Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

By Lizzy Acker, Photos by Beth Nakamura

Over the weekend, inhabitants of the peninsula on the Columbia Slough known as “Tweaker Island” watched the water rise around them.

“We had to evacuate,” Raven Justice, 44, told us over the phone Tuesday, “because the island was getting swallowed up.”

Justice doesn't live at the camp. He is an organizer with Village Coalition and says he has been in Portland for about four years. He helped organize Hazelnut Grove and says he is helping people on the peninsula, who are technically trespassing on land belonging to Arclin Surfaces LLC, organize their own village.

Part of the effort is rebranding. “Right now in the advocate world, we call it ‘Columbia Slough Peninsula Village,’” he told us.

The people who live on the peninsula can still be heard referencing the historical name, however.

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On Monday, Beth Nakamura and I visited the peninsula after hearing about the flooding.

We first met Mitchell, the defacto leader of the camp, and the people who lived in the camp last summer. In the summer, "Tweaker Island" was covered in blackberry bushes and blue herons swooped overhead. The community there was made up of primarily people in their 40s and 50s, sharing beers and food and living together in the privacy of the bramble-covered land in the shadow of Portland International Raceway.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

During the coldest January since 1979, we went back to see how campers were handling the cold. The environment was harsher and many people had either left or were sheltering in their tents, hoping to wait out the cold. Mitchell was there and he showed us a warming technique, which he calls "The Kung Fu Grip," where he clenched his fist around a branch, as hard as he could. Then, when he opened it, the blood rushed to his fingers and he felt, momentarily, warmer.

He told us he didn’t plan to leave his camp for a warming shelter.

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But it turns out there is one thing that will get Mitchell to leave the peninsula: flooding.

The Columbia River has been rising since Thursday and is expected to remain at flood stage in Vancouver until Friday. This isn't good news for the people who live on the Columbia Slough peninsula.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

On Monday, he wasn’t anywhere to be found on the peninsula, which was becoming a shrinking strip of habitable land.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

The site of his camp, as well as most of what appeared to be his belongings, were half submerged in water, as were most camps. Justice had arranged for 20 motel rooms for five days to get people out of the path of rising water.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

At first glance, “Tweaker Island” appeared deserted.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

What were once organized camps were piles of garbage, carnage from flooding and the harsh winter. A bridge of wooden pallets led to the tent of one of the women we met last summer, who we call Susan* (*not her real name).

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Her fastidiously organized things floated in pools rising up between the flattened blackberries.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

The peninsula has always struggled with trash removal, but on Monday there was more debris, especially at the part of the peninsula closest to the bike path, than we’d seen before. The relative order that existed in the summer was gone.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Most of the places we’d visited on earlier trips had disappeared. In their place were floating piles of debris.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

But deeper down the path on the ridge of the peninsula, the chaos gave way to some of that old organization.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Misty, a woman we met in the summer, was inside a tent on the highest point of peninsula, talking to friends. Misty has a room in a motel, but she had come back to check on a friend who had refused to move inside during the flooding.

While Misty said she was enjoying the shower at the motel, and watching TV, she felt safer and more comfortable on the peninsula.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

“This here feels like a big ass home,” she told us. The peninsula, for her, she said, is like “a mansion with different rooms.”

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Even as the peninsula is disappearing into the Columbia Slough, the friendship and community among the people that live here bring them back together.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

As we stood talking to Misty, Susan, who we hadn’t seen since the summer, walked up. She was there to check on her friends, too.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

“I feel safe here,” Susan said.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

“We’ve got the birds,” she adds.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Justice told us that after the flood waters recede, “We’re going to clean the slough and everybody will go back.”

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

“When they do go back,” he continued, “we’re going to be putting tents on floating platforms.”

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

“If the owner can be found,” he said, “we may offer to lease the property.”

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Currently, Portland Parks and Recreation is responsible for the property, which is owned by Arclin Surfaces LLC.

Mark Ross, spokesperson for Portland Parks and Recreation, said over email Wednesday that his department isn’t aware of any plans for a village like Hazelnut Grove on the peninsula.

“Staff know of no city-sanctioned efforts” such as that, said Ross.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

For now, the reality of living on a tongue of land that juts out into a slough is that, during flood season, the birds take their land back.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

And what was carefully constructed on a different version of the peninsula by humans is now irrelevant.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

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But, even though her stuff is covered in water, Susan sees the potential in this place. Justice brings food every week. “It went from getting booted to like a rescue,” she told us.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

And the friendships between the people on the peninsula are palpable. These people take care of each other and are alive because of one another.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

And even though life is harsh on “Tweaker Island,” living inside seems impossible now for a lot of these people.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Justice told us that once the water is gone, the peninsula will get garbage pickup once a week.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

And as far as the name, it’s hard to find anyone on the land now who looks anything like a “tweaker.”

“They got rid of a lot of people that were actually doing harm,” Justice said.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian

Things were calm and as we explored the long end of the peninsula. The air smelled like wet wood with an undercurrent of something chemical, probably coming from the industrial businesses that line the slough.

All we heard were women’s voices, laughing, and rustling leaves.

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Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian