Curiously Named Locales: Useless Loop, Western Australia, Australia

 

Photo credit: Mark Gray markgray.com.au

    A few miles from the westernmost point on the continent of Australia, lies a solar salt farm off Shark Bay that produces what is claimed to be the purest grade of salt in the world. A closed company town, Useless Loop is the location of the Shark Bay Salt Pty Ltd. The accumulation of purified salt harvested from the shallow ocean beds is large enough that it is visible across the Bay in Denham, some 14 miles away.  In 1989, the town received an award for a preservation and relocation project for three endangered Australian mammals: the burrowing bettong, the western barred bandicoot, and the greater stick-nest rat. 

    The town takes part of its name from French explorer Henri-Louis de Saulces de Freycinet, who sailed with the Baudin expedition to Australia, which was then called New Holland. Believing that a large sandbar was blocking access for ships, de Freycinet dubbed the place Havre Inutile or Useless Harbor. The cove has since been transformed into the solar salt farm pictured above.

editor's note: while researching the Useless Loop and its salt production, I came across a unusual measurement for tons. A little further digging revealed the three types of tons:

 - a short, or USA ton which weighs 2,000 lbs

 - a metric tonne is 2,204 lbs (or 1,000 kilograms)

 - a long, or Imperial, or British ton equals 2,240 lbs

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useless_Loop,_Western_Australia
https://maps.roadtrippers.com/au/wa/attractions/useless-loop
https://www.markgray.com.au/gallery/limited-edition-prints/pastels.php

https://www.australiantraveller.com/australia/weirdest-named-places-in-australia/

https://monmouthrubber.com/what-is-the-difference-between-the-three-different-types-of-ton-short-ton-long-ton-and-metric-ton/

Curiously Named Locales: Moose Factory, Ontario, Canada

Far, far north in the province of Ontario, Canada, nestled into the Moose River, sits the town and island of Moose Factory. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Hudson Bay Company was granted a royal charter by King Charles II of England to all the lands that drained into the Hudson Bay. This land was called Prince Rupert's Land (after the King's cousin) and represents more than a third of all land in modern Canada. Two Frenchmen funded by the English set up the company in order to establish fur trading there, farther north than the previously settled trading posts, which were mostly situated near the Saint Lawrence River and primarily controlled by the French. These were mostly trading beaver pelts, but also squirrel, otter and moose. Traveling north to James Bay, the Company established several forts to trade fur with native trappers. The second of these was called Moose Fort, later changed in more pacific times to Moose Factory. In the vocabulary of the company and merchants in general, a 'factor' was a business agent in charge of buying or selling goods, and a 'factory' referred to their jurisdiction. 

    Moose Factory Island is mostly a reserve of the Moose Cree First Nation, which makes up the northern two-thirds of the island. The Cree people were historically migratory, though after Moose Fort was established, the people were exposed to European culture. The fort became the first English-speaking settlement in Ontario, which was then part of New France. The island is accessible from nearby Moosonee by boat and helicopter during the warmer seasons, and in the winter an ice road can be established over the frozen river. Historically the isolated island relied upon annual sea voyages for supplies, but in 1931, Moosonee was connected by rail to the Northern Ontario Railway.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson%27s_Bay_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Factory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Cree_First_Nation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Factory_Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert%27s_Land

Curiously Named Locales: Cape Flattery, Washington

 

Photo credit: Gavin Hardcastle phototripper.com

    Statistics can be misleading. Sometimes they're just so specific that I can't help but be unimpressed. This happens a lot in sports. Here's an example: Brett Favre, Tom Brady and Jerry Rice are the only players to play in more than 300 games and don’t play the kicker position. So. When I read that Cape Flattery is the northwestern-most point of the contiguous United States, I got the same eye-rolling feeling. It isn't the northern-most and it isn't the western-most. What makes it special?

    For one thing, it's the oldest permanently named (by European colonizers) feature in the state of Washington. It was named by Captain James Cook, "discoverer" of the Hawaiian Islands. Apparently the opening north of Cape Flattery flattered Cook's crew with the idea that there might be a harbor. This was the opening of the strait of San Juan de Fuca which Cook managed to sail past on his third voyage ca. 1776. 

Painting credit: Parker McAllister

On the west side of Cape Flattery is a large, almost rectangular stone called the Fuca Pillar after Juan de
Fuca, another ancient European explorer of questionable verisimilitude. De Fuca was a Greek explorer working for the king of Spain who claimed to to have explored the Strait of Anián while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage. This strait was later renamed in his honor. On this voyage, De Fuca mentioned a large spire of rock on the western shore of Cape Flattery, though in his account, the pinnacle was recorded as being on the other side of the strait. 

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Flattery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Fuca
https://www.historylink.org/File/5035 - Kit Oldham
https://www.fototripper.com/cape-flattery-olympic-national-park/ - Gavin Hardcastle

https://spl.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15015coll5/id/165/ - Parker McAllister

2023 wrap-up post: Stumbling Towards the Unknown

 I was thinking about 2023 as a whole a few days ago. I'm not sure I accomplished anything noteworthy, but every day I feel like I'm scrambling towards an unknown goal. I'm moving as fast as I can towards... something. I'm not sure what. A realistic version of myself thinks it's Death. I learned about the Call of the Void, or as it's sometimes called High Place Phenomenon. A sort of intrusive thinking that draws your attention to how thin the line can be between what you're doing and total destruction. Oblivion. Somehow learning this was a documented pattern among humans made it easier to bear and seemed to lift the weight of what I had previously considered to be self-destructive thought. The visions I had of my own death falling from a high place seemed less realistic, though I was hiking more than I ever had, increasing the chances of this every week. This year I spent a little more time thinking about the ideal age that I had been in the past. I'm still journeying towards a better self, and some days it hurts. The following list is comprised of people who, for better or for worse, will no longer improve:

