DISCOVER NORTHWEST
Okanogan Trails and Sherman Pass Byways The road trip had a well-researched plan. The itinerary? A five-night excursion on two of Eastern Washington’s intersecting scenic byways: Okanogan Trails and Sherman Pass. Ultimately, wildfires and COVID closures required some real time adjustments; fortuitous detours that found us admiring county fair blue-ribbon sheep, searching for sculptures by a Native metalsmith, and meandering the prettiest little drive east of the Cascades. Pateros, a recreational town at the river confluence of the Methow and the Columbia, anchors the southern terminus of Okanogan Trails Byway. The game plan was straightforward: Drive Highway 97 83 miles north to the Canadian border, following a stretch of the historic 800-mile Caribou Trail. Used by Native Americans and then for cattle drives and by miners making their way to Okanogan and Canadian mining camps, their vestiges became the trip’s waymarks. Then, reverse course and drive east on Highway 20, to Sherman Pass Byway, Washington’s highest maintained pass. It was in Pateros where we discovered artist Virgil “Smoker” Marchand’s “Memorial to the Methow” installation. His lifelike sculptures, cut from steel then shaped unheated with a sledgehammer and vice, can be seen in multiple
STATE HIGHWAY ROUTE
202 97
54
3rd Act magazine | spring 2022
A coddiwomple: “To travel in a purposeful manner toward a vague destination.” BY ANN RANDALL locations throughout the region, including the Colville Reservation where he lives. The search for another artist, the Japanese frontier photographer Frank S. Matsura, led us to the Okanogan County Historical Museum, where his collection of photos depicting life in the area, circa 1903-13, is housed. The museum was inexplicably closed, necessitating Plan B—a search for nearby Marchand sculptures, including his bighorn sheep perched above another unexpected discovery: Omak Lake. Surrounded by rolling sagebrush hills belonging to the Colville Tribe, the eight-mile body of turquoise water is Washington’s largest saline lake. By chance, our road trip coincided with the 74th Okanogan County Fair publicized by colorful posters all over town. We spent an evening wandering 4-H barns of squash displays and Nubian goats, sampling barbecue, cheering for bronco riders, and enjoying the camaraderie of a community happy to see each other after the previous year’s fair cancellation. www.3rdActMag.com
