Patagonia. 

I still wear what is now phrased their ‘retro fleece’  that I’ve had it since I was 14 years old.  I’m 33 now and that sheepskin looking garment has been with me at every outside-step of the outside-way for nearly 20 years. To countless rivers and streams, that fleece has blanketed me as much as the memories.

I like to think it blankets the Shuksan Rod Co. as well.

As a company, Patagonia has set the bar for corporate social and ecoresponsibility, and is leading by a noteworthy example. 

Yeah, I know you’ve heard of the company, but check them out online…. there’s totally incredible world-saving mojo on there, so please continue to support their efforts and follow their lead.

Its well worth following.  Nevermind that their clothing and equipment is handsdown the best stuff out there.

http://www.patagonia.com/

Dam’s demise lets the Rogue River run On Friday, a platoon of bulldozers and earthmovers tore away at the last of the temporary earthen berms holding water behind the dam. The Rogue River rushed free, flowing through its historic channel for the first time since 1921.

By Kim Murphy Los Angeles Times

Two channels of the Rogue River meet after two berms were removed Friday from the north side (on left) allowing the river to flow freely for the first time since 1921 when the Savage Rapids Dam was built to divert water for irrigation.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — For years, the water stored by the Savage Rapids Dam has nurtured the green bean fields and grazing pastures of southern Oregon, turning them into a lush region of bounty. But there has been a price — the death of thousands of fish, which slammed themselves into the concrete wall of the dam in a futile effort to head upstream. That picture now resembles a faded sepia-tone photograph. Many of the big farms have turned into 10-acre hobby ranches; the salmon are in danger of disappearing, and even the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that harnessed rivers and irrigated the West, began saying a few years ago it would be better to just tear down the aging dam once and for all. So they did. On Friday, a platoon of bulldozers and earthmovers tore away at the last of the temporary earthen berms holding water behind the dam. The Rogue River rushed free, flowing through its historic channel for the first time since 1921. “Startin’ through,” muttered Robert Hamilton, project manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, who worked on fixing, and finally dismantling, the dam for more than 20 years. “Don’t see something like this every day.” Across the U.S., the era of dam-building that characterized the early 20th century has given way to a new era of dam breaching. Here in the Pacific Northwest, where some of the biggest battles over fish and concrete have raged, the Marmot Dam on the Sandy River near Portland was demolished in 2007. In September, an agreement was reached to remove four dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon in what is described as the world’s biggest river-restoration project. Two dams on Washington’s Elwha River are slated for removal in 2012. In southern Oregon, Savage Rapids is one of four dams being dismantled on the Rogue River. With Friday’s breaching, three projects are completed, and the fourth, Gold Ray Dam, 18 miles upstream from Savage Rapids, could be brought down by 2010, returning a 157-mile stretch of the river to its natural state. Savage Rapids “has been known as the number-one fish killer on the Rogue River,” said Bob Hunter, who spent 20 years as a staff attorney with the environmental group WaterWatch, working to bring the dam down. “It’s the first dam migrating salmon and steelhead meet on their way upstream, and pretty much everyone in the fishing community knew this dam was causing a great deal of harm.” But the 30-foot-high, 500-foot-long irrigation dam was also providing cheap, needed water to farmers and homeowners in the Grants Pass Irrigation District, which had held a legal right since 1918 to a share of the Rogue’s waters. Over the past two decades, rural southern Oregon had been plagued by lumber-mill closures resulting from cutbacks in logging to protect the endangered spotted owl; few were initially enthusiastic about losing their water to the threatened coho salmon, one of several species of salmon and steelhead trout that migrate up the Rogue River. Many families enjoyed boating and water skiing on the picturesque, 3 ½-mile reservoir behind the dam. “It became, I guess, our Statue of Liberty,” said Dan Shepherd, director of the Grants Pass Irrigation District, which spent years fighting to preserve the dam. But the combined power of the environmental movement, the federal government, the simple economics of water and concrete, and a new population that wants its rivers wild, not tamed, became too massive to fight, he said. “It was either you go out of business, or you reinvent yourself and go forward.” The fights seemed endless. Two fishing organizations filed a challenge to the district’s application several years ago to expand its water rights. The National Marine Fisheries Service filed suit against the irrigation district, accusing it of illegally killing salmon protected by the Endangered Species Act. The irrigation district filed suits of its own to keep the dam. The aging edifice became a bellwether for conservative state lawmakers from the region, determined to protect it, and a former Democratic governor, John Kitzhaber, who pushed to let it go. Michael Lambert, a fish-passage engineer for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, went to the dam to look for himself and came to the same conclusion the Bureau of Reclamation did: It was cheaper — and better — to simply tear it down. Hamilton described the damage to fish: “You could see the fish try to come up here and try to leap over a 40-foot dam. They’d hit the spillway, and fall back down.” In other cases, fish would struggle to climb the dam’s rudimentary fish ladder, fall out and die. Young fish migrating out to sea got trapped in the water pumps’ screens and perished. The Bureau of Reclamation concluded it would be cheaper to remove the aging facility and build electrically powered pumps in the river to get the Grants Pass district the water it needed. In 2001, a consent decree was signed ending all the legal fights. In it, everybody got a piece of what they wanted. The dam would go, but WaterWatch and others would help the district get federal money to do the work and build a new pumping plant. The federal authorization came in 2003, and it was followed by $36 million in federal and $3 million in state appropriations. The first construction work began in 2006, leading up to the moments Friday when water began rushing past the old dam and cutting a course through the river’s old bed nearby. Shepherd, of the irrigation district, said the agency was faced with huge costs for improving the old dam, a loss of much of its water rights, a lawsuit from the federal government and no money to fight any of it. “You couldn’t just stick your head in the sand anymore,” he said. “You name it, we were sued by everybody. And then they basically said that, ‘if you guys want to switch over to pumps and go with dam removal, we’ll do everything in our power to get you the money and make it happen. If you guys decide to go the other way, which was still our option, we will do everything in our power to stop you.’ ” The district took a vote of its residents, and the majority favored dam removal. The electricity bill to run the new pumps is $40,000 to $50,000 a month, but spending the $14 million to $20 million to fix the dam would have cost $1 million a year in interest alone, he said. “They were basically saying, ‘Quit spending the money. Get on with life,’ ” Shepherd said

