Thread by @nonmodernist

Weelaunee Forest exploration report back!! On Sunday March 5, I hiked the proposed #CopCity site to record my observations. I have hiked numerous other Atlanta greenspaces but it was my first time here. #StopCopCity #DefendtheAtlantaForest

Here’s what I saw:

I began at Weelaunee People’s Park. Ryan Millsap has done intense damage to the park’s accessible paved paths and former infrastructure, and has felled several pines in the process, despite his land swap being the subject of an ongoing lawsuit

To the west of the park entrance and destroyed path, there’s a cut through into a small wooded area where many people set up camp. I was delighted to see so many people noticing this fringed iris in bloom (location marked on the map)

Bradford pear trees are dotted throughout the forest, noticeable because they are in bloom. These trees are introduced here, and they spread easily as birds eat their fruits and then disperse seeds in their droppings

There are many stands of pines in the forest, like this one on the eastern side of Intrenchment Creek behind the RC field where the music festival was held. They create lovely soft beds of pine needles.

Elsewhere east of Intrenchment Creek, downed deciduous trees are being reclaimed by the earth and the plants. Weelaunee Forest teems with life.

#StopCopCity

Around noon, as campers milled around, I took off my shoes and socks and crossed the creek at a shallow point so I could explore the western side—the side slated to become #CopCity. It’s a successional forest, younger in some places than others

Maybe the weirdest thing about my hike was that I kept stumbling on defender campsites that were abandoned during January’s deadly raid. I found this one while admiring a family of white-tailed deer.

Other signs of life in the forest: plentiful deer tracks and one single dog footprint

Still heading west, I reached the power line easement that runs through the forest. About 6 hours later activists headed up the same hill to a construction staging area but at noon it was empty & quiet enough to hear the music festival going on behind me

As I crossed the open space shown above, I planned out what I would say if I was detained while hiking. Despite there being well worn trails through this land, it isn’t clear if it’s still public or not

#StopCopCity

It felt surreal to wander and find barricades I had previously seen in the New Yorker—signs of resistance like outposts from another era. Time gets weird in the forest, especially as I’d been studying the 1821 land grant survey before I went #StopCopCity

And all throughout the forest, so much life that will be destroyed if #CopCity is built—like these ferns nestled among tree roots, and the dewberries that spread everywhere and feed the animals

At the main site where the city dumped the stones of the old Carnegie library, I thought about the beauty of the native forest reclaiming this former monument to capital and white supremacist literacies #StopCopCity

The furthest west I went, I saw a fungus called dead man’s fingers emerging from tree roots under the muddy soil and thought about how much death this forest holds #StopCopCity

It can be hard to identify trees in winter but I saw natives I recognized: sugar hackberry and pecan, both of which feed the animals who live in Weelaunee

At the edge of one of the two ponds that could be contaminated by construction and runoff from #CopCity, the trees intermingle and the water flows into a stream that has fed Intrenchment Creek since time immemorial

I made it back to the power line easement, further northwest near the construction staging site, where some large pines have been felled, and filmed this video with the local birds #StopCopCity twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Y’all I was so tired by the time I got back to the creek. I had been hiking for about 2 hours at this point. This daffodil cheered me up, as did the cold water on my feet

Back on the east side of Intrenchment Creek I saw another former treesit, this one clearly destroyed by cops in January. I saw but didn’t photograph many tents and campsites that the cops trashed and then left in the woods (seen in their body cam footage) #StopCopCity

As I made my way back to the music festival around 2:30pm, I saw more ferns and mushrooms and big winter trees, and mock strawberries in bloom. I thought about how cool and welcoming the forest was, despite the sun, and how cop city will never be built :)

Thus concludes my Weelaunee Forest exploration report back.

I encourage everyone who can to go walk in the forest. As @RebeccaSolnit’s work taught me, walking the land is talking with the land. #StopCopCity