Our day began by winding through
green meadows and crooked Sonoma Valley oaks, bathed in sunshine as we drove a
scenic route towards the land’s edge. From the tranquil woodland town of Occidental
we took the Coleman Valley Road, the sun behind us illuminating our descent, westward,
down to the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay. The deep blue of the clear morning sky
was reflected in the ocean peeping through gaps between crouching hilltops, opening
out wider and wider as we reached the frothing shallows. From there we would start
our journey up the West Coast of Northern California, following Highway 1 north
for over 100 miles through snaking estuaries, shaded forests, and a breadcrumb trail
of maritime communities.
As we set off, my brother asked
us to tell him whenever we wanted to pull over to survey the view. After
stopping twice in the first five minutes, however, it soon became clear that every
single headland we encountered offered a whole gallery of vistas, making it impossible
to see them all as our short strip of time gradually unravelled. Even if you
attempted to stop at every single vantage point on this stretch of Pacific
shoreline, by the time you finish, some new and spectacular feature would be
sculpted by the relentless lacerating waves, freshly exposed when a curtain of
mist is raised.
Drifting through the Sonoma Coast
State Park, admiring the striking topography of stacks, arches, gulches, and
striations from the car, our first stop was Fort Ross, an historical landmark
that exhibits the place where Russian settlers once established a base for
agriculture on the California coast in the early 19th century. After
descending through a grove of stretching eucalyptus trees, grey and peeling, we
emerged on a gravel path into the sun-bleached surrounds of the fort. It was
there that we came across a throng of noisy schoolchildren all piling in
through the entrance gate. Following them through, the scene that unfolded in
front of us was mayhem. Small bodies charged wildly in all directions on the
mowed grass, screeching and cawing as one of their pack began ferociously
clanging a bell on display in the distance.
Strangely, after our immediate dismay
and disbelief, they all scurried out within five minutes of arriving, having
barely investigated all the points of interest. I wondered what impression this
landmark would leave on their memories, and what role heritage has (or should
have) in our lives more generally. Should it be a springboard for
reimagination, play, even untamed exploration? Does a factual understanding of
the past have any inherent value when inhabiting a space in the present?
The square of land encompassed by
the fort’s perimeter walls is sparse, with a total area roughly the size of a
football pitch. Only one original dwelling remains, Rotchev House, where the
manager of Fort Ross and his family lived. The handful of other buildings – a
residence, a chapel, and two blockhouses in opposing corners – are all
reconstructed. I tried to weigh up my thoughts on the idea of reconstruction
for heritage purposes. It always feels as if some semblance of ‘authenticity’
is lost when new materials are added to historical sites. Though if it weren’t
for the tireless efforts of volunteers, who have maintained such a visceral,
solid display of what the fort was like based on existing evidence, whole
generations would have gone without the experience of immersing themselves
inside the redwood beams, understanding what kind of space this was to its
previous occupants. Ultimately, how we go about such endeavours indicates what
we value in our communities. What is remembered and what is forgotten, and what
do we want to remember and forget? What
do we abandon to ‘nature’ and what do we claim as ‘culture’?
The Russian influence in
California is one that often goes unremarked outside of the state. Fort Ross
marks the centre of imperial Russia’s southernmost expansion along the Pacific
Coast. Although this territory is no longer under Russian ownership, their
colonial presence can still be detected in the names of local landmarks, such
as the Russian River, and the town of Sebastopol. Like a dried-up stream whose
lifeblood has long since dispersed, traces remain in the arteries of local
identities and landscapes. Intriguingly, the Russian and Alaskan settlers
formed a close relationship with the Native Americans who lived around Fort
Ross – the Pomo people, in this region – who, after originally living outside
the fort’s walls, integrated with the community to such an extent that the foreign
settlers married and had children with them. The fluidity with which these
diverse populations mixed offsets straightforward narratives of colonial
exploitation, the whitewashing of native heritage, or fixed local identity. The
tree-sheltered visitor centre that we wandered through on our way out gave an
evocative, panoramic perspective on these different cultural tributaries. Displays
presented detailed insights into Native American history in this region, as
well as the influence of shipwrecks and seafaring that paint a highly nuanced
picture of life on the shores of Northern California in earlier centuries.
