My Cape Disappointment

My Cape Disappointment Debra Dean (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo courtesy of the author [End Page 22] It was named by a British fur trader who'd been looking for the mouth of the Columbia River. Dejected, the fur trader gave up the search, tacked at the cape, and sailed back north. In fact, he had unknowingly reached his destination—the entrance to the river was just around the point—but this fact likely escaped his notice because it was too foggy. On average, Cape Disappointment is muffled in fog for 106 days a year. [End Page 23] Seventeen years later, in November 1805, Lewis and Clark approached the same spot from the other direction, the end of their cross-country trek. Just a few miles short of the goal, though, just short of a ship awaiting them with the promise of rum, just short of fresh food, and just past the end of their patience, they were forced off the river by a squall. They hunkered in the rain for six days on a rocky spit, a place henceforth known as Dismal Nitch. Cape Disappointment. Dismal Nitch. Place names in the Pacific Northwest frequently memorialize a white explorer's weather-induced malaise. My paternal grandparents had a weathered Victorian house about halfway between Disappointment and Dismal, where Grandpa Dean went on weekends to fish for salmon. The few memories I have of the place are in grayscale, empty streets where my sister and I rode bikes, where mudflats and beaches were strewn with oysters, driftwood, kelp, and the occasional Japanese glass float, like an Easter egg hidden in the flotsam grass. The Corps of Discovery missed their supply ship. They crossed the Columbia and quickly built a fort south of the river in order to wait out the winter there. For that first month, nearly every one of Lewis and Clark's journal entries began by noting the weather. –The Day Cloudy and rained moderately all day –rained all the last night –rained as usual all the last night, and contd. moderately all day to day without any intermition –Some hard rain at different times last night, and moderately this morning without intermition –rained last night as usual and the greater part of this day The monotonous litany was broken up by a few lines about their progress building the fort and complaints that everything was wet. The elk they had shot kept spoiling because the wet weather and mild temperatures didn't allow the men to either cure or freeze it. And then there were the fleas. [End Page 24] We are infested with swarms of flees already in our new habitations; the presumption is therefore strong that we shall not devest ourselves of this intolerably troublesome vermin during our residence here. Except for the rotting elk and the irregular spelling, this might serve as an account of our time in Oregon. ________ Cliff had been out to the Northwest before, but only for brief visits to Seattle in the summer and at Christmas. We had stayed at my mother's. Gone up to my father's island property and cruised the San Juan Islands on his boat. This time was different. We weren't on vacation. What he quickly learned is that there are two seasons: summer, which he already knew and which is glorious, and the other season, which is nine months long and unrelentingly gray. In my memory of our two years in Eugene, it never stops raining. The sun never comes out, nothing ever dries, and the house we rent is infested with fleas. We try flea bombs but recoil at the idea of repeatedly poisoning ourselves. At night, we set out bowls of water on the floor with drops of dish soap and shine desk lamps on them. In the morning, there are a few black flecks floating in the water, but we can still easily find twice that many on our dog Puck's belly at any given moment. We feed him brewer's yeast and at the Saturday market buy a homemade flea collar, tie-dyed and stuffed with pennyroyal, citronella, and rosemary. Nothing works. My stipend...