There’s a saying that perception is everything. For example, if your only trips to the coast are on weekends and they happen to occur during rainstorms, you might believe it’s always raining at the coast. Precipitation statistics, showing that we get twice the rainfall of Portland or Seattle, will bolster your conclusion but, in fact, it doesn’t rain all the time, it just rains twice as hard when it does.

I’m reminded of this business about perception because they’re doing a big highway project down Hwy 101 near Cannon Beach. The Oregon Department of Transport-ation’s idea of a solution for a dangerous intersection, of course, is to log and grade acres of surrounding forest in order to put in an interchange that will prevent drivers from having to exercise judgment that’s too often proved faulty, inconsiderate, or just plain reckless. When ODOT gets finished, that part of the landscape will be pretty thoroughly carved up.

Observing once again this rip and rape of the countryside reminds me of the last time, 16 years ago, when the 26/101 junction became a war zone. Giant old-growth cedars, hemlock, and spruce were felled to make way for the interchange. Huge slash piles created a nighttime scene from hell: While billowing smoke obscured your vision, skeletal remains of huge tree limbs and stumps were silhouetted against red licks of flame.

There was a buzz in town. The city’s government had sought the highway “improvements” for at least a decade in order to speed tourist traffic to their town’s commercial establishments. Visitors on big holiday weekends were impatient and frustrated by long waits at the stop sign at the intersection. When the project was actually proceeding, town leaders were dismayed at the actual size of the project and the ugliness that would be visitors’ first impression of the coast. Highway 26, only a few miles past the reputedly largest Sitka Spruce tree in the world, would plop the tourist down into an intersection devoid of anything beautiful.

At any rate, people new to the area won’t know the difference. We’re all prisoners of our perceptions, of our five senses, even if those perceptions are only a sliver of the pie. If I hadn’t been around when they tore down the forest at that intersection, I’d have no idea what was lost and what was gained. I’d just accept what’s there now as if that was the only thing there ever was.

Think about these examples: Is your childhood neighborhood better or worse, safer or scarier than when you grew up? Do you remember what Mt. St. Helens looked like before its top was blown off? Do you remember when Gresham, Oregon was some of the best strawberry and raspberry fields in the country instead of strip malls and suburban sprawl? Do you remember Celilo Falls before the Columbia became a series of gigantic lakes?

A lack of historical perspective unfortunately blinds us to the extent of some of our problems. If we have no yardstick for how we are changing things, how will we know when we’ve changed them too much? For example, fishing interests debate about the apparent crash of certain species of groundfish. A biologist friend tells me that relative newcomers to the fishing industry believe the scientific community is blowing the problem out of proportion. They’re still catching fish with their high-tech gear, so they believe there must be plenty of fish. She said it’s the old-timers, who’ve been fishing for several decades, who acknowledge the problem. They’re the ones who say, “Things have changed.”

When I moved to Ilwaco to live, large trees rimmed the west side of town. Most of them are gone now and relatively barren slopes remain. It is perhaps because I remember the former grandeur of those trees where eagles perched, that I hope what few large trees remain will be preserved. I wouldn’t have that position if I hadn’t seen what was here before.

A lot of problems facing us now require a long-term perspective, whether its declining fish stocks, or that only 2 percent of America’s native forests remain, or that the borders of Israel were arbitrarily drawn by the British roughly 60 years ago. What to do about it? On the global issues, we need to study more history. On the local level, we need to listen to old-timers stories, whether about how the weather’s changed or how big and plentiful the fish and trees used to be.

Victoria Stoppiello is a free lance writer from Ilwaco, where she has deep roots in our area’s fishing tradition.