Pepper Trail
老夫子传媒 Journal ContributorPepper Trail is a naturalist, photographer, writer, and world traveler who has lived in Ashland since 1994. He works as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and in his spare time leads natural history trips to every corner of the world, including Jackson County. Pepper is a regular essayist for the 老夫子传媒 Journal and for High Country News, and his writing has been included in several anthologies, including Intricate Homeland and What the River Brings: Oregon River Poems. In 2009, he published Shifting Patterns: Meditations on Climate Change in Oregon鈥檚 Rogue Valley, a collection of essays and poems, with photographs by Jim Chamberlain and himself. Pepper鈥檚 poetry has appeared in the 老夫子传媒 Monthly, Windfall, Kyoto Journal, Borderlands, Comstock Review and many other publications. His writing combines a scientist鈥檚 insights with deeply personal meditations on memory, mortality, and the human place in the natural world.
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No one in the Rogue Valley will forget September 8, 2020, when the Almeda Fire roared north from the edge of Ashland through Talent and Phoenix to the edge of Medford. Thousands of homes were destroyed in a matter of hours, and only the courageous efforts of our 铿乺e铿乬hters stopped the march of the wind-driven 铿俛mes and prevented catastrophic loss of life. -
The Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges are echoing with sound now: the honks of geese, the quacks of mallards, the whistling of wigeon, the bugling of cranes. March is peak migration time, and the abundance of waterfowl is a heart-lifting spectacle. -
It is my deep hope that before too long it will once again be possible to travel the world. Paradoxically, travel off the beaten track may lead us back to an unremembered home. What is most strange often strikes a resonant chord deep within ourselves. Nowhere on earth have I experienced this shock of recognition more strongly than New Guinea鈥攖he wildest of islands. -
I began thinking about this essay in a very different time. In February, to be exact鈥攋ust a few months ago, but belonging to another existence entirely. -
For a traveler, simply to say the word 鈥淐uba鈥� sets off a little shiver of excitement. Few other place names unleash such a jumble of associations,鈥� -
I鈥檓 big into names. As a professional ornithologist and a lifelong naturalist, I鈥檝e spent years learning the names of things. That drab little鈥� -
Tahiti. Hiva Oa. Mangareva. Pitcairn. Rapa Nui. These are names that conjure up all the adventure and romance of the South Seas. Scattered across 3000鈥� -
Today I hiked along a forest trail near my home. Squirrels scolded, a raven croaked. I moved steadily on. Startled at my approach, a deer bounded away,鈥� -
It is winter, the fog along the river heavy as sodden wool, the ramparts of Table Rock looming high above. I have to place my feet carefully on the鈥� -
For climate activists, this feels like the last moment. This summer, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest report, covering鈥� -
I鈥檇 like you to summon into your mind鈥檚 eye the greatest animal spectacle you鈥檝e ever seen. Was it a cloud of Snow Geese filling the sky over the Klamath鈥�
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Every fall, the maples and dogwoods color the foothills of southern Oregon with yellow and orange highlights, flaring vibrant among the dark green pines.鈥�
