Mark C Rupert
Borderlands
These images document some of the stranger things I've encountered during my last 25 years exploring the industrial forest lands that seperate populated areas from the wilder backcountry regions of the Pacific Northwest.
Given their proximity to paved roads and population centers, these 'borderlands' have historically been used for commercial logging and mining operations, as well as recreational hiking, biking, hunting, fishing, and off-road vehicle activities by the general public.
The thousands of miles of gravel roads that crisscross the land are punctuated with hundreds of impromptu camp sites, garbage dumps, and shooting ranges.
Carpeted with spent shotgun shells, bullet casings, broken glass, and beer cans, these sites hold a seemingly endless array of blasted targets and other debris including political ads and real estate signs, oil drums and household appliances, bowling pins and children's toys, and all manner of abandoned vehicles that are left bullet riddled, bashed, and burned.
Older, more accessible sites closest to paved roads tend to exhibit the most damage, and are used so frequently that the surrounding trees are often felled by the sheer volume of gunfire.
Increasingly, these 'borderlands' have become the backdrop for increasingly melevolent activities ranging from animal poaching, illegal dumping, and clandestine drug production to robbery, assault, kidnapping, and murder.
The more recent appearance of bomb craters, mutilated animal carcasses, and life-sized human target mannequins hint at an even more disturbing shift in the cultural violence spilling out of populated areas into the surrounding forests.
