Sketch, Ballpoint Pen, June 2015
Nestled within the Cloudtop Spur, a branch of the Solarian Mountains that circumscribe the Frontier, an overgrown logging trail winds along the frigid waters of Jasper's Run. Here at the headwaters, hundreds of miles upriver from Lake Gaston, virgin woods once blanketed the mountains. Now only barren hillsides spotted with rotting stumps remain, and an abandoned, weather-worn lumber town: Jasper Falls.
Once, the spruces towered hundreds of feet and the elk grazed the meadows, and beneath the icy, glacial waters the rainbow flashes of trout swam along the smooth stones. Wild berries and thick ivy tangled the undergrowth, and their roots and those of the trees held the land together against the droughts and freezes and fires and flurries of the Frontier.
That time is long gone. Unpacked mud washes down into the valleys and streams, killing the flora and poisoning the waters. Though the sun brings heat and the rains cleanse, no life still lingers to receive these gifts. The earth lays dead, and Jasper Falls with it: their own livelihood taken by their insatiable demand for the finest woods. All that is left is to wait for the storms to come, for the river to swell, and the waters sweep it all away.