Jeff Beck

Lisa Marie Presley

David Crosby

Tom Verlaine

Raquel Welch

Gary Rossington

Dick Fosbury

Klaus Teuber

Al Jaffee

Arie deJong

Gordon Lightfoot

Tina Turner

Ted Kaczynski

Cormac McCarthy

Sinéad O'Connor

Paul Reubens

Robbie Robertson

Jimmy Buffett

Three Days on the Wildwood Trail

photo credit: Jule Gilfillan / OPB

    When I turned 40 a few years ago, I decided I needed a mid-life crisis goal. Living in Portland, OR, it's pretty easy to look around while driving and see Mt Hood. Summiting it seemed like an achievable challenge. I took a friend out to dinner who had been up it and routinely volunteered in mountain rescue. She gave me a list of trails to hike in order to train myself for the physical and mental exertion the mountain required. She also mentioned that the best time of year to go up was May and June. She said she'd be willing to climb it with me, but since it was already mid-March, this might not be the right year for it considering the gear and training I would need. 

    Starting that summer, I went out hiking every week, all year long. Sometimes it's difficult to find something nearby that I hadn't hiked recently and also within my comfort zone. 

    This last December, I decided I should walk all 30 miles of the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park. There are plenty of stories of people running it in one horrible day, but I found a blog post (here) describing a hike split into three legs. I knew I wouldn't be able to duplicate this timeline since I don't have three full days off in a row, but if I talked a friend into driving too, we could do it in heats as traverse hikes. Both drivers roll up to one trailhead, leave one car and get into the other, then drive together to the second trailhead. Once the hike is complete, they both get into the first car then drive back to the first trailhead, split up and drive home separately. This is how we used to tube rivers in the summer, so why couldn't it work for hiking?

    With my free time limited to one day a week, I decided we could do the three days over the course of several weeks during the month of December. I've done portions of the Wildwood before, but always found it a little boring compared to many of the hikes in the Columbia River Gorge or on the shoulders of Mt Hood. No waterfalls, no stunning panoramas, no dangerous river crossings, not even a talus slope to scramble across. What it does have is miles and miles of trails within a half-hour drive of the house. In the past I saved the Wildwood for those days when a high wind advisory or a blizzard made more interesting hikes unavailable. December would be perfect for this project since it's usually a rainy month in the Northwest. 

Day 1 - Wildwood Newberry trailhead to Springville Road trailhead (MI22.1) - 7.5 miles

Newberry Trailhead

    December 7, 2023: I roped my friend John into the first leg. My eldest and youngest daughters also came along. John and I used to drive the same mini-van, but of late his Sienna was moving towards retirement. When he showed up in his new Subaru, my daughters were afraid to get in, since they might get dirt on his floor mats. This might be a sort of window into what it's like growing up with me for a dad. Sometimes they'll ask permission to drink water in my car. Fault me if you think it fair, but you haven't seen the way they drink. Anyways, we parked my car at the trailhead down Springville Rd off Skyline Blvd, piled into John's new, clean, (white!) Forester and headed for the end of the line. I had decided to take the trail backwards since parking in Washington Park can be expensive, especially if you're there for six-plus hours. Once we arrived at the Newberry trailhead, the mile countdown began. It was overcast, and we had 15 minutes of pretty serious rain, but it was generally lovely weather for a vigorous walk. We weren't 200 feet down the trail before we started identifying mushrooms. First off was a tiny gash in root in the middle of the trail, full of scarlet elf cups.

Merry Christmas 2023

 

Elbow On Desk, Hand Rubbing Forehead

    During the winter, I'm frequently looking for places to walk that aren't under several inches of snow. This month, I've been trying to cover the entire Wildwood Trail in Forest Park, which is a little under 30 miles from end to end. We did the first leg last week, which ran from the end of the trail at Newberry Road to a side trail down Springville Rd, which was only about seven and a half miles on paper. By doing it in segments with more than one driver, the idea was to drop off a car at each end, so we don't have to double back. Yesterday, we had planned to do the second leg, probably from the trailhead off Springville to the Forest Lane trailhead. This would be about 11 miles, but easy enough as it looks pretty flat on the elevation change map. We were packing up to drop the kids off at school before heading out to the trail and my phone started ringing. No one calls this early. Caller ID showed Lake Oswego. I don't know anyone there. I didn't answer. It immediately started ringing again. The third time I answer. It was the Lake O police department. They said my car was running in the middle of a residential street and could I come pick it up? Nah, my car is parked right out in front of my...Fuck. I looked out the window. There was the car door handle sitting on the ground where I had parked the previous morning.

    So we dropped the very emotional kids off at school, then drove down to the address the police had given me. There she was, doors open, lights on, running strong. No door handle, paint a little scratched here and there, but otherwise externally OK. Inside were several pairs of shoes, one airpod in a case for two, a bottle of perfume, a couple bottles of water, and most of the stuff I had left in the car: a child booster seat, my sunglasses, the USB charger cable for my phone, a large Ka-Bar knife, the owner's manual, and the disassembled parts of my steering column. 

    Missing were the CDs. The Wipers - Over the Edge and a case of burned CDs that were all the mixtapes Racheous had made for me while we were dating.