Before leaving Fort Ross, we took
a moment to soak up our surroundings: the striking cerulean of striding bluejays;
fleeting fragrances riding on the breeze. All along the golden coastline that
day, the air bloomed with an unfamiliar scent: a sweet concoction of cinnamon
and coconut. The aroma was so distinct that you’d like to bottle it; to capture
a single moment in time and place like bubbles in glowing amber, there to appreciate
and revisit. At every stop on our journey, we scoured the yellowing grasses and
flowering shrubs in search of this elusive aroma’s source. Yet even after
asking the lady at the fort’s exit, and trawling online in the days afterward, it
proved impossible to put a definitive name to this manifestation. As fickle as
the fog, which had mysteriously (for this time of year) failed to make an
appearance, its character has been hinted at in articles yet never accurately
rendered in the way we experienced.
Back on the highway, we fell once
again into the trance of vehicular movement, the road undulating through the sandy
inlets and craggy slopes of Salt Point. We surfaced from our daze in the
peculiar settlement of Sea Ranch, which sprawls along branches of private roads
that straddle a 10-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway. This assorted
collection of wooden structures is the legacy of architect Al Boeke and his
recruited designers, who imagined a community built around the principles of common
ownership, with architecture that preserves and compliments the surrounding
environment’s natural beauty. Each abode is adorned with grey, weathered timber
from local forests, and – at least for older plots developed in line with
the original design principles – are built to reflect the individual
characteristics of the segment of terrain they occupy. Given the variety of
coastal features and morphological events that take place here, this design
brief has led to some visionary, one-of-a-kind inventions.
The previous communities we’d
passed through on the way here, where the main establishments were all bunched
up oppressively at the roadside, made you feel unnervingly like the new guy in town
in a Western film. But at Sea Ranch the pockets of buildings were more understated,
camouflaged and kept a safe distance from outsider traffic. Nonetheless, there remained
an authoritarian presence; a quiet tyranny in which the isolating layout of the
built landscape itself makes you feel like an intruder, where signs warn that
unauthorised vehicles will be ‘immobilized’. Once you detour from the highway,
you become subject to the Sea Ranch Association Board of Directors and its
rules. If Sea Ranch were adapted for the screen, you could imagine it as the
setting for a murder mystery story: a remote small town, doggedly resistant to
change in a dramatic rural landscape, where everyone has something to hide and
all is not as it seems.
We visited one of the few publicly
accessible sites as we drove through to the northern side of Sea Ranch. Nestled
in a roadside meadow, accompanied by bushes, firs, and a trickling fountain, the
non-denominational Sea Ranch Chapel squats as if to take a closer look at you. The
most eye-catching feature is the tiled roof, asymmetrical and curving steeply
to a point, where it is bisected by a skeletal ornament made of teal-coloured
copper, creating the image of long fingers curling outward from a cloaked
figure.
Every new angle divulged another interpretation
in the obscure, indefinite shapes and arrangements. The roof appeared to me
alternately as the crest of a wave, a bird, a boat, and a witch’s hat. Inside
proved no less inspiring. Every surface enticed you to touch, from the smooth,
hollowed wood seating to the swirling patterns of the wrought iron fretwork by
the stained-glass door. The cosy space cocoons you in the sensation of being
inside a shell, with a dim aura of sunlight overhead filtering through the
narrow, enamel windows, and this glow reflected on the white of the low, spiralling
ceiling above. As all these phenomena take place, nothing attempts to identify
a name or reason for what you encounter. There are no slogans or statements,
appeals to the conscience. Avoiding traditional architectural styles, the chapel
embraces ambiguity. It finds reverence in not-knowing; in indeterminate moments
of simply living, feeling, wondering.
