This weekend, the ENVS 350 class went in an expedition south of Portland to Douglas County, Oregon to investigate theory on the ground. Thus begins our praxis projects, an attempt to apply theory to a real-life real-place real-people context.
First, the field trip was FUN. We had a glimpse of the beautiful weather to come for summer, several outdoor adventures in the forests and on the roads of the landscape, and a lot of time together to learn and process.
When we first arrived, we headed to the Douglas County Courthouse to meet with Doug Robertson, a former Douglas County commissioner. Doug very generously gave us a comprehensive history of Douglas County’s landscape and timber industry. He emphasized the story of the O&C Railroad lands as a major aspect of the current situation of the county coffers, which are struggling as they have been since about 1990. Douglas County is a little over 50% owned by the federal government and managed either by the Bureau of Land Management or the Forest Service. Timber on BLM land, according to Robertson and others, was a major source of profit for the county from the post-war years (due to the housing boom in Suburbia, USA) through the 1980s. However, after the spotted owl was listed by the Endangered Species Act, the timber industry was reduced to a fraction of its productivity and an even smaller fraction of its potential. So goes the narrative of loss in Douglas County: first, the federal government revoked the O&C lands, thereby eliminated the possibility for the private sector to develop on or profit off that land; second, the environmentalists flexed their legal powers and successfully stumped the timber by placing further restrictions on federal land use. Without this revenue, the county (and many other counties in similar situations) had very little money for basic services that they were required to provide, including schools, jails, roads, public safety officers, fire services, and search and rescue operations for recreational users of the woods. One interesting argument in particular was this: there are many federal laws about protecting species and landscapes, but there are no federal laws about communities that have been devastated? As someone who is particularly interested in environmental justice in the rural American West, this legal disparity drawn by Doug was especially resonant.
Hearing Doug’s perspective first truly sensitized me to viewing Roseburg and Douglas County as a landscape coping with loss. This reminded me of Doreen Massey’s paper “Landscape as a Provocation” where she describes the human/nature binary as setting up a narrative of loss from the outset:
In such a narrative [any human ‘intervention’ in nature is seen in a negative light] it is, moreover, almost structurally impossible to envisage any positive human/nonhuman relation at all. It is a narrative that inevitably entails a nostalgia, and a backward-looking rather than forward-looking outlook. It is an imagination of the Fall, built around a pre/post-lapsarian dichotomy.” (Massey 2006, 36)
While Massey explores “the Fall” as the moment of human ‘intervention’ (which is not exactly congruent with the biblical characterization of Adam & Eve’s relationship with the Garden), “the Fall” for the commissioners of Douglas County occurred when the federal government, at the urging of “the environmentalists,” restricted human intervention in the forests. Both are narratives of loss, only inverted. Perhaps for the environmentalists and the citizens of Eugene who might do radical action to “save trees” Massey’s description of “the Fall” is more accurate. Nevertheless, Massey’s version of “the Fall” and Doug Robertson’s version of “the Fall” are each narratives of loss. Furthermore, this loss is a loss to a broader system, either to some wide natural nonhuman world (a loss to which also constitutes a loss to humanity, perhaps?) or a loss to a scaled public business and all its constintuancy: Douglas County and its residents.
This story illuminates the values held by one actor in Douglas County, but in no way represents the entire population. From our preliminary readings about Douglas County, this story of loss was repreated over and over: O&C Lands, timber heaven, 1990, ineffective government payments, struggle. One possible way to connect this to our themes of Reality, Knowledge, Ethics, & Politics would be to explore Doug Robertson’s nostalgic viewpoint as a remembrance of a utopia in the face of a percieved dystopia through the frame of ethics (facts and values).
From what I later learned, this entire narrative is but one dimension of the Douglas County story.
