Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, NC

The biennial family beach trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina has become weighted down by its own history in some respects. There are comforting traditions that go back many years, and there are other things that occur with annoying regularity. My wife’s entire family has been doing this since before we all had children, and now most of our children are grown and off to college. But the show must go on.

One thing that must ALWAYS happen each time we come to this place is this: While my spouse and in-laws are getting drunk at 10am on the beach, I escape to a place of shadeless abandon at Pea Island Wildlife Refuge. Insofar as I take refuge here once every two years, I suppose that ranks me among the wildlife, though it seems a little less wild to be here than to be day-drinking and swimming in the waves. I do find great comfort here in a place where the sand and the sun and the waves are my only companions—aside from the literal wildlife. And my new interest in birds has opened my eyes to more of the wildlife that’s on display here.

There are few places along the East Coast where you can have the ocean all to yourself. This is one of them. For miles and miles.

Rangers riding in “gators” will occasionally drive down the beach to make sure no one is disturbing the nests of plovers and other seabirds. With the enormous heatwave, it was surprising how much cooler the temps were on top of the dunes or to the west of them, away from the ocean and rising sun.

Alas, poor elegant jellyfish. How did such a lot befall you? Of course, you’re short-lived creatures, as things of great beauty must often be. Why must the beautiful perish? I ask it too often.

This elusive and equally elegant fellow was quite lanky and camera shy. My Merlin bird app could not seem to identify him, but when he takes flight, you see that he’s a beautiful mix of gray and white with a long, formal-looking tail and long wings. Very erect and proper-looking. I’ve seen these birds all along the island, but they don’t appear in any of the island’s wildlife guides.

As e.e. cummings said: 

whatever we lose

(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves

we find at the sea

And birds.  You find them, too. I find myself a little better among the trees, for I’m a woodland creature. But there is nothing like the ocean—its grandeur, its mystery, its smell and sound and sight. 

See the dark protuberance in the water? That’s the boiler of The Oriental, a Union supply ship that sank here in 1862. It adds just a touch of eeriness to the place.

At Pea Island, there’s a visitor center where I typically buy a T-shirt (different style each year). There’s the beach on one side and the sound—or bay—on the other. The bay walk was painfully hot, but it passes through a nice arbor of live oaks.

You can’t tell from any of these photos, but this is a red-winged blackbird—one of the common birds back home, which I did not expect to find here at the coast. He flew right at me, but I didn’t flinch because we were having a moment. Then he perched on this dead treetop and spoke for about three minutes while I listened. Then he flew directly at me again, and again I did not dart away, though his red epaulets made him look fierce as he approached in rapid flight. Then he flew off over the marshy pond. 

I wish his red patch and yellow stripe were visible in these photos.

The bay side has turtle ponds. Moss grows on the backs of some of these aged fellows.

I also saw a sea otter, but didn’t get a pic in time. 

And this fellow? Amazing creature! These sand crabs have eyes on top of their heads so that they can see in every direction at once, and they move in a scuttling walk—backwards, forwards, sideways. I’m a little jealous.

 

Otter Creek Wilderness Revisited

It was in November of 2020 that a different friend and I first visited Otter Creek, a large wilderness area inside West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest—easily my favorite of our now-beleaguered national forests. (The Trump regime has plans to monetize all of them for private gain.) We had a good enough visit, but limited ourselves to the southeast quadrant of the forest, missing out on its vast interior. 

After an absence of 5 years, I returned to Otter Creek with another friend—the previous one having succumbed to the siren call of getting a new job and trying too hard to prove himself by NEVER taking vacation days. Ah, but bitterness aside, this was actually a better trip. The summer days are still mild and breezy. The mountain laurel was just coming into bloom. The light mountain air was scented with freshwater and the spicy smell of an Appalachian forest. And to make matters even better, it only rained at night while we were sleeping warm and dry in our various tents—his pictured on top and my hammock tent just above. We erected a clever rain shelter by the fire but never needed to use it.

We hiked 5 miles from the south entrance almost to the middle of the wilderness area. There were plenty of places to fish and swim in the freakishly frigid water—which thing we did. In our three days there, we met not another soul except a local fisherman on Thursday and another on Saturday. But really, can you imagine it? 20 miles from Dolly Sods, where cars with out-of-state plates line every dirt road for miles, here we were the only tourists in sight. It’s true that this wilderness area lacks the broad, sweeping vistas offered by the Sods. In places, it’s just dense rhododendron thickets. In other places, it’s rocky creeks, and brooks, and tributaries. It’s all very woodsy, with none of the open meadowland of the Sods, but still so beautiful. The creeks that bubble wildly over the great stones are all worth exploring. 

