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Spring 2009
PAUL NEWMAN
Filming ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’ Rain Coast Artist
Erik Sandgren
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On The Cover “Fern Falls,” in the Oregon Coast Range. George Vetter’s first exposure to the camera was his mother’s Brownie, which was used on special occasions to document their growing family in the 50’s and 60’s. After college, George joined the Peace Corps and the thought of spending two years in Honduras, Central America, was more than enough motivation to buy a new 35mm camera to record this important, unique chapter in his life. His first exposure to the black and white darkroom was in Honduras with another Peace Corp volunteer. Their only guidance came in the form of a book. George recalls, “It was a magic moment to see an image come to life in the chemical bath.” It wasn’t until 5 years later when he arrived in Cannon Beach and began photography lessons from Floyd Peterson that he got back into the darkroom. George was ready. He set up his own darkroom and began shooting prolifically wherever he went. George’s love of photography is coupled with his love of travel—and good partners they do make. In 2007, his travels took him from coast to coast, border to border, and through Canada and Alaska. He still likes to do his own printing. George says, “My goal is to produce the best images that creativity and technology together can provide.” This is George’s second image to appear on the cover of Northwest Coast. His work can be viewed at www.georgevetterfotoart.com
Spring 2009
38
FEATURES
DEPARTMENTS
12
33
Our Mothers, Our Heritage
by Tracy Laine
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Writers on the Edge by Carla Perry Newport is home to one of the region’s most storied literary gatherings. Every month authors of diverse types of writing are showcased as “Writers on the Edge.” Find out how this celebrated function originated by the woman who founded it.
Sometimes a Great Party
The Lincoln County Filming of a Ken Kesey Novel
by Matt Love
40
NATURE
8
Ethnobotany: Wapato
by Brian Harrison
When Paul Newman and the cast and crew of Sometimes A Great Notion descended upon the Central Oregon Coast in 1970 to film an adaptation of Ken Kesey’s classic novel, a hell-roaring summer ensued. Follow Matt Love as he researches this problem-filled but boisterous production.
23
The Last Timber Faller by Bryan Penttila For over a century-and-a-half, timber fallers have been a critical component in the timber trade. But recently mechanization has begun to replace the rugged, chainsaw-wielding men who perform this task. Explore this iconic Northwest profession and see what is driving the change.
28
Reconstructing ‘Astoria’
Architect John E. Wicks and the Centennial Celebration of 1911
by John E. Goodenberger
To commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of their city, the citizens of Astoria built a replica of the original trading post in 1911. Discover the oddly similar fate of both structures and how Astoria architect John E. Wicks helped make the Centennial Celebration memorable.
17 SPRING 2009 Northwest Coast
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44
IMBIBE
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40
49
Beer Buzz by Jim LeMonds
Trouble Brewing by Lyndsay Faye
HISTORY
44 Northwest Mystery Painter by Irene Martin
46 Canned History 63 Museum Notes:
The Clatsop County Historical Society,
Astoria, Oregon
ARTS
43 New In Print 48
“Conflict In the Lawns”
49
“The Other Part of the Miracle
by Patricia Staton
by Tricia Gates Brown
50 Painter of the Rain Coast by Erik Sandgren
54 Gallery 60 Poetry of Julia Butler Hansen 62 Odds and Ends PERSPECTIVES
50
56 Astoria Essence by Donna Quinn
64 Goings On
From the Editor It always brings me great pleasure to hear from Northwest Coast’s readers. Recently, I’ve received a couple of emails asking about the magazine’s origins, while another inquiry involved the editorial staff. Considering this issue marks Northwest Coast’s one-year anniversary, I thought it would be an appropriate opportunity to chronicle this first year and introduce the editors. As odd as it may sound, NWC was largely conceived on the tattered, vinyl seat of a bulldozer, which for two years was my levered command center as I pushed dirt and rock in the hills behind Astoria. During spare moments I’d jot random thoughts on the sheets of paper I always kept tucked in the pocket of my work shirt. From those crude scribblings evolved the outline for a magazine. It occurred to me that the greater Columbia-Pacific region was ready for a periodical with an insightful, literary edge that could capitalize on the area’s unique people, culture, and landscape. Together with my wife Jennifer and a couple of friends we devised Northwest Coast. In January 2008, Northwest Coast Publications was formed and the work of launching a new magazine begun. I contacted writers with whom I had remote connections but whose work I admired: Jim LeMonds signed on to contribute, then Irene Martin, and then Suzanne Martinson. Momentum grew as we landed a newsstand distribution contact and lined up a designer and printer. In April, the first issue of Northwest Coast was released. Long before being yoked with the title of “editors,” John Indermark, Brian Harrison, Jenelle Varila, and I were members of a writers group. They are all gifted wordsmiths, caring individuals, and long overdue for praise. John, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, is a fulltime writer and the most widely published among us. His book series with Upper Room Books has proved quite a success in both ecclesiastical and secular circles. He lives in Naselle with his wife Judy and enjoys traveling, walking the local logging roads, and fly-fishing. A retired anthropology professor, Brian is a diligent scholar, contemplative poet, well-traveled archeologist, and collegiate fencing instructor. He and his wife Margie reside in Astoria. Brian’s ethnobotany series—featuring his amazing pen-and-ink illustrations—is a popular and informative ingredient in NWC. Jenelle has an unparalleled flair for language and her ability to capture the essence of a particular setting or event is the envy of our entire group. She is an administrative assistant at a state youth corrections facility, but her accomplishments include commercial fisherwoman, cattle rancher, and long-distance runner. She lives in Naselle with her husband Hans. It takes these and many other gifted individuals to produce every issue of Northwest Coast. I thank them all. I would also like to express gratitude to all of you who have subscribed to Northwest Coast and to all the valued advertisers whose businesses and associations appear within its pages. Until next time. Enjoy! Bryan Penttila
