I've connected with the natural world quite a bit in the last 25 years of both personal and professional conservation trips on the Willamette and beyond. Experiences on the water, in the wind and in the open have helped ground me.  

Norwood Island is a special place to me and my family. It is also an idea, a place of beauty, and a little piece of the wild transformed from its former condition. It is also a notion - a kind of “island” in the storm, a place of refuge whether one is lucky enough to go there, or to know of and think about as a kind of mental refuge.

In this simple page I'm sharing a few of those experiences, images and thoughts, as well as commentary about the state of humanity - especially the thoughtless actions of the “leadership” that took power in the United States in January, 2025.

The use of the word hermit represents how it sometimes feels to be able to get out to enjoy a bit of seclusion, and also to know that there are a great many places that matter, and at their heart also provide a mental refuge during very odd times.  Travis Williams

Hermit - noun

1. A person who has withdrawn to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion.

2. Any person living in seclusion; recluse.

3. Zoology. an animal of solitary habits.