Yonder sky has wept tears of compassion on our fathers for centuries untold. There was a time when our people covered the whole land, as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor. A late afternoon. I parked at the Coupeville wastewater treatment plant and walked east. Barnacles and mussel shells crunched underfoot. The beach is mostly cobble and stone, and became narrow and shrinking, the tide rising. I walked under a magical house and around the first point. Two juvenile eagles startled me as they lifted off above my head and flew to a different tree for peace. I walked past a few beach houses, then turned around because the tide was too high to continue. I know, ironic isn’t it, the guy who teaches about tides didn’t time it very well. I drove to Long Point. Here the broad beach is mostly sand and shells. I walked west to get as close as I could to where I had hiked from Coupeville. Forested bluffs rise above; a few tree skeletons point their trunks into the water’s edge. A northwest wind pushed a steady music of waves onto the beach. Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. The sun lowered further, dropping behind the hills. I turned back, walked around Long Point and eastward. A flock of gulls and oystercatchers rested on the tip of the point. Jets from the base flew hard and fast in the skies to the north. The foothills glistened in snow, their peaks shrouded in dense clouds. Clusters of housing developments covered the hillsides of Camano and the mainland. Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb along the silent seashore thrill with memories of past events connected with the fate of my people. On this leeward beach there were no waves, just a folding, a lapping. I put cockle shells into my pocket, and a large horse clam shell for a soap dish. Several houses line the beach here, but soon give way to a steep bluff. The tide was just starting to recede, but shoreline brush kept me from continuing. I could see the Private Beach sign ahead at Kineth Point, with no hikers allowed from there to Snatelum Point. I turned around. As I hung around Long Point, I met a couple renting a beachside Air B&B. They had enjoyed the windstorm the day before, and now the peace and quiet of a calm winter evening. A nearby neighbor walked her dog, scaring the birds at the point. A group of thirty-somethings waved at me through the steam of their hot tub on the porch of another seaside house. An older couple walked a big dog and a little dog, the big dog as friendly with me as a cozy couch. The wind slackened. The sun lowered, lowered, and dropped out of sight. When I was a child, I often stood after nightfall at the shoreline of Seattle’s North Beach and listened to the cacophony of western grebes calling out in the dusk or the evening mist. Not tonight. They are now seldom heard in our waters. The memory of Penn Cove orca whale roundups still haunts me. These shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. A crescent moon hung above the dusky pink. The air was still, and cool. The lights of Oak Harbor began to twinkle. I sat down and absorbed the spirit of this beach, this place of sand and shell, water and bluff, forests and mountains, cities and wildland. I wasn’t alone. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. We may be brothers, after all. We shall see. -- Chief See-alh jack Here is a 14 second movie of the waves at Long Point, looking toward Oak Harbor. Click here or on the link below: https://youtu.be/1aZLpDStlkE Directions:
From the stoplight at Highway 20 in Coupeville, drive 2.7 miles south and turn left onto Morris Road. Turn left again on Parker Road, drive 1.3 miles to Portal Place, drive a short distance to Marine Drive, and turn left and follow Marine Drive to the end. Or park at the Coupeville wastewater treatment plant and hike east a couple miles. The beach east of Long Point is open to the public as far as Kineth Point (0.9 miles), where it becomes private. Accessibility: The beach has very limited accessibility the entire route, with soft sand, course rocks, logs, shells and other beach detritus making for uneven footing.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
Maribeth Crandell has been a hiking guide in the Pacific NW for over 20 years. She's lived on Whidbey and Fidalgo Island for decades. As a frequent bus rider she easily makes connections between trails and transit. Archives by date
March 2024
Categories
All
|