1859 Oregon's Magazine + Special Insert: Destination Resorts Northwest | September/October 2024

TRIP PLANNER: GHOST TOWNS + OPEN SPACES PG. 92

Romantic Getaways on the Water

Bathroom Makeovers Packed With Style

Oregon-Made Cheese

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September | October

volume 88

A GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION, OCTOBER 4 AND 5 Discovery West (on the corner of Skyline Ranch Rd & Ochoa Dr., just west of NorthWest Crossing)

FRIDAY, OCT. 4 5:30-8PM • Space Walk Open House Tour (homes, townhomes & cottages) • Tours of Aerie, luxury overnight vacation rentals • Food & drink • Giveaways for the kids • Drone Show, starting between 7:30–8pm SATURDAY, OCT. 5 10AM-2PM • Special guest, Dr. Ellen Ochoa, former NASA astronaut (meet & greet from 10am–12pm) • Living History Fun (passport and prize for kids) • Food & drink • Giveaways • Fun family-friendly activities • Music

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Pursue higher ed nursing degrees in the high desert

Long seen as a culture of athletes and fitness, Bend’s healthcare sector gets an academic booster. In partnership with St. Charles Health System and Central Oregon Community College, Oregon Health & Science University’s School of Nursing brings an established fifteenmonth Nursing Accelerated Bachelor of Science Program to Bend. Using classroom and simulation spaces on the campus of Central Oregon Community College and clinical learning experiences through St. Charles Health, the program brings new opportunities in a growth sector of the economy—healthcare.

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The program, which began in July with eight students, is well suited for people looking to change careers in the high-demand nursing field. According to recent research published by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in November 2022, federal authorities project a shortage of 78,610 full-time registered nurses in 2025 and a shortage of 63,720 full-time RNs in 2030. Among the top ten states with the largest projected nursing shortage in 2035 are Washington (26%), California (18%) and Oregon (16%).1 The Nursing Accelerated Bachelor of Science Program is designed for students who have already earned at least a bachelor’s degree in another field to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing in a relatively short amount of time.

Students from this first cohort would be expected to complete the program in September 2025. Applications for the 2025 cohort are now open until January 5, 2025.

“OHSU is honored to bring our well-established accelerated curriculum option to Bend in partnership with St. Charles,

1

HRSA Health Workforce; Nurse Workforce Projections, 2020-2035; November 2022

Central Oregon Community College and many other local leaders,” said OHSU School of Nursing Dean Susan Bakewell-Sachs, Ph.D., RN, FAAN. “The OHSU School of Nursing is proud to both help students from Central Oregon become nurses without having to leave home, and also to help the Bend area grow more of its own nurse leaders.”

The location in Central Oregon is not just for a scenic setting. Central Oregon Community College in Bend has a long-standing registered nurse program that offers associate degrees in nursing. Now, COCC is also developing a complementary bachelor’s degree in nursing program designed for registered nurses who haven’t previously earned a bachelor’s degree.

The Bend program marks the third location for OHSU’s accelerated nursing program following Portland and Ashland.

Learn more at ohsu.edu/son

The G.O.A.T. photography by Aubrey Janelle Goats can do it all—from producing milk and cheese to vegetation management.

Linda Williams’ team of goats at WestSide Goat Girl LLC takes on the latter, providing brush-clearing services in the Portland area. (pg. 54)

6

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Linda Williams, owner of WestSide Goat Girl LLC, stands among her goats Scott Wattles, Napoleon, Angel, Wade Wattles and Jinx on her farm in Gaston. AT LEFT BamBam eats foliage from a tree as part of an agricultural clearing job in Beaverton.

The Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island is a great fall stop for family fun.

The Pumpkin Patch

FEATURES SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024 • volume 88

60 Homegrown Experiences Across Oregon From Canby to Ashland and Sisters to La Grande, the state’s fall exposition of bounty is worth a road trip. written by Jean Chen Smith

66

74

Salmon Restoration

Pastoral Paintings

Salmon restoration projects are well underway throughout Oregon—reconnecting rivers, replacing culverts and replanting riparian zones all in a moon shot to save these treasured fish.

Become part of the rural landscape just by beholding one of the bright and beautiful paintings of Clare Carver. Her gallery at Big Table Farm tasting room in Carlton is also one of the best places to have a glass of wine.

written by Daniel O’Neil

written by Kerry Newberry

8

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Redefine Your View with Brand-New Windows

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SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024 • volume 88

44

LIVE 20 NOTEBOOK

Blind Pilot is back!; Portland Book Festival; Oregon Whiskey Festival.

26 FOOD + DRINK

The Johnny Torrio cocktail; the perfect pizza; cider and snacks.

30 FARM TO TABLE

Oregon Cheese Month.

36 HOME + DESIGN

Three bathrooms by Stephanie Dyer that make a splash.

44 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

Kanani Miyamoto’s cultured interconnectivity.

28

86

The Suttle Lodge & Boathouse

Javier Magallanes

THINK 50 STARTUP

Foodi—revolutionizing restaurant menus.

52 WHAT I’M WORKING ON

The Siskiyou Mountain Club’s wildfire rebuild project.

54 MY WORKSPACE

Linda Williams, WestSide Goat Girl.

56 GAME CHANGER

Oregon Coast School of Art.

EXPLORE 82 TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT

Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site.

86 ADVENTURE

Three romantic escapes to water.

90 LODGING

Grange Estate at Dundee Hills.

92 TRIP PLANNER

16 Editor’s Letter 17 1859 Online 102 Map of Oregon 104 Until Next Time

COVER

photo by Bridgette Carpenter Field & Vine Events (see “Fall Bounty,” pg. 60)

10

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Oregon high prairie towns.

98 NW DESTINATION

Lake Chelan wine country.

Carve out a new family tradition.

Smith Berry Barn

GET COZY etvor.com/c1859so Big smiles aren’t just for jack-o-lanterns.

From corn mazes and fall foliage to pumpkin patches, Cozy Season is in full swing in Tualatin Valley, just west of Portland.

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CONTRIBUTORS

MELISSA DALTON Writer Home + Design

DANIEL O’NEIL Writer Finding New Current

AUBREY JANELLE Photographer My Workspace

ROBIN LOZNAK Photographer Gamechanger

“For the DIY makeover of my own home, I’ve so far tackled two bathroom projects. From my own experience, it can be tricky trying anything new in such a utilitarian space.

That’s why it was so fun to get inspired by interior designer Stephanie Dyer and talk about three of her different bathroom designs, one of which pushes the boundaries of what the space can be.” (pg. 36)

“Researching the precarious status of Oregon salmon and steelhead isn’t always encouraging. But as I traveled around the state to meet with the people involved in restoration projects, I found intelligent and passionate men and women who devote their careers to helping those fish.

That, and looking tenacious adult spring chinook in the eye, proved the antidote to any defeatism.” (pg. 66)

“One of the most exciting parts of photography is discovering unexpected places, like WestSide Goat Girl’s property in Gaston. I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly and curious the goats were, some leaning their heads on me while I was taking portraits. Spending the afternoon with Linda and her crew was a joy, and I’m convinced there’s no better way to handle agricultural clearing!” (pg. 54)

Daniel O’Neil lives, writes, photographs and does other exciting things on the Oregon Coast, where he especially likes a chance of rain.

Aubrey Janelle is a commercial and editorial photographer.

Originally from the Bay Area, you can now find her in Portland making images for people and brands who want the heart of real stories, with the bones of a sophisticated aesthetic.

“A beautiful drive brought me to Gardiner near the mouth of the Umpqua River. At my destination, I met with Emily Free Wilson and her husband, Matt, at their Oregon Coast School of Art. While there, I photographed high-spirited Eugene landscape artist Jordan Walker as he led a plein air painting workshop. Inside the school, I found Matt and son Clayton busily installing drywall in the school’s new gallery space. Rounding out my visit, I joined Emily in her pottery studio as she gingerly glazed whimsical patterns onto platters and bowls.

Meeting the Wilsons and seeing how their dedication, determination and creativity turned an old middle school into a thriving home for art and community was truly inspiring.” (pg. 56)

Melissa Dalton is a freelance design and architecture writer who covers a wide range of stories, from A-frames to living buildings and DIY remodels, much like the one she’s just finished on her 1907 home in Portland.

Robin Loznak is a wildlife photographer and photojournalist living near Elkton in southwestern Oregon.

12 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

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EDITOR

Kevin Max

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Allison Bye

WEB MANAGER

Aaron Opsahl

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Joni Kabana

OFFICE MANAGER

Cindy Miskowiec

DIRECTOR OF SALES

Jenny Kamprath

HOMEGROWN CHEF

Thor Erickson

BEERLANDIA COLUMNIST

Jeremy Storton

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Cathy Carroll, Jean Chen Smith, Melissa Dalton, Joni Kabana, Julie Lee, Kerry Newberry, Daniel O’Neil, Ben Salmon, James Sinks, Grant Stringer

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Bridgette Carpenter, Aubrey Janelle, Joni Kabana, Tambi Lane, Aubrie LeGault, Robin Loznak, Daniel O’Neil, Tyler Peterschmidt

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Charla Pettingill, Ellen Surrey

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All rights reserved. No part of this publiCation may be reproduCed or transmitted in any form or by any means, eleCtroniCally or meChaniCally, inCluding photoCopy, reCording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of Statehood Media. ArtiCles and photographs appearing in 1859 Oregon’s Magazine may not be reproduCed in whole or in part without the express written Consent of the publisher. 1859 Oregon’s Magazine and Statehood Media are not responsible for the return of unsoliCited materials. The views and opinions expressed in these artiCles are not neCessarily those of 1859 Oregon’s Magazine, Statehood Media or its employees, staff or management.

14 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

FROM THE

EDITOR

WITH A LITTLE luck, this fall will be uneventful—no wildfires, no extreme heat, no school closures—just a blank slate that takes on the outlines of any adventure that is best pursued in autumn.

Perhaps the best outing combines Oregon’s season and farm stands teeming with the best agricultural products. What comes out of the ground in a region tells us as much as what happens above the ground in that region. On page 60, you will find some of the best farm stands, markets and farm dinners from Portland to Ashland and the coast to Eastern Oregon—no two the same.

Likewise, cheese, produced by small craft cheesemakers, plays nearly as big a role in Oregon’s agriculture story as grapes and hops. OK, not nearly that big, but the quality of cheese coming from small creameries around the state is stunning.

September begins Oregon Cheese Month with a celebration of the growing and deepening of the industry, now organized under the Oregon Cheese Guild. Throughout the state, you’ll see events at stores such as Market of Choice, Zupan’s and New Seasons, featuring cheeses from Face Rock Creamery, Rogue Creamery, River’s Edge Chèvre and others. Find out more on page 30.

16 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Ghost towns have long been part of Oregon’s past and present. Some of them tell stories of past cultures that fell into economic jeopardy when the railroad bypassed these towns. Others were abandoned when the gold or silver ran out. Some claim to be visited by actual ghosts or inexplicable phenomenon. All of these stories make for an alternative educational Día de los Muertos of sorts. Plan to bring a couple of these ghosts to life in your October wanderings. Turn to Trip Planner on page 92.

Another historical ghost story begins with the story of the Chinese immigrants “Doc” Hay and his business partner Lung On. For more than sixty years beginning in 1888, the two operated a shop that offered Eastern medicine and business service to all who needed them. Though they lived through times of extreme racism and racial violence, the two Chinese men kept their shop, Kam Wah Chung, open to all. Today Kam Wah Chung is a historical landmark with ghosts of its own (pg. 82).

Exit on a cocktail. The Johnny Torrio from The Hive Catering Company in Oregon City is one that can bridge the summer to fall seasons. Turn to page 27, and get shakin’.

1859 ONLINE More ways to connect with your favorite Oregon content

ER ENT IN! W TO

Literary Arts

www.1859oregonmagazine.com | #1859oregon | @1859oregon

YOUR OREGON POSTCARD

Have a photo that captures your Oregon experience? Share it with us by filling out the Oregon Postcard form on our website.

If chosen, you’ll be published here.

photo by Kristen Beck Stars spin in the night sky above Crater Lake.

www.1859oregonmagazine.com/postcard

PORTLAND BOOK FESTIVAL UMBRELLA PASSES

SHOP LOCAL

Enter for a chance to win passes to this year’s Portland Book Festival on November 2, courtesy of Literary Arts! One winner will receive two Umbrella Passes to the event, which include a wristband for entry into the entire festival, a $5 voucher to spend at the book and vendor fair and entry into two featured author events at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (plus copies of the two authors’ books!). A full day of fun for readers of all ages, the festival will feature author panels, pop-up readings, kids storytime, local food trucks and more. For additional information on the event, head to www.pdxbookfest.org.

Stop by Local, our curated online shop of goods made by businesses in the Pacific Northwest.

Find jewelry, specialty foods and more. Or show your state pride with 1859 T-shirts, hats and other apparel. Buy local. Feel good.

Enter at www.1859oregonmagazine.com/ contests/portlandbookfestival Sweepstakes runs September 1-30.

www.1859oregon magazine.com/shop

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

17

NOTEBOOK 20 FOOD + DRINK 26 FARM TO TABLE 30 HOME + DESIGN 36

pg. 36 An interior designer crafts three compelling solutions to the ordinary bathroom.

Meagan Larsen

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 44

notebook

Tidbits + To-dos written by Cathy Carroll

Portland Syrups

www.willamettewines.com/wineries-and-vineyards/dog-friendly

www.beveragemixers.com

Black Dog Vineyard

Best friends and wine are a perfect combination—and why you should take your dog along for vineyard wine tastings. Some tasting rooms are especially dog-friendly, including Black Dog Vineyard’s stunning spot in Carlton, Lonesome Rock in Yamhill, Penner-Ash Wine Cellars’ hilltop perch in Newberg and the bucolic estate at Johan Vineyards in Rickreall. The list goes on. Find many more throughout the Willamette Valley in the link below.

Pumpkin spice may be everywhere this season, but not this kind. Portland Syrups brews its flavors by hand in southeast Portland, where they’re also bottled and shipped. They chop, crush, juice, toast and steep whole herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits from local, organic sources whenever possible. The syrups have 40 percent less sugar than typical mixers, and each 12-ounce bottle makes twelve to twenty-four cocktails or nearly a gallon of soda.

Canines Amid the Vines

CAmLark yo END ur AR Portland Book Festival

Literary Arts

Grab your favorite bookish pal, your invisible friend from childhood or just be friends with yourself and head to Portland Book Festival GIVEAWAY on November 2, with events across Enter for a the South Park Blocks and within the chance to Portland Art Museum. Portland Book win passes Festival Cover to Cover, an eclectic mix to this year’s Portland of fun events across the metro area Book Festival!

October 28 through November 3, pg. 17 could be anything (past ones included a mock burial, tea ceremonies and poetry karaoke).

Read more about Portland Book Festival producer Literary Arts on pg 24.

20

www.pdxbookfest.org

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Mt. Bachelor

notebook

New Trail at Mt. Bachelor Mt. Bachelor’s new easy hiking and downhill biking trail, Evergreen, spans nearly 4.5 miles from the West Village base to Pine Marten Lodge. The project began in 2022 through Visit Bend’s Sustainability Fund and with local nonprofit Discover Your Forest. The scenic rewards of this mellow trail rival those of nearby peaks yet offer ample parking with no wilderness permit required. Overnight RV parking is for sale through October 1. www.mtbachelor.com

ca mark le yo nd ur ar

Oregon Spirit Distillers

Sweeney Todd

Immerse yourself in craft whiskies from across the state at the fourth annual Oregon Whiskey Festival on September 21 at Oregon Spirit Distillers in Bend.

Live music and food trucks accompany classic whiskey cocktails from the bar. VIP tickets for September 20 include an evening cocktail party with whiskey-making education and a hands-on, single-barrel selection process. Tickets include a commemorative glass and eight pours from festival distilleries. www.oregonspiritdistillers.com/oregon-whiskey-festival

ur yo ar rk d ma len

ca

Oregon Whiskey Festival

Sink your teeth into Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. In this Stephen Sondheim classic, Sweeney Todd, jailed by a corrupt judge, returns to gritty Victorian London years later, seeking his long-lost family and bloody revenge. He partners with a plotting pie-maker and wreaks havoc serving up the hottest—and most unsettling—pies in London.

Catch productions at Portland Center Stage (September 29 through November 3) and The Greenhouse Cabaret in Bend (October 25 through November 23)—perfect for the HalloweenThanksgiving season. www.pcs.org www.thegreenhousecabaret.com

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE 21

Blind Pilot is back after eight years with a new album, In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain.

Fawn DeViney

Listen on Spotify

Musician

Back from the Brink Oregon indie-folk band Blind Pilot’s new album is its first in eight years written by Ben Salmon BETWEEN 2008 and 2016, the Oregon-based band Blind Pilot recorded and released three albums of hushed, beautiful indiefolk that earned raves from critics and bolstered their stature across the world.

In the early days, co-founders Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dobrowski famously toured the West Coast by bicycle. Soon enough, however, their audience expanded, and the band bumped up to motorized vehicles, not to mention larger venues like theaters and concert halls. They were at the top of their game—“one of the crown jewels of Oregon’s indie-folk scene,” according to the music website Pitchfork in 2016.

And then … Blind Pilot largely disappeared. After touring behind their third album, And Then Like Lions, Nebeker—the band’s primary songwriter—suffered from a severe case of writer’s block and didn’t write so much as a verse for years.

“I was struggling with a lot of fear surrounding expectations of who I was supposed to be,” he has said. “I’d lost my path with music.”

As part of his effort to rediscover that path, Nebeker reconnected with his familial roots in the nomadic Sámi community in Scandinavia, where he said he saw visions of his ancestors 22

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

while participating in a drum ceremony. That eventually led to a surge of new songs that Nebeker believed were for Blind Pilot, but will actually appear on a solo album he releases later this year. That batch, however, unlocked a creative outpouring, and shortly thereafter, he wrote another group of songs that make up the band’s new album, In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain—its first in eight years.

The songs on Holy Mountain certainly sound like Nebeker: They’re warm and inviting, endlessly melodic, thoughtful, honest and built around punchy rhythms and the strum of an acoustic guitar. But even he isn’t sure he can take full credit for them—he may just be a vessel for a higher form of expression.

“The coolest part is I was mostly drawn to the Sámi culture and community through their music tradition, and the language they have for describing song and music is very different from ours,” he said. “Their concept of it is that songs are their own spiritual entities that come through us, and they can come through anyone in the community. But it’s very much that I’m just the person who brought it into this realm.”

In fact, he experienced that concept firsthand, not during the creative process but after it was done, he said.

