The McKee Bridge Project
(Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged image)
The Applegate River descends from Applegate Lake, into the Applegate Valley, where mountains loom on either side. The River divides halfway down the Valley, and this branch is called the Little Applegate. It lies some 25 miles from the town of Applegate which is situated 15 miles from Applegate road, (not to be confused with North Applegate Road or Little Applegate Road.)
This story begins below the Lake, between the river and the road, at the McKee Bridge, an old covered bridge surviving from the gold-mining days when the first
settlers moved here. Next to the bridge is the McKee Bridge Restaurant, which also serves as a bar and convenience store. Now, if you were a Southern Oregonian driving into the wilderness for a camping trip, you might have stopped here to pick up the things you forgot to buy at the last town. You might hear the bar-flies sharing local gossip: about the goat that got eaten by a mountain lion, the Bigfoot trap; about the swat team in the campground- waiting to raid a marijuana crop, or the town of Copper which lies drowned under the Lake. Then you might leave the McKee and continue following that lonely road into the mountains, among which reside hidden people, living out their lives, escaping the world, but unable to escape their own tiny community. These photographs are part of a greater collection and book on the Valley.
My family happened upon this Valley as Californian Transplants in 2006. The
McKee Restaurant was the only place I could get to on foot, and I very slowly began to learn some Applegate secrets. Here I am, a stranger whom the locals have accepted, like the heat at noon on a summer day. I represent change, as the area becomes more populated. But if you live here for very long, it soon seems like everyone knows you better than you know yourself. You become part of this world; it’s just something in the trees. An inspection of this small woodsy world will reveal clues about the life of others in similar remote cultural islands. Applegate life is emblematic of the psychological and physical relationships between people and the margins of the great stage of earth and water.
The air smells like smoke and rain,
Forest fires on a cloudy day
Whatever we need, we build with our hands.
Either the solitude has made us crazy,
or the mountains have made us wise.
