Soundwalk

Read: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

When I turned twenty-one in 1994, I embarked on a 500 mile solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail across the state of Washington.  The Tread of My Soul is a memoir-meets-travelogue written from the trail.  Originally self published and shared with only a handful of family and friends, I recently dusted off the manuscript with the intention of sharing it with a new generation, on the 30th anniversary of its completion. Among black bears, ravens and Indian paintbrush, I grappled with the meaning of life while traversing the spine of the Cascade range with a handful of pocket edition classics in tow. Quotes from sacred texts, poets, and naturalists punctuate a coming of age tale contemplated in the wilderness.

What follows is Part 1 of the book, squared off into four long Substack posts.

For this first post, I’m also exclusively including Pacific Crest Trail Soundwalk, featuring a binaural field recording captured while hiking the first few miles on the Pacific Crest Trail up out of the Columbia Gorge in Washington. (If you haven’t already, feel free to tap that play button at the top of the post.) The 26-minute composition cycles a triad of parts inspired by the letters PCT: part one in Phrygian mode (in E), part two in the key of C, and part three with Tritone substitutions. The instrumentation is outlined with Pianet electric piano, and colored in with synthesizer and intriguing pads built with a vaguely Appalachian mood in mind. It’s on the quieter side, in terms of wildlife, but all in all, I think it compliments the reading. It concludes with a pretty frog chorus so, like the book, I’m making it unrestricted, in the hope of enticing some readers to stick with it to the end.

If you prefer, you can find The Tread of My Soul in ebook format available for free right now on Apple Books or Amazon Kindle Store (free with Kindle Unlimited, points, or $2.99). If you read it and like it, please feel free to leave a review to help others find it. Thank you.

So, without further ado, here we go:

The Tread of My Soul

Coming of Age on the Pacific Crest Trail

by Chad Crouch

ACT 1

(AT RISE we see TEACHER and STUDENTS in an art studio. It is fall term; the sun is just beginning to set when class begins. Warm light washes the profiles of eight classmates. The wood floors are splashed with technicolor constellations of paint.)

TEACHER

Hello. Welcome to class. I find role taking a tiresome practice so we'll skip over that and get to the assignment. Here I have a two-inch square of paper for you. I would like you to put your soul on it. The assignment is due in five minutes. No further explanations will be given.

STUDENT #1

(makes eye contact with a STUDENT #4, a young woman. She wears a perplexed smile on her face.)

TEACHER

Here you go.

                                    (hands out squares of paper.)

(People begin to work. Restlessness gives way to an almost reverence, except STUDENT #5 is scribbling to no end. The Students’ awareness of others fades imperceptibly inward.  Five minutes pass quickly.)

TEACHER

Teacher: Are you ready? I'm interested to see what you've come up with.

                                    (scuffle of some stools; the sound of a classroom reclaiming itself.)

TEACHER

What have you got there?

STUDENT #1

Well, I used half of the time just thinking. I was looking at my pencil and I thought…

                                    (taps pencil on his knee, you see it is a mechanical model)

this will never do the trick. The idea of soul seemed too intense to be grasped with only graphite. So 1 poked a pin sized hole in the paper and wrote:

                                    (reading voice)

“Hold paper up to sun, look into hole for soul.” That's all the further I got.

TEACHER

                                    (looking at student #2)

And you?

STUDENT #2

                                    (smiles)

Um, I didn't know what to do so all I have is a few specks where I was tapping my pen while I was thinking. This one…

                                    (she points to a dot)

is all, um, all fuzzy because I was ready to draw something and I hesitated so the ink just ran…

(Students nod sympathetically. Attention goes to STUDENT #3)

STUDENT #3

I couldn’t deal with just one little blank square.

                                    (holds paper up and flaps it around, listlessly)

So I started dividing.

                                    (steadies and turns paper to reveal a graph.)

Now, I have lots of squares in which to put my soul in. I think of a soul as being multifaceted.

TEACHER

Okay.  Thank you.  Next…

                                    (looking at student #4)

STUDENT #4

                                    (without hesitation)

I just stepped on it.

(holds paper up to reveal the tread of a shoe sole in a multicolor print.)

The tread of my soul.

•     •     •

            The writing that follows seems to have many of the same attributes as the students' responses to the problem posed in the preceding scene. While I have a lot more paper to work with, the problem remains the same: how do I express myself?  How do I express the intangible and essential part of me that people call a soul?  What is it wrapped up in?  What doctrines, ideologies and memories help give it a shape?