“It’s kind of a new chapter in my life to be focusing so much on this stuff, and I didn’t even realize how much of that subject was weaving its way into the songs,” he said. “After we recorded and mixed the album, I was listening back to the mastered version and I (recognized how much of it revolved around family).

That was really cool, to have the experience of hearing these messages that I didn’t even realize I was putting in there.”

AND RELAX! After a day on the trails, grab a drink and a bite to eat in Redmond, The Hub of Good Times and Unexpected Finds in Central Oregon.

Where to Stay

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Bibliophile

Lit Up on Portland With new physical spaces, Portland’s Literary Arts aims to be the West Coast’s largest literary center interview by Cathy Carroll

PORTLAND’S Literary Arts is embarking on two big investments in the city and its cultural scene. Its 14,000-square-foot, renovated building in the Central Eastside with a cafe, a bar, a bookstore, classrooms, an event space, podcasting studios and community spaces is set to open in November, following the Portland Book Festival on November 2. The organization revealed in June that esteemed writer Ursula K. Le Guin bequeathed her Northwest Portland home to the nonprofit and it will become a writers’ residency. Literary Arts launched a $22.5 million fundraising campaign to support these efforts and create the largest literary center on the West Coast. Andrew Proctor, executive director of Literary Arts, discussed these developments.

Can you tell us more about Ursula K. Le Guin’s residence?

It’s a beautiful home. Almost all of Ursula’s work was written there. That’s fifty years of groundbreaking literary production—work that has transformed popular culture in a variety of ways. People like Neil Gaiman have said this over and over again—were it not for Ursula.

You’re in a place where our current culture and future culture have been shaped by her mind. She wasn’t always recognized that way in the beginning of her career, but I think we’re all seeing that now. It’s a lovely, century-old home in Portland, nestled

in Northwest Thurman. It will be a beautiful place to write. She had this incredible veranda that overlooks the city. She had a writing room upstairs, but that veranda is a wonderful place to sit. I think people will feel very special working there and staying there.

We are raising money for it, getting ready for it, but it’s important that Charles (LeGuin, Ursula’s husband) can feel at peace and live there quietly until he’s ready to leave.

Describe Literary Arts’ new home.

The organization tripled in size from 2009 to 2018. We acquired Wordstock, now the Portland Book Festival.

24 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Photos, from left: Bora Architecture & Interiors, Literary Arts

ABOVE Literary Arts’ new Portland headquarters, shown in this rendering, opens in November and is designed to inspire thousands, including the next generation of writers. AT RIGHT Andrew Proctor, executive director of Literary Arts, is bullish on Portland’s future—literary and otherwise.

We launched a radio show and other programs expanded. We were in rented space in downtown Portland, which is fine, but we outgrew it.

Board member Susan Hammer passed away in 2020 and left a $3 million gift to the organization.

That triggered an opportunity for us to begin to look for a building. I was close with her, and I had visited with her before she passed away. It was very difficult.

It became clear that the universe was talking to us a little bit, and the organization was going to get through Covid intact. Remarkably, we grew a little through Covid. We laid off no staff. There was an opportunity for us to invest in the city when people were divesting. Buildings were less expensive. Sometimes in these cycles is the moment of opportunity. The truly creative moment often happens in the down cycle when folks are looking for better solutions. We certainly need better solutions in Portland.

Eventually we were able to buy a beautiful 1904 warehouse with huge Pacific northwest beams, red brick and gorgeous windows, from the sidewalk to 25 feet. This changes the whole dynamic of the organization.

It’s important for all of us to invest in our place, especially at a time when people might feel nervous about the future of the place. We’re feeling very bullish about the future.

We have not done a good enough job in Oregon celebrating writers and artists, naming places for artists and preserving public spaces in their name. The state has produced some of the world’s greatest artists.

They’re people to be admired and emulated in many cases—certainly Ursula’s life. She was a model citizen.

Not only was she a masterful writer, radically creative, she served on boards, wrote op-ed pieces, protested, stood up for people who might not be able to stand up, used her platform for those people—just a remarkable human being.

LITERARY ARTS

Join us on Saturday, November 2 at the Portland Art Museum and neighboring venues for our tenth anniversary presenting Portland Book Festival!

FIND YOUR STORY HERE

80+ authors • 10 stages • 75+ book fair & food truck vendors • One incredible day pdxbookfest.org

PBF 2024 guest art provided by: Jonathan Hill, Lisa Congdon, Daren Todd, Jarlisa Shunte, and Arielle Wilkins

Our attractions are always open.

PLAN YOUR NEXT ESCAPE AT BANDON.COM/PLAN-YOUR-ESCAPE Bandon Chamber of Commerce Visitors Center 300 2nd Street, Bandon | 541.347.9616

Talia Jean Photography

food + drink

BREWCATIONS FIT FOR TWO Oregon is rife with trajectoryaltering and romantic getaway experiences. Here are a few of my favorites: The Coast Cabins in Manzanita, a saison from de Garde Brewing and smoked black pepper white cheddar from Tillamook Creamery.

Camping in Pacific City and enjoying a Pelican Brewing Co. Sunrise Surfer Blonde while overlooking the surf in the afternoon.

Concerts at Maryhill Winery— put down the beer, and try the wine. It’s okay. Just this once!

Catching a flick and soaking in the pool at McMenamins Old St. Francis School in Bend, and then sipping something dark and mysterious by the fire.

Creekside rejuvenation at Terminal Gravity Brewing in Enterprise.

Beerlandia

Romantic Getaways With Flavor written by Jeremy Storton | illustrations by Ellen Surrey I’M SITTING at a picnic bench at Terminal Gravity Brewing in Enterprise with an IPA in my hand. The stream that runs through the property preoccupies children while adults sip from pints. They have uninterrupted conversations, perhaps pent up over recent years of isolation. Their faces tell a story of rekindled friendship, camaraderie and love. With one swig of my beer, I settle into the romance of it all.

Before I ever heard the term “staycation,” I suggested to my wife that we stay just down the road. Even now, it sounds silly. But a romantic getaway isn’t about where you sleep—it’s about putting yourself in a new environment and creating a new experience.

When we remove ourselves from the worn grooves and mechanical habits we create at home, we find the lucid world beyond the daily grind called “what if.” This is where a good beer comes in.

A great place and a beer may add to the romance of snogging our special somebody in a spa built for two, but a romantic getaway is more than that. It helps us find a new groove, renews our energy and reconnects us with what used to get us out of bed in the morning.

A good beer catalyzes the whole experience into memory for future recall. One sip of the same beer, and we unlock the reason why we got out of bed on this particular day. The romance of what could be stays with us, at least for a while, when we step back into ordinary life. This flavor memory will be there when we need it and, with any luck, will alter our trajectory for the better.

26 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

An overnight paddleboarding excursion at The Suttle Lodge.

The beers may vary, but they’re always just right.

Picking fresh fruit and savoring local jellies in Hood River before having literally anything from pFriem.

Eagle Cap Chalets and early fall boating at Wallowa Lake with a Terminal Gravity IPA. Walking the trail at Beverly Beach Campground, and then sipping a Rogue Dead ‘N’ Dead Ale by the campfire.

Cruising the coast and stopping at 7 Devils Brewing Co. for a pint in Coos Bay. Sitting in a sunken tub at FivePine Lodge while sipping on a Three Creeks Brewing FivePine Porter.

Staying at a cute Ashland B&B while trying to ease into fall with a Caldera Brewing Co. Toasted Coconut Chocolate Porter.

The Hive Catering Co.

food + drink

Cocktail Card recipe courtesy of Rhondee Peck, The Hive Catering Co., The Hive Social and The Hardware Store / OREGON CITY

Johnny Torrio FOR COCKTAIL • 1½ ounces habanero tequila (see recipe) • 1 ounce beet simple syrup (see recipe) • 2 ounces lime juice • ¼ ounce Cointreau • Salted beet foam, for topping (see recipe) FOR THE HABANERO TEQUILA • 1 bottle tequila • 1 habanero

FOR THE BEET SIMPLE SYRUP • 2 cup sugar • 2 cups water • 2 tablespoons beet powder FOR THE SALTED BEET FOAM • 1 egg white • 1½ ounces lemon juice • 1½ ounces beet simple (see recipe) • Pinch of sea salt

FOR THE HABANERO TEQUILA Blend the tequila and habanero. Strain out the solids, and store excess.

FOR THE BEET SIMPLE SYRUP Makes 1 pint Dissolve sugar and water in a pan over low heat. Add beet powder, and stir to incorporate. Remove from heat and cool completely. Store excess.

Note: Beet juice can be substituted for the water and beet powder.

FOR THE SALTED BEET FOAM In a whipped cream canister, add the egg white, lemon juice, beet simple syrup and a pinch of sea salt, and shake.

Note: If you do not have a whipped cream canister, you can instead add egg white to the cocktail shaker before shaking.

FOR COCKTAIL Add habanero tequila, beet simple syrup, lime juice and Cointreau (and egg white if not making the salted beet foam) to a cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously without ice. Add ice, and shake again.

Strain into a glass of your choice, and top with salted beet foam.

The fruit and spice comes through in a Johnny Torrio on fall evenings.

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

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CRAVINGS:

PERFECT PIZZA

Javier Magallanes

GRANA PIZZA NAPOLETANA

Gastronomy

We should all be more bold in our eating habits, according to Evan Gregoire of Heirloom Seedhouse, where he grows more than 130 varieties of tomatoes.

Heirloom Seedhouse written by Kerry Newberry EVAN GREGOIRE leaps between rows of wildly rare peppers and heirloom tomatoes as he shares snippets of his more than twenty-year quest to farm for biodiversity. A self-professed plant geek fueled by fervent curiosity and a love of land, Gregoire’s recent partnership with the legacy Rossi Farms (a fifth-generation family farm in Northeast Portland) promises to bring a whole new world of vegetables to the Portland area.

He started farming in Eugene, where he always had seeds, ducks and dogs.

“The fun things that go into the menagerie of farming,” he said. (His current mascots are Mapuce and Massimo, two sweet Great Pyrenees.) But his passion for seeds quickly took over, and he began to focus on procuring and saving rare seeds and breeding uncommon varieties of vegetables. “I like to find all the wonderful, weird things that fit in with different culinary patterns,” he said.

In the small, 5-acre plot where he stands, he’s packed in 1,125 tomatoes and over 130 varieties. “I think diversity is the spice of life,” said Gregoire as he points out favorites like the plum-shaped Pienollo de Vesuvio and the pale pink Sensai, a gift from Parma, Italy. He seeks out seeds on his travels and through relationships with other breeders—a massive tomato called the Sicilian Godfather is one he procured through Happy Cat Farm, and the poetically named Midnight Sun hails from fellow breeder Karen Olivier.

His enthusiasm for uncommon tomatoes (and peppers and garlic) is matched only by his desire to share them. “I’d love to see everybody eat more explorative things,” he said. “Really, don’t be afraid to eat fire ants or whatever comes your way.” You can buy vegetables from Gregoire at the Sellwood Moreland Farmers Market and the Lake Oswego Farmers Market. Or sign up for a farm share online at www.seedhousefarm.com and secure rare seeds for your own garden at www.portlandseedhouse.com.

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Portland’s already stellar pizza scene keeps getting better, especially with the addition of this pop-up turned permanent pizzeria. Launched by husbandand-wife duo Chris Flanagan and Maya Setton, this popular newcomer landed at No. 27 on the Fifty Top Pizza USA annual list and also secured the group’s coveted “One to Watch’’ award. Go for the Nonna, a sublime pie that’s topped with ricotta, slivers of preserved lemon, broccolini and garlic.

2811 E. BURNSIDE ST. PORTLAND www.granapdx.com

HAPA PIZZA Another pizza phenom that got its start serving slices at local farmers markets, Hapa Pizza’s greatest hits are Neapolitan pies rooted in pan-Asian flavors. Standout pies include the zippy banh mi (topped with BBQ pork, pickled radish and carrots) and their ode to phở, the Vietnamese noodle soup. The family-owned pizza shop was recently named one of the twenty-two best pizza places in the United States

by The New York Times. Expect a wait, but it’s well worth it.

12755 SW BROADWAY ST. BEAVERTON www.hapapizza.com

PIZZA CAPO At this wine country favorite, you can pair glass pours of Willamette Valley wines with excellent Neapolitan-style wood-fired pizza. Classics range from a pizza topped with foraged mushrooms to the salt-kissed clam pie. Seasonal specials recently included fire-roasted zucchini (starring Even Pull Farm veg) and a pizza layered with earthy roasted carrots. Don’t be surprised if you meet a local winemaker or two snacking on arancini and pizza at the adjacent table.

318 NE THIRD ST. MCMINNVILLE www.pizza-capo.com

BEST PLACES FOR

SEASONAL CIDER + SNACKS WILDCRAFT CIDER WORKS The hard ciders, perries and pommeaus at this destination cider house are made using wild or biodynamically grown fruit sourced within a 35-mile radius. Try Wild Rose, its flagship cider that blends heritage apples with organic rosebuds from the neighboring Mountain Rose Herbs along with snacky, cider-inspired bites like the flatbread special that’s often piled with roasted or fermented vegetables from nearby farms.

Photos: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort

food + drink

232 LINCOLN ST. EUGENE www.wildcraftciderworks.com

BAUMAN’S ON OAK Could this be the cider pub of your dreams? Guided cider flights, culinary pairings, thirty taps and patio seating. A new outpost for Bauman’s Cider Company, you’ll find cider-friendly plates for sharing including a crab roll with umami miso mayo, smoked salmon on rye bread and house-made butter and sourdough bread.

All of the ciders are made with apples and other fruits grown and harvested on Bauman’s Century Farm (first homesteaded in 1895). You can also visit the Gervais-based farm, garden and bakery for fresh produce and events all year long.

After hitting the course, hit Ghost Tree Grill steakhouse and raw bar at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.

Dining

Ghost Tree Grill at Bandon Dunes written by Kerry Newberry

Head to this family-owned taproom to try hard ciders inspired by classic aguas frescas. Using recipes passed down through generations, you’ll find refreshing sips that range from jamaica (hibiscus) and tamarindo to guayaba (guava). The fruity blends are a perfect match for a flight of tacos from partner restaurant Azuls Taco House. (In July, the popular Salem-based cidery expanded with a second outpost in Southeast Portland.)

FOR DECADES, travelers from around the world have flocked to the small town of Bandon on the rugged Southern Coast. In this tiny coastal community (population 3,000-ish), you’ll find one of the most revered golf resorts perched above the Pacific Ocean. But there’s a new reason to visit with the recent opening of Ghost Tree Grill. With this elegant steakhouse and raw bar, a culinary evolution is taking root led by executive chef Rory Butts.

“We highlight as many Pacific Northwest products as we can, including a wide variety of oysters harvested all along the coast from kumamoto, kusshi and buckley to higata and samish, to name a few,” said Butts. He also works with local farms and top ranches for classic steaks and chops.

For more seasonal specials, the chef gets creative with dishes like uni carbonara, serving it inside an urchin shell garnished with dulse seaweed—both sourced straight from Bandon’s nearby kelp forest. The chef sees this as an opportunity to tell a larger story about the community’s conservation efforts.

Purple urchins are devastating underwater ecosystems across the coast. “Local divers are working with scientists on saving kelp beds just a couple miles from the resort, and we are honored to be part of this program,” he said. It’s one of many ways the new restaurant is making waves.

231 COURT ST. NE, SUITE 100 SALEM www.lafamiliacider.com

57744 ROUND LAKE ROAD BANDON www.bandondunesgolf.com

930 SE OAK ST. PORTLAND www.baumanscider.com

LA FAMILIA CIDER COMPANY

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farm to table

Find a variety of Rogue Creamery cheeses as well as gooey grilled cheese sandwiches at the creamery’s Farm Stand outside of Grants Pass.

Farm to Table

Local Craft Cheese Travel Oregon

Oregon Cheese Month celebrates the state’s dynamic artisan cheesemakers written by Julie Lee

LOOK NO FURTHER than here in Oregon to find every type of artisan cheese being made and enjoyed. A collaborative community of cheesemakers churn out specialty cheeses from the highestquality, hormone-free milk of cows, goats and sheep.

The Oregon Cheese Guild, founded in 2006, brings farmers together under one rooftop to increase awareness of Oregon’s artisan cheeses and provide an opportunity for shared resources, while educating consumers about the importance of the industry.

From breakfast to late-night snacking, and with so many varieties and culinary uses, it can be argued that cheese could be included at some level in every meal or snack. September, though, is the month where cheese is rightfully celebrated at the highest level as a state staple.

Katie Bray, executive director of the Oregon Cheese Guild and previously with the Oregon Wine Board, has leaned into her vast experience in the wine industry to create and sustain events meant to inspire cheese consumption and recognition. Her passion ignites an industry.

Although she’s been with the Oregon Cheese Guild since 2015, she said she “still feels new” to the job, and her excitement for hosted events and cheese tourism opportunities—like the Oregon Cheese Festival in Spring, the Oregon Cheese Trail (a resource for discovering new cheesemakers and vendors in Oregon’s backyard) 30

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

and the annual culmination in September of all things cheese, The Wedge—is palpable.

“For many years, these cheesemakers were essentially on their own,” said Bray. “The Oregon Cheese Guild was formed to allow them to work together. A rising tide lifts all boats, and the success of any artisan cheese helps all. It’s a lot like the restaurants in Portland—so many chefs have worked together before in various places. Cheese is like that. Several people launched careers from Rogue or Tillamook. Face Rock Creamery, for example, made their first batch of cheese at Rogue Creamery.”

Bray cites a healthy cooperation with Oregon State University’s dairy and fermentation process as well. “It’s wonderfully, beautifully collaborative,” she said. “It’s a blessing if you talk with anyone in the category marketing space. I consider myself lucky that they all work together so well and complement each other.”

The bedrock of this organization was built from a conversation in the maker room of Rogue Creamery in 2005. There were seven artisan cheesemakers in the room, according to Bray, and “they all got to talking that they should be working together and helping each other out like their winemaker counterparts do.”

David Gremmels, dubbed “Rogue’s Renaissance Man” by many in the industry, is, according to Bray, a “powerhouse in the building of Oregon’s artisan cheese reputation.” The Oregon Cheese

River’s Edge Chèvre

Festival was in fact started by Gremmels, before the guild took it over in 2007.

Bray stepped into her role with the guild after a few different iterations of The Wedge and thanks to some support from the Oregon Dairy Council. She was hired when she had twins turning 1 year old, so life was busy yet fulfilling. “It was kismet,” Bray said. She said her contribution was simply adding structure to the “many things the cheesemakers were already doing on their own,” and her addition of some events, membership opportunities and educational conferences such as Oregon Cheesemaker Education Day amped things up.

