was the Methow’s high school until 1973. You can also pick up travel information in the building, which celebrated its centenary just last year. More history can be found at the North Cascades Smokejumper Base between Winthrop and Twisp, where smokejumping, a technique developed in the late 1930s to fight wildfires in remote, roadless areas, began. The base – one of just nine around the country – remains an important component of fighting wildfires and trains a specialized force, who parachute out of planes to attack fires in much the same way as their predecessors did 70 years ago.
Photo by Laurelle Walsh
Shafer Museum volunteer John Owen cranks up the Model T. You can take a guided tour of the base, see old climbing equipment and firefighting tools, chart the changes in parachute technology over the years, and sit in a plane. Pateros is celebrating the centenary of its incorporation this year, with special events during the Apple Pie Jamboree from July 19 to 21. Originally called Ives Landing, Pateros was an important stop for a steamboat that plied the Columbia River from Wenatchee to Brewster and a stagecoach route that navigated the difficult, rutted road across the mountains to Twisp and Winthrop. The round trip to Wenatchee took three days. Pateros was moved from its original site, across the
river and closer to the hills, in the 1960s during the construction of Wells Dam. You can learn about the history of the area and the Columbia River at the Pateros Museum in the town hall.
Curtis Edwards
Created in partnership with the Colville Tribes, the center tells the stories of the Methow Band and the natural history of this area through permanent and changing exhibits. This summer the center is inaugurating a replica native encampment, with a pit house, teepee and salmondrying racks constructed around a native-plant garden. One theme of the interpretive center is to illustrate the connections between natural and human biology and traditions, so visitors will learn how seasonal variations in edible plants created corresponding rhythms in native people’s lives. A new exhibit on the Methow Band will relate their story through a changing focus on different families, including archival photos and interviews with descendants. A hands-on geology exhibit with displays about the ice age and the effects of volcanoes and earthquakes in forming the landscape is also getting the finishing touches this year. The TwispWorks campus is itself an important piece of local history. Headquarters for the U.S. Forest Service in Twisp for 80 years, the complex contains 17 buildings, the oldest built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps to house work crews and firefighters. In its new role as a hub for the arts, agriculture, technology and education, TwispWorks is keeping that history alive. You can take an audio tour (via cell phone) to learn about the buildings and hear reminiscences of former inhabitants and workers. The information and interviews are also available online at gatheringourvoice.org. The evolution at TwispWorks is in many ways a microcosm of changes in the Methow – buildings that once housed firefighters and Forest Service rangers are now home to artists’ studios and a computer lab. Just down the road, check out the photos of decades of graduating classes lining the walls in the Methow Valley Community Center, which
History in the hills Informal traces of history can be found throughout the Methow. Hike an old road or trail and you’ll find old cabins and foundations, abandoned farm equipment, and apple trees or lilac bushes, seemingly in the middle of nowhere – all signs of an old homestead. The valley’s century-old irrigation canals still constitute a vital part of Methow agriculture. But you can also find vestiges of early irrigation systems no longer in use, including the China Ditch, built between 1860 and 1880 along the Columbia River by Chinese placer miners. The ditch extended from about three miles north of Pateros on the Methow River to about one mile south of the town. It was later used for irrigation by farmers until the major flood in 1948 destroyed part of the flume. Signs of the ditch grade are just barely visible today as a line on the hillside about a mile south of Pateros. Check out the old headstones at the Sullivan Cemetery in Winthrop and Beaver Creek Cemetery in Twisp, as well as smaller burial sites, such as one near the river just a few miles north of Pateros. The Methow’s dramatic geological history is perhaps most striking in Mazama – look up at Goat Wall and Flagg Mountain – and at Pipestone Canyon, both products of the same geological upheavals. While people hoping to strike it rich by finding gold near the Methow were, for the most part, thwarted by the cumbersome and costly need to get ore from high in the mountains to refineries on the coast, their presence helped create roads and businesses in the area. You can see remnants of their efforts along several
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Continued on P. 46 Methow Valley Summer 45