Spring 2009 Volume 1 Issue 4 Editor-in-Chief Bryan Penttila Senior Contributing Editor Brian Harrison Editorial Advisors Jenelle Varila John Indermark Art Director Rick Anderson: Eyedesign Graphics www.eyedesigngraphics.com Printed In Oregon www.nwcmagazine.com
We would love to hear what you think, write to us at info@ nwcmagazine.com, or at the address listed below. Subscriptions: $15.95 for one year (4 issues) in U.S. and Canada. Please send name, address, and phone, with check payable to Northwest Coast Publications: 956 State Route 4, Naselle, WA 98638. For advertising inquiries, please call (866) 533-0846. Submissions: Please email article and photo essay outlines to ideas@nwcmagazine.com. Northwest Coast Publications assumes no responsibility for loss or damage of unsolicited contributions. Any material accepted is subject to possible revision at the discretion of the publisher. © 2009 by Northwest Coast Publications. Northwest Coast (ISSN 1945-810X) is owned and published quarterly by Northwest Coast Publications, 956 State Route 4, Naselle, Washington, 98638, (360) 484-3800. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced without permission. The opinions expressed in signed articles in Northwest Coast are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its editor or staff.
Contributors Lyndsay Faye is the author of the thriller Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson. A native of the Northwest Coast, she spent many years in the San Francisco Bay Area working as a professional actress. Lyndsay and her husband Gabriel Lehner live in Manhattan with their cat, Grendel. To learn more, visit www.lyndsayfaye.com.
John E. Goodenberger grew up in Astoria where he has spent most of his life documenting the history of its buildings and the people who occupied them. Educated in architecture, he has guided the restoration of many Astoria buildings. When not engaged in preservation, John trains high school distance runners. Local talent Tracy Laine continues the Rosalie Series, a biography of her mother’s life. She is the editor/publisher of The Historian, a popular monthly historical periodical. Tracy resides in Clatskanie, Oregon, where she cares for her mother Rosalie who is in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s. Rosalie loves Northwest Coast, and says that it helps her to remember.
The founder of Nestucca Spit Press, Matt Love is the author/editor of The Beaver State Trilogy, a regular contributor to the Oregonian, and a columnist for Bear Delux magazine. An educator in the Lincoln County School District, Matt makes his home on the Oregon Coast.
Carla Perry is the founder of Writers On The Edge. She received the Stewart Holbrook Special Award at the Oregon Book Awards, and the Oregon Governor’s Art Award acknowledging her efforts regarding Writers On The Edge.
Donna Quinn is a writer and poet who appreciates the Pacific Northwest, even as she nurtures an Idaho Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) in the living room of her Victorian home in Astoria. She is currently working on an “Anchored in Place” book series and her first book is Anchored in Place: Astoria. A practicing and widely exhibited artist, Erik Sandgren is tenured art faculty at Grays Harbor College. He continues to organize the plein air painting gatherings on the Oregon Coast begun by his father Nelson Sandgren in the 1960s. Erik’s work may be viewed at eriksandgren.com.
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Ethnobotany
Wapato S AG I T TA R I A LOT I F O L I A
J
aney in favour of a place where there is plenty of Potas.
Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, in an exemplary model of leadership, polled the members of the Corps of Discovery on November 24, 1805 about the next stage of their expedition. After ten days at Station Camp, with frost on the river’s shore and great Pacific storms brewing, they knew they had to proceed on. But the daunting question was where to spend the winter. There were arguments for beginning their return voyage as soon as possible by wintering upstream, at the Quicksand (Sandy) River. There were more arguments in favor of staying near the ocean, on the southern shore of the Columbia River, for the milder climate, the procurement of salt and the possibility of meeting up with a trading vessel that could resupply them and carry dispatches home. Sergeant Patrick Gass noted in his journal that “At night the party was consulted by the Commanding Officers, as to the place most proper for winter quarters.” In an astounding departure from military tradition, the opinions of the enlisted men plus those of the Shoshoni woman Sacagawea and Captain Clark’s slave York were recorded. They determined to cross the Columbia River, explore the south side for a “convenient situation,” and winter-over among the Clatsop, where they had heard elk were abundant. They were, after all, meat-eaters extraordinaire, accustomed to consuming nine pounds per man each day of buffalo, elk, dog or venison. After the men’s opinions were tallied, Sacagawea spoke up. Captain Clark’s journal recorded her preference for dependable plant foods: “Janey in favour of a place where there is plenty of Potas.”