One of the things she is most proud of, however, is the creation of Oregon Cheese Month.

Partnering with retailers such as New Seasons, Zupan’s Markets and Market of Choice, among others, Oregon Cheese Month shines a light on more locally produced foods in local markets, which she credits the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s grant opportunities and programs like the Farmers Market Promotion Program with doing.

After some core consumer research in year one, Bray “saw some interesting findings. While there was a high desire to buy local, when asked to name brands of cheese, besides Tillamook, there wasn’t a ton of brand recognition about what is local. So we created a closer tie-in, designing in-store stickers and signage that points to Oregon cheese and Oregon Cheese Month.”

One of these cheesemakers Bray works closely with is Pat Morford of River’s Edge Chèvre. Morford has, what she calls, a “lifelong love affair with goats.” But it started out rough.

“When I was 8 years old, my dad brought home three little goats with the eventual goal to eat them,” she said. “We did. It was heartbreaking.” In 1970, she purchased some goats for herself from a “woman in Mount Hood. I wanted to provide milk and cheese for my family. That was the catalyst.”

Other than when Morford lived on a fishing boat for a couple years, she’s cared for and bred goats ever since, dominating the chèvre category in later years, and commanding attention for specialty cheeses such as Humbug Mountain and Cape Foulweather. She said their showstoppers include Up in Smoke, made with maple leaves smoked for several hours, and Sunset Bay, a 2-pound, ash-coated wheel with a layer of smoked Spanish paprika through the center.

Morford lives with and works alongside her daughter, Astraea, who runs the cheese room. “We get along really well,” she said.

“When I was a kid, my mom always had cheese experiments going.

She made a lot of ricotta, played around with soft ripened cheese, too. Over nineteen years, what we make has changed and evolved.

Early on, we made a lot of flavors, like basil and pesto. Now you can get that almost anywhere, so we’ve moved away from that. We focus now on soft ripened cheeses. We’ve (produced) over twenty different soft-ripened cheeses. Our facility is small, so we keep a narrow focus on what people want.”

Cheese is named after locations in Oregon at Rivers Edge Chèvre and garners numerous industry awards. The Morfords, however, tip their hats to the real stars of the operation: their goats.

River’s Edge Chèvre

farm to table

FROM TOP Goats are the heart of the operation at River’s Edge Chèvre.

River’s Edge Chèvre offerings include (from left) its Siltcoos, Humbug Mountain and Up in Smoke cheeses.

They milk the goats just once a day, which allows them to cover the milking themselves and gives the animals more time to graze, play and eat alfalfa. They number about 150 goats on the farm, which include “babies to old ladies that we have in our ‘nursing home,’” Pat said. “And we have some floaters that are part of the family.”

The Morfords like to keep their operation small and contained, relying on just three other part-time workers that help in the cheese rooms, and a caretaker that “tries to keep the goats from destroying the barn.”

The cheese business takes grit and gumption, like a lot of small farming does, and there is a lot of pressure just to stay afloat. “It’s really important to support small, local farms,” said Pat. “It’s critical for people to know that small-scale farming is at risk.”

You can find Rivers Edge Chèvre cheeses and other Oregon cheeses throughout the year at local grocers and farmers markets. Want a few recipes to try with your newly purchased Oregon cheese? Try Pat’s favorite, a stuffed chicken breast made with either smoked or plain chèvre. And Oregon Culinary Ambassador Leif Benson plates up an impressive dish using Oregon blue cheese and burrata with Campari tomatoes.

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farm to table

Oregon Recipes

Pinot Noir-Poached Pears with Blue Cheese.

Nick Hoogendam

Homage to Fromage

Pinot Noir-Poached Pears with Blue Cheese

The Wilderness Hunters / FOREST GROVE Chefs Eric Bartle and Sara Kundelius SERVES 6 • 3 Bosc pears, peeled (leave stems attached) • 1 bottle (750 ml) Oregon pinot noir • ½ cup white sugar • ¼ teaspoon whole black peppercorns • 2 bay leaves • 1 cup hazelnuts, toasted and finely chopped • 8 ounces Rogue River Blue cheese, at room temperature • Pepper, to taste

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Select pears that are just beginning to ripen, with a firm texture that will hold up to a gentle poach in the wine. Delicately peel the pears from stem to bottom, keeping the pears’ shape intact.

Place the pears in a 2- or 3-quart saucepan (depending on size of pears) along with the wine, sugar, peppercorns and bay leaves.

Make sure the pears are fully submerged in the wine to their stems. Additional wine or a little water can be added, if needed. Bring the pot to a low simmer, and gently poach the pears for approximately 40 minutes, or until a toothpick or skewer can be easily inserted into the pears with little resistance. Gently remove the pears from the poaching liquid to a plate, and let them cool a bit before handling.

Continue to let the wine mixture reduce in the pan by bringing it up to a vigorous

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

simmer/low boil until reduced to approximately ¾ cup (6 ounces). As the wine is reducing and the pears are cool enough to handle, slice the pears in half lengthwise (stem to bottom) with a sharp knife.

Once all pears are split, using a melon baller or teaspoon, scoop-out the hard core.

Spread the finely chopped and toasted hazelnuts on a plate in a thin layer, then gently press the still warm pears, cut side down, into the hazelnuts to coat.

Strain the wine reduction, then evenly distribute the wine syrup on 6 dessert plates.

Place the hazelnut-coated pears cut side up.

Using a small cookie scoop or melon baller, scoop approximately 2 to 3 tablespoons of Rogue Creamery Blue cheese into the cavity, and finish with a twist of fresh-cracked black pepper.

farm to table

Rogue Creamery

Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Chèvre

River’s Edge Chèvre / LOGSDEN Pat Morford SERVES 4 • 4 boneless chicken breasts • 1 log smoked or plain chèvre • Salt and pepper to taste • 1 tablespoon flour, for dusting • 1 pound mushrooms • 2 large sweet red peppers • 1 large onion, sliced • 6-8 garlic cloves, chopped or whole • 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat an oven-proof skillet with olive oil. Pat dry the chicken breasts. Lay the breasts flat on a cutting board, and slice horizontally the length of the breasts, but not completely through, making a pouch for the cheese.

Divide the chèvre into 4 portions, and place the cheese into the pouch of each chicken breast, spreading evenly into all areas. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper to taste, then dust with flour.

Slice or quarter the mushrooms, and place them in an oven-proof skillet or pan. Place the stuffed chicken breasts on top of the mushrooms. Toss peppers, onions and garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, and spoon over the chicken breasts. Bake until the juices run clear when a knife is inserted into the thickest part of the chicken (about 30 minutes). Serve with rice or couscous.

Rogue River Blue with Honey Bourbon Grilled Figs.

Rogue River Blue with Honey Bourbon Grilled Figs

Rogue Creamery / CENTRAL POINT SERVES 4 • 12 rosemary sprigs, 6 inches long • 3 tablespoons butter • 3 tablespoons honey • 1½ teaspoons lemon juice • 1 teaspoon bourbon or brandy • 12 figs, green or black • 6 ounces Roger River Blue, cut into 4 wedges

Leif Benson

Strip the leaves from the bottom 5 inches of rosemary sprigs. Cut the tip of each sprig at a 45-degree angle, forming

Oregon Blue Cheese with Tomato and Pesto Salad and Crispy Fried Shallots Chef Leif Benson, Oregon’s Culinary Ambassador SERVES 2-4

Oregon Blue Cheese with Tomato and Pesto Salad and Crispy Fried Shallots.

• 8 ounces Oregon Blue cheese • 4 ripe Campari tomatoes • 6 bulbs shallots, thinly sliced • 1 cup vegetable oil • 2 balls burrata cheese • 4 ounces pesto • 1 ounce olive oil

a point. Soak rosemary skewers in a shallow dish of water. Set aside.

In a small skillet, melt butter over medium heat. When melted, add honey and stir to combine. When mixture reaches a gentle boil, add lemon juice, bourbon and 6 rosemary leaves, stirring constantly.

Mixture will foam and froth. Cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Keep warm over lowest heat setting until needed.

Cut figs in half from stem to bottom.

Push 2 figs onto each rosemary skewer and into the honey-butter mixture. Grill figs over medium-low heat for 3 to 5 minutes until warmed through. (Use a grill basket for the best results.)

Plate 3 skewers of figs, and drizzle figs with remaining sauce. Serve with a wedge of Rogue River Blue.

• 2 ounces balsamic glaze • Salt and pepper to taste Crumble or slice Oregon Blue cheese, and slice tomatoes.

To fry shallots, cover bulbs in vegetable oil and microwave in a covered glass bowl for 10-12 minutes until crispy.

Drain on paper towels.

Arrange Oregon Blue cheese, tomatoes, fried shallots and burrata cheese on a plate as desired, and add some pesto mixed with olive oil as a garnish.

Drizzle balsamic glaze over the top, and add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crusty bread.

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farm to table

Homegrown Chef

What Lies Beneath written by Thor Erickson photography by Tambi Lane I WAS drenched with sweat as I neared the end of my sweltering drive to Brownsville.

The AC in my old Toyota pickup meant cranking the windows down. The best produce in Oregon, used by the best restaurants in the nation, is grown in this tiny pocket of the Willamette Valley, and I was here to convince the farmer to sell it to my restaurant. I rehearsed my pitch as I pulled onto the dusty road leading to George Weppler’s farm.

As I got out of my truck, George emerged from a field where beautiful purple lettuce and sunflowers were growing. He greeted me with a firm handshake. “Swim with me!” he said in a raised voice as he shed his dusty clothes leaving nothing but a neckerchief and a straw hat.

He gestured to the irrigation pond that resembled a murky pool of chocolate milk and jumped in.

This produce was really something special—pristine baby eggplants, bright purple spinach, candystriped beets that looked like starlight mints. These special plants had been reserved for only the best temples of cuisine in the nation—New York, Chicago, San Francisco. This was my only chance to pass the qualifying test. I had no choice. I shed my clothes and plunged into the murky pond.

After cooling down in the murky water, I attempted to share with George my plans for his creations when a bell rang from the main house.

“Lunch time!” called George’s wife, Fran.

Lunch was perfect. A composed salad showcasing some of Weppler’s tender arugula, cress, orach and pea shoots followed by freshly baked bread accompanied by a sweet, earthy purée made from sunflower roots, also known as Jerusalem artichokes or sunchokes.

After lunch, George had to rush back to his work on the farm. “Have a great trip home,” he said as I exchanged hugs with him and Fran.

As I drove back, I realized I never got to explain my case to George. A week later six large mystery boxes arrived at the back kitchen door. They were the start of weekly care packages, all carefully curated by George. To this day the best I have ever seen … and tasted.

Here’s my interpretation of Fran Weppler’s sunchoke spread.

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1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Roasted Sunchoke Hummus • 1 pound sunchokes, scrubbed clean • ¾ teaspoon coriander seeds • ¾ teaspoon fennel seeds • 1 teaspoon sweet paprika • ¼ teaspoon crushed red chili flakes • ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil • 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed • 1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped • ¼ cup tahini • ¼ cup fresh lemon juice • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper • ½ tablespoon coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley • Carrot sticks, roasted sweet potato wedges or pita, for serving Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spread the sunchokes on a large, rimmed baking sheet, and tightly cover with foil. Bake until the sunchokes are very soft, about 45 minutes. Transfer the sheet to a rack and set aside, leaving them covered to let them steam until cool enough to handle. Uncover, then use your hands to peel the sunchokes, discarding the peels.

In a small skillet over medium heat, toast the coriander and fennel seeds until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the paprika and chili flakes and cook, stirring, for 30 more seconds. Scrape the spices into a blender along with the olive oil, and blend until very smooth (or use a mortar and pestle). Let the spices steep in the oil for 30 minutes.

In a food processor, combine the chickpeas and garlic, and purée until smooth. Add the cooked sunchokes along with the tahini and lemon juice, and purée until very smooth, at least 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Scrape the hummus into a shallow serving bowl. Drizzle with the reserved paprika oil, sprinkle with parsley and serve with carrot sticks, sweet potato wedges or pita, for scooping.

farm to table

Roasted Sunchoke Hummus packs in the flavor for a perfect snack.

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“It’s hard to tell where the real flora and fauna ends and the wallpaper begins. There was a lot of creative freedom, and the clients were really on board for that.”

— Stephanie Dyer, Dyer Studio founder and interior designer

home + design

Home + Design

Make a Splash Interior designer Stephanie Dyer packs personality into three Portland bathrooms written by Melissa Dalton photography by Meagan Larsen

STEPHANIE DYER, interior designer and founder of the Portland-based Dyer Studio, is not interested in the bland or beige. “We’re always looking for design opportunities to showcase the client’s personality,” said Dyer. “A question that we ask ourselves a lot is, is it boring? If the answer is yes, we keep pushing.” Dyer walks us through three new bathrooms that are anything but ordinary.

SUNSET WEST

A Walk on the Wild Side Dyer describes this home as a “Mid-century farm ranch with a mystic spirit.” The owners approached her for a hall bathroom redesign that would be as unique as the rest of their abode, stating they wanted this particular room to feel like a “nostalgic island vacation” that they could visit every day. At the beginning of the process, no concept went unconsidered. “They started talking about literal AstroTurf for the flooring,” said Dyer. “They just had wild ideas, and I thought, ‘We are going to have a good time with this.’”

After reworking the layout to include a bathtub and ensure the room is aging-in-place friendly, Dyer assembled a material palette of textural, tropical-infused finishes. Now, grassy green pebble epoxy flooring feels good underfoot in the walk-in shower, slabs of stone evoking volcanic rock cover the sink counter and ensconce the soaking tub, and the custom vanity has bamboo door fronts that recall thatch. Terra-cotta breeze block privacy walls are a hit of pattern, while the wall tile acts as a supporting player, with an understated neutral color and subtly textured finish.

Additional details are playful and require a closer look, like the wallpaper print showcasing a mélange of fantastical creatures, and hardware picked by the client, including towel hooks in the shape of an octopus and a skull knob on the hidden medicine chest. The homeowners’ cockatoo, Sammy, even joined in the fun for the photo shoot. “It’s hard to tell where the real flora and fauna ends and the wallpaper begins,” said Dyer. “There was a lot of creative freedom, and the clients were really on board for that.”

AT LEFT This bathroom redesign features bamboo-front cabinets, botanical-themed wallpaper and terra-cotta breeze block privacy walls.

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home + design

The soft organic green and brown colors are easy on the eyes at any point in the day.

NORTH TABOR

A Gorgeous Tiled Room to Age-in-Place From the first time Dyer met these owners of a North Tabor Craftsman home, they were planning ahead. They first worked with the designer to create a primary suite upstairs, then remodel the kitchen. The next project was transforming a cramped hall bathroom into a beautiful guest space that can accommodate their aging-in-place needs, should they ever relocate in the future to the main level of the home.

The new bathroom layout has a pocket door for easy entry and enough floor space for a wheelchair or walker to easily maneuver. An enlarged vanity packs in accessible storage, while the walk-in shower has grab bars, a built-in seat and a handy wallmounted towel warmer.

“They have a great love of tile,” said Dyer. “The husband is a potter, and he actually made the tile for the kitchen, so they were definitely tuned into the nuances of different types of tile and glazes.” When the group’s first choice unexpectedly failed upon installation, they had to pivot to a new plan. “It was an exercise in non-attachment,” joked Dyer, who found an even better option from Ann Sacks that fit the room’s specifications exactly. “It was like it was meant to be.”

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The owners and interior designer renovated this bathroom for aging in place with grab bars and a built-in seat in the walk-in shower.

home + design

This North Tabor bathroom is a tile-lover’s paradise.

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home + design

The hammered copper soaking tub doubles as a work of art.

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LAURELHURST

From Identity Crisis to Imaginative Home Spa When Dyer first visited this home in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, “we joked it had an identity crisis because it seemed that all the other rooms in the house were accounted for,” said Dyer. “There was already a living room, dining room and kitchen, so there was just this extra space.” A previous addition had created that awkward emptiness with no inherent function, and the existing bathroom on the floor was located in a way that blocked views to the backyard. The clients asked Dyer to explore various options to better utilize the flow and function of how all the rooms fit together, as well as bring the outside in.

The resulting design was executed by separating the bathroom elements into the main components. The toilet and walkin shower are enclosed in a private room, while a floating vanity is just outside its door. The vanity is accessed from two sides, either from the bathroom or the back porch, for when the homeowners come in from working in the garden. That placement allows for sightlines to the yard, and the large counter is perfect for cutting flowers and creating arrangements.

The new focal point is a hammered copper soaking tub tucked into an airy space under an expansive skylight, surrounded by oak slat walls that create definition and connection to the rest of the home. The bathtub is “celebrated as furniture, or an art piece,” said Dyer, and additional luxe materials—from the plaster-finished walls to the terra-cotta tile floor and oversized copper sink—all create an elevated experience. “It challenges our notions of what a bathroom is, and blurs the lines between indoor and outdoor space,” said Dyer.

A creative floating vanity keeps space open.

ABOVE, FROM TOP This Laurelhurst bathroom is a design exercise in creating a space while keeping sight lines to the backyard open. The toilet and walk-in shower are tucked into a private setting.

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home + design

attached at three studs, but two will also work, as long as the shelf is not too long.

DIY

Floating Shelf and Sunrise Mirror illustration by Charla Pettingill

WE’RE GUESSING you’ve seen a “sunrise” mirror without knowing to call it that—it’s when a wood floating shelf is mounted over a circular mirror. The installation looks especially nice above a bathroom vanity, but it is equally eye-catching in an entry or installed over a dresser.

While mounting kits are available online, the following guidelines have you customize the project to your wall construction. That’s because floating shelves are trickier to install than they look. To prevent the finished shelf from sagging, it’s best to anchor the shelf to studs, and use the proper hardware.

A NOTE ABOUT THE SHELF The shelf can be shallow—about 4 to 6 inches deep—as it will be used for lightweight applications in the bathroom, such as holding makeup or charging a toothbrush. Use any scrap wood desired, but make sure it is at least 1.5 inches thick. A 2x4 cut to size and finished to the desired look will work well.

FIND YOUR WALL STUDS We are tailoring our final design to fit the construction of the wall, as the studs will be the anchor points for the shelf. Use a stud finder to locate the studs and mark them with painter’s tape or pencil so you know the center of each. (Studs are typically 16 inches apart.)

Ideally, the finished shelf will be

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PICK A MIRROR AND PLAN THE LAYOUT Simple, frameless mirrors work best for this project, and we love a large diameter, such as 24 inches or 36 inches, as it makes a big visual impact.

