The Last Giants
A short story

I was looking for the world’s loneliest creature when I found the 52 hertz whale. Whales, they’re highly social creatures; they live in a small group called pods that communicates through echolocation. The set of voicing arrangements which are unique to the pods share a common frequency range throughout their entire species. Supposedly sung at 49 hertz ever since 1992 - the call of the world’s loneliest whale deepens slightly as it matures over the years with no evidence of any replies whatsoever. It migrates north every year from southern California coast all the way to the Aleutian and Kodiak Islands. Researchers speculated that the whale might be a malformed whale of the blue whale or fin whale species, or a hybrid. Growing close to 100 feet in length, the blue whale is the largest known animal in the world to have ever existed, the fin whale being the second largest.

There really isn’t that much information about the 52 Hz whale itself. Most virtually available online excerpts are half based on the 52Hz recording from US Navy’s Sound Surveillance System which consisted of several underwater listening posts that became partially disclosed after the end of the Cold War, the other half revolves around the icon of “the world’s loneliest whale” and what people culture have revolved around it. As 49 Hertz disappears annually into the Pacific Ocean between January-February when the whale moves out of range from the hydrophones, some human singer sings a song about the world’s loneliest whale as to empathize, because they too, have hit songs that is unheard of somewhere back in mainland.

I wanted to chase the whale like others have; some artists, some scientists; but the real world isn’t easy and money isn’t easy and the thought of doing a grant proposal to go on some kitschy journey to chase the world’s loneliest whale suddenly doesn’t sound too appealing anymore, especially not in our profit-driven society. My lack of resources to chase the 49 Hertz whale combined with my indisputable ability in writing sub-par, unfinished grants, made me seek another giant that is also currently standing toe-to toe against specieal mortality.

Closer to home, tucked in a blanket of summer fog, stands the world’s tallest forests. The coastal redwood is one of the 3 remaining species in the subfamily Sequoioideae. It’s endemic to Northern-California and Southern-Oregon coast. The Giant Sequoia, which is endemic to the Sierra Nevada is more closely-related to the coastal redwoods compared to the the third species the Shui-Sa meaning Water-Fir otherwise called Metasequoia which are endemic to the Lichuan county in Hubei Province of China.

The first time I saw the coastal redwoods in real life was probably at Daniel’s house, probably because I’ve been to his house in 2012 before I went to Humboldt in 2013 to see the world’s tallest trees. It didn’t click previously that there are about a dozen redwoods growing on Daniel’s yard that stood taller than the portable cell tower on his neighbor’s driveway. There are several more growing at the school right across the street. Funny how I overlooked the trees in my friend’s yard until I went on a 4-hour drive “to see them in real life”.

His grandparents planted them around the house when it was built some decades ago as to prevent speeding cars from crashing into the house since apparently people would fly through the intersection at unreasonable speed. The redwoods on Daniel’s yard stood tall over what used to be a Japanese zen-style rock river that are now covered with equal parts of dirt and cigarette butts. Some of the redwoods that rotted couple of years ago had been cut down. Max took one of the cut log and placed it under a canopy formation to rig a table set up with two broken-ass camp chair with this cute 10-feet jenky trail made up of smaller logs that lead to said area. There is an orange traffic cone wedged upside down between two logs on one side of the trail that we had been using as a hole to throw rocks into. It slumped over after it got soft from the summer’s heat. The trees at Daniel’s house shed almost constantly, covering his entire roof, filling up the remaining intact cup holders of our camp chairs with brown needles. One of the tree grew sideways and up to seek light because it doesn’t have enough space to grow in the 500 square feet dirt patch it shares with 7-8 other trees. When the wind blows strong, the crooked tree sways it’s 4-feet-in-diameter trunk over Daniel’s room. He convinced Max to trade room because Max hasn’t been paying rent.

I stay at Daniel’s 2-3 nights a week in Martinez and spend the rest of the week sleeping in my car in San Francisco to avoid commuting traffic. I started living in my car after Bureau of Indian Affairs kicked us out of our homes in Cannon Ball reservation at the end of the Standing Rock Movement. When I came back to San Francisco, the lease to my apartment had just ended. I waved goodbye to the sunset district that had stopped feeling like home. In fact, nothing felt like home anymore. I had been told by the people in camp that part of the reason the movement lasted for so long is because when people left, there’s this strange energy that pulls them back. Most have left and returned, for some reason they can’t feel home again elsewhere, even the people who were homeless before they showed up to camp left and said that they felt more homeless than before.

There were a lot of conflicts that happened in camp, there was a lot of struggles too. We lived in Tipis and Gers in negative 57 °F with elders, infants, and limited supply of resources. At the end of the day however, everyone in camp agreed that we’re going to stay and build a self-sustainable community for ourselves and the people living there. It’s an ode to change, a new beginning. Whatever paradox sustainability might be, it still provided us with a sense of togetherness, hence a sense of belonging, hence a sense of being home.

I left camp thinking bout how we’ve strayed from our original purpose as a species to be the care takers of the land (and each other). So many of us now are in crisis with our existence. We create our own laws and superimpose our own order on a living, growing environment. We form institutions in desperate attempt to secure some foundation that allows us to live our lives based on the ritual of consistencies, repeating the same routine from one day to the next. We built prison systems that imprison those who can’t live in the confinement of this routine. And put those who can’t live within the confinement of our prisons in super prisons. We fear change, so we changed the world around us so that it wont change. But when the world can’t change, it can’t grow, and when it can’t grow, life can’t sustain itself. Our modern infra-structure is as unsustainable as our modern way of life. Can’t really go back to the old ways either because of the obvious damage we’ve done to the environment and our specieal consciousness.

