Walking Through Time on the Oregon Coast

E. E. Cummings once wrote, “For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), / It's always ourselves we find in the sea.”  This American poet rightly praises the ocean as a place of contemplation and spiritual insight.  People have long visited and revisited the shores of the Oregon Coast – one small part of the deep, looking into the waves for something that might remind them of a happier time, or a feeling lost.  The wisdom of the sea – the intelligence which allows it to respond – comes from a long line of incidents that have dictated its present state.  Many have touched it, tampered with it – and now the Oregon Coast bares the burdens of the past, while continuously surging expectantly towards the future.  However, like any other being, this vast and powerful ocean grows tired, showing wear around the edges as time passes and others such as man interfere. Due to this interference, one such edge – that of the Oregon Coast – has become more of a humanistic entity, serving now as a gateway for the fulfillment of human passions, dreams, and goals, and performing much less as the originally naturally safe habitat for the wildlife which it shelters.  Thus, the peopling of the Oregon beaches has increasingly resulted in the unstable state of its shores.

This peopling began long ago; perhaps twelve thousand years in the past, nomadic peoples were the first drawn to the shores of the Oregon Coast.  Out of a need for the bounty of the sea and in search of places to live, these people, as limited research shows, visited “coastal areas to hunt, fish, and gather food, and over the millennia settled along the coastal rivers, estuaries, and bays” (Oberrecht 35).  Therefore, the duty of the sea was more a necessity-based function for these hunter-gatherers.  The clues and evidence left behind to insinuate the actual existence of such early people along the Oregon Coast are sadly, yet naturally, limited – hidden “forever in the sediments of the ocean floor, relegated there by the same rising seas that helped create Oregon’s estuaries at the end of the last ice age” (35).  The general flow of history parallels the path these early Oregon Coast civilizations took; as time progressed, so too did the people’s techniques and standards of living.  Having crossed the Bering Land Bridge after the last Ice Age, the nomads experienced “[i]solation from ancestral societies and [were forced to adapt] to the new and rapidly changing environments of an unfamiliar continent [resulting] in a cultural transformation: these peoples became Native Americans” (Jackson 11).  While the lack of artifacts detailing the lives of the first visiting peoples is disheartening from an archaeological perspective, today such a lack of noticeable habitation would be a blessing in the eyes of environmentalists.  One can only assume that they did as humans do now, using what resources could be gleaned from the surrounding areas to survive and thus creating some disturbance in the natural state of the area.  Yet, this disturbance, years later, is but a blemish upon the face of such an indestructible thing as the shore of the sea.  Early nomadic and Native American use of the land was but the minor prerequisite for the continuing human activity upon the Oregon Coast.

The mystery of the ocean leaves no man untouched, nor disinterested.  This, coupled with man’s innate tendency to strive to be the first and best in everything, brought settlers from all corners of the globe.  In search of a non-existent passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Spanish explorers stepped upon the shores of Oregon only to find their quests in vain, and only later was their “interest in the Pacific Northwest … rekindled in the late eighteenth century when they feared that Russian fur traders would threaten autifSpanish interests” (Oberrecht 37).  So it was that the beautiful waters of the Pacific Coast unwittingly brought destruction to the animals of the land near the sea.  Those things cherished as beautiful and innocent treasures of nature became objects of desire in the eyes of people.  In essence, they lost their value and connection to the coastal area, and existed only as tools for humans to use at their discretion.  This bombardment upon the wildlife occurred again as, in 1778, British explorer, James Cook, came to the shores of Oregon in search of the “erroneous” Northwest Passage so sought by the Spaniards just three years earlier.  Along this route, although fatal to himself, and fruitless in its hunt, Cook’s accumulation of sea-otter pelts, within the area between Oregon and Alaska’s coastal waters, rewarded his remaining crew members (Jackson 14).  These furs, along with other sightings noted by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark during their fur-based expedition into the West, prepared the way for further trade in the fur industry, and moreover announced the arrival of “the first overland explorers to the Oregon Coast” (Oberrecht 39).  With these new guests to the shores, drastic changes were close behind.