There are two ways to combine the shelf and mirror layout: staggering the mirror to be off-center from the shelf, or centering the mirror on the shelf. For the staggered install, a mirror will be hung centered over the sink and the shelf will overlap it to one side in an asymmetrical composition. For the centered layout, the shelf is, as much as possible, centered on the mirror.

Keep in mind that the shelf cannot be anchored to the wall anywhere it touches the mirror and that it needs to attach to the wall at two or three points. Sketch a layout that works best for your stud configuration, mirror size and vanity.

PREP THE SHELF Once you have the shelf length, cut the board to size and stain or paint to the desired finish.

For the staggered layout: Using a jigsaw or router, cut a slot out of the back of the shelf where it overlaps the mirror.

For the centered layout: Using a jigsaw or router, cut a slot out of the back of the shelf for the mirror to hang through.

HANG Screw anchor bolts into the studs.

Drill holes into the back of your shelf, making sure they line up with the wall bolts perfectly. Attach the shelf by sliding it onto the bolts until flush with the wall. Last but not least, hang the mirror, sliding it through the slot.

Photos, clockwise from top: Lonesome Pictopia, Rejuvenation, Meagan Larsen

Statement Makers for Your Bathroom The Nottingham tile line at Ann Sacks, on beautiful display in the Dyer Studio North Tabor bathroom, is a crafted ceramic tile with artisan glazes, making it durable and suitable to indoor and outdoor use— as well as a little glam. It’s available in a range of decorative fields, from arabesques to honeycombs, and in a variety of colors. www.annsacks.kohler.com

After fifteen years as a tattoo artist, Melanie Nead opened Lonesome Pictopia in Portland in 2017. The studio creates original wallpapers, murals and goods that combine American tattooing traditions, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. That means every design has a layered inspiration, like the “Chanterelles” pattern, which nods to that favorite PNW pastime, mushroom hunting, as well as Art Deco and Old Hollywood. www.lonesomepictopia.com

The utilitarian bucket sink came about in the 1930s. They’re typically wall-mounted, with an integrated backsplash and deep basin.

The Edy Bucket Sink from Rejuvenation is a modern take on the classic, made of a waterproofed concrete formula and available in several sizes and a rainbow of colors, from a rich terra-cotta red to the less-conventional tangerine, peach or pistachio. www.rejuvenation.com SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

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artist in residence

Artist in Residence

Oceans Together Kanani Miyamoto uses art and her Pacific heritage to inspire community written and photographed by Daniel O’Neil

HAWAII AND JAPAN come to Portland through the art and spirit of Kanani Miyamoto. Born and raised on Oahu, Miyamoto represents her home state and her native Hawaiian heritage naturally. In art, Miyamoto applies traditional Japanese techniques.

And in the Portland metro area, where she has lived for the last twelve years, Miyamoto shares these cultures and mixes them with others to create a sense of community that emanates aloha in its fullest sense.

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Kanani Miyamoto blends Native Hawaiian and Japanese art forms into public art installations across the Portland area.

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artist in residence

Native Hawaiian identity is a treasure for Miyamoto, but one to be guarded. “I have had a really hard time with getting people to see beyond the traditional, fetish, exotic version of Hawaii,” she said. “A lot of times they want to see the traditional crafts and all of that, but we’re contemporary people. We have punk rock and hip-hop bands. We’re not all pounding poi and singing Hawaiian songs on the beach. For me, that’s the most important part about my work—giving a contemporary representation of who I am and where I’m from.”

At the beginning of her art career, Miyamoto kept Hawaii and Japan separate. Working with Japanese motifs or symbolism, she made it all Japanese, for example. Yet she was always trying to figure out how to mix the two. “I always knew, in the back of my head, I was using all of these old techniques and processes. But how could I take them even further?” she said.

After graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor of science in art practices at Portland State University, Miyamoto earned a master of fine arts degree in print media from Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2016. At PNCA she was introduced to traditional Japanese art making, like Japanese papers

and wet scroll mounting. She began challenging traditional formats by doing large-scale installations, using wheat paste to affix her work onto walls and windows. She also learned about ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, which taught her composition. Her mixed heritage began to coalesce in her artist’s mind.

“I’m using Japanese philosophy, techniques, materials and tools, keeping those roots, bringing it to a more contemporary form,” she said. “But I’m telling a more Hawaiian story.”

Miyamoto chooses not to sell her work in galleries, and she has little interest in commissions. Instead, she embraces her sense of community by focusing on public art. Her latest installation piece, Across Oceans, now wraps around the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton, and extends to the adjacent Beaverton Building at City Hall.

“We began this project by asking Kanani, ‘What are the things that connect us, globally speaking?’” said Laura Becker, arts program manager for the City of Beaverton. “That sparked this idea of bodies of water that touch continents, countries and borders. The title Across Oceans speaks clearly in this

ABOVE Kanani Miyamoto touches up a new yearlong installation piece at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton.

46 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

artist in residence

Mario Gallucci

collaborative project, quite literally spanning space where trains come and go, bringing people to and from Beaverton.”

Miyamoto originally studied art because she wanted to teach it, to share the well-being of making art. While a graduate student at PNCA, in 2015, she began volunteering at p:ear (project: education, art, recreation), which creatively mentors homeless youth in Portland. She eventually became an artist in residence there, and now she works for p:ear as arts coordinator.

At p:ear, Miyamoto combines art and community seamlessly, teaching by example. Her own upbringing on Oahu with her single mother, a Euro-American, taught her about hard work and living without much money. Miyamoto didn’t graduate from high school but returned to school later in life and excelled. “I came from nothing, so I really want to show the youth at p:ear that they can do whatever they want, that they can be the adult they want to be,” she said.

The program director at p:ear, Antonio Camacho Martinez, appreciates Miyamoto’s art for its inherent beauty but also its message, both of which find full expression and gracious reception at p:ear.

“Kanani’s art is also social justice,” Camacho Martinez said.

“It’s a comment on her reality of what it means to be Japanese and Hawaiian. Then, through that, the youth at p:ear can start pulling together how they can utilize things like art to share their stories and experiences, and to build bridges.”

One of the most common concepts of Hawaiian culture is the spirit of aloha. Camacho Martinez and everyone else at p:ear feels aloha daily when in Miyamoto’s presence. Widely misunderstood and oversimplified, aloha represents Miyamoto in various ways, including her art and her approach to all those around her.

“It’s more than love, more than hello and goodbye,” Miyamoto said. “I think aloha is about interconnectivity. It’s about knowing that we are going to take care of each other. And, yes, I think that I bring that to all of the work that I do. I hope that I bring it everywhere.”

Kanani Miyamoto’s Across Oceans installation adorns the windows of the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts.

ABOVE, FROM TOP Overlapping themes, influences and techniques form the body of Kanani Miyamoto’s art. Miyamoto uses wheat paste to adhere her art to windows, a traditional Japanese method.

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Robin Loznak

STARTUP 50 WHAT I’M WORKING ON 52 MY WORKSPACE 54 GAME CHANGER 56

pg. 56 The Oregon Coast School of Art brings art to tiny coastal Gardiner.

News.

Worthy.

Daily.

startup

QR Code Innovations Local startup Foodi is working to revolutionize how we order food written by Grant Stringer DURING THE Covid pandemic in 2020, Benjamin Fisher used his phone to scan a QR code and order a bite from a Portland gastropub. What popped up on his screen was a poorly designed PDF of a digital menu.

“This is terrible, this is horrendous,” Fisher remembers thinking. “There has got to be a better option out there.”

Across the U.S., customers and restaurant owners were grappling with the same problem. Ordering food with a phone via QR code was considered safer than paper menus and widely adopted. Unfortunately, the new technology could be glitchy and confusing. In 2022, The Atlantic dubbed digital menus “the restaurant industry’s worst idea.”

But Fisher, a Portland-based entrepreneur who brings new products to market, saw an opportunity to improve the tech and make a splash. In 2020, Fisher launched Foodi, a startup that provided better QR code menus. (“QR” stands for “quick response.”) By scanning a little, black square at their table, restaurant customers could pull up all sorts of menu information on their phones—from the ingredients of each item to options 50

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Benjamin Fisher has since evolved Foodi into what he calls a customizable digital menu “experience.” He’s attempting to modernize digital menus and make them more useful for restaurants.

Photos: Foodi

Patrons of Foodi customer 1927 S’mores Company can experience its QR technology.

for dietary-restricted eaters—on a sleek Foodi platform. Gone were the days of the shoddy PDF. Fisher has since evolved Foodi into what he calls a customizable digital menu “experience.” He’s attempting to modernize digital menus and make them more useful for restaurants, at a time when the pandemic has morphed into another crisis for small business owners: inflation, especially in labor costs.

Restaurants can use the tool to write multiple menus for various formats, such as food trucks or classic sit-down spaces, and for individual tables. Among his customers is hard citrus company Ruzzo, based in the Damascus, Oregon. Fisher said the company uses Foodi to provide analytics on its customers and offer discounts to people who check out their menus in advance.

Whether they knew it or not, Portland revelers at the Waterfront Blues Festival in July used Foodi. Fisher partnered with the festival organizers to provide concertgoers with a digital list of every vendor’s menu. Fisher, who runs the company and is its sole employee at the moment, said he has two other customers, both in downtown Portland: 1927 S’mores Company and Trap Kitchen, which shares the space of the Roseland Theater.

Fisher said he’s always wanted to start a company. In October, Foodi will see its fourth anniversary.

In Fisher’s view, QR codes could revolutionize the way restaurants do business, making them more efficient and more able to adapt to a dwindling pool of service industry workers while labor is increasingly expensive to hire.

However, he acknowledges that not many restaurants use digital menus at this point. Many ditched them, he said, because customers rightly complained about poorly designed interfaces that complicated the simple act of ordering a bite.

Others were cranky that they had to pull out their phones for yet another purpose that supplanted a human interaction.

“It created a bad taste in customers’ mouths,” Fisher said.

Fisher is battling that bad rep and has an answer: marketing. He says digital menus simply make sense for restaurants by offering much-needed savings and flexibility. But he also says they’re good for customers, and that a majority of Millennials and Gen Zers are open to using new tech like QR codes in eateries. But business owners aren’t listening.

“The restaurants just aren’t adopting it, even though it’s the thing that could save their business,” Fisher said.

SouthernOregon.org

One of Oregon's most famous agriculture valleys now has its own Food Trail. Highlighting the amazing diversity of our food and beverage artisans, the Rogue Valley Food Trail features over 50 businesses on three different itineraries: Famous Food, Healthy Living and Family Farms. Look for the signs at your favorite food spots from Grants Pass to Ashland.

Download RVFT Map at RogueValleyFoodTrail.com

TravelOregon.com

what i’m working on

AN ICONIC fire lookout in Oregon’s Cascade Range will be rebuilt this summer, thanks to a homegrown collaboration between the U.S. Forest Service and a trail nonprofit.

As the Labor Day fires of 2020 ripped through communities near Medford, a torrent of flame also leveled the Bolan Mountain Lookout, which had stood for decades on a prominence in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest near the California border. It was a gorgeous, glass-walled lookout once used to scout wildfires, and later repurposed as a lodging destination for backpackers with the mettle to reach the 6,300-foot peak. All that remained was ash and rubble.

But the lookout will be rebuilt this summer. The Siskiyou Mountain Club, an Ashland nonprofit that maintains trails in the central Cascades, has partnered with the Forest Service to give it new life. Helping lead the effort is Gabe Howe, the club’s executive director.

“It’s an outstanding view. To the west, on a clear day, you can see the surf of the Pacific, and to the east you can see Mount Shasta, (Mount) McLoughlin,” Howe said. “It’s just kind of dead set in the Siskiyou Range. It really is one of the more spectacular mountaintop views.”

The lookout will be rebuilt this summer on the same spot, and Howe says construction is currently ahead of schedule. It will be a 14-foot-by-14-foot structure that can accommodate four people, Howe says. The project is funded by the Forest Service with federal disaster relief funds. The Siskiyou Mountain Club will chip in at least 20 percent of the cost, Howe says.

Howe hopes visitors will use the restored lookout as a home base to explore the gorgeous national forest and wilderness in the vicinity, which includes nearby Bolan Lake.

It’s not the first time the lookout will be rebuilt after a fire.

Originally erected in the 1930s, the structure has burned at least a few times, although the official record is hazy. It’s clear the lookout was rebuilt in 1968, Howe says. A century ago, the lookout was in a very remote location—now, it’s much more accessible—and used for just that: watching for wildfires and tracking their movements.

With more intense and more frequent wildfires burning due to climate change and other factors, more lookouts have burned in Oregon in recent years. The Forest Service has also intentionally torched lookouts as rangers employ modern technology to monitor fires, including camera networks enabled with artificial intelligence. The Mount Hood National Forest alone once had eighty fire lookouts, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting, but just six remain.

“It’s been a long decline,” Howe said. “At some point, the Forest Service was burning them down, because the technology changed … and they don’t want the liability of these structures out there.”

But the Bolan lookout is a popular lodging destination for hikers. Like other lookouts where hikers can stay overnight, it is notoriously difficult to get a reservation. It’s almost totally booked when available, Howe said.

He credits the local district ranger of the Forest Service, Scott Blower, for championing the rebuild. Without Blower, “it probably would’ve never been done,” Howe said.

For Howe, it’s a symbol of resilience, recovery and hope after the calamitous 2020 wildfire season. He says there’s been an outpouring of local support since word spread that the structure will be restored to its former glory.

“It’s symbolic,” Howe said.

A Fire Lookout Restored The Bolan Mountain fire lookout gets a second life after fire written by Grant Stringer 52

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After wildfires destroyed the structure in 2020, the Bolan Mountain Lookout, seen here this July, is being rebuilt by the Siskiyou Mountain Club in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service. (photo: Trevor Meyer)

Savor the Willamette Valley Where Every Flavor Crafts a Story

Plan your trip at midvalleyfoodtrail.com

my workspace

WestSide Goat Girl What started with overgrowth continues with an overgrown goat business written by Joni Kabana photography by Aubrey Janelle

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After buying a 20-acre farm in Gaston, Linda Williams quickly faced a dilemma of cleaning up a mess of tangled undesirables that had overgrown the property. While considering hiring people to do the job, another thought came to mind: Why not get a couple of goats to graze the fields?

Williams’ dilemma was a goat’s delight. As she perused Craigslist ads for acquiring a few goats, Williams saw a listing selling a goat business. Having a background in business at Intel as well as a desire to do something good for the planet, Williams jumped at the chance to own and operate a goat rental business to fill her early retirement days. On a whim, she purchased WestSide Goat Girl LLC.

Williams loves spending time in nature and teaching others how to solve problems without resorting to the use of harmful chemicals. Williams also enjoys the hard physical work that comes with tending her flock and meeting the like-minded people interested in renting the goats. “The goats are my tribe, and many customers have become friends,” she said. “I love the before and after results of our work. We can clear a half acre of chest-high blackberries in seven to ten days. The result is a buzz cut, and most customers are amazed!”

FROM TOP The WestSide Goat Girl LLC goats begin clearing plants on a job site in Beaverton. The WestSide Goat Girl trailer sits on Linda Williams’ property in Gaston. FAR LEFT Williams, owner of WestSide Goat Girl LLC, stands with her goats on a job site in Beaverton.

Williams receives around 200 requests for the goats’ services per year, but only has the bandwidth to fulfill twenty jobs each year. She must juggle keeping the goats healthy, being on site to help manage their process and bidding jobs with accuracy when so many factors (such as plant growth and goat consumption rate) are involved.

While farm life feels idyllic, Williams has a goal of hiring an assistant to take over the business side while she focuses on tending the goats on her property. She also would like to turn the farm into an “old goat sanctuary” where aging goats can roam freely throughout their last days.

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game changer

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game changer

The Oregon Coast School of Art in Gardiner sits along the Umpqua River.

Art Blooms on the Coast Housed in a former school, the Oregon Coast School of Art has big plans in its little town written by James Sinks photography by Robin Loznak

Emily Free Wilson and her husband, Matt, have converted a former school building into the Oregon Coast School of Art in Gardiner. They are photographed here in a former classroom, now the painting studio of artist Kelley Anderson.

IN ART and life, magic occurs when something nondescript becomes something eye-catching.

It happens when Oregon Coast ceramics artist Emily Free Wilson sees the potential hiding inside a piece of clay. And these days, the same logic holds true for what was a similarly raw material, a squat former middle school that Free Wilson and her husband, Matt, are molding into an arts nonprofit.

On a hillside overlooking the onetime mill town of Gardiner on the South Coast, with the Umpqua River sliding quietly past toward the Pacific, their Oregon Coast School of Art is trying to cultivate creativity, collaboration and learning, with a million-dollar view. Inside, you’ll find occasional classes, workshops, a local radio DJ and camps for nearby public and charter school students. In addition, a budding residential program invites artists and makers to stay and create for weeks at a time, in combined studio and living lofts that were once classrooms.

Bought by the Wilsons in late 2019 and renovated in phases since, the former schoolhouse will take a next step and raise the curtain this fall on a public gallery, on what was once the stage. The space will feature the work of visiting and local artists including Free Wilson, whose whimsical pieces take shape in her Free Ceramics studio on the lower level, plus traveling and seasonal exhibits.

A coffee shop is also on the drawing board, she said.

The 45,000-square-foot, two-story building also is continually absorbing additional equipment to make art happen, such as a donated kiln from Eugene and a photo darkroom. It also serves as a community gathering space, with local sports SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

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game changer

With the Umpqua River as his subject, Eugene landscape artist Jordan Walker leads a plein air painting class outside the Oregon Coast School of Art.

teams and gymnasts using the gym and even a weekly heavy metal band practice.

During a break in an arts camp, Free Wilson said she loves the idea of making lives better, for artists, for students and for a stretch of the coast that’s rife with potential.

“When you collaborate, you make yourself open to possibilities you otherwise would not have ever experienced,” she said. “It just helps everybody’s quality of life improve.”

For Free Wilson, this is an almost-surreal homecoming.

The Oregon state track 1,500-meter champion in 1996, Free Wilson traded her hometown of Roseburg for the midwest, where she both raced and earned an art degree from the University of

Wisconsin-Madison. After college, she landed in Helena, Montana, where she married Matt—who worked in the construction industry—and ran an art gallery for a decade.

The two eventually converted an 8,000-square-foot former funeral home into an artist studio and event space. She also was a visiting artist in Ireland and a TEDx Talk speaker.