            I guess I identify mostly with Student #4. Her shoe-print “Tread of My Soul” alludes to my own process: walking over 500 miles on The Pacific Crest Trail from Oregon To Canada in the Cascade Mountain Range in Washington. In trying to describe my soul I found that useful to be literal. Where my narrative dips into memoir or philosophy I tried not to hesitate or overthink things.  I tried to lay it all out.

            Student #1's solution was evident in my own problem solving in how I constantly had to look elsewhere; into nature, into literature, and into symbology to even begin to bring out the depth of what I was thinking and feeling. Often the words of spiritual classics and of poetry are seen through my writing as if looking through a hole. I can only claim originality in where I poke the holes.

            As for Student #2, I am afraid that my own problem solving doesn't evoke enough of her charm. For as much as I wanted to be thoughtful, I wanted also to be open and unstudied, tapping my pen. What I see has emerged, however, is at times argumentative. In retrospect I see that I had no recourse, really. My thoughts on God and Jesus were molded in a throng of letters, dialogues, experiences, and personal studies prior to writing this.

Finally, in the winter of my twenty-first year, as I set down to transcribe this book, I realize how necessary it was to hike. Student #3 had the same problem. The soul is complex and cannot fit into a box. Hiking gave me a cadence to begin to answer the question what is my soul? The trail made me mindful. There was the unceasing metaphor of the journey: I could only reach my goal incrementally. This tamed my writing sometimes. It wandered sometimes and I was at ease to let it. I had more than five minutes and a scrap of paper. I had each step.

•     •     •

            The Bridge of the Gods looks like a behemoth Erector set project over the Columbia River spanning the natural border of Washington and Oregon. My question: what sort of Gods use Erector sets?  Its name derives from an event in space and time; a landslide. The regional natives likely witnessed, in the last millennium, a landslide that temporarily dammed the Columbia effectually creating a bridge—The Bridge of the Gods. I just finished reading about why geologists think landslides are frequent in the gorge. Didn't say anything about Gods. How we name things, as humankind, has something to do with space and time doesn't it? Where once we call something The Bridge of the Gods it has been contemporarily reduced to landslide. We have new Gods now, and they compel us to do the work with erector sets. Or perhaps I mistook the name: It doesn't necessarily mean Gods made it. Perhaps Gods dwel…

For our last soundwalk we are returning to the banks of Onion Creek, taking in McKinney Falls and its environs. It’s been a whirlwind four stop soundwalk tour of greater Austin, TX. Spring mornings in this part of the country are hard to beat!

McKinney Falls lies within a 641 acre state park where Onion Creek plunges over amphitheater-like limestone ledges. Our soundwalk route connects the upper and lower falls by way of a trail that leads through an overhanging rock shelter, and across a broad limestone plane.

Artifacts found in McKinney Falls State Park in Austin show Indigenous people inhabited the area starting 9,000 years ago. The names of the early groups are unknown, but it is believed the Tonkawa, among others, descended from them. (texashighways.com)

My instrumental arrangement for woodwinds, synthesizer, harp, zither, and celeste floats lazily along with the songs of Northern Cardinal, White-eyed Vireo, Red-breasted Woodpecker, and Black-crested Titmouse in the scenic canyon.

Thank you for listening and joining me on this chapter of Soundwalk in central Texas. For our next season, we return to Portland, Oregon in search of the quietest natural places in my home city.

McKinney Falls Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) Friday, August 16th.

We have decamped from the inner rings of Austin to the suburb of Round Rock, TX. It’s April 7th, 2023.

When I’m scouting a map for a good place to record a soundwalk, I look for trails through natural areas that have some sort of buffer in the way topography or distance from highways and arterial roads. In Round Rock, one of those places is the Brushy Creek Regional Trail, and the buffer, as it turns out, is the enormous property on which was built the Kalahari Resort, presently America’s largest indoor water park.

How big? The resort compound boasts a total of 1.5 million square feet of indoor space. The water park is 223,000 sf with 30 water slides and 20 pools. The hotel has 975 rooms and suites. The site also boasts an 80,000 sf adventure park, a 200,000 sf convention center, a 10,000 sf shopping area, 20 dining outlets, and a spa & salon. It is a small encapsulated city.

Now, I’m not here to judge Kalahari Resort. Well, maybe a little. I mean it strikes me as kind of a landlocked cruise ship, recalling in some respects the Axiom Space Cruiser from the movie Wall-E, with its always-72˚ razzle-dazzle cocooned-ness, but I haven’t been there, and I happen to have fond memories of water parks.

