Every year, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs holds a three-day conference (referred to as AWP) in a different city. Last year, the conference was held in Florida, and I wasn’t able to go due to the cost and timing. I made it a mission to save up for AWP this year, which just so happened to be in Portland, Oregon. The Pacific Northwest has been on my bucket list for awhile now, as I’ve never been to the West Coast (or any farther west than Wyoming), so AWP 2019’s placement in Portland was serendipitous.

While most of the trip was spent attending panels about writing (shout out to the amazing environmentalism in young-adult literature and humor in YA panels I went to) and teaching writing, I did manage to explore the crazy-good food options in the city (try: Screendoor, Butterfly Belly Asian Cuisine, and Salt & Straw ice-cream). Most importantly, though, I was able to sneak away for some nature excursions. The first of these was at Washington Park, one of the oldest parks in Portland, in the heart of the city.

The original forty acres of the park were purchased in 1871, and by 1888, the wild forested landscape had been tamed into trails, gardens, roads, and the Portland Zoo (created from a menagerie of animals collected by a Portland pharmacist). In addition to the zoo, the park now contains the World Forestry Center, the Portland Children’s Museum, Hoyt Arboretum, the International Rose Test Garden, and the Portland Japanese Garden.

The Japanese Garden is probably the most famous of the Washington Park attractions. The former Japanese ambassador to the U.S, Nobuo Matsunaga, said in 1988 that the garden was “the most beautiful and authentic Japanese garden in the world outside Japan.” However, its $17 admission fee was a little steep for us as poor graduate students, so we opted to explore a couple of the many free attractions in the park.

The International Rose Test Garden, founded in 1917, is the world’s oldest continually operated public garden of its kind and was the first stop in our park exploration. The garden boasts over 10,000 bushes of 650 varieties of roses and was founded, in part, to solidify Portland’s nickname of “The City of Roses.” Unfortunately, the roses bloom from April to October, with the peak in June, so we missed rose blooms. However, there were many types of flowering trees to enjoy, including several varieties of Camellias.

After spending some time leisurely sniffing all the flowers (and one of us perhaps getting overzealous and covering their nose in pollen), we decided to hike up to Hoyt Arboretum, as the rest of our group graciously allowed me to follow my heart towards the Coastal Redwoods, the first trees planted in the Arboretum in 1931, a collection that expanded to over 2,300 tree species from six continents today.

From the rose garden, it was a fairly long hike (mostly uphill) towards the Arboretum, following the road, and eventually transitioning into unpaved trails guided by clearly posted signs. The forests were gorgeous, a vibrant, take-your-breath-away green. Ivy crawled along the forest floor, moss coating finger-like branches, ferns clinging to rocks, giving the hike a primordial time-shift. Dwarfed by conifers and steeped in the golden-hour glow, my heart was full of joy even before we reached the famed Redwoods.

And once we got to the Redwood trail, the giants took my breath away. Over 150 feet tall (still small compared to the 380 foot Redwoods found in Redwoods National Park in California), their reddish bark is soft to the touch, fibrous, and rich in tannins that naturally protect it from insect damage. Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world and can live for over 2,000 years, meaning they provide an important habitat for the life that abounds in their canopies and on the forest floor (they can even create rain for the ecosystem below by capturing fog on their leaves). Only 5% of original, old-growth Redwood forest remains in the world, from southern Oregon to central California. Go to Save the Redwoods League to see how you can contribute to the conservation of this remarkable species.

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