While she loved art itself, she also became fascinated by the business of it, with a knack for helping makers get organized and selling their work. Something that bugged her was the stark societal divide among artists, with wealthy people like Oprah doing memorable art, but so many others perpetually struggling and scraping by.

“When you collaborate, you make yourself open to possibilities you otherwise would not have ever experienced. It just helps everybody’s quality of life improve.”

— Emily Free Wilson, Oregon Coast School of Art co-founder 58

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game changer

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Matt Wilson and his son Clayton, 17, install drywall as they create a gallery space at the Oregon Coast School of Art. Emily Free Wilson applies glaze to pottery in her studio at the school in Gardiner. Christina Shepersky of Coos Bay works in the pottery studio at the Oregon Coast School of Art.

On a trip to Oregon to visit Emily’s father, Matt and Emily spotted the then-abandoned W.F. Jewett Middle School, named after a former mill manager. Matt was captivated by the building itself. She noted the “for sale” sign.

“We both notice different things—that’s one of our strengths, and that makes us stronger together,” she said.

Shortly after, they were touring the potential-laden place, and the listing agent asked if they had any experience renovating old buildings. “I realized, oh my goodness, we have experience,” Free Wilson said.

The Wilsons put their Montana art center on the market and even asked friends for help with the $475,000 price tag—and then moved west just in time for the pandemic. She also was pregnant with her second child at the time.

“It was a mixture of ‘this is really hard’ and ‘we have no choice,’” she said. “Our future sort of shifted once we found this building.”

Free Wilson believes art can help shape the future along the stunning estuarine stretch of the Umpqua near unincorporated Gardiner—population 278—and neighboring Reedsport.

Gardiner has been home for decades to another magnet for art-appreciating U.S. Highway 101 travelers: Tsunami Gallery, with 2,400 square feet in a circa-1907 former mercantile displaying the work of local painters, porcelain-makers and a bronze statuary.

Tsunami owner and sculptor Mack Holman said the town is still recovering from the 2010 closure of the mill and local poverty makes it tough for people to think much about arts and lifestyle. He’s watching and waiting to see if the new art school on the hill convinces more people to tap the brakes.

“It will be very nice if something positive could happen for Gardiner,” he said.

Insofar as welcoming artists to temporarily stay, the school’s residency program joins a smattering of other opportunities across Oregon, from Summer Lake in the outback to Cascade Head near Lincoln City to Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation.

The Oregon Coast School of Art isn’t able to offer free room and board to artists yet, but that’s the long-term goal, Free Wilson said, still inspired to make it easier for those of lesser means to create.

And yes, she laughed, it does seem like she’s still running, after all these years.

“It has taken a lot of time, and wonderful and talented and smart people to pull this off. We feel like we are just finally getting our stride.”

MORE ONLINE

Learn more about Oregon Coast School of Art classes and events at www.oregoncoastschoolofart.org

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Aubrie LeGault

Fall Bounty 60

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For Oregon’s freshest eats & experiences, check out these farm stands, markets, farm dinners & orchards around the state written by Jean Chen Smith

At Central Oregon’s Rainshadow Organics, longtable dinners showcase the farm’s seasonal produce. (photo: 29NRTH/Rainshadow Organics)

When I think of fall, cooler temperatures, vibrant leaves and shorter days come to mind.

Delicious slivers of pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes topped with butter, savory Brussels sprouts and winter squash are not far behind.

It is a time when farmers share their harvest with the community.

In Oregon, we have no shortage of small, local farms to provide all the produce we need to head into our kitchens and create. Here are some of our favorite orchards, farm stands, markets and farm dinners around the state to hit this season. I know I will be visiting some of these bountiful gems—hope to see you there!

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Northern Willamette Valley The Portland State University Farmers Market, located on the campus, is open year-round every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Featuring more than 100 vendors, it is one of the biggest markets in the state. With plenty of food offerings, flowers, local produce, fresh pastries and handcrafted gifts, it is one market not to miss. Although a smaller-scale offering, King Farmers Market, located in Northeast Portland, is held on Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., May 5 through November 24. It features more than thirty vendors highlighting organic farmers such as Groundwork Organics and The Berry Patch. | www.portlandfarmersmarket.org/psu, www.portlandfarmersmarket.org/king Located in Canby, just south of Portland, family-owned TMK Creamery and Distillery offers unique, singlecow cheeses along with its very own Cowcohol sipping vodka, using leftover whey from cheesemaking. The creamery holds tours in addition to hosting events. The TMK food truck is open on the weekends and sells tacos, nachos and other grab-and-go meals. Liepold Farms is another family-run establishment.

Situated in Boring, it offers yearround fruits and vegetables and hosts its annual Fall Festival Farm Stand, selling pumpkins, gourds and squash. Make sure to pick up a jar or two of the homemade organic fruit spreads, which pair well with bread and crackers. | www.tmkcreamery. com, www.liepoldfarms.com

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Farms abound on Sauvie Island, which spans 24,000 acres, resting between Multnomah and Columbia counties. Just a short 10-mile drive from downtown Portland, it is home to the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area, where visitors can spot bald eagles, cranes and blue herons. Stop by The Pumpkin Patch, which has both u-pick and pre-picked strawberries. There is a cow train for kids to ride, an 8-acre corn maze and a small gift shop.

Stop by the Patio Cafe and grab some lunch.

Right up the road is Bella Organic, a family farm offering organic produce, wine and cider tastings and fun activities for kids.

In the fall, the farm hosts its popular haunted corn maze, which is a big draw for those seeking a thrill. | www.thepumpkinpatch.com, www. bellaorganic.com In early September, Alloro Vineyard hosts a seven-course dinner and wine pairing featuring fresh ingredients from its garden and local farms. The Whole Farm Dinner is a celebration of owner David Nemarnik’s Italian and Croatian heritage and the beginning of the harvest season. Executive chef Chris Smith, formerly of JORY at The Allison Inn & Spa, prepares a feast of mouth-watering lamb humanely raised on the farm with delectable vegetables, paired back to Alloro’s highly regarded pinot noir and chardonnay. | www.alloro vineyard.com

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The Corvallis Farmers Market is a bustling hub of activity. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, from April through November (from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.), vendors from all over the Willamette Valley gather to sell fresh fruit, vegetables, humanely raised meats, dairy and fresh-baked breads. Midweek, you are apt to find about twenty to thirty vendors lining First Street and up to seventy on Saturdays. My favorite stops here are Brandywine Fisheries for its fresh seafood and Gathering Together Farm for its freshly baked rosemary bread.

Do not miss Boones Ferry Berry Farms for its berries, cherries, figs and grapes. | www.locallygrown.org

E.Z. Orchards, a family-owned and managed farm in Salem, is worth a visit because it offers something for everyone. The market features its famous fresh donuts in a variety of fruit flavors: strawberry, cherry, lemon, blueberry and raspberry.

Shelves are stocked with fruit spreads, cider and fresh fruits and vegetables. The Shortcake Stand

Photo: Visit Corvallis

Find tasty cheeses and Cowcohol vodka, made from leftover whey from the cheesemaking process, at TMK Creamery and Distillery in Canby. (photo: mthoodterritory.com)

Mid Willamette Valley

Located at the southern tip of the Willamette Valley, Eugene’s Saturday Market is considered one of the oldest markets in the United States Open every Saturday through November 2, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the lively open-air market boasts local produce, meats, artisans and an impressive food court selling Haitian, Mexican and Thai food, along with pizza and smoothies. Stroll

through the aisles and explore the booths while enjoying live music and entertainment. | www.eugene saturdaymarket.org All across the Willamette Valley, Field & Vine Events partners with local wineries to host farm dinners amid vineyards and bucolic fields. The seven-course meal is served family-style, and guests are treated to a curated selection of locally sourced ingredients and responsibly raised meats.

The events run throughout the year, with early spring and winter dinners held indoors. One of my favorites is hosted by St Josef’s Winery in late August. Located in Canby, just thirty minutes outside of Portland, it’s a great setting for a date night or anniversary celebration. | www.fieldandvineevents.com

Enjoy multi-course meals in idyllic settings at Field & Vine farm dinners. (photo: Bridgette Carpenter/Field & Vine Events)

Southern Oregon For more than 100 years, Valley View Orchard, formerly Wagner Orchards, has been offering thirty fruit varieties, including cherries, apples, pears and peaches. Certified organic, its season runs from June through September, and you can choose to u-pick or purchase from the farm stand. Get a jar of Valley View Orchard honey, which adds a touch of sweetness to teas and steel cut oats. | www. valleyvieworchardorganics.com Ashland’s Tuesday Market is located at ScienceWorks Hands-on Museum at 1500 E. Main Street and runs March 5 through November 26 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The Saturday Market is held 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 4 through October 26 in downtown Ashland.

The vibrant markets are host to numerous vendors selling handmade crafts, artisanal food and local produce. It is a great place to spend the morning, whether you are picking something up for yourself or as a gift. | www.rvgrowersmarket. com/pages/ashlandtues

Photo: Lindsey Bolling Photography/Travel Ashland

serves a fluffy homemade biscuit with ice cream and fruit topping— a delicious treat.

Visitors from near and far come for the annual HarvestFest, where you will find a pumpkin patch, a petting zoo, hayrides and a corn maze. Admission starts at $4 per person for weekdays and $10 on weekends. | www.ezorchards.com

For Janelle Maricle (pictured) and her husband, Frank, running Well Rooted Farms is a family affair. (photo: Steffany Cooley/Well Rooted Farms)

Central Oregon There is no shortage of offerings in this part of the state. Head to the popular Bend Farmers Market, held on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through October 9. Expect to find seasonal fruits, vegetables and locally raised meats. Another superb option is the NorthWest Crossing Saturday Farmers Market, which is located near The Grove food hall. The market is open every Saturday in the summer, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., providing a selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh eggs, handmade crafts and flowers. | www.bendfarmersmarket.com Well Rooted Farms, also located in Bend, practices sustainable and regenerative farming. Although owners Frank and Janelle Maricle are first-generation farmers, they

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have spent their lives around agriculture and are passionate about sharing their knowledge with others. Well Rooted is a veggie and pumpkin u-pick when in season, and it also offers high-quality, humanely raised meat through its farm club or local pickup at two farm stand locations: Redmond and Tumalo. In October, Well Rooted hosts a fall festival with plenty of fun activities for the kids and, of course, pumpkin picking. | www.wellrootedfarms.co Another popular market is in the town of Sisters, about a twentyfive minute drive from Bend. At the Sisters Farmers Market, held 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sundays from June through October in Fir Street Park, you can expect to find seasonal produce, meats, seafood,

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Find a great selection of local eats and produce at the Bend Farmers Market in downtown. (photo: Rich Bacon/Visit Bend)

Photo: Erica Swantek/Rainshadow Organics

scrumptious pastries, eggs, freshcut flowers and mushrooms. Make sure to stop by the Dan’s Smoked Salmon booth for honey smoked steelhead; they also offer a delicious salmon spread, which is tasty on crackers and sourdough bread. Not Bread has some tempting gluten-free options, and Royal Juice Company offers organic juices and homeopathic extracts. | www.sistersfarmersmarket.com

Visit Rainshadow Organics, a thriving 200-acre farm near Sisters featuring a wide assortment of organic vegetables, herbs, meats, eggs and grains. Family-owned and operated since the 1970s, the farm is a supplier to many of the area’s restaurants and grocery stores.

While there, visit the farm store and stock up on quality meats and pantry items. I love purchasing the mixed salad blends, which seem to stay fresh for a long time.

Treat yourself and your significant other to one of their hosted longtable dinners. It is a thoughtfully curated four-course meal using ingredients harvested from the farm with beautiful Central Oregon views as the backdrop. Dinners are held year-round, and tickets need to be purchased in advance. | www. rainshadoworganics.com

Eastern Oregon The Vale Farmers and Crafters Market is located at Hot Springs Trading Post in Eastern Oregon.

Held every Saturday starting late June through October, the market is run by local farmers and crafters selling fresh produce, eggs and meat, along with arts and crafts. | Vale Farmers and Crafters Association on Facebook La Grande Farmers Market is held May through October on Tuesdays from 3 to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon at Max Square in the downtown area. Boasting fifty or more vendors, the buzzing market is full of local produce, prepared food booths and artisans. Listen to live music as you meander the rows of seasonal fruits and

The La Grande Farmers Market in downtown runs through October. (photo: Union County Chamber of Commerce)

vegetables. It also has many family-friendly events. On September 21, the Salsa Festival will feature a competition for the best salsa, along with live entertainment. The market’s biggest draw is its annual Fall Harvest Festival, which takes place October 19 and features kids’ games, face painting and a corn maze. | www.lagrandefarmersmarket.org This year’s Grant County Farmers Market opened at a new location—The Pit Stop in John Day. The market runs 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and continues every Saturday until October, offering produce, prepared food and pastries, along with local handicrafts, jewelry and art. | Grant County Farmers Market on Facebook

Across Oregon, salmon restoration projects home in on more than just habitat written and photographed by Daniel O’Neil

Finding New Current 66 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Finn Rock Reach, along the McKenzie River, now provides expanded salmon habitat and benefits for human communities.

almon and steelhead have lived in Oregon for long enough that no one can really say for how long. Millions of years—leave it at that. Today, scientists are looking instead at how much time remains before the consequences of the past two industrial centuries catch up and extinction sets the hook. Fortunately, salmon advocates are working statewide to restore habitat, species and human-benefitting ecosystems, as determinedly as a coho making its way upstream to spawn.

Logging, commercial fishing, dams, development, pollution and now climate change have contributed individually and collectively to the decline of salmon in Oregon, and they continue to do so. (“Salmon” here includes steelhead.) In the 1990s, wild salmon runs across Oregon and the West Coast landed on the federal Endangered Species Act list. Some salmon species have already disappeared from Oregon waters. Today, the great majority of salmon returning to Oregon rivers and streams are of hatchery origin—90 percent, for example, in the Willamette River basin—which makes wild fish restoration a priority.

Oregon’s salmon spend most of their lives in the Pacific Ocean, where climatefueled warming creates an increasingly less hospitable environment for these fish. While the ocean proves challenging to fix, freshwater habitat provides abundant opportunities for humans to help wild salmon. The following four examples of salmon restoration projects offer a glimpse of what can, and must, be done to make sure future generations of Oregonians witness wild salmon spawning here as they have for countless millennia, the sign of a healthy state.

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FROM LEFT An excavator begins removal of an old culvert in Tillamook County before building an engineered river ford that will allow emergency access without impeding fish passage.

Trout Unlimited’s Emmah Johannes (left) and Jacob Jesionek place a net to safely remove juvenile fish before excavators remove a culvert near Tillamook.

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illamook County funnels a lot of rain off the Coast Range. No wonder, then, that the area is full of tunnel-like road culverts.

Culverts, especially when undersized, make upstream and downstream migration difficult or impossible for salmon.

Besides channeling streams away from important wetland areas, during storms they act as velocity barriers, and their outflow can dig into the earth to create artificial falls that even salmon can’t leap.

Replacing culverts, and other obstacles like tide gates, with bridges or large box-like cement culverts widens the stream bed and allows the waterway and surrounding habitat to function naturally. But that’s expensive. So, for the past ten years, the Salmon SuperHwy—a partnership between county, state and federal government agencies and local nonprofits—has worked as one to replace culverts and replant riparian zones along 130 miles of salmon habitat in the Tillamook and Nestucca watersheds.

These improvements don’t just benefit salmon. During heavy rain events, culverts can lead to flooding and

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washed-out roads. “We’re opening up those culverts, but we’re also improving the road system,” said Salmon SuperHwy program director Liz Ransom, who works for Trout Unlimited, a nonprofit. “A lot of these rural lifelines are at risk of failure with very old culverts. We’re trying to uplift the economy as well by bringing in dollars and making road improvements in places that wouldn’t otherwise be improved until there was an emergency.”

Tillamook County typically doesn’t have the budget to replace culverts until they’ve failed. Chris Laity, the county’s engineer and director of public works, appreciates the Salmon SuperHwy’s overlapping benefits. “It’s the interconnection of human and non-human, because the road is an overcrossing structure for the stream, which is a highway for the fish,” he said. “Where the two align, that’s where the biggest bang for the buck is—this is where the county needs it, and this is where the fish need it. Our partners compromise, and we compromise, to get the best for the community, including fish.”

As Salmon SuperHwy partners, Trout Unlimited manages most of Tillamook County’s fish passage projects.

Other agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also step in to help with aspects like project design, permitting and grant writing, which requires fish biology expertise and familiarity with federal agency red tape. As with a good salmon run, strength comes in numbers.

“One of the reasons the Salmon SuperHwy effort got started was a combination of really great fish restoration potential, but also motivated partners at the local scale,” said Leah Tai, a hydrologist with the USFWS in Oregon. “Its success is a tribute to the trust and confidence that all these partners have developed working together for a decade.

They can call each other up on a whim and say, hey, we’ve got this thing going on, or we got that funding, or we have this issue, and immediately start working together on it.”

Within weeks of finishing projects in late summer, salmon have been seen in the newly reopened habitat. As the Salmon SuperHwy nears its goal of restoring 180 miles of historical habitat, the partners are already sharing their knowledge and experience with other counties in Oregon, providing a road map for collaborative restoration that transcends boundaries and species.

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t first glance, only the Holiday Farm Fire of 2020 seems to have affected Finn Rock Reach, about 40 miles east of Eugene. But as recently as 2023, the McKenzie River here rushed past a vast expanse it once roamed. In the last century, Finn Rock Reach had been converted from floodplain to a small side channel, some wooded uplands and a former gravel pit turned bass fishing pond—not an ideal home for salmon.

Intent on restoring salmon habitat, the McKenzie River Trust purchased Finn Rock Reach from a local timber company in 2017. The initial plan was to place some large woody debris in the side channel and replace invasive plants with native species. But scientists with the Willamette National Forest had already successfully applied a new approach, called “restoration to Stage Zero,” to nearby floodplains in the McKenzie River basin, and they wanted to help at Finn Rock Reach.

“The Forest Service steered us in a bigger direction,” said Eli Tome, director of conservation for the McKenzie SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

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FROM TOP

River Trust. “They asked us to think outside of that channel and look at the whole floodplain, to think about what this area would have looked like 600 years ago.”

Restoration to a Stage Zero condition seeks to reconnect a river to its whole valley following centuries of disconnection through land and river management. “These are considered process-based restoration projects, so the ultimate goal is to reset connectivity across the valley and allow natural processes to play out,” said Kate Meyer, a fisheries biologist and the McKenzie River Partnership Restoration Specialist for the Willamette National Forest.

“The idea is that the river is best at recreating habitat for the fish and wildlife that have evolved under those conditions. We’re just giving the river back to its valley.”

