The daily Astorian., July 11, 2019, Page 17, Image 16

THURSDAY, JULY 11, 2019 // 17
BOOKMONGER
A celebration of
Malheur-Steens country
After decades of living
amidst the rain and cedar
sentinels of her coastal
farm, a longtime friend of
mine has just moved with
her husband and her horses
to the dry side of Oregon.
She called me up before
eight o’clock one recent
morning, too thrilled with
her new home to wait any
longer to tell me about it.
“There’s so much light
and sky!” she exclaimed.
At last, she is living
in the kind of landscape
she has dreamed about for
years. She’s even unper-
turbed by the rattlesnake at
her doorstep.
That kind of consonance
with place is echoed this
week in a new anthology
from Oregon State Univer-
sity Press. Edited by Alan
L. Contreras, a fourth-gen-
eration Oregonian, “Edge
of Awe” gathers together
the writings of biologists,
This Week’s Book
“Edge of Awe” Edited by
Alan L. Contreras.
Oregon State University
Press – 256 pp — $19.95
birders, tourists and locals
who may differ in many
ways, but who all share
an intensity of feeling for
the Malheur-Steens area of
southeastern Oregon.
That region is a land of
paradoxes – it’s high des-
ert, for starters, yet it hosts
a vast marshland that is an
essential stop for migratory
birds following the Pacifi c
Flyway.
Malheur National Wild-
life Refuge administra-
tors undertook the develop-
ment of a new management
plan by talking – for years
– with local folks who had
potentially competing inter-
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ests. They eventually came
up with an approach that
everyone agreed upon – a
model kumbaya moment.
But for a time in 2016 the
plan’s implementation was
interrupted when an armed,
anti-government militia
from out of state took over
the Refuge.
That occupation seems
to be what the place is most
known for now. But per-
haps this book of personal
essays and poetry will help
to turn things around. More
than two-dozen contributors
offer their unique refl ections
on this corner of Oregon
and what it means to them.
Ursula LeGuin fre-
quently visited Mal-
heur-Steens during her life-
time, and this anthology
includes not only three of
her poems, but also some of
her evocative pen and ink
sketches of the region.
The late William Staf-
ford’s poem, “Malheur
before Dawn,” is an ode to
the manifold miracles of
these desert marshes. Each
line is a polished
offering of praise,
with this cou-
plet perhaps the
most wonder-
ful of them all:
“Frogs dis-
covered their
national anthem again.
/ I didn’t know a ditch
could hold so much joy.”
But the landscape is
enough to stir more hard-
headed scientists to their
own brand of eloquence,
too.
Ira Gabrielson,
appointed as the fi rst head
of the U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service in 1940, posi-
tively gushed that “I have
seen many spectacular con-
centrations of wildlife in
various parts of the world,
but nothing that I have
seen since has dimmed the
almost physical impact that
the sight of Malheur Marsh
made upon me….”
And decades later, upon
his fi rst visit to Malheur,
fi eld biologist Hendrik
Herlyn is moved to super-
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latives by
the “vast expanse
of sagebrush country,” the
“seemingly endless marsh-
land,” and the “sheer mag-
nitude of open space….”
“Edge of Awe” may well
beguile you, too.
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael,
Author
Alan L.
Conteras’
novel “Edge
of Awe,”
gathers
together
the writings
of biologists,
birders, tourists
and locals who
may diff er in many
ways, but who all
share an intensity
of feeling for the
Malheur-Steens
area of southeastern
Oregon.
who writes this weekly col-
umn focusing on the books,
authors and publishers of
the Pacifi c Northwest. Con-
tact her at bkmonger@
nwlink.com