Wandering purposefully on to
Point Arena, a single road curving off the coastal highway leads you to Point
Arena Lighthouse, a bright white beacon that serves as a glimmering landmark
for road trippers on their West Coast pilgrimages. Just before you hit the gated
visitor checkpoint, a narrow gravel verge opens out to the left where you can
pull over and walk around. Here the cliff juts out squarely to form a platform where
you can observe the coastline in all its intricacy. On both sides, as far as
the mist permits you to see, beige sandstone is layered with neat grooves like
claw marks, shoreline punctuated with inlets and outcrops that mirror the
fluctuating pattern of the waves themselves. A primal cathedral
with the shining lighthouse as its steeple, the rumble of crashing waves its
choir. Stepping tentatively up to the precipice, whipped by wind and salty sea
spray, the noise and energy reaches a crescendo that crowds out your senses,
wrapping you in a deafening stillness. A divine balance, gripped in a communion
with the colossal forces of ocean and land, beyond and beneath.
After this detour from our planned
route (isn’t every trip a detour of some kind?) we returned to Highway 1. Driving
between the white picket fences lining the roadsides of Elk, we paused awhile
in Mendocino to gaze from cliffsides at the quaint rows of painted shopfronts, driftwood
heaped on the damp sand below. Only ten miles later, we washed up at our final
and northernmost stop, the old industrial town of Fort Bragg. Past gas
stations, barren parking lots and an old railroad, we turned left and parked up
on a soft slope that slid into an amalgam of shingle, rock pools, and swashing surf.
Sauntering onto the foreshore, between pebbles we began to spot what we came
here for: shimmering beads of glass. Clear, green, and brown mostly, and, very
occasionally, sapphire blue and ruby red.
The history of the Glass Beach
isn’t romantic. From 1906 until 1967, Fort Bragg locals dumped waste into the
water at three sites. This practice continued until 1967, when the California
State Water Resources Control Board closed the last active dumping ground and
cleanup programmes followed. In the decades since, however, the discarded wrecks
underwent a transfiguration. What was large was chomped down, what was
biodegradable was swallowed, the earth reclaiming its bodily organs that were
surgically removed, modified, used, and left for dead. At the same rocks where
crabs crawl and limpets lie, now barely identifiable implements of plastic and
metal have implanted themselves like some abstract sculpture, a geological
cyborg. All edges rounded and smoothed, in time.
The Glass Beach now harbours tens
of thousands of visitors each year, making it one of the prime tourist
attractions for miles around. There has even been a campaign to resume the
disposing of glass there to ensure the replenishment of the beaches, where
collecting is discouraged but not illegal. Fort Bragg has gone full circle: a
town salvaging the last knockings of an industrial heyday to fashion a
spectacle that people from the Bay Area will drive for hours to see and touch
(and, of course, buy). All relying on two resources it has in abundance: human
waste, and the unyielding power of the ocean. With the same apocalyptic beauty
of a coastline undergoing perpetual destruction, it is both miraculous and
tragic at the same time.
Despite the majority of glass
being clear, brown and green, pieces can be found in a wide spectrum of colours.
Some browns soften into amber yellows or deepen to blacks and maroons; greens
turn to emerald or lime; and whites tinge with aquamarine. Every piece unique
and precious; the confluence of innumerable streams of stories and events
encapsulated in a singular object.
Nearly three hours from home and with
our own earthly schedules to meet, our time was equally rare. Handfuls of debris
we had no chance to examine, slipped through our fingers like grains of sand in
an hourglass. By twilight we would be back among the seemingly eternal
plantations of concrete and corrugated steel in Petaluma, feasting from ceramic
plates.
Turning our backs on the beach,
and the Pacific Coast, felt like leaving a treasure chest half full. Footpaths not taken, guidebook
entries unvisited; everything plunged into a state of temporariness. The Midas
effect, where the very things you want to hold are what you must let go. We rolled
out of Fort Bragg along Route 20, bearing inland toward the cavernous depths of
Jackson State Forest. With the sun sinking into the ocean behinds us, its golden,
angular light igniting the redwoods beyond, we weaved a path through the dusky
darkness.