Using lidar technology to read the ground, project designers were able to identify former channels that hadn’t been connected to the river in decades. Excavators revitalized these channels and constructed log jams, and crews put nearly a quarter-million native plants in the soil. Levees were breached, and the McKenzie regained 150 acres of valuable floodplain, new high-quality habitat for ESA-listed spring chinook salmon, bull trout and northwestern pond turtles.

Benefits also extend to human communities. Before any restoration work began, wildfire, suppressed for over a century, revisited the area in 2020, burning over 173,000 acres. Now, the recently completed Finn Rock Reach project offers buffers against future fires by raising humidity levels, providing natural fire breaks and habitat refugia for wildlife and filtering post-fire sediment that enters the McKenzie River, Eugene’s sole source of drinking water.

As challenges like wildfire intensify, salmon restoration projects must follow suit. “If we’re going to ensure that the next generation has salmon, we need to be doing big, bold projects like at Finn Rock,” Tome said. “The salmon do come back, they do use it. And it has all these other benefits that we’re still learning about. We’re to the point now where salmon are declining, and the climate is changing, so fast that we can’t do tiny, Band-Aid projects anymore.”

The McKenzie River Trust, USFS and other partners have a goal of restoring more than 1,700 acres of the middle McKenzie Valley over the next ten years. These projects strengthen both human and non-human communities, but salmon remain the focus.

“Salmon are a keystone species within an ecosystem, and if we lose keystone species, we’re going to see a major shutdown of all these ecosystem services that humans depend on,” Meyer said. “Partners in the McKenzie feel so motivated to implement these projects because salmon will run out of time if we don’t do something big and make some drastic changes. But it’s not too late. They’re not extinct, and we have a responsibility to ensure that this doesn’t happen.”

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John Trimble, restoration projects manager for the McKenzie River Trust, stands in the newly restored Finn Rock Reach.

Log jams create prime spawning and rearing habitat, like here in a side channel at Finn Rock Reach.

The Lostine River offers excellent salmon habitat high in the Wallowa Mountains, as long as there are still fish to get there.

“If we’re going to ensure that the next generation has salmon, we need to be doing big, bold projects like at Finn Rock. The salmon do come back, they do use it. And it has all these other benefits that we’re still learning about.

We’re to the point now where salmon are declining, and the climate is changing, so fast that we can’t do tiny, Band-Aid projects anymore.”

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wo centuries ago, and for millennia before, the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce Tribe camped beside Wallowa Lake to catch some of the 30,000 or so sockeye salmon that returned here each year. One century ago, dams and misguided hatchery programs condemned those fish to extinction. By the 1960s, other impacts, including the Lower Snake River dams, forced all Snake River basin, and therefore Wallowa County, coho out of existence. By the early 1990s, spring chinook on Wallowa rivers like the Imnaha and Lostine faced a similar fate.

Jim Harbeck recalls seeing the Lostine River dry as a gravel bar in summer as farmers and ranchers drew water for crops. Harbeck had just begun working in the Nez Perce Tribe’s Department of Fisheries Resources Management, where today he is supervisor of the department’s Joseph field office. He and the Nez Perce Tribe, and partners including nearby tribes and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, now work nonstop to save wild spring chinook from extinction across Wallowa County.

— Eli Tome, McKenzie River Trust director of conservation

“With the Endangered Species Act listing of spring chinook here in 1992, there was momentum in society, like, ‘Hey, we need to do something,’” Harbeck said. The Nez Perce Tribe set up its Joseph field office the following year, motivated by more than pure science. The tribe’s origin stories tell of salmon’s self-sacrifice when humans first arrived on Earth, hence their commitment.

Soon, Harbeck and others were netting 500 chinook parr (juvenile salmon) each year in the Lostine, raising them in captivity, spawning them and releasing their offspring back into the river. “We did that for eight years, and slowly the numbers started to return to the Lostine,” Harbeck said. “It was a pretty drastic measure, not the preferred way of doing things, but we didn’t have any choice. There were not enough adults coming back for a conventional program.”

The effort boosted adult Lostine spring chinook numbers from a few dozen wild fish to a yearly average of about a thousand. Today, a collaborative, conventional hatchery supplementation program supports spring chinook on the Lostine and Imnaha rivers. In good years, tribal members SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

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FROM LEFT At the Imnaha River fish weir, ODFW and Nez Perce fisheries technicians work diligently to measure and document spring chinook salmon and return them to water quickly. Here, an Imnaha River spring chinook salmon heads for a tanker truck, to be sent either to the hatchery or back downriver for tribal members to possibly catch.

Sarah Barnes, a research biologist with the Nez Perce Tribe, monitors food web and habitat conditions for sockeye restoration in Wallowa Lake, aboard a boat bearing the tribe’s word for sockeye.

In Wallowa County, a “roughened channel” helps salmon migrate upstream while still providing water for an irrigation intake, unlike the barriers it replaced.

Matt DeAngelo (center) and Ryan McQueen (left), both with the USFS Zigzag Ranger District, talk with Mark McCollister on a recently restored stretch of the Zigzag River on Mount Hood.

can once again catch and keep spring chinook, an important cultural tie.

To prevent the Lostine from drying up again, Nez Perce Fisheries has worked with partners to re-engineer irrigation diversions that resemble a series of mini dams, to mimic salmon-friendly (and irrigation-friendly) river rapids instead. Nonprofits like Trout Unlimited contract with forward-thinking landowners like Woody Wolfe, a sixthgeneration Wallowa County farmer-rancher, to lease his farm’s water rights in late summer and keep that flow in the river.

“The water lease makes sense because it’s at the time of year when it’s the most valuable to the fish, and it takes more of that water to create less of a return on my farm,” Wolfe said. “I think managing long-term for the health of your farm includes a perpetual environmental aspect to it.

And if you don’t do that, I believe you’re failing to calculate the long-term cost of not.”

In 2017, Nez Perce Fisheries and ODFW reintroduced coho to rivers in Wallowa County. The program proved successful enough that a similar effort is now underway for Wallowa Lake sockeye. Large-scale obstacles do lie in the sockeye’s way, including low, warm flows downstream on the Grande Ronde River, a fast-changing ocean environment and eight influential hydroelectric dams along the Snake and Columbia rivers, plus a smaller dam below Wallowa Lake.

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But, like the revival of spring chinook, the successful reintroduction of coho to Wallowa County offers encouragement for the sockeye program. “We’re getting enough coho back that we’re comfortable with people going ahead and harvesting those fish, which is really good,” said Kyle Bratcher, district fish biologist at ODFW’s Enterprise office. “We’ve got to keep people connected to the fish. Otherwise they’re not going to care about them anymore, and it’s going to be a lot harder to get things done.”

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ith no dams between its chilly Mount Hood headwaters and the Pacific Ocean, and a national forest safeguarding the majority of its upper watershed, the Sandy River basin is clearly one of Oregon’s enduring salmon strongholds. Abundance of salmon here is on the rise, and it’s not rare to see a coho leaping or chinook spawning. But such success has required, and continues to demand, a sustained effort.

After the felling of old-growth forest and the establishment of towns and Highway 26, and the engineered channelization following the floods of 1964, salmon hardly called the Sandy Basin home anymore. In 1998, salmon and steelhead here made the federal ESA list as threatened species. But around that same time, the removal of two dams in the Sandy River basin encouraged over a dozen

groups—nonprofits, agencies and businesses—to form the Sandy River Basin Partners in 2006.

Since then, restoring floodplain connectivity has been a major focus of the coalition’s work. Floodplains benefit fish in many ways, from creating off-channel habitat for juvenile fish to moderating high winter flows and increasing nutrient cycling. Other efforts include placing large wood structures (log jams) throughout the watershed to replicate pre-disturbance conditions.

“It took us a long time to degrade the Sandy basin, and it’s going to take a lot of money and time to get that habitat back,” said Mark McCollister, habitat restoration director for The Freshwater Trust. “But we are certainly making significant progress. We’re consistently creating the desired habitat types, and the fish are responding very positively.

We can directly show Sandy salmon and steelhead numbers increasing in response not only to the dams coming out, but also in response to the restoration work we’re doing.”

Between 2010 and 2021, ODFW recorded a threefold increase in adult coho returning to the Salmon River, a major tributary to the Sandy that the agency considers a wild fish sanctuary (no fishing allowed). Spring chinook and steelhead have more than doubled on the aptly named Salmon, and juveniles here and elsewhere in the watershed have multiplied as well.

Working in collaboration, the partners are able to leverage funding and expertise. State and federal taxpayer dollars,

Portland General Electric ratepayer dollars and Oregon Lottery dollars have covered most of the $13 million price tag so far.

“We’re effectively spending the investments that the public is making in this work,” McCollister said. “This is not something that’s going to go on forever. With adequate funding, we can complete all the actions in the upper Sandy in the next ten years and encourage people to do this in other watersheds.”

Much of the Sandy River basin’s critical salmon habitat lies in the Mount Hood National Forest. The USFS has mandates to manage these lands and waters for habitat restoration, which it does with salmon at the forefront. For Matt DeAngelo, district fish biologist for the Zigzag Ranger District, the work done here for salmon extends far beyond any waterways, and so does the health status of these iconic fish.

“We’re not necessarily talking about restoring habitat just for fish,” DeAngelo said. “We’re talking about restoring river processes for things like having plenty of groundwater to feed our streams in the summer, spreading it out across the floodplains to reduce peak flows during winter flood events, having healthy riparian zones that can act as natural fire breaks and making sure that we have clean drinking water.

“Salmon are a really important indicator of a much broader system that needs a lot of help. It’s not just about saving a single species. That’s super important, but we all benefit from this work.”

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Westside Road, oil on canvas

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REVELING IN RURAL OREGON written by Kerry Newberry FROM CLARE CARVER’S studio in the Willamette Valley, you can see—and hear—a chorus of free-range hens clucking, pasture-raised pigs rambling in tall grasses, the swishing tails of sturdy draft horses and a melodic hum from stacks of colorful beehives. The painter lives on a 130-year-old homestead, where she finds endless inspiration from the cast of characters she and her husband share 70 acres with in Yamhill County.

Carver studied on the East Coast at Tyler School of Art and has exhibited throughout the Bay Area, the Northwest and Australia. She’s traveled extensively in Europe, Africa and Asia, but most of her work captures the quiet beauty of rural landscapes and sliceof-life scenes on a working farm in Oregon.

In addition to her oil paintings, Carver hand-draws heartfelt labels for Big Table Farm, the winery she runs with her winemaker husband, Brian Marcy. The labels alone are works of art—each one is made by hand using a letterpress and thick printmaking paper, and then hand cut and applied to bottles of pinot noir, chardonnay or syrah. Some standouts star farm animals from playful pigs to graceful portraits of chickens and bees.

You can experience this magical farm during one of the couple’s rare seasonal wine events. Or book a tasting at their atelier in downtown Carlton where you can taste wine and see Carver’s art. For more of Carver’s paintings and farm life behind the scenes, visit www.clarecarver.com.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Clare Carver paints the beauty of country life from an art studio on the working farm she and her husband, Brian Marcy, share in Yamhill County.

Beauty and Shards, oil on board Chicken on Teal, oil on block

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Looking for Softness, oil on board

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In addition to her oil paintings, Carver hand-draws labels for Big Table Farm, the winery she runs with her husband.

Many of the labels feature animated sketches of their farm animals, from laughing pigs to strutting chickens.

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West Vineyard, oil on board

Spring Sky Over Yamhill, oil on canvas

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ADVENTURE 86 LODGING 90 TRIP PLANNER 92 NORTHWEST DESTINATION 98

pg. 86 Plan a romantic getaway by the water, including on the Oregon Coast.

Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa

TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT 82

Fall for Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

The crowds have vanished.

Come clear your head and reawaken your senses (and your sense of adventure).

OlympicPeninsula.org

travel spotlight

Ing “Doc” Hay plied his trade as an Eastern medicine doctor here at what is now Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site.

An Oregon Time Capsule A glimpse of life as a frontier Chinese immigrant and of Eastern medicine written by Joni Kabana

Oregon State Parks

WHEN GEORGE HAZELTINE built a stagecoach stop along the Dalles-Canyon City wagon road in 1865, little did he know it would become a time capsule enabling visitors to get a glimpse of what life might have been like for Chinese immigrants as well as the local population of John Day from days long past.

Serving both Chinese and American residents, Kam Wah Chung was once a bustling apothecary and business center boasting a general store, an herb room, a medical room, a couple of bedrooms and a kitchen/bunk room for Chinese migrant workers. While its primary purpose was to support the Chinese population with healing, religious and community activities, the building also became a sanctuary for ailment woes of area ranchers, many of them opting for Chinese practices over American procedures.

Today Kam Wah Chung is a sensory time capsule depicting 500 intact medicinal herbs as well as numerous Chinese artifacts. When practitioners Ing “Doc” Hay and Lung On combined healing and business services in 1888, they experienced a sustained demand for their offerings so great that their business operated over a sixty-year span.

After On died in 1940 and Hay died in 1952, the building was deeded to the town of John Day to continue functioning as a museum. Boarded up and forgotten for many years, workers in 1967 who were surveying a location for a new city park were astonished to find a scene so undisturbed that there was still food in the kitchen and herbs laid out on Hay’s apothecary table.

Designated a National Historic Landmark in 2005, the building is open to a maximum of eight people for forty-fiveminute tours inside and also via a virtual experience. Access to the building is only offered to those who have attended the guided tour.

See current hours of operation and more information at www.bit.ly/kamwahchung. You can also watch an Emmynominated documentary on the site at www.pbs.org/video/ oregon-experience-kam-wah-chung.

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Remember the last time your family visited the forest? It’s a place of wonder and imagination for the whole family—where stories come to life. And it’s closer than you think. Sounds like it’s time to plan your next visit. Make the forest part of your story today at a local park near you or find one at DiscoverTheForest.org.

Refined.

Experience Eugene's Charm with a Romantic Escape in the heart of the historic 5th Street Public Market.

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he Gordon Hotel and Inn at the 5th offer a romantic escape nestled in Eugene’s vibrant 5th Street Public Market. Explore an eclectic mix of boutiques, cafes and tasting rooms, or indulge in wellness at the

yoga studio or day spa just steps away.

Complimentary cruiser bikes allow you to explore the city, while spirited social spots and lush green spaces provide the perfect backdrop for relaxation and connection.

WWW.INNAT5TH.COM

Vibrant.

Art enthusiasts enjoy nearby venues like the Hult Center for Performing Arts and McDonald Theater, while sports fans can catch games at Autzen Stadium or Matthew Knight Arena.

WWW.THEGORDONHOTEL.COM

Whether you’re savoring gourmet meals, shopping charming boutiques or simply unwinding, each visit promises a unique and unforgettable getaway.

adventure

Plan a kayaking outing with the help of the adventure coaches at Headlands Lodge.

Wanderlust and Love Romantic escapes on the water and off the grid written by Cathy Carroll

THE SPRAY off a waterfall, the rush of a salty ocean wave, the lapping of a meandering river, the placid surface of a mountain lake—they woo us, beckon us, seduce us. Whether you plunge in, paddle in or perambulate by them, they heighten our senses, soothe us and provide the perfect setting for relaxing, romantic fun. They abound. Here are a select few.

NETARTS + PACIFIC CITY

Waves Kayaking through mellow Netarts Bay between Cape Meares and Cape Lookout, connect with your partner as you take some lessons in play and relaxation from seals and sea lions lounging in pristine surroundings. Fully exhale as pelicans, great blue herons and bald eagles soar overhead, and western snowy plovers—palm-sized, sand-colored puffs—skitter on the shore.

Songbirds serenade, and cormorants perch on rocks, spreading their great black wings out to dry.

Follow suit, warming your own wings beside a bonfire on the beach in Pacific City with a gorgeous hunk—of rock, that is, the off-shore sea stack called Haystack

Rock. As the sun slips below the watery horizon, keep each other warm under a blanket of stars in the dark sky.

Tap into the ease of the adventure coaches at Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa who’ll build a bonfire for you and set you up with chairs, gourmet s’mores, a bottle of Oregon pinot noir and two Pendleton robes. Head back to your room, and the lodge team will return to clean up and extinguish the fire.

In the morning, sip coffee on the beach, and as the ocean retreats, explore the tide pools at the base of Cape Kiwanda. Discover purple rock crab, prehistoric sculpin and ochre sea stars forming a colorful marine-life quilt along the rocks.

Slough it all off at the spa with a land-and-sea salt full-body scrub.

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adventure

Photos: Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa

Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa in Pacific City is a restorative coastal retreat.

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Sahalie Falls on the McKenzie River plunges 100 feet in a dramatic (and romantic) display.

MCKENZIE RIVER

Waterfalls Seeking positive vibes with your partner? Look no further than an Oregon waterfall. Extensive research has revealed that the pounding water breaks apart air molecules, releasing invigorating ions, instantly boosting focus. What better way to engage more deeply with your love interest?

Sahalie Falls, along the McKenzie River in the Cascade Mountains, is one of many across the state that let you easily reap these benefits. A viewing platform puts you within 100 feet of the massive tumble of whitewater, plunging 100 feet over a natural lava dam. The spot is wheelchair accessible and about a half-minute stroll from the parking lot.

Meander a 2.6-mile loop trail from Sahalie to Koosah Falls, which drops about 70 feet into a deep, mesmerizing pool, whisking away all cares except those you have for the person beside you. Continue on the McKenzie River National Recreation Trail in old-growth forest. Pause as you cross a few bridges about 2 miles to Tamolitch Blue Pool, where the river emerges up from the ground in a sapphire mirror of water. The U.S. Forest Service’s eleven clearly marked trailheads offer access from Highway 126.

Settle in nearby at Loloma Lodge in McKenzie Bridge at one of four riverfront cabins, with floor-toceiling window views of the McKenzie River. Curl up beside the wood-burning fireplace on radiant-heated stone floors, and head to bed where the sound of the rushing river is the only streaming music you’ll need.

Loloma Lodge

Melanie Griffin/Eugene, Cascades & Coast

adventure

One of four riverfront cabins part of Loloma Lodge in McKenzie Bridge.

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Visit Central Oregon

adventure

DESCHUTES NATIONAL FOREST NEAR SISTERS

Suttle Lake At Suttle Lake, encircled by ponderosa pine and yellow, orange and red autumn vine maple near Sisters, it may seem that glacial ice carved it out about 25,000 years ago just to melt your heart. Clear and calm, it beckons visitors to explore it by paddleboard or kayak, or circumnavigate it on the 3.5-mile, mostly flat trail on foot or by mountain bike through the Deschutes National Forest.

