By: Chloe Huckins

Tim Lewis interviews Tom Baxter at his home near Parvin Butte, Oregon.

Timothy Lewis is a tall and weather-beaten filmmaker from Eugene who has spent several decades documenting environmental activism in Oregon. He is currently interviewing residents of Dexter, Oregon for his latest project on individuals impacted by the work of mining companies on Parvin Butte. He takes a break from filming, lights a cigarette and walks down the gravel road while telling his story.

Lewis’ truck has several messages scrawled in the dust on his rear window.

Lewis was bartending and partying during the eighties when he decided to study film at Lane Community College. After three terms, he and a friend left Eugene to start the first video production business on cruise ships.

A knack for film and various video gigs served him well over the next several years, until one night in 1995 when Lewis found himself back in a Eugene bar. 

Baxter’s Maine Coon cat.

He was hanging out with a group of people that had decided to blockade a forest service road to prevent the logging of woods around Warner Creek, which had been recently burned down by an arsonist. Lewis hadn’t been up to the site yet, but as the night wore on and the beers flowed freely, he found himself being convinced to climb into a beat up yellow camper called the Dolphin with his camera and a sleeping bag. “Everything seemed to slow down,” he described, “I look at the street lights and I look at the real wet road and I was listening to the noise of the vehicle and the people talking below and I just knew that my life was going to change at that point.”

Sherrie Sims works in her garden near Parvin Butte, Oregon.

Over the next eight years he continued to follow radical environmentalist movements with his camera. He felt drawn to vitality and drama, “I wanted to be more connected with people who were more alive, and resisting and fighting and had more radical views. Their stories were a hell of a lot more interesting.”

Lewis developed even stronger ties to the Eugene area after his daughter was born. Self described as first and foremost a dad, he continues recording the stories of local people like Tom Baxter and Sherrie Sims, who are among those affected by the destruction of Parvin Butte. “People just need to live more simply like Tom is here,” says Lewis, “the sense of place that I think people need to have and they’re missing is very important.”

Baxter uses his art to escape from the noise of mining trucks on Parvin Butte.