Global Pandemic and Keeping it Local
In the summer of 2017, a massive wildfire, started at Eagle Creek by kids throwing fireworks along a hiking trail, swept through the Columbia River Gorge. Towns in the Gorge, where I live, were under varying degrees of evacuation order. Businesses were crushed, many trails are still not reopened, and a lot of lives were put at risk.
But as sad as that whole time was, something that still stands out in my memory is the steady stream of news coverage referring to the Gorge as “Portland’s playground,” or “Portland’s backyard.” We are no such thing. We are our own communities, filled with people who choose to live and work in small rural places, some of which are outdoor recreation paradises. The casual indifference to the people who actually live in these communities, defining us by what we mean to them, city people 60 miles away, was salt in the wound.
And I see that casual indifference playing out again right now as we all struggle, in various ways, to deal with the slow-motion disaster of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most of the people I know, in my community, are all in on social distancing and taking appropriate measures to protect public health. Most are also getting outside—less than usual, a lot more cautiously than usual. But what we’re seeing, especially on the weekends, is a flood of people streaming into towns where they do not live, with limited regard for the people who do. There is no call for a group bike ride. There should not be crowds of cars with out of state plates at trailheads. If people want to get outside—which it’s totally understandable they would—there is an obligation to do it as conscientiously as possible, as close to home as possible.
Right now, recreational towns all over the West are struggling with this. Moab, Utah, is essentially closing its doors to out-of-town visitors, and other towns are likely to do the same. Rural communities often skew older, do not have the healthcare facilities of big cities, and are to a degree reliant on their isolation to protect them right now. When someone travels from a city to a “gateway community,” it puts people’s lives at risk, and one person’s “mental health” does not take precedence over another’s physical safety.
Click to enlarge.
It’s absolutely okay to get outside right now, but we all have a duty to look out for one another, and right now, that means sticking close to home. We have some general guidelines (or considerations) to follow here, but please make the number one item acting in all regards to protect the health of others.
This, too, shall pass, but for now, we’re all going to have less fun than usual. Please look out for one another.