Sleep right at the edge of the mile-and-a-half-long lake in rustic, vintage comfort at The Suttle Lodge or in one of the cabins, all with a nostalgic aesthetic seemingly stolen from the frames of the Wes Anderson romantic comedy Moonrise Kingdom. At the lodge’s Skip Bar, sip a “Where’s Waldo?” of bourbon and marionberry shrub to pleasingly evoke the kind of love affair that’s not limited to only smart, sensitive teenagers.

Keep it cozy and prepare dinner on the Traeger grill on your cabin porch or have a casual dinner at the lodge before an evening of stargazing and listening to the fall wind in the pines.

The Suttle Lodge & Boathouse

The Suttle Lodge sits in an idyllic setting in the Deschutes National Forest and on the bank of Suttle Lake.

Suttle Lake by paddleboard at dawn or dusk is a fantastic getaway.

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ROOMS

Aubrie LeGault/Grange Estate

Each of the nine rooms embraces modern farmhouse vibes with bespoke antiques, artwork and furnishings sourced from local artisans like Joel Wakeman. Many rooms have fireplaces and stylish seating areas overlooking the estate vineyards. You’ll also find luxe bedding, Grown Alchemist toiletries, spa bathrooms and sensational soaking tubs in the premium one-bedroom suites (the Jory and Laurelwood).

Grange Estate at Dundee Hills combines luxury in the midst of luxurious wines of the Willamette Valley.

FEATURES Catch sunset on the graceful verandah with vineyard views or unwind with yoga in the property’s compact wellness studio. Find compelling reads in the micro-library’s collection of books that cover regional storytelling and Indigenous history, meditations on work and leisure, along with texts on food, nature, foraging, gardening and homesteading. Zoom in for a shelfie of the cool wallpaper—it’s composed of family letters and correspondence from the last century.

Lodging

Grange Estate at Dundee Hills written by Kerry Newberry THE VINTAGE photographs, golden Douglas fir interiors and wall of antique farm tools (an ode to the agricultural history of the area) radiate modern farmhouse charm. But as you walk around the recently opened Grange Estate at Dundee Hills, there’s also a luxe wine country aesthetic from the open kitchen with sea-green Moroccan clay tiles to the sumptuous leather couches and backlit bookshelves.

Set in the heart of the Willamette Valley’s famed Dundee Hills, this new retreat is the sister property to the neighboring and beloved Black Walnut Inn. The nine-room property is packed with treasures that celebrate the spirit of place, from historic maps and artisan furnishings to local crafts like an eyecatching Oregon flag tapestry that was hand-woven by Kush Rugs.

You can soak up vineyard views from most windows—or settle into an Adirondack chair on the rambling veranda. Even better, you can reserve an exquisite wine-paired dinner that’s just steps away at Anthology, one of wine country’s latest culinary hubs where executive chef Chase Williams turns locally farmed and foraged ingredients into plates you dream about.

FARMHOUSE BREAKFASTS Start your morning with one of the most sublime breakfasts in wine country.

Recent options included oatmeal jazzed up with candied filberts and rum-soaked raisins and summer skillet (crispy potatoes, mushrooms, garden pesto, seasonal veggies, sunny-side up eggs). On the sweeter side, try a stack of buttermilk pancakes heaped with blackberry coulis, house-made buttermilk biscuits or sweet cream scones.

The Four Graces tasting room brings creations from James Beard Award-nominated chef Chase Williams.

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DINING AT ANTHOLOGY

Aubrie LeGault/Grange Estate

Grange Estate

9600 NE WORDEN HILL ROAD DUNDEE www.blackwalnutvineyard.com/our-neighborhood

Head next door to The Four Graces’ new tasting room for culinary magic from James Beard Award-nominated executive chef Chase Williams. In addition to daily wine tastings, there’s a reservation-only Anthology experience at the fourteenseat open kitchen overlooking the Dundee Hills. The chef’s seasonal menu resembles chapters in a book with a table of contents, culinary sketches and personal stories. Anticipate about eight wine-paired dishes from petit Dungeness crab latkes and wild mushroom soup to an umami-packed tomato confit.

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Ghost Town Hunting

In the ghost towns and wide-open spaces of Oregon’s high prairie, history comes alive written by James Sinks GHOSTS? SELINA KEPHART pondered for a moment, standing on the uneven wooden sidewalk outside her Raven’s Nest antique and gift shop in dusty, windswept Shaniko, which was minted Oregon’s first official ghost town in 1959.

“There are ghosts everyplace,” Kephart nodded.

“People lived and died here every day, and they still do.”

Oregon is scattered with some 250 ghost townsites, according to author Steve Arndt, who penned three volumes of Oregon Ghost Towns, A to Z. In most of them, there’s not much left.

Yet in Oregon’s high prairie, amid the plateaus, wheat fields and craggy canyons between the Deschutes and John Day rivers, clusters of weathered buildings still stubbornly stand. For the curious and dust-loving adventure seekers, the post-summer-heat spooky season is the perfect time to explore the abandoned places, cemeteries and vast spaces of Wasco, Wheeler, Sherman and Gilliam counties.

Long the domain of Tenino, Wasco and Wy’am tribes, north Central Oregon in the pioneer era attracted homesteaders, prospectors, railroad builders and prostitutes, and even dueling cattle and sheepherders—who shot rivals’ livestock in the so-called Oregon Range Wars in the 1890s.

Shaniko, dubbed the World Capital of Wool in 1903, is now home to thirty residents—down from 600 a century ago—along with old shops, a chapel, a jailhouse, a museum and a tiny pirate radio station that broadcasts about a mile. Its name? 99.9 FM The Ghost.

Will you find actual ghosts? That’s up to you.

Upstairs at the historic Shaniko Hotel, lights flicker and a child’s ball on the hallway carpet always seems to be in a different spot.

Local historian and onetime town recorder Debra Holbrook said she’s never seen any apparitions. “Maybe ghosts don’t like me.” But, she said, step outside when night falls, and feel how a once-bustling city is now so empty, so quiet.

“What echoes in your mind is what the place was like. It truly is the ghostlike existence of everything.”

The ghost town of Shaniko has reincarnated itself as an ice cream stopover with a bustling past.

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Joni Kabana

Amid the plateaus, wheat fields and craggy canyons between the Deschutes and John Day rivers, clusters of weathered buildings still stubbornly stand.

For the curious and dust-loving adventure seekers, the post-summer-heat spooky season is the perfect time to explore the abandoned places, cemeteries and vast spaces of Wasco, Wheeler, Sherman and Gilliam counties.

ICONIC APPAREL HISTORIC INN | DINING | SPA LIVE MUSIC | WEDDINGS | RETREATS

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Pursuing excellence through fitness 61615 Athletic Club Drive

(541) 385-3062

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Day

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James Sinks James Sinks

In scary movies, wind suggests something bad is about to happen.

Not so on the Columbia plateau, where hundreds of powergenerating wind turbines—topped by eerie red lights—hungrily await gusts, towering 400 feet above the long-ago path of the Oregon Trail.

Underneath these modern marvels is the start of Oregon’s Journey Through Time Scenic Byway, which begins as U.S. Highway 97 and parallels the former Columbia Southern Railroad, which briefly made Shaniko an economic center.

Curl through stubble to Moro, population 384, and the nationally acclaimed Sherman County Historical Museum, open by appointment. In the shadow of grain elevators and for $5, learn about wheat and wind farming, plus see tribal and newspaper printing artifacts. Nearby, prowl a pioneer cemetery, past the circa-1899 Sherman County courthouse.

In Grass Valley, population 161, peer into the bones of a soaring former Methodist Church, with a whitewashed wooden steeple and a curved ceiling where you can gaze through the rafters into the sky.

That howling in the distance? Could be phantoms. Could be race cars.

East of town, Oregon Raceway Park hosts high-octane events into November on a 2.3-mile track, smack in the middle of nowhere. Spectators can watch most days, for $10 each.

In the largely boarded-up town of Kent, population 68, there’s an Orange Crush sign swinging over the old gas station, and a cemetery, and emptiness.

Named after a developer and onetime postmaster with a challenging German name, August Scherneckau, Shaniko invites you to wander for hours through a barn full of old cars and wagons, the brick hotel and a jailhouse, and don’t miss Seven Directions ice cream parlor, which relocated after a runaway semitruck plowed into its former location in 2022.

In front of the Shaniko Sage Museum, there’s a coffin on a wagon and a piano that’s slowly losing the battle against time.

It’s the sort of place where it would be easy to run out of camera film, if that wasn’t also a historical oddity.

A half hour away down curvy Bakeoven Road, a onetime stagecoach route with a baked bread stop, the Deschutes River weaves through Maupin, population 436, where today you can buy bread but not stuff to get baked, thanks to a municipal ordinance banning marijuana sales.

For thrill-seekers, Imperial River Co. books rafting treks through mid-October. A ninety-minute “Frenzy 5 Mile” afternoon trip bounces through rapids called Disco, Devil’s Hole and Rodeo.

Happily, when you exit the river, Imperial River Co.’s restaurant will help you warm your outsides at the fire pit, and your insides with beverages. The menu is expansive.

James Sinks

DAYS GONE BY • WHITEWATER RAFTING

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Nostalgia in Kent with a crush. The Palisades at the John Day Fossil Beds Clarno Unit. A school building in Antelope, a town known for its connection with Rajneeshpuram. The ghost town of Shaniko, once a thriving sheep and wool center.

Hunting later-night revelry? Spirits (and billiards) await at Maupin’s Rainbow Tavern, an outpost of Government Camp’s Mt. Hood Brewing Company. But don’t overdo it. If something goes bump in the night, you’ll want to hear it.

Day FOSSILS • PEANUT BUTTER BACON BURGERS Look closely, and you can sometimes see antelope near Antelope, population 37. More likely, you’ll see cows.

At the former schoolhouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, you can still swing on the metal swings. Nearby under a flagpole is a plaque memorializing when the town was the epicenter of Oregon’s Rajneesh saga in the 1980s. Then, supposedly peace-loving followers of the religious guru Osho clashed with non-welcoming locals, brandished assault rifles and poisoned people. You can see more mementoes if the museum is open—although it’s usually not.

Ghost towns aren’t the only old things around here.

In the jagged canyons that make up the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, under cathedral-like promontories known as the Palisades, trace trails among fossils of prehistoric plants from millions of years ago.

Absolutely no collecting is allowed here, but in the city of Fossil, population 448, you can dig into a hillside behind the high school for fossils of ancient leaves. Collect coffee downtown at Brenda’s Blessings.

The ghost town of Mayville—originally known as Clyde—was a onetime government gathering place, and a stopover point for freight haulers. Over time, fewer people stopped. Today among the abandoned buildings is an Oddfellow’s hall that’s gone to the birds, literally. At the cemetery, tombstones tell stories that ended in the late 1880s.

Condon is as close to a metropolis as you’ll find in these frontier counties, with wide streets, a population of 716 and—sadly, temporarily shuttered—the easternmost outpost of Powell’s Books. The Gilliam County seat is also home to the definitely refurbished and maybe haunted Condon Hotel, and its Wild Sage restaurant, if you’re in town after 5.

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Day CYCLING • BRUNCH • WATERFALLS In 1908, rival tycoons raced to build railroad lines up the rocky Deschutes River Canyon, one built on each side of the river.

Despite crews sabotaging each other, the successful route reached Bend in 1911, and also began Shaniko’s slow decline, as it was no longer the closest conduit for Central Oregon products to market.

Today, the path of the loser railroad makes for a winner of a riverside bike ride, a paved 18-mile out-and-back run between Maupin and tumbling Sherar’s Falls, once the site of a toll bridge and hotel and still a Warm Springs Reservation fishing spot.

Want more mileage? The Sherar’s Falls Scenic Bikeway loops 33 miles via Maupin, with the added excitement of 1,700 feet of elevation gain. Your thighs might have a thing to say afterward.

For brunch, don’t let tiny Molly B’s Diner fool you. The unassuming place in unincorporated Tygh Valley has earned a big reputation, thanks in part to its house-made hash browns. On weekends, breakfast is served all day.

Just east of town, pick your way down a trail and peek into a masonry former powerhouse at White River Falls State Park, and cool your heels just below the multi-level falls through a basalt canyon.

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Oregon State Parks

Visitors to abandoned buildings in the high prairie have been mostly careful to leave no trace. But not at the dilapidated Cottonwood Road Homestead at milepost 27 along Oregon Highway 206, which has become a palette for graffiti art. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, you’ll need to decide what’s in yours.

After a “mountain identifier” viewpoint that confirms those are indeed mountains in the distance, the road dives into Oregon’s newest and second-largest state park, Cottonwood Canyon, an 8,000-acre former cattle ranch along the John Day River.

Stretch your legs on the 4.3-mile riverside Pinnacles Trail, look for bighorn sheep and chukars, or cast lines for steelhead and smallmouth bass into the wild and scenic waterway, the longest undammed tributary of the Columbia. Hunting is allowed in the undeveloped parts of the sprawling park.

Watch out for hungry ticks. You’ll also maybe get hungry yourself.

Happily, in nearby Wasco, population 436, is the cowgirlowned Dirty Cowgirl Saloon (one of the owners has an excavation background, hence the dirty part). Here, the laughs come easy, a neon sign says “long live cowgirls” and there’s a photo gallery of rodeo queens. There’s also brisket and a peanut butter bacon burger.

Also in town is the historic depot of the Columbia Southern Railroad, open weekends and by appointment.

Finally, loop back to Shaniko, where that ball in the hallway will be in a different place. And if you’re inclined to tell ghost stories under the stars, there’ll be about a million overhead.

Oregon State Parks

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ABOVE, FROM TOP The basalt canyon of White River Falls State Park. Oregon’s newest state park, Cottonwood Canyon State Park.

Wildfires are a frequent but unwelcome guest in Oregon’s high range and can be devastating to kindling-filled ghost towns.

This summer, a blaze blackened miles near Tygh Valley but was contained before it could devour anything historic, so you can still cruise past the abandoned Nansene Dance Hall and into the former town of Friend, where there’s a 1909 schoolhouseturned-community center and adjacent wooden outhouses.

If the school door is unlocked, leave a note or a smiley face among the many on the chalkboard.

A graveyard is just up the road. If there are ghosts, they’d seem to be more of the Friend variety.

Nearby Dufur, population 604, was once surrounded by the largest dryland apple orchards in the country. It’s still home to one of the state’s iconic hotels. Built in 1907 and opened a year later, the brick Balch Hotel is a nationally registered landmark that once served railroad travelers. When electricity came to town, it was one of the first two places to get it.

After renovations, it’s again a luxury getaway and also home to the Bistro 1907 restaurant, where farm-to-table greens, steaks and salmon arrive in the dining room or on the flowerringed patio.

It’s a fine finale to a spirited, maybe haunted adventure.

With the sun setting over the Cascades, raise a glass to old towns, and new memories, and the ghostlike existence of everything.

Meanwhile, that ball? It’s in a different spot.

GHOST TOWNS + OPEN SPACES, OREGON

Travel Oregon

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EAT Bistro 1907 www.balchhotel.com/dine Brenda’s Blessings www.facebook.com/ BrendasBlessingsInFossil Dirty Cowgirl Saloon www.thedirtycowgirl.com Grass Valley Country Market www.facebook.com/grassvalleymarket Imperial River Co. www.deschutesriver.com Molly B’s Diner 541-483-2400 Rainbow Tavern www.mthoodbrewing.com Royal Stag www.theroyalstag.com Seven Directions Ice Cream 541-420-7966 Wild Sage www.hotelcondon.com

STAY Balch Hotel www.balchhotel.com Hotel Condon www.hotelcondon.com Imperial River Co. Lodge www.deschutesriver.com Shaniko Hotel www.shanikohotel.com Wasco House www.wascohouse.biz

PLAY Cottonwood Canyon State Park www.stateparks.oregon.gov Imperial River Co. www.deschutesriver.com John Day Fossil Beds www.nps.gov/joda Oregon Raceway Park www.oregonraceway.com Raven’s Nest www.cityofshaniko.org/ravens-nest Shaniko Sage Museum/ Preservation Guild 541-965-2974 Sherar’s Falls Scenic Bikeway www.visitcentraloregon.com Sherman County Historical Museum www.shermanmuseum.org

The 1907 Balch Hotel in Dufur is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Wheeler High School fossils www.oregonpaleolandscenter.com/ wheeler-high-school-fossil-beds White River Falls State Park www.stateparks.oregon.gov

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northwest destination

Lake Chelan Wine Country Lake Chelan’s budding wine country offers a warm fall escape—along with liver-warming vintages written by James Sinks

MOUNTAIN-FED AND DEEP, the crystalline water of Washington’s glacier-gouged Lake Chelan doesn’t just influence the whims of recreation seekers that arrive to hike, float, dunk and even parasail when the mercury climbs.

Fifty miles long, a mile wide and a third of a mile deep, the ribbon of a lake also influences the weather itself: It has so much water that it is able to cool things down in summer, and in fall radiates enough heat to keep the early frost at bay.

That signature microclimate, known as the Chelan lake effect, is long renowned for making the surrounding valley one of the nation’s most prolific apple producers. And these days, it’s also helping to lend legs to an up-and-coming wine destination that’s taken root among the orchards—and where the welcome mat is rolled out when harvest season arrives.

There’s even a Lake Chelan Crush Festival come October.

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Five hours by car from Portland, Lake Chelan in autumn reliably welcomes visitors with warm days along with muscle-warming activities and liverwarming beverages, against a backdrop of colorsplashed foliage and alpine views.

You’ll find hikes, tennis resorts and horseback rides; farm stands, apple picking and the six-stop Lake Chelan Cider Trail; farm-to-table restaurants and cheese shops; and wineries with award winners and whimsy, with vintages that punch above their weight, age-wise.

The Chelan Valley American Viticultural Area is still a relative newbie in the wine world. The first local commercial vineyards were planted in the late 1990s, after a downturn in apple commodity prices. Now home to forty wineries and counting, the 24,000-acre wine region toasts its fifteenth birthday this year.

Photo: Lake Chelan Chamber of Commerce

Benson Vineyards in Lake Chelan wine county, where bounty meets terroir.

E XH I B I T O P E N S FA L L 2 0 24

Cedar and Sea

THE MARITIME CULTURE OF THE INDIGENOUS COASTAL PEOPLE OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

ON THE WATERFRONT IN DOWNTOWN ASTORIA • CRMM.ORG

northwest destination

Five hours by car from Portland, Lake Chelan in autumn reliably welcomes visitors with warm days along with muscle-warming activities and liver-warming beverages, against a backdrop of color-splashed foliage and alpine views.