The way it is

if not

now never

ever to stay

nearer to far

or  closer away

just one more good-bye

and another after that

hold onto the parting

just don’t forget to

reach out a hand

hold a finger

locked in kind

mark the time

stand it still

stop the clock

but you aren’t mine

I lost you once before

time and again

lost and found

the way it is

catch and release

cast again

leave the ground

-jw

Wondered awhile about Home.  If I can find my way back.   If I ever left.  Or, where or when Home ever isn’t.

Then I wondered about Heart, and thought maybe Home’s broken all over the West and falling down to the Pacific and rising to rain.

I’m sure a  drop of it’s on a freestone gravel bar high up on the Skagit, bleeding off the red flank of a 18″ rainbow cradled in a benediction, recieved from the last hole on a long stretch.  Heavy water pushed fast around a log jam with a tail out to a quiet and deep pool.  I dropped a wet fly well subsurface and ahead and swam it dead through the elbow where the fish took. 

It took with a confidence that let me know I’d be landed and with the security of a connection fated and unbreakable and outside of time.   The line and leader not a leash, but a tie rope and a guide.

There wasn’t a struggle, only tension from the depth and the pull of an embrace. Four-ounces and seven and a half feet of split-cane nodded to the river, and I kneeled at the fish.  The heart on my sleeve broken wide open and grateful, spilling blood red and bright into her colors.

Some fish have a way of that.  A way of welcoming you Home, with all the honesty that Home requires.  Stipped naked and open and bleeding, the place knows you too well for charades.

‘Salmon Worship:  Is it Wrong?’

An Evening of Stories and Music

with writers Sherman Alexie and David James Duncan and singer/songwriter Jeffrey Foucault

September 25, 2009, 7 pm @ the Western Washington University Performing Arts Center

Bellingham, WA. 

