The Monster From the White Lagoon

I stood there, camera poised for the third shot, before I realized that my editor and friend, Martin (aka “The Big Guy”), was backpedaling, trying to regain his balance. Little did I know that his foot had become stuck in a mass of black gooeyness that seemed to seep from the white and gray landscape of the north end of the Great Salt Lake, and he had just freed himself from it with about all the strength he could muster. It appeared a Herculean effort, judging by the way it threw him backward as he fought for a good foothold. Unfortunately, he was able to stop gravity’s tug and he righted himself before I could get any more photos of his potential downfall. The whole thing was over within 30 seconds, but it seemed to last for at least five minutes.

Martin’s two children, who were with us, laughed and cried with delight at their dad’s antics; I personally clapped my hands and said, “What fun! Do it again!” Martin ignored our taunts and immediately found a piece of rotten wood to scrape the burning, molasses-like crud off his leg. To tell the truth, Martin was a little disappointed that I didn’t capture his near-death experience with the camera.

After recovering from the misadventure, Martin looked at me and said, “What is this stuff anyway? Tar? Oil?” I had no idea. It smelled like it could be either. Long, black veins spread out from the main body of the “tar pits”, looking like an alien life form that was attempting to survive in the harsh, saline-rich environment all around it. As Martin and I found out very shortly from an informative passer-by on a motorcycle, we were standing on an oil field that was abandoned a couple of decades ago, known as Rozel Point.

Who would even think that the thick, black substance Martin had found himself stuck in was crude oil? After all the oil spills in the oceans and streams and lakes around the world, one would think it near impossible to simply find oil bubbling up out of the ground anywhere nowadays without a Hazmat crew nearby. We were merely on an excursion, not expecting to find the debris, rusted equipment, barrels, and crude oil that we discovered. In fact, we were headed for the Spiral Jetty, which lies perhaps one thousand feet to the west of Rozel Point. We ended up spending a couple of hours exploring something that we didn’t even come to visit. But boy, it was a blast. Martin’s near-fall was certainly the high point, but there were many other interesting and fun things out there.

Martin and I now have plans to engage in more extensive exploration of the Rozel Point/Spiral Jetty region in the coming weeks. Any subsequent observation of the oil fields will most likely take place from a fair distance. Martin was lucky the first time that he didn’t fall forward. In fact, one of his boys, on the way home, asked, “Dad, what would have happened if you had fallen in?” The matter-of-fact answer was simple, and perhaps shocking to the little one: “I’d have died!” And I am convinced Martin would have then continued in the afterlife to haunt the oil fields as the monster from the white lagoon: dripping with crude oil; trying to catch the pelicans overhead with his super-sticky fingers; and when any new explorers happened upon the seeping goo, he’d yell, “Dare you to step in it!” and then shove them in, causing them to share his fate.

It was fun to learn something about Utah that I would have probably never known had I not gone out to the Great Salt Lake that day. One tiny puzzle piece of Utah history has been put in place and it’s exciting to realize that there are still so many more pieces to put together. More than likely I will never finish the puzzle, but at least I will end up getting a good view of what the finished puzzle would look like.

Go out there and find some puzzle pieces yourself, just watch out for bubbling oil. And whatever you do, don’t play in it!