fairly dark all of the time and by evening the light from the fire would encourage people to gather around. The warmth would be inviting as well. I can imagine the rain dripping on the roof above with the dry area around the fire offering the sense of shelter and protection from the elements. Nights are long here in the North Country in the winter months and there would be plenty of stories to tell. Some of the stories would explain the features of the birds and animals such as “why the crane has long legs,” or “why the robin has a red breast.” Other stories would be lessons for the children such as the Twana legend of the Loon that warns of children straying too far from their mother.
As I read the stories, I can imagine myself joining in the chorus of “Ah-Mo” until sleep overtakes me and the distinction between stories and dreams fades.