Story and Artwork By Brian Harrison
His term ‘potas’ or potatoes referred to a resource we call wapato. Common throughout the United States, the plant has acquired a variety of common names, including duck potato, common arrowhead, Indian onion, katniss, swamp potato, tule potato, water nut and swan potato. The scientific name Sagittaria latifolia gives some clues to the plant’s form: Sagittaria is from the Latin word meaning ‘arrow-shaped’ while latifolia signifies ‘broad-leafed’. This perennial plant once thrived in the lower Columbia River region in shallow water along the shores of rivers and lakes, as well as in perennial marshes, from the Cascades to just east of Astoria. A smaller species, S. cuneata, is commonly found east of the mountains in similar habitats. Distinctive arrowhead-shaped leaves of both species rise from the water’s surface in spring on long leaf stalks. Showy white flowers bloom as whorls of three from July to September on leafless stalks arising from the plant base. Slender white rhizomes form the plant’s root system; starchy white or bluish tubers as large as chicken eggs develop at the rhizome tips in the fall. Wapato tubers and rhizomes are a favored food of waterfowl, beavers and muskrats. Captains Lewis and Clark on several occasions noted the importance of wapato as both a trade item and staple food among the Natives living along the lower Columbia River. In 1805 William Clark wrote of an Indian who “invited us to a lodge … and gave us roundish roots about the Size of a
Small Irish potato which they roasted in the embers until they became Soft. This root they call Wap-pa-to … has an agreeable taste and answers verry well in place of bread.” He recorded that a “…young Chief 4 Men and a womin of the War ci a cum Nation arrived, and offered for Sale Dressed Elk Skins and Wap pa to, the Chief made us a preasent of about 1/2 a bushel of those roots. and we purchased about 1 1/2 bushels of those roots for which we gave Some fiew red beeds Small peaces of brass wire & old Check those roots proved a greatfull addition to our Spoiled Elk, which has become verry disagreeable both to the taste & smell…” At Fort Clatsop, Captain Lewis described “the native roots which furnish a considerable proportion of the subsistence of the indians in our neighbourhood.” He noted that “the most valuable of all their roots is foreign to this neighbourhood I mean the Wappetoe, or bulb of the Sagitifolia or common arrow head, which grows in great abundance in the marshey grounds of the beatifull and firtile valley on the Columbia commencing just above the entrance of Quicksand River and extending downwards for about 70 Miles. this bulb forms a principal article of traffic between the inhabitants of the valley and those of this neighbourhood or sea coast.” In fact, so valuable was the tuber to upriver Chinookan-speaking people that they established their sedentary villages near wapato marshes. These assured an abundant and reliable food resource as well as an important trade commodity. James Swan, living on Shoalwater Bay in 1852, also commented on Sagittaria: “On the Columbia River, an excellent root called the wappatoo … or arrow-head, is found in abundance, and is a favorite food of the wild swans, which are very plentiful. The wappatoo is an article much sought after by the interior Indians, but there is none found on the coast, except in very small quantities.”
shorelines, “Sometimes to their necks holding by a Small canoe and with their feet loosen the wappato or bulb of the root from the bottom from the Fibers, and it immediately rises to the top of the water, they Collect & throw them into the Canoe, those deep roots are the largest and best roots.” The tubers traditionally were stored dry in baskets or underground pits, then boiled or roasted in hot ashes to remove bitterness, and eaten whole. Clark noted that “The Wapto root is Scerce, and highly valued by those people, this root they roste in hot ashes like a potato and the outer Skin peals off, tho this is a trouble they Seldom perform.” The tubers were said to have a nutty sweetness similar to that of roasted water chestnuts. With the plant’s value as a trade item as well as a staple carbohydrate, it is no wonder that ‘Janey’ wanted to camp near meadows of wapato. She was no doubt aware of the plant from her Montana girlhood, and knew well how nutritious mashed wapato would be for her infant son Jean Baptiste: Far better than spoiled elk meat, and worthy of an argument with the commanding officers.
Harvesting of wapato was traditionally done by women in the spring and autumn, when the tubers are buoyant and, once separated from the rhizome, will float to the surface. According to Captain Clark the women waded along
Salmonberry Rubus spectabilis
“If hemlock forms the weft of the woods, then salmonberry makes the woof—at least in countless swales and slopes where the yellow canes run at all angles to the walker who would needle his way through. Often the appearance of a magenta rose among the salmonberry provides the first outrageous sign of spring’s forthcoming.”