So, in the year 1840, the settlers came to Oregon.  They came with hopes of using the abundant resources, yet they knew little of the actual terrain.  This caused a fear of the native people, marshes, and other presumably dangerous aspects of the coastal area.  However, settlers, in their haste to gain access to food and other desired items lent by the land, widened elk trails made by the natural animals of the area, creating a man-“improved” broader path to travel and an easily-accessible trail along the coast (Dicken 1).  These paths are best represented by the still visible road at the small Oregon beach of Hug Point, which was blasted away during the days of stagecoaches, and made the road accessible during high tide, where before travelers could only get passed the point when the tide was low.  This site stands as a monument to the peopling of the area and the effects, long term, which transformed it to its present day state.  However, people then saw it for what it was – a path across a dangerous sea – and thus used it as one of the many methods to get to other new or important places of interest.  The driving force behind these men and women was essentially personal gain; the “promise[s] of economic prosperity” and “a new life on the new frontier” called many to the western coast.  Others fled previous homes, leaving behind debt, disease, or disciplinary actions of the law, and hailed the west as a new beginning.  Most, however, came to begin or continue their lives as farmers (Jackson 43).  As a rule, farming destroys all that is natural to a wilderness area, yet the pioneers depended on it for food production and profit.  It would seem again that the allure of the coast, with its bountiful land, proved responsible for its unfortunate degradation.  At this juncture, it would be of notable import to point out the lack of spiritual agreement between the peoples listed as historical visitors and inhibitors of the beaches of Oregon and the sea and its shore.  Thus far, the people brought to the coast bring little spark to the small communities, and even less detail is revealed that would hint at a connection deeper than that of man’s physical dependence on nature.  However, such a relationship indeed exists now and did then.

Presently, many facts abound around present day events that detail human experiences on the Oregon Coast.  The settlers of the past – and their communities – grew into the simple towns that now sprinkle across the beaches.  Such places have become known and loved for the beauty that has long endured time and the stress placed upon them.  This stress has been lessened by efforts to preserve the natural resources of the ocean.  The Exclusive Economic Zone established by President Reagan in 1983 set up a “resource zone” that protected waters two hundred nautical meters off the coast of any beach of Oregon.  The United Stated Fish and Wildlife Service protects aquatic animals that, without their watchful eye, would be simply devastated by human folly (Jackson 117).  These efforts make the beaches more easily used for recreation. For example, Cannon Beach holds an annual sandcastle contest, of historical import as the contest it held as a result of a bridge fallout forty years ago (website).  Nature, then, played an important role in the lives of people, reversing the roles played by the two.

But the roles of human beings are essentially the same when it comes to natural causes and effects: humans cause the trauma to the land, be it large or small, that makes it more difficult for the natural plants, animals, and terrain to thrive.  Nature, however, does not desist in its constant call to the human beings.  Where is the medium?  Some may argue that the beaches represent this place where nature can be present without total change by the human race.  The vast waters of the sea cannot just disappear on us. But this does not mean they should be disregarded.  As the past has taught us, the beaches will forever be a place where resources and people can interact.

Works Cited

Dicken, Samuel N. Pioneer Trails of the Oregon Coast. Oregon Historical Society:

            Portland OR, 1971

Jackson and Kimerling, ed. Atlas of the Pacific Northwest: Ninth Edition. Oregon State

            University Press; Corvallis OR, 2003

udd and Beach. Natural States: The Environmental Imagination in Maine, Oregon, and

            The Nation.  Resources for the Future: Washington DC, 2003

Oberrecht, Kenn. Oregon Coastal Access Guide: A Mile-by-Mile Guide to Scenic and

            Recreational Attractions. Oregon State University Press: Corvallis OR, 2001

“Sandcastle Contest”. Online source. Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce. 1998-2004

            <http://www.cannonbeach.org/main/sandcastle.html>