“I should write a book about my life,” said Melissa Hansen. Indeed, her life has been a kaleidoscope of adventure, travel, caring for exotic animals, heartache, joy, loss, hard labor on an Alaska long-liner, compassionate caregiving, car wrecks and more than a few years spent living on the streets.
Melissa was born and raised at Northeast 50th Avenue and Prescott Street in Portland. When she was 8, her family moved to Sauvie Island; they needed more space for their horses and Labradors. They built a barn, and Hansen remembers raising Muscovy ducks, Canada geese and wood ducks. She was a member of the local 4-H Club and won many ribbons at the Multnomah County Fair and Oregon State Fair for her birds, hamsters and guinea pigs.
Her first job, between 1984 and 1990, was as a volunteer at Washington Park Zoo, where she first worked in the Children’s Zoo and later with the larger animals. She cared for lions, tigers, bears, elephants and big apes. She knew some sign language, and she could talk with the chimpanzees who also knew sign language.
“Charlie the chimp was my favorite. He would come in the viewing area and jump with all fours on the window glass when he saw me coming,” she said. “He wanted to play chase with me every morning.
“That’s what I love. I love animals,” she said.
Following high school, Melissa moved to Alaska and worked on a black cod long-liner outside of Ketchikan.
“I did everything,” she said. “It was just me and the captain on a 52-foot trawler.”
She has many memories from the 20 years she spent commercial fishing in Alaska.
“Once I was on the back of the fish hold strapped to the back of the boat because the sea was pretty rough that day. Waves were coming over the wheelhouse, almost took me off the back of the boat. I was baiting hooks with squid as fast as I could, and all of a sudden a fish hook went through my hand. Since I was working with squid, I got fish poisoning right quick, so by the time we got back to Ketchikan, I was sicker than a dog. Had to go up to the hospital.”
Melissa had three sons during her time in Alaska: Jason, Tristan and Kenneth. Tragically, her youngest died after choking on a grape.
“Jason, the oldest one, got into the groceries. One bag had grapes, and Kenneth grabbed them and started eating the grapes with his brother. Next thing I knew, I heard a cough and went running in there. It was a bad scene. Kenneth passed away.”
Melissa is still heartbroken.
“I’m still picking myself up day by day,” she said. “You don’t get over it. It gets better in time, but it never goes away.”
Her oldest son, Jason, married his childhood sweetheart, and Melissa has two grandchildren in Alaska.
Melissa has spent many years on the streets in Alaska, in Seattle and now in Portland.
“I’ve had a lot of experiences living on the streets,” she said. “I try to stay out of all the bad stuff that goes on out there. As a woman, you have to have your guard up all the time. A lot of nights, I sleep with one eye open.”
Melissa sells Street Roots outside the Central Library at Southwest 10th Avenue and Taylor Street.
“I’m grateful Street Roots is here for the people who want to try to benefit themselves,” she said. “I like talking to my customers. They are happy to see me.”
Melissa recently moved inside a shelter for the first time this winter.
“I was blessed to be invited into the Portland Mission,” she said. “It’s the next step. I would love to have a place of my own. Living out on the street is tough. The wintertime is the toughest, being outside when it starts raining sideways.”
When I told Melissa I thought she was a very brave and strong woman, she said, “That’s what everybody says. I just keep plugging along.”
“My goal for the future is to be able to sit back and relax,” she said.
“My body is pretty tore up from fishing and all the car wrecks I’ve been in. I’m tired. I’d like to get someplace to call my own. I’d like to focus on my next journey, which I think will be a spiritual one. I’d like to get closer to God,” she said.
“Every day you wake up, it gets better.”