I've been working on a site in Cosmopolis, Washington. You may think with a name like Cosmopolis that it's a large cosmopolitan metropolis, it's not. I've been staying at a hotel in the neighboring town of Aberdeen, there are no hotels in Cosmopolis. On a nice evening after work I grabbed my camera and went for a walk on a path behind the hotel. The path was along a river with a lot of old remnants of the logging industry. Going down the bank to take a picture I thought to myself, these banks are quite muddy. Then it dawned on me, this must be the Wishkah. If you're not familiar with the band Nirvana, they have an album called "From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah" which came out a few years after Curt's death. Curt Kobain grew up in Aberdeen and his home was just a few blocks from the river. I've learned that he spent a lot of time hanging out under the Young Street Bridge which is not far from my hotel. He actually slept under the bridge when things weren't going well at home. Their song "Something in the Way" is about the Young Street Bridge. There's a memorial park there dedicated to him. I think this is the biggest tourist attraction in Aberdeen, there were two other people there when I visited it.
One thing I learned about the Wishkah river is that it was named by the Chehalis tribe that is local to this area. The word Wishkah is an adaptation of the Chehalis word hwish-kahl which means "stinking water". I didn't notice the smell but I can see how it could get ripe. Where the river runs through Aberdeen and meets up with the Chealis river there's a lot of tidal influence from Grays Harbor and the Pacific Ocean. The muddy banks are exposed during low tide.
Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta 531/2 with Kodak Tri-X 400 Developed in Rodinal 1:50.
In Memoriam by
Bryan Chernick, on Flickr
This is probably where Curt slept.
Under the Young Steet Bridge by
Bryan Chernick, on Flickr
Young Street Bridge
Young Street Bridge by
Bryan Chernick, on Flickr
A view up stream. There are a lot of pilings along the shores of the Wishkah and the Chehalis rivers from the logging industry. I assume they floated logs down the river and tied them off on the pilings. That was pretty common practice in the Pacific Northwest.
Wishkah River by
Bryan Chernick, on Flickr