Ticket prices $15-, or $10- for students

Event to Benefit the Liam Wood Fly Fishers and River Guardians (a non-profit)

————————————————————-

*tickets available online at  http://www.tickets.wwu.edu/  and at Village Books in Fairhaven and the B’ham Food Co-op

(see link  http://shuksanrods.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/fly-fishing-school-honors-pipeline-victim/ )

7 1/2 5-wt rod made for  the Liam Wood Fly Fishers and River Guardians in Bellingham, WA-

When I set out creating this site I had only one goal in mind; to create a place that leaves people feeling like they’re standing in a trout stream.  I wanted my love of rivers, and the alpine, to spill into every word and photograph.

Hopefully, spilling over to you as well.  Inspiring you to get outside.  Go walk into rivers. 

Conserve. 

Find wonder.

There is a lot of language on this site,  intentionally.  I didn’t want to make it something commercial, rather make it an extension of a Shuksan fly rod, and all that goes into it; books, the writing, photography, conservation, rod making… they’re all tied together, inseparable from each other.

The site will be updated regularly, so look at it from time to time.   Information about the most recent rods will be posted, along with photographs. The photographs are best viewed on new computers set to the highest resolution, for a ‘true to life image.’  All photographs are of Shuksan rods, and each is the property of the company and cannot be used without its permission.   

In the “Posts, thoughts…” section you will find archived posts organized into different groups, all of which are added to regularly with new information.

Thanks for taking a look– but at the same time…ready for some irony…turn off the computer and get outside.

JW

FLY-FISHING SCHOOL HONORS SPIRIT OF PIPELINE VICTIM

(from Bellingham Herald, June 9, 2009)

BELLINGHAM – Ten years after his death, Liam Wood’s spirit lives on in the school created to honor his passion for fly-fishing and his deep love of the natural world.

Since 2004, the Liam Wood Flyfishing and River Guardian School in Bellingham has used the art of fly-fishing to connect students to the ecology of fish, rivers and watersheds in the hope that getting them outdoors will spawn a connection to nature and a desire to protect it. There’s also a school in Missoula, Mont.

It’s a legacy that grew from an idea by Montana writer David James Duncan, whose book “The River Why” – about fly-fishing, the wildness of rivers and the mysticism of both – was a favorite of Liam’s, whose love of fly-fishing began when he was 9.

The 18-year-old Sehome High School graduate and budding writer drowned while fishing in a favorite watering hole at Whatcom Creek. He was overcome by fumes from 237,000 gallons of gasoline that had leaked from a ruptured pipeline in Whatcom Falls Park on June 10, 1999.

Two other Bellingham boys, Wade King and Stephen Tsiorvas, also died when they were burned by a fireball that came roaring down Whatcom Creek as they played on its banks near Hannah Creek. They were 10.

The river of fire scorched 11/2 miles of Whatcom Creek and decimated fish, insects and wildlife in the area, and raised the water temperature in the creek, important to salmon, to 90 degrees in seconds. Hannah Creek, where it met Whatcom Creek, also was burned.

Duncan, whose other books include “The Brothers K” and “River Teeth,” proposed the idea to Liam’s parents – his mother Marlene Robinson and stepfather Bruce Brabec – when he came to Bellingham in 2001 on a tour for his collection of essays, “”My Story As Told by Water.”

The hope was for “something positive to come out of the tragedy. Bruce and Marlene were all for it,” said Bret Simmons, a family friend and one of a group of people who helped start the school.

Liam’s parents no longer live in Bellingham. They have moved to Bonaire in the Caribbean. They declined to be interviewed for an article as part of The Bellingham Herald’s coverage of the 10th anniversary of the pipeline explosion.

Duncan learned about Liam’s death when friend Mart Stewart, a history professor at Western Washington University, sent him the June 11 edition of The Bellingham Herald, which carried a photo of a mushrooming black plume of smoke over Bellingham, and stories of the boys’ deaths.

“Liam’s death made me heartsick for many reasons,” Duncan wrote in an account of the schools’ creation. “I have twice stood in urban creeks at the moment effluent was causing their fish to turn belly up. Both times I headed upstream to try to find the source of the damage. Several of Liam’s friends believe Liam did the same and that his allegiance to the creek may have cost him his life.”

In an interview, Duncan said no one really knows what happened that day as Liam fly-fished for trout in Whatcom Creek, which has been described as a favorite spot that was his home away from home.