When I was in the 6th grade I travelled with my dad to Orlando, Florida. It was the only flight I was took as a child. Disneyworld and EPCOT were fun, but Wet’n’Wild, one of the country’s first modern water parks, really excited me and captured my imagination.

Back to the soundwalk. I was strolling along the paved path, and I glanced over in the direction of the creek canyon. Under a flimsy wire fence, a stormwater spillway led down to smooth rocky basin that Brushy Creek meandered through. I skittered carefully down the slide and was transported to a magical place. The light glittered on the riffling water. A Snowy Egret stood sentinel. Cardinal song ricocheted off the stone walls. I couldn’t help but feel like I walked into a superior water park, admission-free. I mean it wasn’t a thrill ride, obviously, but it engaged my senses, and offered its own kind of thrills.

Now if I told you that clip was from a national park, would you question it? I mean c’mon. It’s glorious! It’s priceless! And it its hidden between the nation’s largest water park and a suburban development.

I love finding these overlooked spaces: undeveloped, sometimes difficult to access, tucked into the fabric of our civilizations. I encourage you to look at maps of your own region for quirky public spaces that might offer a sense of refuge and discovery in the midst of so much sprawl.

Lastly, a word about the music. The backbone of the arrangement is a wobbly, stylized Wurlitzer electric piano. Plucky (mandolin, zither, “Panjo”) and fuzzy (synthesizer) sounds are latched to this scaffolding in turns. Some parts are sparser than others. Generally speaking it’s all melodic, sometimes concretely, sometimes vaguely.

This was a very memorable walk and I’m happy to share it with you! Thanks for listening.

Brushy Creek Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) Friday, August 2nd.

We are in Austin, TX again, at Onion Creek Metropolitan Park on a mild spring morning. It’s April 5, 2024.

Onion Creek Greenway Trail follows a large “S” curve along Onion Creek on the semi-suburban south side of Austin, Texas. Located about two miles from the closest strand of Austin’s web of highways, it is one of the more serene riparian destinations within the city limits.

It’s a popular place to walk dogs or go for a jog. The trailhead I arrived at even had a barista / food cart. Getting off the main trail will afford the visitor a quiet, intimate experience with the creek and wildlife. There’s a fair amount of human history here too if you know where to look, dating back thousands of years to the El Camino Real period and presence of Coahuiltecan Native Americans.

Onion Creek Metropolitan Park owes its existence to a more recent history of ill-fated development and flood events culminating in The Halloween Flood of 2013:

Austin received over 10 inches of rain during a single 24-hour period. Onion Creek rose by 11 feet in a mere 15 minutes and eventually hit an all-time high of 41 feet (topping a 1921 record by three feet). Water coursed through it at twice the velocity of Niagara Falls—enough to easily topple houses and trees, and move multi-ton objects like boulders and automobiles. The Halloween flood killed five people and damaged over 1,200 houses.

The houses that once stood in the area were demolished but a patchwork of “ghost streets” that once served them remain, offering visitors a view of the slow process of residential re-wilding (and/or recreational redevelopment).

Unlike the ghost towns of the previous century, which were built to extract one local resource, these ghost streets may offer a window into the future, where residential areas are abandoned after flood events owing to more frequent and intense storms, or erosion from sea level rise, or conversely, water scarcity making some places simply too impractical to inhabit.

It’s a reminder to live in the moment, to cultivate non-attatchment to things, and consider the adaptive strategies of wildlife.

Despite its origin near the site of a <1000 home displacement area, I think this is one of the most objectively pleasing and reassuring soundwalks I have captured. The soundscape here gives so generously. It has everything: birdsong, insect stridulations, amphibian choruses, breezes in the canopy, flowing grasses, and gentle creek sounds, near and far. If you’re looking for the most accessible and welcoming soundwalk in my repertoire (of about 50 so far) this might be the one. For that reason, I’m setting this post/episode to unrestricted. You might even consider throwing caution to the wind and pressing this button, to help others discover it:

The melodies in my score favor simple, reassuring harmonics and an array of instrument voices that blend with the gentle soundscape and woody acoustics of the landscape.

Thank you for reading, thank you for listening, thank you for your curiosity! Be well, carpe diem, and all that jazz. For real.

Onion Creek Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) Friday, July 19th.