12 Northwest Coast
ROBERT MICHAEL PYLE, Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land (1986)
A Year in Review
By Sherman Peabody
Weather
We Pacific Northwesterners are sometimes derided by outsiders for our propensity to talk about the weather. They suppose that our webfooted banter is for want of more interesting topics. But, had these climatologically-insensitive souls spent last year in these environs, they too might find the weather a worthy subject of discussion. Bookended by Decembers with nameable atmospheric events, 2008 may not have set any significant weather records, but it certainly kept coastal residents guessing. The weather year opened with the Great Coastal Gale of December 2007. A three-day winter weather roller coaster ride brought snow, then rain, followed by wind. The first heavy bands of warm rain melted heavy snows as temperatures shot up 30 degrees in hours, beginning a series of memorable floods. Torrential rains continued the devastation: during a 3-day period the Willapa Hills received nearly 20-inches of precipitation that sent rivers far over their banks. Water 10 – 15 feet deep covered Interstate 5 near Chehalis, closing that arterial for days. Wind speeds topping 120-miles per hour downed innumerable power lines, leaving over 110,000 Oregon and Washington residents in the dark. The gale also destroyed great swaths of forest, including the Klootchy Creek Giant east of Cannon Beach, a beloved tourist attraction once said to be the world’s largest Sitka spruce. Spring never seemed to arrive, as many disgruntled gardeners can attest. March was cooler than February and April was colder yet—the second
coldest on record. Some parts of the Northwest Coast were blessed with snow as late as April. In its newsletter, the Office of the Washington State Climatologist dubbed it “The Spring that Wasn’t.” Summer arrived early, with the mercury spiking into the 90s in May, and reemerged sporadically with the hottest days of the year coming in mid-August. Frigid temperatures returned in autumn. The heavier-than usual December snowfall—dubbed “snow-pocalypse” or, less imaginatively, the “Arctic Blast”—granted residents their first genuinely white Christmas in decades. Surely this year’s colder-than-average weather disproves global warming, right? Nope. Climatologists point out that the weather is what’s happening outside your window; the climate is the long-range average—compiled with at least 30-years of data. Though its cause may still be subject to speculation, there is no doubt that greenhouse gases are turn-
ing up the heat on the globe, and resulting in the unstable conditions. If you found 2008’s weather unsettling, brace yourself. Sea surface temperature anomalies indicate a return to La Niña conditions this spring. So, if current trends continue, we can expect a repeat of the wet and cold weather year that was 2008. And you can bet we’ll be talking about it.
WINTER 2008 / 09 Northwest Coast
13
Some writers performed in Newport not knowing they were perched on a springboard to stardom, such as Chuck Palahniuk who read in March 1999 when Fight Club, the movie, hadn’t yet been released.
s r e t i r W
e h t n o By
e g Ed
ry r e P Carla
residence facility? But the room filled up, and the beauty of Kessler’s language and the tenderness with which she described the resident interactions touched our hearts and buoyed our spirits. I don’t quite know how it happened, but we left that reading hopeful about our descent into old age. Such is the power of the written word.
That’s the name of the organization: WRITERS ON THE EDGE. I like the name. It implies desperate writers about to dive off cliffs into the pounding surf of the Pacific below. It implies writers on the edge of a major breakthrough—an exploration past previous boundaries into dangerous waters of luminosity. It reflects our Pacific Northwest Coast geography with its ragged coastline and ferocious weather. The name even correctly identifies the locale where the organization’s writerly events take place—the Visual Arts Center in the Nye Beach area of Newport where the second floor community room has a 200-degree view of setting suns and open ocean. Writers On The Edge was the name we made up when the writers’ series I reluctantly started in Yachats in 1997, and moved to the Performing Arts Center in Newport in 1999, had become so successful that it needed to be transformed into an independent nonprofit. I like the organization’s mission: To expose the coastal communities to the fantastic minds of writers from the Pacific Northwest, from across the country, and occasionally from other countries.
Through the years, programming expanded and the Nye Beach Writers’ Series continued to flourish. These are its stats: 139 events, 311 featured authors, 11.5 years—so far. Events take place the third Saturday year round (except December). Some of our finest living writers have taken the stage, read their work, and answered questions from the crowd. Locals, coast-range folk, Willamette Valley people, tourists, refugees escaping from somewhere else holing up at the Sylvia Beach Hotel, friends, family, and vagabonds drift in the door just before 7 p.m. Who are these people that show up for a poetry reading by someone they’ve never heard of? What are they doing here, listening to a young man whose only published book is the one he printed and sewed himself? The room fills with middle-aged hipsters, teenagers looking for extra credit, retired academics seeking brain stimulus, a few fishermen, sometimes even an ex-logger or two. It’s always been a diverse crowd. I used to ask myself, why do they keep coming back? Who ventures out on a cold, wet night in early spring, willing to pay $5 to hear Lauren Kessler read from Dancing With Rose, a book about her experience working in an Alzheimers
My goal has always been to present the best writers, no matter what format their writing takes; people who have something to talk about, and the language skills to permeate and caress our hardened skulls. I approach literary readings as live entertainment. After all, we’re competing with television, jammies, and comfortable couches. Featured authors might write poetry, or Oregon history, or be novelists, investigative journalists, performance artists, playwrights, filmmakers, or solo singer/ songwriters like June Rushing (June 2001, April 2004), or full bands like The Dolly Ranchers (April 2002), or Billy Joe Shaver, the country western songwriting icon whose caravan of mammoth buses made a quick stop in Newport on their west coast tour (April 2003). Surprisingly successful are the Oregon Coast Haiku Slam Classics, held at Café Mundo every April in celebration of Poetry Month. Eleanor Roosevelt: Across A Barrier of Fear, was written and performed by Jane Van Boskirk (March 2001). “How To Make A Hardcover Book At Home In Your Spare Time” was demonstrated by Lorrie Height of Astoria (April 2004). “Haiku Inferno” (June 2004) starred Kevin Sampsel, Elizabeth Miller, and Frayn Masters creating improvised, politically satiric haiku on the spot. Storyteller Jeff DeMark, from Blue Lake, California, has performed four separate solo shows (two in 2003, 2004, 2008). Sometimes the Nye Beach Writers’ Series presents choreographed, original
shows with large casts, like Vaudvillainous Poets (June 1998) and The Memory Place (June 1999). In three Julys (2003, 2004, 2007) the full cast of Hot Flashes! and Flashbacks: The Musical performed in the Silverman Auditorium at the Newport Performing Arts Center. And each time the show raised enough money to keep the Writers On The Edge afloat for an entire year. What big names would you recognize from our lineup? Perhaps actor/author Peter Coyote; Montana novelist William Kittredge; Pam Houston; Mark Doty (who received the 2008 National Book Award in poetry); Ursula K. Le Guin; Derrick Jensen; Sam Hamill who started Poets Against the War; former poet laureate of New York, Sharon Olds; former poet laureate of Utah, David Lee; former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts, all reading from their books. Alone, on stage, in Newport. Standing room only and so quiet you could hear the bookbinding creak as they turned the page. Some writers performed in Newport not knowing they were perched on a springboard to stardom, such as Chuck
Chuck Palahniuk read in March 1999 before the film adaptation of his book Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt, had been released. He returned to the Writers’ Series again in April 2003.