But he believed that Liam may have tried to figure out what was happening to the creek.

“When he first smelled the gas, he should have run like hell. Almost any fisherman, -woman, who loves their home stream would be divided between horror and curiosity,” he said.

It is Liam’s love for rivers that Simmons evokes when recalling the teen, with whom he went fly-fishing.

“He cared deeply about rivers and other wild places and recognized our collective responsibility of protecting them,” Simmons said.

Simmons also talked about the deep places of Liam’s heart, the wisdom in one so young, the outdoors lover who wrote about his adventures.

“He had perceptive eyes and an openness that invited the subtleties and wonder of the natural world into his soul,” Simmons said. “He was wise, loyal, fun, full of humility and kindness, and excited about life and the days to come.”

Most of all, he was an excellent fisherman, Simmons said.

The Liam Wood Flyfishing and River Guardian School works to pass on Liam’s love of fishing to youths, students and other members of the community through sessions taught by Leo Bodensteiner, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at WWU. Bodensteiner has studied fish, habitats and stream ecology for about 30 years.

Liam’s parents donate time and money to the school.

In addition to sessions through WWU, the school has taught younger students about fly-fishing and river ecosystems in compressed versions of the college courses at alternative schools, Home Port Learning Center in Bellingham and Timber Ridge Center just north of Bellingham. This year, they’ll do programs in Ferndale and Squalicum high schools.

Duncan, an advocate for fly-fishing, fish and river ecosystems, also comes to the class from time to time, as does Brabec, who tells students about Liam.

“Every time, it’s heart-rending to hear him speak,” Bodensteiner said.

“He’s such a wonderful guy, and he speaks gently and lovingly,” Duncan said. “It’s usually a moment that destroys his entire faculty. Some wounds don’t go away.”

But if there’s sadness, there are also lives being changed, eyes being opened, and a coming together of the community, including partners WWU, Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association, Fourth Corner Fly Fishers and Northwest Women Flyfishers.

Duncan talks about at-risk youth who normally have problems focusing in the classroom concentrating as they learn about fly-fishing, about students grappling with the subtleties and complexities of it, and new fishers getting the sense of how to read water and absorb biology, entomology and physics. And bringing kids out into nature and having them be filled with wonder by something larger than themselves, as Liam was.

“It’s not just hands-on but it’s worlds-on,” he said. “You’re standing in the midst of the thing itself. The environment, what surrounds you, is so alive and delightful and complex.”

SCHOOL FUNDRAISER

A Sept. 25 celebration in the Performing Arts Center at Western Washington University will raise money for the nonprofit Liam Wood Flyfishing and River Guardian School. Details are still being worked out, but performers at the literary and music event will be writers David James Duncan and Sherman Alexie, and singer/songwriter Jeffrey Foucault.

For more information about the school, click here.

Rivers of a Lost Coast, a new documentary about the fall of steelhead and salmon populations  in California rivers premiers in Seattle, May 9, 2009.  The film is narrated by actor and Seattle resident Tom Skerritt (A River Runs Thru It, Top Gun), and produced to benefit the Wild Steelhead Coalition.  -Absolutely a must see for fly fisherman, and an eye opener. (scroll below video clip for producers’ comments)

http://www.riversofalostcoast.com/

http://wildsteelheadcoalition.org/

At the turn of the 20th Century, a handful of pioneers carried their fly rods into California’s remote north coast and gave birth to a culture that would revolutionize their sport. For a select few, steelhead fly fishing became an obsessive pursuit without compromise.

Leading the pack was the mythical, Bill Schaadt, an off-kilter angler famous for his ruthless pursuit to be ‘in the fish’. The new endeavor was ruled by a demanding, unspoken code, which made ‘breaking in’ almost as difficult as ‘breaking out’.

By the early 1980s, the Golden State’s coastal fisheries found themselves caught in a spiraling decline. As California searched for its disappearing salmon and steelhead, these men foraged for their souls

Click link below to view a historic collection of photographs of the incredible Snake River, photos taken before the 4 major damns were placed in the lower river.

http://www.workingsnakeriver.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=83&Itemid=121

*Support those efforts working to remove these damns and restore the river.

-jw