Related:

Why Does it Flood in Southeast Austin? segment from Austin PBS

I couldn’t really do what I set out to do yesterday. It was too hot in the city, so I went for an afternoon walk in Forest Park. I was interested to hear what it sounded like when the thermometer hit triple digits; something it rarely used to do around here.

It was quiet. Did I say it was hot? Instinctively I wanted to be near water. I figured the wildlife did too. Many hillside streams were dry as a bone, but I eventually reached one with a trickling flow. I soaked in the ambience before heading back to civilization.

Summer might have been my favorite season as a child. Not any more. Heatwaves and forest fire smoke makes me anxious these days. Thankfully we’ve been spared the latter so far this season. Doing something with my hands offers some solace. Finding my way through a composition gave me something to focus on. Voila; a very hushed 20 minute soundwalk and a minimal keyboard mediation for hot days in a warming world.

My go-to (virtual instrument) keys have been the Hohner Pianet T lately, the least famous of the 60’s and 70’s electric pianos. I just Googled “songs with Pianet” and interestingly “Louie, Louie” by The Kingsmen topped the list; probably the most famous act to hail from Portland in the 60’s. I have to say the instrument doesn’t really stand out in that song though. It appears on several Beatles songs as well. I just like its mellow tones.

But I digress. To break it up, I sprinkled in some celeste and Korg Prototype 8 keys during the streamside passage. A solo performance throughout. Enjoy!

I had scheduled this for the U.S. July 4th holiday tomorrow, but I’m second-guessing that now and pressing send with unrestricted access. Perhaps this can offer some counter-programming to the sometimes overbearing or militant sounds of fireworks, or be a balm to those who are traveling and might feel unsettled right now.

Why not make it a two-fer? I also just shared a spacious dawn chorus soundscape field recording I made recently at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

For the next four installments of Soundwalk we are traveling to Texas in the springtime. After several soundwalks with sparse birdsong, I’m ready for migration sounds. How about you?

Texas hill country in springtime is pretty great. The morning air is mild and sweet. The birdsong is exotic to my western North American ears. Flowers are in bloom. I get the draw. I wasn’t missing cold, rainy Oregon that morning.

Barton Creek Greenbelt is in the inner rings of southeast Austin, TX, but it feels like a world apart from the city. Sure there’s the hum of the highway that’s not far off, but it’s pretty easy to tune out, and in some reaches of the canyon, altogether missing.

I visited April 4th. There was no water in the creek bed due to ongoing drought conditions, but the shrubs and grasses were spring green amongst the canopy dominated by live Oak. The lack of water in the soundscape gave the bird and insect sounds more presence.

For a lot of songbirds in North America there are western and eastern analogues. Eastern Wood-Pewee: Western Wood Pewee, Carolina Chickadee: Black-capped Chickadee, Carolina Wren: Bewick’s Wren. What the west does not have is its own version of the Northern Cardinal. (We also don’t get Grackles and lots of other widespread eastern birds.) The Northern Cardinal is just such a superstar of the bird world. It’s a noteworthy absence. The closest thing we have to the Cardinal might be the Lazuli Bunting, a distant cousin in the cardinalae family. Like the Northern Cardinal, the male is painted vibrantly. Instead of crimson, it has a sky-blue hood that dazzles the eye. But it’s not really a backyard bird, so it’s observed less frequently. Furthermore, its repertoire of songs and calls is limited in comparison, and a bit busy-sounding.

There’s a lot going on in this soundscape, but the Northern Cardinal, I would say, is really the star of the show with its sweet cheer, cheer, cheer and birdie, birdie, birdie layering on from many coordinates.

My instrumental score is dominated by a Wurlitzer electric piano, leaving room for the avian frequencies throughout. Gauzy strings and synth layers sweep in and out with watercolor broad-strokes. Occasional glockenspiel and zither offer some filigree.

It’s a good introduction for what’s to come, and brings me joy to share it with you! Thanks for reading and listening!

Barton Creek Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) Friday, July 5th.

If a spark bird is a gateway to an interest in birding, then a spark place, I’d posit, is a gateway to a connection with nature. These places sometimes inspire writers. Think Thoreau and Walden, Annie Dillard and Tinker Creek, Aldo Leopold and Sauk County. My spark place in the last decade was Oaks Bottom, and for me it inspired music.

It was an affair of convenience, to start. Conveniently located in central SE Portland, the 163-acre wildlife refuge and nature park was on the route to my child’s school. I’ve taken thousands of photos there. I’ve made hundreds of field recordings. I’ve observed and contemplated its changes through the seasons and years, for most of a decade.

