Rift
I didn’t expect to see a coyote on my morning walk, but there he was. Although dog-shaped and dog-sized, his gait was different—smoother and straighter—and his extra-long tail lay flat. Unlike a domestic dog, he ignored me completely as he crossed the road between an office complex and two residential homes. Not even an ear twitch to acknowledge my presence.
He knew I was there, of course. But he didn’t care. I was useless to him and we both knew it.
The ferry foghorn bellowed, reminding me I had a boat to catch. I picked up my pace as the coyote’s pepper gray and brown fur faded into the bushes along the ravine.
Winslow Ravine is a tree-filled canyon that slices northward from Eagle Harbor into Bainbridge Island. Carved by retreating glaciers millennia ago, it holds a stream that spills into Puget Sound from wetland headwaters. There’s a footbridge in Waterfront Park near the stream’s mouth where Chinook, coho, and chum salmon have been seen, and their cutthroat trout cousins still find their way upstream. Madrona trees, cedar, fir, alder, maple, and western hemlocks line the steep banks.
Both the town of Winslow and State Route 305 were built over the ravine, which was partially filled with culverts and dirt to accommodate roads and cars. Pollution from stormwater runoff is a concern, but animals still make their homes there. Over fifty species of birds live in the ravine, as do deer, rodents, and amphibians. Plenty of treats for a hungry coyote to nosh.
Until I met the coyote, I didn’t think of my neighborhood as a prime location for wild mammal encounters. Sure, a year ago I’d watched a doe and her two fawns eat fallen filbert nuts before wandering off to graze in a grassy lot with a pond. But on more recent walks, I saw trees toppled to make room for housing developments, lots leveled, and ponds filled with gravel.
This year, I saw the doe return alone to find the filbert trees replaced with inedible landscaping plants. The pond was a mess of mud and rebar, and the lot was covered with a strange cuboid fungus of chemically treated plywood and two by fours. The grove of Douglas firs and western hemlock at the back of the lot had been thinned to a slender line, demolishing the nesting places for dozens of bird species along the Pacific Flyway. The doe’s wet nose and swiveling ears were a question: why?
Some humans have the notion that we can do whatever we want with the land. We call it our land, our property, our territory, denying the existence of the other creatures who already live here. It’s not unexpected in America, where European settlers historically denied the existence of whole nations of people who’d already lived on the land. Here, the concept of individual land ownership is inextricably linked with environmental destruction, oppression, and genocide.
I guess I shouldn’t expect anything different when million-dollar condos come to my neighborhood, constructed by workers who can’t afford to live in the very homes they build. Working class folks aren’t the only ones struggling to live here now. Animals are struggling, too.
Spring slipped into summer before I saw the coyote again. This time, he trotted down the middle of Madison Avenue, tongue lolling in the heat. Speeding drivers barely saw him in time to brake.
I phoned the wildlife rescue and learned I wasn’t the first to report the coyote’s presence. “He’s well-fed and healthy,” the volunteer told me, “and no one can catch him, so it’s best to leave him alone.”
I should have known. The coyote wasn’t lost. He knew exactly where he was going.
That summer, there were local reports of coyotes fighting with small dogs and black bears snacking from back porch bird feeders. Was it really that surprising? Humans were the ones who’d barged in here in the first place. Everyone else was just doing their best to make it. The animals were adapting, because humans were not.
But this place is wilderness still; land is never really tamed. Cut down enough trees, build enough housing developments, and the land fights you back. There are floods, landslides, wildfires. Coyotes thrive in our cities and raccoons and bears feast from our garbage cans. We seem shocked to see the creatures who have been here longer than we have, those whose land we’ve been squatting on while we dump our waste into their water and destroy their shelter and food.
It's hard to unlearn this ingrained idea that the land belongs to us alone. But we have to, if we want to protect the natural resources that keep all of us alive. If we want a future.
If humans can’t adapt to their environment anymore—if we have to destroy the land in order to make a place for ourselves—then we’re not evolving, we’re devolving. Going backwards. In our pursuit of comfort, we’ve disconnected ourselves so thoroughly from the natural world that we no longer know how to live in it. Now more than ever, we need to cooperate with other species to survive.
The last time I saw the coyote, he was headed for the ravine. I tried to make eye contact and failed. It was selfish of me, I know. I wanted to be recognized, even if all I got was a glance. But once again, I got nothing.
The coyote walked past me at a business-like pace. He didn’t slow down or speed up. Didn’t turn his head, didn’t raise his tail. To him, I was about as significant as a tree.
Embarrassed by my presumption, I watched the coyote vanish into the green of the ravine. I imagined the cool spray of the hidden stream, the odor of wet stones and fish. Imagined the ravine reopened to the sky, our concrete and asphalt evaporating like fog.
References
He knew I was there, of course. But he didn’t care. I was useless to him and we both knew it.
The ferry foghorn bellowed, reminding me I had a boat to catch. I picked up my pace as the coyote’s pepper gray and brown fur faded into the bushes along the ravine.
