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Nap Fort
They agreed because, well, they relished the idea of two hours
at the beach during the middle of the school day and eating free
Subway sandwiches courtesy of their teacher.
On the bus to Fort Stevens Sate Park, I struck up a conversation
with Rooper, the 20-year veteran driver. “I’ve taken kids everywhere,”
he said, “but never to build driftwood forts.”
He said it with a smile. He was one of us. I promised him a sandwich.
As we neared the park, I started outlining the trip’s itinerary when
a student raised his hand and said, “Mr. Love, can we just go to the
beach and see what happens and build what we want?”
I waited 1.5 seconds before answering. “Yes.” There should nev-
er be an agenda when building a driftwood fort. That’s the whole
point. Nothing like a kid wearing his baseball cap sideways who has
never built a fort to remind the Master. By they way, 13 out of the 15
students on the trip had never built one and they all live 15 miles
from the ocean.
We hit the beach, and all unfolded as it should. Two diff erent
teams built two totally diff erent forts: One was for a nap, the other
for a party.
At one point, I was building the roof of the nap fort when a stu-
dent asked, “What happens when you’re building one of these and
it collapses?”
“It never does,” I said. I turned to another student who was weav-
ing a beaver stick into the roof and asked, “And why is that?”
“Because we worked together to leverage all the diff erent shapes
in the wood to make the fort sturdy,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. He then climbed inside the fort, closed his eyes, and
started taking a nap. It looked pretty restful in there.
I had only one stipulation: the students in my English Credit
Recovery class at Astoria High School had to address me as Mas-
ter Fort Shredder for the duration of our fi eld trip to build drift-
wood forts.
Matt Love is the author/editor of 13 books about Oregon.
They are available at coastal bookstores and through
www.nestuccaspitpress.com
Photo by Matt Love
Contributor Matt Love built a nap fort in Fort Stevens State Park with his Astoria
High School English Credit Recovery class.
A G LIMPSE I NSIDE
An occasional feature by MATT LOVE
NW
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natural predators, the South-
ern Resident orca population
that navigates the waters off
Washington state and British
Columbia were nonetheless
added to the U.S. Endangered
Species list in 2005, due to
dwindling food supplies,
pollution and other factors
noun
1. Orcinus orca: a black-
and-white, toothed sea
mammal of the oceanic
dolphin family and the only
surviving member of the
genus Orcinus. Commonly re-
ferred to as the “killer whale,”
they have also been called
“blackfi sh” and “grampus” at
various times. Found in every
ocean, adult males can grow
up to 30 feet long and weigh
upwards of 4 tons. Though
considered an apex predator,
feasting on fi sh and other
sea mammals with no known
Origin:
Around 1865. New Latin
by way of Latin. The ancient
Romans fi rst recorded orca
in C.E. 16, meaning a kind of
whale, and possibly arising
from the Greek ȡȣȟ which
referred to a type of pick-ax
used for digging as well as a
great fi sh. Negative conno-
tation has long followed the
blackfi sh as orca shares the
same root as Orcus, the Latin
word for “Hell,” from which
ogre is also speculated to rise
from. Enters English as orc
in the late 16th century also
referring to a large whale
word
nerd
By RYAN HUME
Orca
and French as orque, which
had been used to describe a
sea monster. By 1841, the ge-
neric term “killer whale” had
been introduced and would
become the go-to name for
English-speaking scientists
for more than the next
hundred years. It has only
been since the 1960s that
term orca has reemerged as
the preferred nomenclature
due in part to diminish the
negativity associated with
“killer,” but also because
the species is more closely
related to the dolphin than
to other whales.
“The ‘killer’ whale — a numerous
species in North Atlantic waters, as well as
in the Pacifi c — is a far more dangerous
animal than any shark, if interfered with
by man. It is a true whale, and therefore
a mammal and not a fi sh. Sharks are stu-
pid creatures, but the ‘killer’ is extremely
intelligent and cunning. It will not eat a
man (so far as known), but, if pursued,
it will turn upon a boat and smash it to
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pieces in less than no time.”
—Rena Bache, “Sea Monsters Far Dead-
lier Than Sharks,” The Sunday Oregonian, Aug.
27, 1916, Magazine Section, P. 2
“After ‘Free Willy’s’ worldwide success
(it cost $19 million to make the movie,
which has grossed $153 million so far),
the real-life plight of Keiko the orca
hooked public interest as well.
“‘Free Willy’ was completed while
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— fi lmed in Astoria in 1985.”
—Paul Duchene, “Fate binds ‘Willy’ and
Oregon,” The Oregonian, Wednesday, July 19,
1995, P. E03
“A fake orca brought in to scare sea
lions from the port in Astoria, Oregon
instead fl ipped over, fi lled with water,
nearly sank and didn’t do a thing to rid
the town of the animals, which locals say
are basically the worst visitors ever.”
—Ed Mazza, “Sea lions are so not
afraid of the fake orca sent to scare them
off ,” The Huffi ngton Post, Monday, June
8, 2015, http://www.huffi ngtonpost.
com/2015/06/08/fake-orca-fail-sea-li-
ons_n_7532692.html
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June 18, 2015 | coastweekend.com | 27