When federally recognized wine regions are sought, growers need to make a case for what makes them unique—in the Chelan Valley’s case, its glacier-hewn rocky soil terroir and the season-lengthening lake effect.

“People are still discovering we have wine here,” said Judy Phelps, the co-owner with her husband, Don, and the founding winemaker of Hard Row to Hoe Vineyards, located on the north shore near the lakefront community of Manson, and whose vineyards were planted in the 2000s.

The microclimate has helped growers cultivate a kaleidoscope of varietals, both white and red, from gewürztraminer to syrah. A case in point: It’s one of the few places in Washington where you’ll find pinot noir, said Renea Roberts of the nonprofit Lake Chelan Wine Alliance.

Also, because of the lake effect, it’s not uncommon to see grapes still being harvested at Halloween, she said.

Lake Chelan is the third-deepest in the United States, behind Crater Lake and Lake Tahoe. The name comes from the Indigenous Salish term “Tsillane,” which means “deep water.”

How deep? The surface of the eastside lake sits at about 1,100 feet of elevation, which means the deepest spot—1,486 feet down—is below sea level.

At Tsillan Cellars, find award-winning reds and Italian fare at Sorrento’s Ristorante, where you can watch the sun set behind the Cascades.

At Lake Chelan Winery, the first in the region, try the bistro and in-house cheese shop. For a crisp cider flight on a crisp fall night, plant yourself on the patio of nationally known Endless Orchard. And for Neapolitan-style pizza, get lured into Siren Song Wines.

In the city of Chelan, stroll the scenic overlake Woodin Avenue bridge and then explore the charming downtown on foot, including sculptures and murals. Still have energy after a long

day? Settle into seats at Ruby Theatre, which has been screening films since 1914 and is the state’s oldest continuously operating movie house.

One personal effect of the Chelan lake effect?

You’ll probably sleep very soundly.

If you have time during your stay, don’t miss the opportunity to head to the other end of the lake, where ferry boats of varying speeds—including one named the Lady of the Lake—will float you out of cell coverage and to remote upper reaches inaccessible by car.

At the far side is the village of Stehekin, the last provisioning spot on the Pacific Crest Trail before the Canadian border and a gateway to the playgrounds of the North Cascades. Hike to Rainbow Falls, go horseback riding and grab lunch at renowned Stehekin Pastry Company (it closes for the season at the end of October).

The boat whistle will announce when it’s time to clamor back aboard. If you’re on the Lady of the Lake, it’s a four-hour trip back to civilization.

Without connectivity, people spend the time doing weird things like talking, puzzles and reading.

On that trip, you’ll pass the campy namesake of the Phelps family’s Hard Row to Hoe Vineyards.

Yes, the moniker can mean difficult tilling, in the farming sense. But also, across the lake from what was once the nation’s largest copper mine was a brothel, at the appropriately named Point Lovely. To get there, miners needed to book a trip on a rowboat taxi, on which it was a tough row to—well, you know.

“You can be serious about wine and still like to have fun,” said Phelps, a onetime pharmaceutical industry biostatistician who jokes she traded drugs for wine.

The tasting room itself is decked out in bordello-type decor. It’s also got a heck of a view, 20 acres of organic vines and lasciviously named big reds that you can only buy in-house.

Another bonus: You won’t need a rowboat to get there.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP The comely Lake Chelan is one of the deepest in the United States. Lady of the Lake ferry takes its leisurely time around the lake. Many vineyards populate the banks of Chelan, including Tsillan Cellars.

LAKE CHELAN, WASHINGTON

northwest destination

EAT Acre and Bay Eatery www.facebook.com/acreandbay Blueberry Hills Restaurant and Farm www.wildaboutberries.com Siren Song Wines Vineyard Estate and Winery www.sirensongwines.com Sorrento’s www.tsillancellars.com Stehekin Pastry Co. www.stehekinpastry.com Vin Du Lac Bistro and Tasting Room www.vindulac.com Wapato Point Cellars and Winemakers Grill www.wapatopointcellars.com

STAY Campbell’s Resort www.campbellsresort.com Harmony Meadows Tennis Resort www.harmonymeadowsresort.com Mountain View Lodge and Resort www.mvlresort.com

Lake Chelan Chamber of Commerce

Wapato Point Resort www.wapatopoint.com

PLAY Chelan Outdoor Art www.artinchelan.com/ outdoor-gallery Endless Orchard Cider www.endlessorchardcider.com Hard Row to Hoe Vineyards www.hardrow.com Lady of the Lake www.ladyofthelake.com Lake Chelan Cider Trail www.lakechelancidertrail.com Lake Chelan State Park www.parks.wa.gov Lake Chelan Wine Valley www.lakechelanwinevalley.com

Lake Chelan Chamber of Commerce

Bella Fritz Photography/Tsillan Cellars

Lake Chelan Winery & Cheese www.lakechelanwinery.com

SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Ruby Theatre www.rubytheatre.com Stehekin www.stehekin.com Stehekin Ferry www.stehekinferry.com

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1859 MAPPED

The points of interest below are culled from stories and events in this edition of 1859.

Astoria Seaside

Milton-Freewater

Cannon Beach

Hood River Portland Tillamook Gresham

Pendleton

The Dalles

Joseph La Grande

Maupin Government Camp

Pacific City Lincoln City

Baker City

Salem Newport

Madras

Albany Corvallis

Prineville Redmond

Sisters Florence

John Day Ontario

Bend

Eugene Springfield

Sunriver Burns

Oakridge Coos Bay Bandon

Roseburg

Grants Pass Brookings

Jacksonville

Paisley

Medford Ashland

Klamath Falls

Lakeview

Live

Think

Explore

26 Terminal Gravity Brewing

50 Foodi

82

Kam Wah Chung State Heritage Site

29 WildCraft Cider works

52 Bolan Mountain Lookout

86

Loloma Lodge

29 Ghost Tree Grill

54 WestSide Goat Girl LLC

90

Grange Estate at Dundee Hills

30 River’s Edge Chèvre

56 Oregon Coast School of Art

92

Shaniko

98

Lake Chelan

44 Patricia Reser Center for the Arts

102 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2024

Until Next Time Fall splendor at Koosah Falls. photo by Tyler Peterschmidt

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HOT SPRINGS • SPAS • FINE DINING • WORLD-CLASS GOLF • WELLNESS RETREATS • CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING • COASTAL LODGES

Pack your taste buds for adventure.

From Sunriver to Black Butte, Bend and beyond, the opportunity to find something different and delectable in Central Oregon is deliciously endless.

To learn more and plan your next vacation, go to visitcentraloregon.com.

Find your center

Juniper Preserve on the outskirts of Bend is a natural high desert setting with unparalleled luxury for the perfect re-grounding. (photo: Martin Sundberg/ Juniper Preserve)

Body & Mind

RETREAT GUIDE

W

orking from home has its benefits—no commute, less stress, flexibility without compromising productivity. At the same time, the home is no longer a respite from work when it’s only one room away. Work from home, but hit reset somewhere where work is a four-letter word. Leave hectic behind, and book your total recharge at the PNW resort that puts your mind at ease.

The most common human impulse is to run to water for a zen-like primal homecoming; to make headway for trails to immerse in nature, recreation and health; and to seek out spas where the mind slows and the body lets its shoulders down.

We stroll across Oregon, Washington and British Columbia to bring you some destinations where you can choose the best place for you to set your mind and body at ease.

A publication of Statehood Media

Cover: Sagecliffe Resort & Spa

www.1859oregonmagazine.com www.1889mag.com

(photo: Sagecliffe Resort & Spa)

2024 DESTINATION RESORTS

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Find Water OREGON

HEADLANDS COASTAL LODGE & SPA In an Oregon coastal town synonymous with surf and beauty, Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa overlooks it all on the sandy shores of Pacific City. At the lodge, you’ll find unmatched luxury on the Oregon Coast, a hot tub overlooking the Pacific and a restaurant that serves crab cakes, steamer clams and pan-seared halibut, to name a few dishes.

Outside of the lodge, you’ll encounter a perfect surf break, the iconic 330-foot sea stack called Haystack, award-winning beach brewery Pelican Brewing Company and miles of walkable and swimmable beaches.

Be sure to book your spa treatments ahead at Tidepools Spa. On its vast menu, you’ll find an organic kelp wrap, a ginger and hot stone massage and a sea salt scrub, among many other options. At Headlands Lodge, be as selfish as you need to reset your body and mind for the fall and winter.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

AINSWORTH HOT SPRINGS Four hours north of Spokane and adjacent to Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, Ainsworth Hot Springs Resort in British Columbia, owned by the Ktunaxa First Nations people, was recently ranked as one of Condé Nast Traveler’s best wellness retreats in the world. The air is clean and the water rejuvenating. The natural springs come up from deep in the earth and surface to cooled temperatures of 108 degrees into the 150-foot-long, horseshoe-shaped natural cave and to 96 degrees for the main pool.

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Given the nearby Selkirk range, opportunities for winter fun abounds. Both Whitewater Ski Resort and RED Mountain Resort are within a one-totwo-hour drive, respectively.

If you’re an advanced skier, Snowwater heli-skiing operates out of Nelson, just 30 miles south. In winter, nothing feels more healing than Ainsworth’s mineral-rich soaking waters after a long day skiing.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

LONG BEACH LODGE RESORT If you want the complete retreat, go big and head north.

If you were inspired by the new Olympic sport, surfing, this place is for you. In the small town of Tofino, surfing has become the raison d’être. With 35 kilometers of sandy beaches, consistent waves, surf shops and lessons, Tofino is no longer an oddball playground for beach

FROM TOP Ainsworth Hot Springs in British Columbia offers a warm soak overlooking Kootenay Lake. A room with a view of Haystack Rock at Headlands Coastal Lodge in Pacific City. (photos, from top: Destination BC/Kari Medig, Headlands Coastal Lodge & Spa)

culture. Your timing is good, because the best months for waves are in the fall.

Find yourself at Long Beach Lodge Resort, where you can take part in on-site surf lessons, rentals and an oceanfront retreat with beach yoga. You have options when it comes to dining—from the casual sandwiches and beer at The Surf Club to lemongrass noodle

salad and Cox Bay chowder at The Great Room, sitting in front of a stone fireplace and overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Add to that an outdoor hot pool and cedar sauna, and you’ll have an extraordinary experience.

If surfing sounds too wet for your sense of being, head to the nearby Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, where you’ll find many trails and stunning beauty.

YE AR - R OU N D E NJ O Y MEN T

Experience our hot springs pools, cave and Spirit Water Spa. Savour culinary specialties created by Executive Chef Cory Chapman at the Ktunaxa Grill.

ainsworthhotsprings.com

Time Here is Time Well Spent Encompassing 3,300 forested acres moments from Bend, Oregon, Sunriver Resort is the Pacific Northwest’s treasured outpost for all-season adventure. Tee off on one of our four golf courses, swim year-round at our aquatics center, and hit the slopes on nearby Mt. Bachelor.

Now is the time to make new traditions at Sunriver Resort.

Adventure is always in season. For more information visit SunriverResort.com.

Find Trails

Find a Cabin A classic. Paradise Inn at Mount Rainier is another part of the charm and adventure awaiting guests. (photo: Deby Dixon/ State of Washington Tourism)

OREGON

MEREDITH LODGING ON THE OREGON COAST Choose a modern cabin on or near the Pacific Ocean as your reset. Meredith Lodging has properties along the best spots on the Oregon Coast such as Manzanita, Cannon Beach, Pacific City, Neskowin and Netarts, to name a few.

From properties with pools to fireplaces and ocean views, find the vibe and coastal cabin that will quickly get you to your zen place, and book it through Meredith’s website.

OREGON

SUNRIVER RESORT Sunriver is a resort masquerading as a small town at the foot of the Cascades.

Oregon’s original destination resort, Sunriver is classic but always fresh. The mother of all resorts, Sunriver sits on 3,300 acres of tree-lined trails, has four golf courses, a central lodge, vacation properties to rent, a shopping village, restaurants, bars, a spa and fitness center, an observatory and a new $40 million aquatic center. There are paved trails to hike and bike in Sunriver and lovely unpaved trails along the Deschutes River and into the Deschutes National Forest. Look for ski-and-stay deals come winter, when Mt. Bachelor is covered in feet of snow.

OREGON

BLACK BUTTE RANCH Black Butte has long been a generational retreat for Pacific Northwesterners and never needed to do too much to maintain its allure. Last year, however, the 54-year-old resort unveiled a new elegant modern lodge with blonde wood finishes, three fireplaces, a restaurant, bar and gasping views of the Three Sisters peaks. In fall, hike the steep trail to the top of Black Butte. Come winter, cross-country skiing and downhill skiing are

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nearby at Hoodoo Ski Area, just 15 miles up the road.

After a day on the trails, indulge your senses in the spa at Black Butte.

A Thai foot massage or its signature body massage is well deserved.

WASHINGTON

MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK Everyone’s dream escape, Rainier is best in the fall and winter, as the crowds dissipate and the beauty of Mount Rainier comes to the fore. Fall hikes and huckleberry and mushroom picking are top choices for visits to the park that hosts Washington’s tallest peak at 14,410 feet and more than 100 hikes for all abilities. Book your rooms at the historic Paradise Inn, one of the Great Lodges of the West. It was built in 1917 and retains all of the charm from that era. Likewise, National Park Inn was built in the early 1900s, but on a smaller scale—twenty-five cozy guest rooms. One of its greatest charms is having tea next to its roaring fire in the guest library after snowshoeing or cross-country skiing.

Down the mountain, at the foot of Mount Rainier and cozied up in the woods, is Wellspring Spa. You can book a massage or private hot tub in a truly natural world, and leave the other world far behind.

WASHINGTON

FORT WORDEN HISTORICAL STATE PARK On the northeast coast of the Olympic Peninsula and the northern edge of Port Townsend, Fort Worden Historical State Park offers a world of possibilities. There are 12 miles of forested hiking trails, 2 miles of walkable beaches, 8 miles of biking trails, views of the Olympic Mountains and the Puget Sound, campsites and cabins.

History buffs will want to see the home of Rear Admiral John Lorimer Worden, commander of the first ironclad Navy warship, the USS Monitor.

Worden sailed the Monitor into a battle that would change the course of the Civil War and Naval history.

Movie buffs will recognize Fort Worden from scenes in An Officer and a Gentleman, Richard Gere’s 1982 breakout movie.

Foodies will appreciate The Guardhouse Pub, a pub setting with beer, wine and fresh salads and sandwiches; Reveille Café with its Reveille Ruben and breakfast sandwiches; or a picnic snack from Cablehouse Canteen.

Experience the Oregon Coast through a number of coastal properties of Meredith Lodging.

Celebrate Autumn and the Holidays with us Join us at Mount Rainier National Park to celebrate Autumn and the Holidays. It’s the perfect way to enjoy the vibrant colors and the crisp air of Autumn. Observe the fascinating world of mushrooms while you are hiking, sample a delightful selection of craft beer and ciders from local breweries, and capture the beauty of the season with stunning photo opportunities all around the park. Whether you’re a nature enthusiast or just looking for a fun weekend getaway, there’s something for everyone. Engage in interactive activities and learn about the diverse ecosystem of Mount Rainier.

Meet fellow nature lovers and share your love for the outdoors. Don’t miss this unique opportunity, celebrate with us at Mount Rainier National Park and make unforgettable memories!

DiscoverMountRainier.com Hotel Reservations: (855) 755-2275 PARADISE INN 52807 Paradise Road E

NATIONAL PARK INN 47009 Paradise Road E

Ashford, WA 98304 Visit our website for availability.

Dates and times for our holiday specials are available online.

MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK

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Find a Spa

Sagecliffe Resort & Spa has a number of stunning paradigms for lodging in the high desert of central Washington, including overlooking a vineyard. (photo: Sagecliffe Resort & Spa)

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OREGON

WASHINGTON

TETHEROW RESORT

SAGECLIFFE RESORT & SPA

The only destination in Bend proper, Tetherow has its advantages. Golf has been the premier attraction since Scotsman David McLay Kidd turned a sea of sagebrush into one of the country’s top courses. On this hard and fast links course, your ball may roll forever, but don’t fret as you’ll have the option to chase it down on a golfboard, or motorized surfboard designed for golf courses.

Tetherow jumps to number 57 on Golf Digest’s top courses list this year.

Tetherow also has a full spa, pool, restaurants and a bar that serves scotch eggs. Not to mention, Bend and Mt. Bachelor are at your doorstep. This retreat can be one remembered for its recreation or one fondly recalled for indulgence in creature comforts, or both.

Let yourself go in wine country in central Washington. In a truly majestic setting, Sagecliffe Resort & Spa is a luxury retreat that has a spa, fantastic lodging options, a heated outdoor pool, tennis and pickleball courts, firepits adjacent to the Sagecliff Fox & Quail Whiskey Bar and a locavore restaurant with thin-crust pizzas from the pizza oven.

The Cliffehouse suites come with soaking tubs overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.

Extravagant Desert Yurts are no less spectacular with views of the vineyard or the Columbia River Gorge and skylights to gaze into the night skies above your bed.

The full-service spa can re-center you through its many offerings, from massages to facials and body scrubs. All this in a high desert setting that itself is a postcard!

DESTINATION RESORTS 2024

Relax and reconnect at Juniper Spa at Central Oregon’s Juniper Preserve. (photo: Martin Sundberg/Juniper Preserve)

OREGON

JUNIPER PRESERVE Long known as Pronghorn and as a golf mecca in Central Oregon, the resort was rebranded as Juniper Preserve in 2022, a nod to its new ethos as a wellness retreat. The world-class courses designed

by Nicklaus and Fazio still play well, but it’s the new spa and wellness retreats that are

quickly becoming the jewel of this high desert resort. Add to that the trails and 2,900 acres, and Juniper Preserve is a world apart from the bustle of nearby downtown Bend.

This fall and winter, try upcoming retreats, while taking time to hit local breweries during fresh-hop season.

Return to Juniper Preserve’s heated pools, followed by dinner and cocktails.

There is a place

Stay and Play Packages available at BlackButteRanch.com

The components for a great romantic weekend are all here–mountain views, quiet serenity, time to reflect.

If adventures are more your style, we’re the perfect jumping off place for year round outdoor activities: ski, hike, bike, ride, swim, soak...and then head to the Spa. Enjoy a glass of wine by the fire, while you take in the panoramic mountain views. Discover all the ways to love BBR.

BLACKBUTTERANCH.COM

866.242.5532

Bill Origer

View packages at BlackButteRanch.com.

866-242-5532 BlackButteRanch.com