Palahniuk who read in March 1999 when Fight Club, the movie, hadn’t yet been released. That same year, Diana AbuJaber read from Arabian Jazz, an Oregon
Book Award winner. Since then her books have been designated one of the twenty best novels in 2003 and she won the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction, the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Writing Fellowship, a Fulbright Research Award to travel to Amman, Jordan, an International Writers NEA Fellowship in Fiction, and her most recent book, Origin, was named one of the top five Booksense Picks.
ticella, Carlos Reyes, Jane Glazer, Doug Marx, Sharon Doubiago, Maxine Scates, John Daniel, Brian Doyle. In Fiction: Molly Gloss, Alison Clement, Monica Drake, Tracy Daugherty, Gina Ochsner, Geronimo Tagatac, Kassten Alonso, Kris Nelscott, Marjorie Sandor, Cai Emmons, Alan Siporin, Kathleen Tyau, Sandra Scofield, Gregg Kleiner, Diana Abu-Jaber, Whitney Otto, David James Duncan, Karen Karbo, Tom Spanbauer, Rodger Larson.
Lawson Inada was here twice, long before he was named Poet Laureate of the State of Oregon, and he spent the day before his reading holding a writing workshop at Waldport High.
“You run a fantastic program. Loved the open mic, the sense of camaraderie and community of the entire evening. How did Molly Gloss mesmerize us so thoroughly with that story? That’s the kind of magic that keeps me going back to the lonely old desk. By way of thanks, I’m sending some copies of “Insects of South Corvallis” for you to give to anyone who would enjoy it – high school kids, prospective donors, open mic contest winners.” – Charles Goodrich (reading with Molly Gloss, March 20, 2004).
“I wish I was from Newport. If I was from Newport, I would have never left. All I’m saying is I’m really pleased to be here. In Ashland we tend to believe we’re the center of the world, but being here in Newport I realize we don’t have Carla and we don’t have a Writers’ Series, so I’m thinking, we’re kind of behind the times.” – Lawson Fusao Inada (reading September 16, 2000). And then there were the hundred or so Oregon Book Award winners and finalists who graced us with their presence, before or after they received their awards. Their names alone evoke a lyric litany. In the Poetry category: Dorianne Laux, Paulann Petersen, Vern Rutsala, Floyd Skloot, Judith Barrington, Robert McDowell, Rita Ott Ramstad, Clemens Starck, Joseph Millar, Willa Schneberg, Karen Braucher, Jeff Meyers, Diane Averill, Sandra Stone, Barbara LaMor-
In Creative Nonfiction: Rene Denfeld, Kathleen Dean Moore, Elinor Langer, Ariel Gore, Bette Lynch Husted, Karen Karbo, Jennifer Lauck, Larry Colton, Chanrithy Him, Judith Barrington, Barbara Drake, Jeff Taylor, John Daniel, Robert Leo Heilman, Garrett Hongo, Robin Cody, Sallie Tisdale.
In Drama: Dori Appel, Molly Best
Tinsley, Jan Baross, Sharon Whitney. I wish I had the space to mention them all.
Poet Clemens Starck has presented twice, once in September 1997 and again in January 2003.
Some of our featured authors have made their final leap off the edge. Science fiction writer Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) read on August 15, 1997. He started writing stories in the 1940’s, and created, along with his friend Roger Zelazney, what became the genre of science fiction. In 2001, he received the designation of ‘Author Emeritus’ by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a lifetime achievement award. I had the extraordinary experience of interviewing Ken Kesey in Springfield to prepare publicity for his Writers’ Series appearance on April 21, 2000. I asked him questions about his philosophy of benevolence, paying attention, especially to children, and about the concept of love. I asked him about writing as drama, novels as performance, books as money, and videos of the future. We spoke of magic, synchronicity, and his role in acid test musical extravaganzas. The interview turned out to be the final interview of this great man and was published in the United States and Romania. The organization’s mission is to nourish not only the artistic development
of individual writers, but to cultivate a writing community as well. Talent and personal inclination are helpful, but technique can be taught to anyone, and practice makes you better. The Nye Beach Writers’ Series includes an open mic that closes almost every show. Up to 10 audience members can sign up to read their original work for five minutes maximum. I figure around seven thousand people have shown up as audience. Of these, more than a thousand have bravely faced their peers and expressed their truths.