So it was with a mix of complex emotions that I visited on the last day of school on the last year that my child will attend school nearby. I will continue to visit it of course, but it will be much less convenient to do so. Much less routine.

In the section of the field recording that I chose to use for this piece you hear me walking on the trail, then stopping by an area I call “the coves” alongside the large pond, to sit on a rock for about 15 minutes and soak it all in. This rock is right beside the trail, at the base of a bluff. A concrete eight-story Mausoleum looms above, standing next to a primary schoolyard. The 50’ tall, windowless wall of the mausoleum acts as sounding board reflecting the children’s voices down the embankment. In the foreground of the soundscape are the morning sounds of creatures who find what they need here. Song Sparrows, House Finches, Black-capped Chickadees, Spotted Towhees, Crows, Red-breasted Nuthatches, Cedar Waxwings, Great Blue Herons, and Mallards with softly twittering ducklings.

In a stylistic break, I chose not to interrupt the soundscape recording with musical accompaniment for the first five minutes. I guess I’m thinking of this interval as a deliberate acclimation phase for the musical accompaniment section. When the music does enter, I meander my way through a solo performance for Pianet electric piano consisting of 9 parts; one for each year I made the cross-town pilgrimage. The reverberant children’s voices struck me more deeply than they usually do, and I tried to convey that in the piano performance. What can I say about it? It’s performed in my way; which is to say it’s tender and naive, and just my fingers communicating something words can’t quite get at.

Thanks for listening, reading, and allowing me to share my story and music. I hope it brings you some enjoyment and reflection.

Well friends, we’ve come to the end of another chapter in our Soundwalk journeys. For our final installment in the series on Mount Hood—Oregon’s tallest stratovolcano (at 11,249’)—we are taking in Larch Mountain.

While technically just outside the confines of the Mount Hood National Forest, Larch Mountain offers a gorgeous view of Wy’east, the Native American name for Mount Hood.

Right? Oh man, what a beauty!

It was an interesting confluence of events that drew me out to Larch Mountain on Oct 31, 2023. It was the last day to drive the road up there before it closed for the season. Also, I was peripherally aware that Grey-crowned Rosy Finches were spotted in the area; a rarity for the county. Mind you, I never heard of Grey-crowned Rosy Finches until a couple days prior, and I’m not usually a rare bird chaser, but the time and space opened up so I drove up there.

It was a beautiful partly-cloudy day. There were patches of snow on the ground; a crunch crunch under foot. So quiet!

Chestnut-backed Chickadees, Golden-crowned Kinglets and a Red-breasted Nuthatches meandered through the canopy. Chipmunks chattered. Red Crossbills called out in flight. I did see the Grey-crowned Rosy Finches far below me from Sherrard Point (where I took that photo of Mount Hood) but they never got close enough for a decent photo.

Larch Mountain was developed as a tourist attraction / forest service lookout in 1915 when the first tower and hiking trail were constructed. It was a hard-earned view. The 13.3 mile trail (out and back) climbed 4000 feet up from the iconic Multnomah Falls to the summit of Larch Mountain. At that time most visitors would have arrived by train to Multnomah Falls. The Historic Columbia River Highway opened to automobiles in the early 1920’s. Today, while the one mile trail up to the top Multnomah Falls is bustling, the rest of the hike up, following Multnomah Creek for the most part, is serene in contrast.

It was on the upper rim of this trail that I made this soundwalk. Like Timothy Lake Soundwalk, this is a very quiet soundscape. The same recommendation applies: For best results, listen with headphones, or in a quiet environment. Thanks for reading and listening. It brings me joy to share it with you!

Larch Mountain Soundwalk is available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) tomorrow, June 14th.

Earlier this year I shared a soundscape field recording of an American Dipper singing on the Salmon River near Mount Hood at Wildwood Recreation Site. Wildwood Soundwalk is another recording that was made on that same day, Feb 20 of this year. It captures the sounds of walking over bridges and wetland boardwalks, languorously moving past springs, creeks and seeps trickling down rock walls, and strolling alongside the Salmon River.

If you like gentle water sounds, you’re in for a treat. There’s more water than wildlife sounds in this one.

These days when I edit my Soundwalk audio, I remove airplanes, automobiles and humans. I generally do this by digitally splicing the recording. Snip, snip. I also use selective EQ filters and a cut and paste technique to remove low frequency highway or aircraft noise. Overall though, I rarely crossfade clips or deviate from the linear timeline.