Winslow Ravine is a tree-filled canyon that slices northward from Eagle Harbor into Bainbridge Island. Carved by retreating glaciers millennia ago, it holds a stream that spills into Puget Sound from wetland headwaters. There’s a footbridge in Waterfront Park near the stream’s mouth where Chinook, coho, and chum salmon have been seen, and their cutthroat trout cousins still find their way upstream. Madrona trees, cedar, fir, alder, maple, and western hemlocks line the steep banks.
Both the town of Winslow and State Route 305 were built over the ravine, which was partially filled with culverts and dirt to accommodate roads and cars. Pollution from stormwater runoff is a concern, but animals still make their homes there. Over fifty species of birds live in the ravine, as do deer, rodents, and amphibians. Plenty of treats for a hungry coyote to nosh.
Until I met the coyote, I didn’t think of my neighborhood as a prime location for wild mammal encounters. Sure, a year ago I’d watched a doe and her two fawns eat fallen filbert nuts before wandering off to graze in a grassy lot with a pond. But on more recent walks, I saw trees toppled to make room for housing developments, lots leveled, and ponds filled with gravel.
This year, I saw the doe return alone to find the filbert trees replaced with inedible landscaping plants. The pond was a mess of mud and rebar, and the lot was covered with a strange cuboid fungus of chemically treated plywood and two by fours. The grove of Douglas firs and western hemlock at the back of the lot had been thinned to a slender line, demolishing the nesting places for dozens of bird species along the Pacific Flyway. The doe’s wet nose and swiveling ears were a question: why?
Some humans have the notion that we can do whatever we want with the land. We call it our land, our property, our territory, denying the existence of the other creatures who already live here. It’s not unexpected in America, where European settlers historically denied the existence of whole nations of people who’d already lived on the land. Here, the concept of individual land ownership is inextricably linked with environmental destruction, oppression, and genocide.
I guess I shouldn’t expect anything different when million-dollar condos come to my neighborhood, constructed by workers who can’t afford to live in the very homes they build. Working class folks aren’t the only ones struggling to live here now. Animals are struggling, too.
Spring slipped into summer before I saw the coyote again. This time, he trotted down the middle of Madison Avenue, tongue lolling in the heat. Speeding drivers barely saw him in time to brake.
I phoned the wildlife rescue and learned I wasn’t the first to report the coyote’s presence. “He’s well-fed and healthy,” the volunteer told me, “and no one can catch him, so it’s best to leave him alone.”
I should have known. The coyote wasn’t lost. He knew exactly where he was going.
That summer, there were local reports of coyotes fighting with small dogs and black bears snacking from back porch bird feeders. Was it really that surprising? Humans were the ones who’d barged in here in the first place. Everyone else was just doing their best to make it. The animals were adapting, because humans were not.
But this place is wilderness still; land is never really tamed. Cut down enough trees, build enough housing developments, and the land fights you back. There are floods, landslides, wildfires. Coyotes thrive in our cities and raccoons and bears feast from our garbage cans. We seem shocked to see the creatures who have been here longer than we have, those whose land we’ve been squatting on while we dump our waste into their water and destroy their shelter and food.
It's hard to unlearn this ingrained idea that the land belongs to us alone. But we have to, if we want to protect the natural resources that keep all of us alive. If we want a future.
If humans can’t adapt to their environment anymore—if we have to destroy the land in order to make a place for ourselves—then we’re not evolving, we’re devolving. Going backwards. In our pursuit of comfort, we’ve disconnected ourselves so thoroughly from the natural world that we no longer know how to live in it. Now more than ever, we need to cooperate with other species to survive.
The last time I saw the coyote, he was headed for the ravine. I tried to make eye contact and failed. It was selfish of me, I know. I wanted to be recognized, even if all I got was a glance. But once again, I got nothing.
The coyote walked past me at a business-like pace. He didn’t slow down or speed up. Didn’t turn his head, didn’t raise his tail. To him, I was about as significant as a tree.
Embarrassed by my presumption, I watched the coyote vanish into the green of the ravine. I imagined the cool spray of the hidden stream, the odor of wet stones and fish. Imagined the ravine reopened to the sky, our concrete and asphalt evaporating like fog.
References
- Bainbridge Island Review. “Ravine still has some friends.” April 6, 2005. https://www.bainbridgereview.com/news/ravine-still-has-some-friends/
- Ott, Jennifer. “Bainbridge Island (Winslow): Thumbnail History.” https://www.historylink.org/file/8274
- Sustainable Bainbridge. Image of Winslow Ravine sign. https://www.sustainablebainbridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ravine-Sign_03-25-19Final-1.pdf
Liz Kellebrew is the author of Water Signs (2022) and The River People (forthcoming 2025 from Unsolicited Press). She won The Miracle Monocle Award for Innovative Writing, and she was a finalist for the Calvino Prize. Her work has been published in journals such as Catamaran, About Place, and Room. She writes essays, poems, and short fiction from the Pacific Northwest.