Pepper Trail
Jefferson Journal ContributorPepper Trail is a naturalist, photographer, writer, and world traveler who has lived in Ashland since 1994. He works as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and in his spare time leads natural history trips to every corner of the world, including Jackson County. Pepper is a regular essayist for the Jefferson Journal and for High Country News, and his writing has been included in several anthologies, including Intricate Homeland and What the River Brings: Oregon River Poems. In 2009, he published Shifting Patterns: Meditations on Climate Change in Oregon’s Rogue Valley, a collection of essays and poems, with photographs by Jim Chamberlain and himself. Pepper’s poetry has appeared in the Jefferson Monthly, Windfall, Kyoto Journal, Borderlands, Comstock Review and many other publications. His writing combines a scientist’s insights with deeply personal meditations on memory, mortality, and the human place in the natural world.
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Who wouldn’t love a free lunch? You seat yourself, let’s say, on a sun-dappled outdoor patio, choose among the many mouth-watering dishes, enjoy a glass… -
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all crueltyto know what occurs but not recognize the fact— William Stafford (from “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”)I…
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I’m writing this in Oregon’s high desert, on the shore of Summer Lake—or, to be more accurate, on the rim of its dry lakebed. It’s August, and I’m here… -
Remember that kid from elementary school, the one with the terrible depth perception? That kid was me. I fell down stairs, missed the next rung on the…
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I recently flew from southern Oregon to Denver, giving me the opportunity to reflect on the fate of western landscapes. As we took off from the Medford…
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First, a confession. I am a serious birder. Far too serious, my wife will tell you. But for 364 days a year, I’m a good birding citizen. I lead field…
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We gathered in the well-lit roomPoured wine, settled back to chartOur way around the coming doomWe all had brought our favored facts:The end of oil, the…
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One of the highlights of the past year on television was Ken Burns’ masterful history of American conservation in his PBS series “The National Parks –…