From my other investigations in Douglas County, namely at the Douglas County Museum of History & Natural History and at two restaurant breweries in Downtown Roseburg (O’Tooles Pub and Salud Restaurant & Brewery), I discovered (at least) one alternate narrative that challenged the Robertson story of loss. As the commissioners noted, there has been a significatn demographic shift in Roseburg and Douglas County at large in the past several decades. This demographic shift is three-fold. First, a lot of wealthy, retired Californians are moving to the area because prices are favorable and amenities are aplenty. Second, a wave a young entrepreneurs are coming to age as well, both from afar and abreast as the millenial generation that was born around 1990 grow up, start businesses, and start families. Thirdly, after the timber drop in 1990, many families had to leave the area because of the lack of jobs, although many still remain, oftentimes in poverty. While each of these demographics represents a different perspective on Douglas County (for instance, the first and second perhaps a more utopic vision, the third more dystopic), I noticed a tension between the first and the third and a depoliticization of the second. This second demographic, the young entrepreneurs, was a highly visible sector from my time in Douglas County and I wish to further explore the positionality of these folks.
First, we went to O’Tooles Pub for lunch after visiting the Douglas County Courthouse. The restaurant itself was located just around the corner from the courthouse in a brick building with exposed beams. There was an extensive beer list of local (Oregon) brews on tap, pub board games on an ancient Pepsi machine, wood tables, and a general trendy brewpub aesthetic. Additionally, there were pamphlets at the bar explaining the history of brewing in the Douglas County. Overall, the food was good and the atmosphere rather young.
The next experience I had with the younger generation of Douglas County residents was a tour of the Douglas County Museum of History and Natural History by none other than the directory of the museum himself, Gardner Chappell. When he wasn’t bustling through the museum’s many exhibits, archives, and hidden storage rooms, Gardner was expressing great excitement for the new opportunities available for young people in Douglas County. In particular, Gardner was looking forward to a pizza and wine evening with friends at a local vineyard. He then gave us several copies of the Oregon Valley Verve, a new publication about the up-and-coming scene in Roseburg and surrounding communities of which Gardner is a contributor. We immediately recognized one of the people on the cover from O’Toole’s Pub, a connection that strengthened my sense of this demographic and its network.
The following day, I set out to explore Downtown Roseburg further with an eye out for others of these establishments. From the Verve, I followed a map of breweries in downtown and found Salud. I walked in the backdoor and navigated through an empty dining room until I got to the front where I found a large space decorated with Día de Muertos skulls. I took a seat at the bar where the friendly, but busy bartender excitedly told me to make myself at home. Another look at the cover of Verve proved that the bartender was Manny, one of the owners. I perused the food and drink list and introduced myself to the bartender as a student researcher. Despite the quiet afternoon, Manny was bustling around chatting with the cooks, serving the customers and myself with extreme hospitality, and preparing a photoshoot for his social media advertising platform. I ordered the Ab-“Salud”-Ly IPA (which was excellent) and engaged in chatter with Manny. As someone who grew up is Douglas County, I asked him about how the events of 1990 “devastated” the community to which he responded “Yes and no” and explained that it provided a lot of opportunities and people really tried to keep their heads up and come together and that history like that “really builds character.” This was a fascinating alternative to the dystopian explanation by the county commissioners. Manny embraced the challenges faced by the citizens of Roseburg as an opportunity to reinvent while still grounding his mission in the community and its history.
From this overwhelming and rich experience of exploring the people and landscapes of Douglas County, I hope to investigate how these narratives of loss, rebirth, and utter change are connected to knowledge and stories of different actors, stakeholders, and, above all, community members in Douglas County.
Potential Framing Question: How do communities use historical knowledge to cope with loss?
Potential Focus Question: What aspects of Douglas County’s history are used in different visions for the future?
Potential Methods: Content analysis of Verve magazine and social media, literature and landscape of the brewery scene, narrative analysis of Doug Robertson and Chris Boice’s presentation, website analysis of the new campaigns of environmentalists
Works Cited
Massey, Doreen. “Landscape as a Provocation: Reflections on Moving Mountains.”2006. Journal of Material Culture. 11(1/2): 33-48. doi:10.1177/1359183506062991