“Thank you for providing a place for writers to get our writing out in the public, and thank you for the Clyde Rice books I received as the open mic winner last Saturday night. He certainly is inspirational as far as being an older writer who once he got started couldn’t be stopped! See you at the next show.” – Patsy Brookshire, open mic regular and author of Threads (2006).
from memory. It turns out the open mic has farreaching tendrils. Over the years, I’ve received calls from teachers telling me of the profound changes in their students after a particular author read in their classroom. I see parents at the grocery store who thank me again for offering those summer workshops. Sometimes I receive a letter from someone who read at an open mic years ago, when he was in high school.
It’s me, Devin Whitaker. I am writing to you in regards to an idea I had last night. Since being back from Iraq, I’ve noticed that creative outlets in Southern California are fleeting, or at least in Orange County. My idea, of course, is to start a “Writers Series” down here in San
Hundreds of those open mic readers have been high school students, partly because Writers On The Edge provides free admission to them. The organization believes youth involvement is so absolutely vital that one seat on the board of directors is reserved for a high school student. If teachers bring students with them, they can get in free as well. In fact, no one is turned away at the door due to lack of funds. We’ve been known to invite in grizzled wanderers stooped under the weight of backpacks when they pull out poetic scribbling on scraps of paper or perform their poems
Former Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts reads from her book Death Without Denial, Grief Without Apology: A Guide for Facing Death and Loss.
Clemente. This idea was so incredibly motivating to me because it is something that I loved and enjoyed so much back home. Really, I’d like to duplicate the same ambiance and crowd energy like you had in Nye Beach, not the loud hysterics of poetry slams I had attended in Eugene and Portland. Although they have their relevance and beauty, your writers’ series promoted creation in a way that I’d never seen or have since. The thought of gathering writers together to share and listen, like a sophisticated night on the town, makes my stomach lift. I’m just getting started with this and would be ever grateful if you could share with me your wisdom and knowledge. Thank you so much, I hope to hear from you soon. Grateful and sincerely,” – Devin J. Whitaker (email December 19, 2007).
Andrew Rodman delivers a spirited performance during an open mic session.
So what about kids below high school age? They’re too young to attend noncensored live literary entertainment, so it works out best when we hold in-school readings, or early evening writing workshops for kids and their parents, or week-long and month-long writing and performance workshops during the summer. And it works out best of all when we raise sufficient grant funds beforehand to cover full scholarships (and a free lunch) for all kids who apply.
“I clipped the article from the News-Times about the POETRY WRITING WORKSHOP!!!!!! I am so excited I can barely keep my lips from falling off. Do you have any details about the times, dates, costs?? I am going to plan my summer around it, since I am so eager to attend.” – Jessica Jackson, aged 14 (email January 13, 2003) Performance has always been a part of the youth writing workshops. Tuition is never charged.
Over the years, numerous grants
and collaborations have allowed Writers On The Edge to expand our reach. We’ve worked with the Cultural Tourism Partnership of Lincoln County, Ernest Bloch Festival, Lincoln County School District, Hatfield Marine Science Center, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Newport Public Library, the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts, and Café Mundo. Plus, Mountain Writers Series, Community of Writers, KBOO radio in Portland, the University of Oregon, Oregon Writers Colony, Oregon Council for the Humanities, the Lannan Foundation, and Rattapallax Press in NYC. Writers On The Edge has no paid staff. It’s our director, Matt Love, and the board that works hard to make everything we do seem effortless. We’re writers, walking literary billboards, written word appreciators, crazy people who like to listen to writers read. So, how many people have been impacted by Writers On The Edge? Twenty thousand? Thirty? More? No matter how you tally, it’s a lot of people take the plunge off the literary cliff and finding out they can fly. Why not join us? Schedule details are posted on our website:
www.writersontheedge.org.
Sometimes a Great Party The Lincoln County Filming of a Ken Kesey Novel By Matt Love
“Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range... come look...”
T
hus opens Ken Kesey’s sprawling, drenched, riffing, old growth dense, beautifully flawed, LSD flavored, masterpiece of a novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, set on the Oregon Coast, about a gyppo logging family, published in 1964, and undeniably the greatest Oregon work of fiction of all time. If you live on the Northwest Coast and haven’t read it, you have no business living on the Northwest Coast.