Otter Creek itself is the centerpiece of the wilderness area and a magnificent body of water. But my favorite was the wild Possession Camp Run, which comes tumbling down the mountainsides in a series of narrow waterfalls. The Possession Camp Trail takes you from the area where we camped on Otter Creek all the way to the top of Green Mountain, where there are no views. Now tell me, how does a brook in the deepest forest get the name “Possession Camp Run”?  What kind of possession are we talking about here? As one who takes an interest in religion and spirituality, I hope the word refers to the folk religion of Appalachia—as in possession by demons or the Holy Spirit. I hope there’s some earthy tale of camp meetings and snake-handling and sawdust trails in the waning days of the Second Great Awakening. But I’m pretty sure “possession” probably refers to something far more banal, like ownership of a piece of land. Still a great name, “Possession Camp.”

On the banks of that selfsame run, there’s evidence of the area’s industrial past—whether logging or coal mining, I don’t know.

My friend caught a few brookies in Otter Creek. The photo below is the campsite at the top of Green Mountain, at the end of Possession Camp Trail—nice spot where demonic possessions may or may not have occurred. The photo below it is one of the many waterfalls on Possession Camp Run. I was supposed to bag the as-yet-unclaimed peaks on the nearby Stuart Knob and Bickle Knob, but my friend was in a hurry to get back to Pittsburgh.

 

Another Cameroon Trip

This was my house on the old mission station in Southern Cameroon.  It was called "The House Behind the Mango Tree."  I was the US Embassy's Warden of the South Province, and that was the address for all Americans in case there was ever an evacuation: The House Behind the Mango Tree.  But the mango tree must have died some years ago.  Now there's a beautiful safoutier, which Cameroonians call a "plum tree," though the fruit it bears is nothing like a plum.  It's tangy and olive-like and really delicious.

Also on the old mission station, the main missionary residence, probably dating from 1900 or so.

These wretched beasts are zebus, which are herded and used as beef cattle.  I had a 5-year war to keep them off the mission station lawns.  Guess they won in the end.

And here's the church at the station.  

My office was in this building, which still seems to function as a school, but it has a very distinct air of neglect to it these days.

The open air market in Ebolowa.

A view from the resort at Nkolandom, or "Hill of Elegance."

In the museum at Nkolandom, there's a replica of the interior of a traditional chief's throne room for the South Province.

Masks once used by Bulu shamans before the arrival of Christianity.

At Ako'okas, the rock needle that I first tried to climb in 1996 and to which I returned on this most recent trip.  I still didn't make it to the top...

But the hike up and back through virgin rainforest was fun...

This girl reminded me of my younger daughter.  She was all dressed up in makeup and a long gown, but she took off her shoes and climbed the mountain barefoot.  The rock face in the background is what stopped us... You need both climbing gear and courage to tackle that kind of angle, and I have neither.

The view from the highest spot we reached, which was not the summit.

The rock from below...

Here's the "Rocher d'Ako'okas" as seen from the road to Gabon. 

Madame Medjo, whom I first described in my journal 29 years ago as "The Wicked and Powerful."  Isn't it crazy how wrong we can be about people?

This little church was built by Madame Medjo's husband but never finished.  It stands just beside their house in the village, and he's buried beneath the floor.

Madame Medjo and her niece Germaine in the yard of the house at Ako'okas.  Like most Cameroonians, they consider the village "home," but they live most of the time in town.

The church from another angle.  Pastors do occasionally come to lead services here.  And I led one impromptu service in memory of Pastor Medjo, who was Madame Medjo's husband.

Francois and Vic started clacking some sticks together, the women started singing, and the men gathered in from the field to clap and sing.

The guy in the white T-shirt is a black American discovering Africa and loving it.

The front of the chapel at Ako'okas with a large photo of Pastor Medjo.  This place is well cared-for, and it functions as a private family chapel, really.  

The banner above the chancel of the church is taken from a verse in the minor prophet Habakuk.  It's pretty standard for churches of the Eglise Presbyterienne Camerounaise, especially in rural areas.  It says "Holy, holy, holy: The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him."  The word "holy," in Bulu is "etyi," which can also mean "off-limits" or "forbidden."  The first time a Cameroonian layperson told me what it meant, he said, "Etyi means 'interdit'.  No one is allowed in that part of the church except the pastor and the elders."

Pastor Medjo is buried here, under the floor of the vestry.

We spent most of this trip in Yaounde, the capital city, where I served as an interpreter.

The hotel was pretty deluxe.

Yaounde is much the same as I left it, a little more crowded and a lot more congested, but very recognizable.  What's changed is my desire to explore it all on foot...