My hike that day took me up Boulder Ridge into the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness. Though a couple signs warned of black bears in the area, and the scenery was lovely, this section of audio proved less interesting, so I swapped it out for the American Dipper song by the river. Here is a clip of it batting its white eyelids and doing its dip motion. Charmer!

I take my time at the base of the incline, lingering next to rivulets dripping over mossy rocks, crouching down to observe with my eyes and ears the little details of these watery vignettes.

Compositionally I’m delighting in the water, selecting bouncy synthesizer patches to play off the water sounds. Stitched throughout the instrumental score is, essentially, a duet for electric piano and clarinet. It’s all performed with an unrehearsed looseness, which I hope lends an unfussy, “wild” vibe. Woodwind arrangements, hushed celeste, and a variety of animated synth passages also add to the bouquet of sound. I hope you enjoy it!

Wildwood Soundwalk will be available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube…) tomorrow May 31.

Company Lake is a scrappy bit of woods and water on the banks of the Columbia River near Troutdale Oregon. Birds flock to it.

I was going through some old files yesterday and rediscovered this 10 minute piece. I don’t have any memories associated with the composition—a minimal suite for piano, bells and electric piano I found surprisingly well paced and strong in the coda—but I recall my visit to the place I recorded the soundscape just a year ago.

The soundscape is from the roughly 70 acre cottonwood grove near Company Lake, a small body of water near the former site of an Alcoa aluminum plant known for the last half of the previous century as Reynolds Metals. The area was named a superfund site by the EPA in 1994. In 2004 the aluminum plant that once used more electricity than the entire city of Portland (back in 1981) was demolished. After being cleaned up, the site was redeveloped as a FedEx distribution center.

The FedEx employee parking lot used to welcome birders to the Company Lake environs. Last year, however, I arrived to find a gated lot, fenced off with barbed wire. I’m going to hazard a guess that this has something to do with car prowls and houseless camping, but there’s no official word on that. To get to the wooded area today you have to walk a half mile on a bike path from the closest public road. All the more privacy for the birds, I suppose, but a change that left me feeling a little deflated at the time. In retrospect, not really a big deal.

I mean, let’s be honest, what can we expect from a place called “Company Lake”? It’s almost a cartoonish appellation; something you would expect in an episode of the Simpsons. Three-eyed fish and barrels of industrial waste, anyone?

Who named it Company Lake and why did it stick? Google couldn’t tell me, and Chat GPT (4.0) hallucinated with gusto: “The name "Company Lake,"originates from its historical association with the Union Pacific Railroad Company. The lake, along with several other lakes and ponds in the area, was created as a result of gravel extraction operations conducted by the railroad company.” Bla-bla-blah… No such thing occurred! The lake was likely created as a flood channel before becoming choked off. The name? Well it likely comes from the era of land ownership cited in newspapers as “Sundial Ranch Company” between 1910 and 1924, referring to the 2400 acre tract near Troutdale held by the Union Meat Company. In those days it was still a wild landscape, according to a 1941 reminiscence by Ben Hur Lampman in The Oregonian:

Yon was a great country before it was diked, in the times when the river refreshed it with regularity. With the wood ducks winging over the shining expanse of it, and a static excitement in the soft air, and the willows smelling like spiced varnish.

So in truth, “Company Lake” is a misnomer. The lake is on the “wild” side of the dike amongst the low-lying cottonwoods. It’s not a titan of industry cesspool. Company Lake today is like a moat to a no man’s land, cordoned off by industry and forgotten by most, re-wilding in obscurity.

I’ve decided not to restrict access to this recording. Thanks goes to my subscribers for supporting my work and making this possible. Thank you for your interest, and for being here.

Before I leave you, let’s just take a moment to contemplate the Lovers Oak, which once stood near Company Lake, another testament to the resilience of life.

The original tree was shaped by an 1876 Columbia River flood. The slender oak was forced over one log and under another, maturing into the shape of the letter "S" lying on its side. The lowest curve of the S-shaped tree formed a perfect bench where friends and lovers met on pleasant Sunday afternoons. Local residents began to call it the Lovers Oak.

During World War II when the government built the aluminum plant nearby, it was agreed to fence and protect the tree. The publicity resulting from that decision brought the tree to the attention of Ripley's "Believe it or Not," a nationally syndicated cartoon featuring unusual items throughout the world.

After the war, the tree was forgotten by most. It fell in the Columbus Day windstorm of 1962, but the image remained in memory as the logo of the Troutdale Historical Society. -troutdaleoregon.gov