The guest house on the Oregon coast was perched on a hill over-looking the ocean and beach, the guide book said. Rustic and cozy, well-equipped and cheap, “a great place to hole up with family or friends,” it sounded like just what we were looking for.

Slipped into the description of amenities was an innocuous-sounding phrase: “There may be some house rules.” We didn’t give it a second thought until the confirmation of our reservation and deposit arrived. Indeed, there were some rules. No smoking. No candles. No incense. No open fires. No dogs. No visitors. No barbecuing and most emphatically: NO HUMMERS! There was a designated quiet period from nine in the evening to nine a.m.

Guests were admonished to “Protect fragile marine life by not walking on rocks covered with live creatures or touching tide pool life.” Removing driftwood from the beach was prohibited. (“Driftwood protects shorebirds’ nests.”) The place sounded like a dormitory run by puritanical killjoys, catering to ascetics and environmental militants.

Except for the prohibition on barbecuing, none of these rules bothered me. In fact, I applauded them. I don’t smoke. The odor of incense makes me ill. I have a noise phobia and suffer from insomnia, so the idea of a quiet period was welcome. We planned to leave the dogs at home, along with the fleet of Hum-Vees. No problem. If there was a problem it was that I just don’t like being told what to do.

I wondered what other regulations lay in store: No dancing, no gambling, no expectorating, no soliciting, no meat-eating, no loitering, no split-infinitives, no double-negatives? I imagined the proprietors banging on our door at nine o’clock sharp and barking, “Lights out!” And they’d be there in the morning to make sure we’d made our beds with hospital corners and brushed our teeth.

All day long they’d follow us with their clipboards, blowing their whistles, handing out demerits. They’d harangue us about global warming and suburban sprawl, bombard us with quotes from Thoreau and evocations of the lost Eden when human beings lived in caves, dressed in animal skins and fed on roots, berries and grubs. I felt the tug of the leash, the pinch of the straight-jacket.

Rebellion instinct

An adolescent impulse to rebel possessed me. I envisioned myself running amok in their rain forest with my chain saw, littering their precious coast with fast-food wrappers. I was even tempted to take up smoking again.

I was reminded of a trek I took on Alaska’s Brooks Range 25 years ago when our guide wouldn’t leave off reminding us of the damage our footprints were doing to the tundra. Unhappy woman. She’d lost the ability to enjoy what she was determined to protect. Our enthusiasms sometimes turn into obsessions and our obsessions can transform us into scolds. I wondered if there was an unspoken rule at our Oregon hideaway: NO FUN!

Stunning results

The Pacific Northwest, of course, is high on environmental awareness. It has to be, given the numbers who flock there, attracted by its beauty and casual lifestyle, not to mention the gourmet coffee and prize-winning micro-brewery beers.

Our situation on the Oregon coast was certainly stunning. Behind us loomed a mountainous national forest, where bear, deer and other wildlife roamed. Before us spread the vast Pacific. Majestic combers rolled in, breaking with a jet turbine’s roar, spilling creamy surf across the beach. Flights of cormorants, gulls and pelicans passed just beyond our living room’s picture window. Seals lounged on the rocks below us. The beach was pristine. (No Camping! No Fires!)

What kind of resolve had been required to prevent this beautiful place from becoming a maze of giant water slides, go-cart tracks and T-shirt shops or a continuum of multimillion-dollar beachfront mansions? In the guest house’s library, we found a copy of “Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide to Strategy.” It was a manifesto for saboteurs. “Silence is imperative,” it counseled. “Never participate in a covert or illegal activity with your wife or husband, boyfriend, girlfriend or lover.” The cover of the book depicted the earth as a mace bristling with spikes. Is this the vision required to save the planet?

In the evenings, while we watched chorus lines of waves dancing towards us, lifting up their skirts, I read some essays by Philip Caputo touching on the conflict between preservation and growth. In one, he described the slow death of the reefs off the Florida Keys due to septic pollution and a meeting where advocates of development wielded lengths of rope suggestive of nooses, a warning to those who would stand in the way of progress. It seemed as if eco-guerrillas were arrayed on one side of the issue and pro-growth lynch mobs on the other…

A bucolic valley in the Missouri Ozarks I used to visit boasted a huge sign that commanded visitors: “Prepare to Be Impressed.” Since it was installed, the valley has become a sea of condominium roofs. No one, except maybe local real estate salespeople, is any longer impressed. In a Pacific Northwest rain forest we encountered a sign expressing Nature’s point of view. It showed a boot coming down on a fern. “Ouch!” said the fern. “Watch your step. Plants grow by the inch, but die by the foot.”

Protective response

I suppose that as our numbers increase and our behavioral standards decline, we’ll need more regulations and more rangers to protect our natural heritage. The big question is how to mediate between developers and conservationists to serve the common good. Moreover, can we protect and micro-manage Nature and still have it retain the wildness which is “the preservation of the world?” And what’s the dollar value of an unspoiled beach?

On a fishing trip out of Newport, Ore., ten of us caught our limit of rock fish in less than an hour. In a time of over-fishing, that patch of ocean seemed teeming with life. But according to a report, a 300 square mile “dead zone” had recently appeared off the Oregon coast, comprised of water that was high in nutrients, low in oxygen and fatal to fish. One theory attributed the phenomenon to human activities and the effects of global warming. A counter-theory said it was normal, and that new technologies alarm us by bringing things to light that have always been around.

What’s the truth? It’s hard to know in our polarized, politicized times. (Sign in Florence, Ore.: “No Casino!” Bumper sticker on Oregon pickup truck: “Gun control means using both hands.”)

The day before we left, we parked our car and took a half hour hike along the beach to see some tide pools (taking care not to step on barnacles and mussels, I assure you). When we returned, the window of our car had been smashed, though nothing had been stolen.

Oregon was once notorious for billboards with the oxymoronic greeting: “Welcome to Oregon … Please Don’t Stay.” Was that the message some preservationist was trying to send by breaking our window? Or was it just the work of some kid who gets a charge out of the sound of broken glass?

— George Gurley, who lives in rural Baldwin, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.