Ode To Shit Creek

 

Getting ready to leave for work.  Planning on doing a little perimeter check for (C. pallasi) before wasting my time at Coyote all day.  Still too early for those so called "prehistoric dinosaur catfish," though no doubt this rain will bring a few desperate fishermen out of the woodwork.

Saw some sardines at the Third Street Bridge yesterday, (maybe ten per bucket) before the rains started in ernest.  Very weird the whole Islais Creek sardine thing.  I mean, like, why?  What's in there?

 

                                        Islais Creek... right, hard to believe.

 

 

"Islais," it turns out, is the Yelamu word for a wild cherry that used to grow along the banks of the creek. Imagine that. Not exactly sure about the pronunciation of "Islais" although I notice that Crazy Pete says: "Iz-liss," and I am willing to accept him as an authority on the subject.  

There's a dilapidated, graffiti-strewn kiosk in the small beat up old park next to the Islais Creek pier. This Kiosk is depressing for several reasons:

1. It details the grim history of Islais Creek, from its pristine Ohlone/coho salmon days, to its industrial decline, to its complete dessicration, to its use as a sewer conduit, to its forlorn and concretized present.  

2. The kiosks themselves are in such a wretched state, one wonders why the city even bothered.  I mean, what's the point of initiating a project if you're just going to let it fall into ruin after a few years?  Was there no plan for up keep? Or was Islais Creek Park merely another victim of the budget crisis? Seems to me the neighborhood (Bayview-HP) could seriously benefit by a nice, well maintained park, no?

 

                                                            Ah wilderness!

 

Anyway, what we learn in reading the remnants of the kiosk at Islais is that the animal-processing industry once flourished along it's filthy banks (hence the name: Butcher Town). We're talking slaughter houses, tanneries, and glue factories. Evidently, the noxious horrors of this era (mid 19th to early 20th century) had to be smelled to be believed. Often the creek became choked, to the point of overflowing, with rotting offal.  Mmmmm. (Wake up and smell the offal). No wonder, that by the mid nineteen-teens the place was known unofficially as: "Shit Creek"--a moniker which has lasted to the present age.

 

 
                       Yes, it was a marshland once.

Funny, I wrote all this before checking Wikipedia.  Lot's of interesting history on the creek there.  But if you don't feel like surfing the infer-net, here's an interesting quote that kind of explains why it all went down the drain... (pun intended):

 

                            The remnants of "Butcher Town"

 

From Wikipedia:

"On November 19, 2001, construction crews, while preparing to drill an electrical conduit (consisting of six large 115kV electrical cables) across the creek for the Muni Metro T Third St. light rail line, cracked the concrete sewer underground which carries more than 80 million gallons of sewage a day. The incident flooded the creek and its adjacent Muwekma Ohlone Park with sewage. The park had to be excavated to make way for the repairing of the sewer pipe.  It was estimated that it would take more than $101,660 to repair and $65,000 for wildlife habitat restoration. 

Health hazard

Since Islais Creek is a culvert that carries storm water, domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater, it is possible for the sewage to overflow. Such overflow can cause a public health hazard as Islais Creek displays higher level of heavy metals, PCBs, Bacteria as well as organochlorines than other parts of the San Francisco Bay."

 

Well.. that's it for today... funny, I'm heading to Shit Creek right now.  Living the dream I guess.  Maybe the sardines are running?  Sad to think all those fishermen down there are actually eating fish from this place.  Yikes.  They tell me you can still see the headwaters (of shit creek) up in Glenn Park. I may have to go check that out at some point. I mean just for poetic reasons.  Anyway, here's the modern aerial view:

 

                Not much creek left to Islais (Shit) Creek

And that's going to do it for today.  From way up the creek without a paddle, this is Lombard of The Intertidal, for The Monkeyface News, signing out.

Comments

[Reno Sepulveda]

Always love reading your blog. Best wishes on the job search.

[donny laundry]

kirk-0
great post. i love hearing about the history. you ever visit the bay model in sausalito? i wonder if shit creek is represented.

[Finesmell]

Glenn Park is the headwaters of Shit Creek? Really? I always wondered where that little trickle went after being channeled into an underground tunnel! It is worth checking out, if we're thinking of the same Glenn Park (remember, I haven't resided on the Barbary Coast in a dozen years) ... it's a nice weedy little canyon hidden in the city, with oak and laurel, and interesting rock outcroppings, and open fields that fill with wildflowers in the Spring; definitely worth exploring. The creek is apparently relatively uncontaminated at this point of origin, as it supports a lot of wildlife - garter snakes, huge dragonflies, etc. - and local kids sometimes use it to irrigate scrappy marajuana plants hidden in the denser thickets of laurel. Once, when walking around in that canyon, I saw a redtail hawk pounce on a vole not ten feet from where I stood. I was also almost sprayed by a skunk there, and even once spotted an endangered species of rat snake there ... wish I could remember the exact name of that snake, as it was a beauty: pale tan, with flushes of black and turquoise around the head, as I recall.

It was a nice hike out there from our old place in the Mission; follow the J-Church line south ... at the end of the line, dog-leg left, then right past the historic "French laundry" (which performed other services for Barbary Coast-era sailors besides starching uniforms - basically, you could get your underpants stained and cleaned in the same place!), and it's pretty much a straight shot down what-ever-the-heck road that is ... always stopped by the Creighton's Bakery for refreshment, before heading into the shrubbery; as I recall, they had some scrumptuous little creation with prunes and raspberries that was to die for.

[DK]

Awesome stuff. Glad you are back buddy. BTW, things could happen very soon. In the next few weeks, although I suspedt its still a bit early now. Until then, I'll stick with bird watching. Maybe if we are lucky we will get a first hand Ornithology lesson (part 2?)... when flocks darken the shore and clowd the sky. Winter is upon us! Happy T-day.

[josh]

I lived on a boat here from 74-80 with my family. I was 2 when we moved our boat here from Half Moon Bay. We were tied to the dock that ran from the old fish processing plant down behind ABC Auto Dismantling. We used to climb on the giant sewer pipes and rail tracks. Oddly, they were safer than the asphalt and wood dock that seemed to lose pieces into the water every day. Lots of memories of ships coming in to offload at the factory across the way. People say the factory quit operating in 74. It didn't. Ships came in for a couple more years. The tugs pushing them almost sank us several times. We'd have to abandon ship in the middle of the night. When it rained the whole creek would smell like sewer. Shit Creek was no place to raise little kids.