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‘Sometimes a Great Notion’
Paul Newman • Henry Fonda Lee Remick • Michael Sarrazin Richard Jaeckel • Linda Lawson • Cliff Potts Not long after the Great Day-Glo man died in 2001, I found myself drinking beer in the Bayhaven, an ancient tavern on Newport’s Bayfront. There I noticed hanging on a wall a framed poster of promotional stills from Sometimes a Great Notion the movie. It was filmed in and around Lincoln County in 1970 and includes scenes shot in the Bayhaven, which stood in for The Snag saloon from the novel. On sheer
journalistic whim, I asked the Bayhaven’s bartender if she had seen the movie. I asked a few other patrons the same question. They all had. In fact, several had also read the novel, which bulges over 600 pages in the most recent paperback edition. We talked about that book, about Kesey’s first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the movie adaptations of each, one a classic, the other not. At the age of 46 Paul Newman, then arguably Hollywood’s biggest star,
produced, directed and starred as the logger Hank Stamper in Sometimes a Great Notion, one of the first high profile, independent American films. In addition to Newman in the lead role, the film featured Henry Fonda, Lee Remick, Michael Sarrazin, and Richard Jaeckel, respectively as Hank’s domineering father, unhappy wife, estranged brother, and high-spirited cousin. Despite Newman’s huge worldwide celebrity, the picture tanked upon its December 1971 release. Later it was retitled Never Give an Inch for television where in my youth in Oregon City I discovered it on the late show. Nineteen eighty-six marked the movie’s video cassette release, but it has inexplicably never been released officially on DVD (although I own bootlegged DVDS and give them away at my literary events). The Oregon press offered uniformly positive reviews when Sometimes a
Great Notion came out, but to me, it is a mediocre movie, unimaginatively adapted. Newman and screenwriter John Gay obviously read the novel and tried to conjure a coherent theme from an imaginative work of fiction punctuated with manic stretches of stream-of-consciousness and multiple narrators (including a dog). But they failed. The movie is also marred by a terribly dubbed audio track and murky cinematography. If any scene remains memorable, it’s the harrowing sequence where Jaeckel’s character is pinned under a log as a rising estuarine tide drowns him while Newman tries to cut him free. The film’s most glaring fault however, is that despite being filmed where the novel is set, it utterly fails to evoke the sense of special unhinged Oregon place that characterizes the genius of Kesey’s novel. He nailed what rain does to us here on the Northwest Coast better than any writer before or since, including Lewis and Clark at Ft. Clatsop. “You must go through a winter to understand,” Kesey wrote. Amen to that. Today the movie is worth watching mainly to see how the Central Oregon Coast looked in 1970 and how the Oregon Department of Forestry regulated logging in the pre-Oregon Forest Practices Act era (and probably fantasizes about doing so today). There was no regulation. In one shocking scene, loggers drop 300-year old conifers right into a pristine estuary. As I drank in the Bayhaven, asking patrons their opinions on Sometimes a Great Notion, the novel and movie, a thickly bearded man wearing a baseball cap emerged from an alcove sheltering the video poker machines and moved toward me holding a Hamm’s can. He sat next to me at the bar and said he had a story about the movie. A story about Paul Newman. Would I like to hear it? Yes, I would. I ordered him another Hamm’s. He appeared anywhere from 40 to 70 years old, or what I call OTA,
Paul Newman starred in and directed Sometimes a Great Notion.
Sometimes a Great Notion was the first film in which Academy Award-winning actor Henry Fonda portrayed a character his own age. The 65 year-old Fonda played the irascible family patriarch Henry Stamper, which he later recalled as one of his favorite roles.
Oregon tavern age. One night in 1970, the man was drinking in a tavern in Toledo, eight miles east of Newport. In walked an unaccompanied Paul Newman carrying a chainsaw. “He was wearing a fake chest,” said the man. The man explained that Newman wore some kind of padding under his shirt, evidently to appear bulkier. That Newman still wore the padding and carried the chainsaw meant he must have come right off location in the woods near Toledo where some of the timber falling scenes were shot. Newman didn’t say anything. The patrons recognized him but didn’t say anything. He fired up the chainsaw, sawed the legs off a pool table and sent the slate crashing to the floor. Newman left without saying a word. Perhaps later he sent a check to cover the damage. Perhaps not. The whole incident unfolded in less than three minutes. “C’mon, you’re bullshitting me?” I
said. I then reminded him of a scene from the movie where Newman’s character enters an office with a chainsaw and cuts up the place. “I know that scene,” he said. “That was acting in Newport. I was in a bar in Toledo. Newman was there. He was drunk out of his mind. I have no reason to lie. I don’t even know you.” A few minutes later, the man disappeared and I never got his name. Three days after hearing this fantastic story, I set out to corroborate its veracity. First I made a day trip to the Toledo area, hit every bar and tavern and asked around about Sometimes a Great Notion, the movie, and the alleged Newman madness. No one had heard of it, but they all thought it could be true. Next, I attempted to contact Newman directly via emails to several of his high profile business ventures. I never received a reply. I then perused three Newman biographies and learned that he once drank to binge and blackout
excess. The biographies also reported that the independent production of Sometimes a Great Notion experienced major problems. For starters, Newman fired director Richard Colla early on over “creative differences” and assumed the responsibility himself. If that unforeseen duty didn’t complicate matters enough, Newman broke his ankle in a motorcycle crash during filming and the accident shut down production for several months. Perhaps an additional demand exasperated Paul Newman: local and state politicians who insisted on having their photograph taken with him. On August 28, 1970, Oregon Governor Tom McCall, then facing a tough re-election bid, paid a call on Newman when McCall’s risky state-sponsored rock festival for peace called Vortex 1 was unfolding in a state park near Estacada. I have seen the Associated Press photograph of a giddy McCall looking through a camera while a tense Newman looks on. What a free publicity coup for McCall! What a pain in the ass for Newman! And finally, perhaps filming (and financing) such a complex novel in an alien landscape without major studio support was too much for Newman and he lost it in a Toledo tavern. I left the story alone for a couple of years and then it resurfaced in 2006 in the unlikeliest of ways. I was teaching English at Taft High School in Lincoln City and casually dropped to some of the staff and students that I’d poked around the Newman tale and was interested in writing about the filming of the movie. Within days, I received about a dozen leads connecting me to friends, parents, and relatives who had some role in the film’s production or servicing the Hollywood people. And frankly, the stories were incredible—better yet, totally unreported. Then in the spring of 2007, I found
were even articles from the Los Angeles Times and a trade publication called Chain Saw Age, which featured Newman on the cover wielding a McCulloch beast with what looked like a 60-inch bar! The museum director told me that someone had compiled this file back in 1970-71 and turned it over to the museum years ago. To her knowledge, no one had ever looked at it. I paid her $50 on the spot to copy the entire file for me. I read it all later that night.