When I came back to San Francisco in the spring of 2017, I went to Muir Woods to seek guidance from the elder trees. Unlike the redwoods at Daniel’s house, the redwoods at Muir Woods are part of a more complex system of old-growth (OG) Forrest. Biological richness is a feature that marks an OG, here lies ecosystems within ecosystems, worlds within worlds. A single redwood tree can sustain an entire ecosystem complete with its own micro-climate. The trees supply 40% of its water from the air, their leaves capture water molecules from the fog to create its own localized rain. Averaging between 500-800 years old, the redwood patch in Muir Woods is considerably young compared to the average age of living mature trees which ranges from 800 to 1500 years old, the oldest living coastal redwoods is estimated to be around 2520 years old. These giants have provided not only homes but harmony to countless interspecies families for over a millennium. Maybe its here that I can also feel home.

The entrance to the redwood patch is located about half an hour north pass Golden Gate bridge by car. Upon arriving at the spot, I was surprised at how many cars were entering the site. I knew that it was a touristy spot, but I didn’t think about all the tourist on the drive there. I was preoccupied with thinking about what spiritual guidance was going to be bestowed upon me by these sacred giants that have stood here long before bottled water and round earth. In my head, I was expecting a quiet walk in the woods, ready to soak in all that ancient wisdom juice. First wisdom was given to me by the parking attendance of the overflow lot, “don’t expect any parking for a couple of miles down the road if you don’t have a reservation.” I drove real slow to see if any car parked on the side of the road is leaving. After aggravating the rental car behind me for wasting their precious holiday time, I finally spotted a car that was leaving. I took the spot and head to the entrance but later came back to my car after getting that “I’m about to get towed feeling.” I drove further down the road and found parking at Muir Beach just little over 3 miles down the road. Muir Woods National Monument gets up to 6000 visitors per day and I was not one of them.

The overtourism of Muir Woods reminded me of the town I grew up in. What remaining forest that used to be the only habitat left for the critically endangered Javan Leopard is now occupied by some “Green Resorts” to provide “Nature Getaways”. Last I heard of a leopard sighting was maybe in 2011, it hid under a car in a parking lot of a university. There was a lake at the last remaining part of this forest that I didn’t know existed until google map. I went looking for this lake but was met by a ranger who told me that the lake is now closed to public access since it had been designated as a training ground for the special ops couple of years back. Bandung was infamous as the capital which turned a sea of flame in the war of independence, it eventually became known as Indonesia’s greenest, cleanest, most flowering city until it became notoriously known as the sea of trash since 2005. This is why we can’t have nice things.

For most of the 20th century, people have been suppressing wild fires in the US. Wild fire suppression prevented fire dependent species such as the Giant Sequoias from reproducing. Fire provides holes in the forest canopy for sunlight to shine on the forest floor, clears out soil surface which is necessary for the seed of the giant sequoias to germinate, and heats up their cones for seeds to be released. Suppression of wildfires also allows build up of kindling and fire fuel over the years that caused returning fire to burn longer and hotter. Unlike healthy low-burning natural fire, this fire scorch the land in far higher temperature that harms the ecosystem. Along with the unusually dry fall of 2018 and hot-dry gusting, this fire became the major cause of California’s most destructive and deadliest fire. The fire destroyed 18,804 structures and spread over 153,336 acres killing 85 people with 1 person remaining unfound.

A Valley identical to Yosemite was drowned after the construction of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir to provide San Francisco’s new water supply after 1906 earthquake and fire. John Muir went against congressman Kent Williams in an effort to prevent the damming of Tuolumne River. The same Kent who mailed the deed to 295 acres of land out of the 611 acres of redwood patch in Mount Tamalpais to the secretary of the interior in an effort to save the redwoods from North Coast Water Company that had started eminent domain proceedings after being rejected from buying a part of the land with the intention of damming the redwood creek as to supply San Francisco with a new water supply prior to the construction of Hetch Hetchy. This patch of redwood was eventually declared by Former US president Roosevelt under 1906 antiquities as Muir Woods National Monument.

The first time I got in the National Monument was in the late summer of 2017. We arrived after hours, the lot was empty with no rangers nor attendant in sight. The day was starting to turn orange to blue as we found ourselves faced a giant slice of a redwood’s trunk. Marked at its center, “a tree is born”. The labels progressed outwards, marking the years of several historical check points on the corresponding tree rings. From the building of Mesa Verde’s Cliff Dwellings to the declaration of independence and many others. At the edge of the bark was a label marked “Tree Falls”. Every time I asked the redwoods for guidance, I was always replied with silence.

The population of these trees are threatened by the destruction of their habitat and the poaching of their burl. The burl of the tree, which possesses exotic randomized grain pattern contain most of their genetic material that is important for reproduction. Cutting the burl exposes the tree to fungal and bacterial infection which ultimately kills the tree. Mankind has been the biggest threat to the population of these giants. Before the gold rush and commercial logging in 1850, there were estimated to have existed around 2 million acres of OG Redwood Forests. Only 5 percent of the remaining OG exist in the world today.

The summer fog which is essential for the survival of these trees have also thinned out over the years as an immediate consequence to the rising temperature of our oceans. There has been over 46 percent decline in the number of days of fog over the last 32 years. The summer fog, a phenomenon unique to the Mediterranean climate of the western coast will soon disappear to the Pacific Ocean along with 49 Hertz of dissonance.