Across the Fence: A Point of Quietude

It has been all over the media in Pierce County, WA, these past days: iconic 5-Mile-Drive in Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park has been closed off for good as of May 20, 2022. For motorized vehicles, not for bicyclists or pedestrians. Because the historical landmark is crumbling. And the next thing you know is that a car tumbles with the crumbles. Not funny.

I remember when my husband took me for a ride all around the place for the first time. From the Japanese Park with its pagoda, past the zoo, the rhododendron garden, through this fairy-tale-like rainforest with view points of Vashon Island, Gig Harbor, and the Narrows Bridge, past Fort Nisqually and the old logging camp, and back to the zoo and the rose garden. There is so much to take in – and it is changed every single time you go there. In short, the 5-Mile-Drive became pretty much a fixture of our outing activities around Tacoma.

Of course, I learned only later that the name was given by the Wilkes Expedition in 1840, as the promontory and the place that, today is Gig Harbor, would make a pretty good place to “defy the world”. That the military reservation it became in consequence was never used but turned into a park by authorization of President Grover Cleveland. That streetcars transported people to this park. That there was a heated bathhouse on top of the bluff, above the boathouse. That in the 1930s a replica of Fort Nisqually was built in the park as a measure within Roosevelt’s New Deal. But whom among you do I tell this? So many of you have known this all along, growing up with and living alongside the history of this fine place.

Of course, we took my one and only visitor from Germany so far, my brave late friend Andrea, to experience the 5-Mile-Drive, too. I’m not sure whether we glimpsed any of the rabbits, deer, or raccoons, then, that my husband and I have spotted in such abundance ever since. We also took friends from England there. And family from Texas. And friends and family from Florida. The 5-Mile-Drive was simply “it” if you wanted to give somebody an impression of the original rainforest wilderness around, of pioneer times, and of the fantastic island world out in the Sound.

We have hiked all the trails, just my husband and I, around Point Defiance Park. And of late, we have rather enjoyed walking parts of the road without facing traffic, which could become quite dense at times. We have stood in places close to the cliffs where signage warns of going beyond the fence. Still, we have encountered more than a few who did just that. And every once in a while, we hear of hiking parties that slid or fell and needed rescuing. Defiance of good advice is not always just a matter of one’s personal rights.

Of course, people will still be able to get to Owen Beach in their cars. That resort-like section of Point Defiance Park has been overhauled these past months and will soon reopen to the public, after all. And Fort Nisqually and the vista of the Narrows Bridge will still be accessible to motorists. But Nature will take a breath around the viewpoints of Vashon and Gig Harbor. And it will take its course, just as it has in other places that also crumble and defy people access, such as the Carbon River entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park.

Is Point Defiance making a point of defying the footprint of humans that has become maybe a bit too heavy? Don’t let’s take it that far. But sometimes landmarks become memories, happy memories of times that were, of opportunities we had and maybe grasped, of people who shared our journey. In this case, new memories will be made – of a pointed quiet, of birdsong and wildlife, of leisure. Even if it won’t be everybody’s memories – it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?