TACOMA — A new book of stories that range from Sasquatch mythology to an excerpt from Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” memoir focuses on two major wilderness icons of Washington state.
“Campfire Stories Volume II”, released in April by Mountaineers Books, contains 13 stories, myths and poems centered on Olympic National Park and the Pacific Crest Trail. The 320-page book also has chapters on Grand Canyon, Everglades, Glacier and Joshua Tree national parks along with the Appalachian Trail.
The book’s co-editors, Dave and Ilyssa Kyu, collected existing stories and commissioned new ones for the book.
The book is a follow-up to the first volume, published in 2018, that covered Yosemite, Zion and other national parks.
Editors
In an interview with The News Tribune, the Philadelphia-based Kyus said some of the stories are intended for out-loud reading in a group and others for solitary reading.
“We wanted to sort of light up people’s imaginations about these places,” Ilyssa Kyu said. “It’s really to give people a deeper understanding of these places, perhaps when they’re there or when they do eventually go visit.”
The stories are written by authors who span a variety of demographics: race, age, gender and sexual orientation.
“Having a diverse collection of stories gives a little something for everyone and kind of keeps everything feeling fresh,” she said.
Olympic stories
Seattle-based writer Rosette Royale, a wilderness neophyte, tells of his journey along the Bogachiel River to spot Roosevelt elk. He eventually finds his quarry but not in the way he imagined.
Several Northwest tribal authors relate their personal experiences as well as native origin stories tied to the park. One, told by Quinault tribal member Harvest Moon, relates the story of Glukeek, a member of the Bigfoot genera.
The monster terrorizes berry pickers and stands in the waters of the Skookumchuck, his stinky feet preventing the salmon people from swimming upstream. Glukeek is eventually captured, giving the people the opportunity to destroy it. But the creature transforms into something much worse than a smelly Sasquatch.
Poetry makes its appearances in the book. “Still Life: Hoh Rain Forest” by Pulitzer Prize nominee Gary Miranda tells of watching tourists forage for photographs on a nature trail.
“Armed against the wet in forest-green slickers mostly, in spaced platoons of three or four, this strange barrage of creatures files past, pausing the briefest moment at each plaque or for a snapshot, sensing the forest’s urge to turn us to moss or lichen, Lot’s wife multiplied in jade, rainy forever,” Miranda writes.
Anja Semanco writes of her attempt to find the One Square Inch of Silence. The spot, 3.2 miles up valley from the Hoh Visitor’s Center, is supposedly the quietest spot in the lower 48 states. Semanco doesn’t succeed in finding the small red stone that marks the spot but instead is plagued by a mysterious noise that seems to follow her through the park.
Finding wilderness
The Kyus, both in their 30s, said they discovered wilderness as adults when they camped at Maine’s Acadia National Park on a whim.
“That was our first time going camping, and we did everything wrong,” Dave Kyu said. “We didn’t sleep with mats. We slept right on the granite, couldn’t figure out why we were waking up freezing cold. We weren’t prepared for rain.”
Still, they were bitten by the bug of wildness.
“I think we knew we were hooked even after,” he said.
The couple hope their books inspire visitors to gain a deeper appreciation of national parks. But, they don’t necessarily eschew the “shoot an Instagram photo and leave” crowd.
“Yes, Instagram is a big driver of people that visit parks,” Dave Kyu said. “But, a generation ago, so were cars. The generation before that, the construction of railroads to go out and visit these places.”
Ilyssa Kyu hopes an Instagram-motivated park visitor will pick up the book and, “… learn about a place and it might cause them to want to kind of slow down and maybe look beyond the picture and experience them differently.”
Pacific Crest Trail
The Pacific Crest Trail ends — or begins — its 2,650-mile journey in Washington. Stretching from Canada to Mexico, the trail existed in relative obscurity until it shot to fame with author Cheryl Strayed’s memior and a subsequent 2014 film adaptation, starring Reese Witherspoon.
An excerpt from Strayed’s “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” is in “Campfire Stories.” It tells of the moment when one of Strayed’s hiking boots tumbled irretrievably into an abyss. But what would have been nearly any hiker’s nightmare became a freeing moment for her.
As any backpacker knows, food — what kind, where to get it, how much to carry — becomes nearly an obsession on the trail. “On Trail, We Dream of Enchiladas” by Shawnte Salabert humorously details her cravings bordering on hallucinations of cheeseburgers and, yes, enchiladas.
What she eats, however, is an increasingly desperate and disparate collection of calories.
