Portland Outdoor Leadership & Traditional Skills

In dawn's hour, sun breaks on Big Pink, Mount Hood rising behind the temple like a distant father. Mist sleeps in the river where you await the tribe's return, on the east bank of the Willamette, knapping a blade from a broken bottle. Then, the flock begins to emerge from the cloud. Soundlessly, they glide toward you with perfect cohesion, that morning's catch strung from the Umiak. Master mariner signs to ready the ropes. Now, sweet cedar smoke is conjured from a fire board. The child raises her tinder bundle to the sky and from her lips draws the flame. Young men are painting up for the hunt. You too have stalked these banks to the failed city and traded with the townies, you have camouflaged your body in their clothes, worked in their offices, lent your eyes to their screens. There was even a time you forgot who you were, how it feels to release an arrow, the music of the bowstring resonating, the route of your blood, the path of those who came before… You felt you were asleep for a long while. The world engined on. And then, one day, you woke up...

-storyteller, Lisa Wells