1859 Sept | Oct 2012_opt

iooo Years
in the System
They were seedlings pushing up out of the undergrowth
while Cortés made his famous march across
Mexico and the Protestant Reformation was spreading
within Europe. These 500-year-old trees tower
into blue skies above our heads and blanket the Pacific
Northwest from end to end, over valleys and right
down to the edge of the sea.
We stop for a riverbank classroom with Paul Engelmeyer,
renowned conservationist, as he describes
how these trees can stay in the river system almost a
millennia—more than 500 years standing, 250 years
lying prone in the river after being felled by wind and
disease, and another 250 years as woody debris, providing
essential nutrients as they make their way inevitably
to the Pacific Ocean.
Signs of Fall
In the seventh hour of today’s hike
through a tangle of giant jack-strawed trees,
we stop for an energy boost. Blue huckleberry
bushes loaded with ripe fruit line the
banks of the river and soon our stomachs,
too. While our taste buds enjoy this tart,
wild treat, our eyes take in the seasonally
brilliant vine maple on the far bank. These
are the harbingers of winter here on the
river. Tomorrow we will enter the spawning
grounds of the wily migrating salmon that
give this river its name.
To The Ocean
Invader
Katie Brem, native plant specialist, stops us dead in
our tracks. “We’re not going anywhere `til I have this
baby out by the roots”, she says, bending over invasive
Japanese knotweed growing among
the rocks at the edge of the river. Foreign
species like this have been transported
here from other locations in
the world and have changed the botanical
face of the Pacific Northwest.
Think Himalayan Blackberry and
Scotch Broom. Groups throughout
the Northwest are dedicated to the
removal of these aggressive species
that crowd out natives and alter the
balance of plant communities that
have existed for thousands of years.