Some Highlights: ♦♦ In his spare time, Henry Fonda sketched watercolors and collected agates. He bought himself a tumbler to polish his rocks. He also worried about the “sensibilities” of old trees cut down for the film.
♦♦ Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward stayed at the Salishan Lodge and brought seven kids and ten pets with them. He was reading Iris Murdock’s novel An Honorable Defeat during his Oregon stay and regularly had a special caramel corn made in Depoe Bay delivered to the set.
♦♦ The Toledo office of the state unemployment division interviewed loggers to work as extras.
♦♦ The entire production was plagued by lack of rain. It was too sunny that summer. myself in the tiny Toledo Historical Museum on a teaching errand completely unrelated to the Sometimes a Great Notion story. On a lark, I asked the museum’s director if the archives held any material about the movie shoot. Yes, the archives did. Would I like to see them? Yes, I would. A few minutes later I held an approximately 100-page file containing newspaper and magazine clippings of local, state and national stories about the film’s production. There
♦♦ Taft High School hosted an open casting call and it was jammed with locals dreaming for roles.
♦♦ One Taft High School junior girl met Michael Sarrazin in the elevator at the Inn at Spanish Head where she
Ken Kesey, the counter-cultural icon and celebrated Oregon novelist, was the author of Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) upon which the movie was based.
worked. The next day she had a part in the movie.
♦♦ Ken Kesey showed up unannounced on the set a couple of times. By that time I had become acquainted with Ken Babbs, Ken Kesey’s second in command and fellow Merry Prankster. I told Babbs I’d read an article that reported Kesey visited the set driving a psychedelic car. Babbs wrote me: The sports car was George Walker’s day-glo painted Lotus. We were up on a landing where they were filming logging shots. When done, Newman challenged George to a race down the mountain. He tricked George by asking him a question about something and when George looked around to find the answer to the question, Newman sprinted to his Corvette and took off. George was behind him and never could find a place to pass on the winding mountain road. Kesey also went to the set when they were filming the scene of Joe Ben caught under the log as the tide was raising the river
level. They filmed in a big tank and Kesey said during the whole night it took, they went through a case of scotch and no one was even slightly drunk. All of this and I haven’t yet even started my real research: tracking down every Lincoln County name mentioned in all the articles, determining if Jaeckel and Sarrazin still live, and hosting events in Newport and Toledo where I’ll screen the film and invite people to share their “brush with Hollywood stories.” (Or better yet, “who I got drunk with and/or slept with stories.”) I have, of course, read the file, heard the Newman drinking tale, read up on Newman, and interviewed a couple dozen people so far. Thus, I feel confident claiming that: in 1970 Lincoln County met up with a hard drinking cast and crew led by Newman, who was
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trying to film the greatest Oregon novel of all time, and they all breathed in the wild Oregon spirit of Ken Kesey—and everyone lost their minds. And I am also here to claim that I will write the book that captures all the madness. It will be called Sometimes a Great Party and hope to find enough of the home movie footage I know the locals shot to make a documentary to include as a DVD with the book. One final note. I recently learned that circa 1970, Toledo had a tavern on Main Street named the Hardhat. To enter you had to pull on an ax stuck randomly in the front door. I’ll bet everything I own that Paul Newman once stepped foot in there. I’ve got a lead on the Hardhat’s last owner.
If you have a story connected to the filming of Sometimes a Great Notion, please contact Matt Love at love-matt100@yahoo.com. All photographs accompanying this article are courtesy of photographer Gerry Lewin. Lewin was a staff photographer for the Salem Statesman in 1970 and covered the event for the paper. During the movie shoot, he picked up a bewildered Henry Fonda in costume walking down a road. Lewin gave him a ride to the set.
By Bryan Penttila
w
ith one last rev of his chainsaw, Greg See turns his eyes skyward as a Douglas fir topples down a
hillside in the Oregon Coast Range. His gaze swivels uphill to the next tree, sizing it up as he marches toward it, and in less than half a minute it too crashes down the slope. Greg’s movements are deliberate, choreographed by experience to a degree approaching artful. He will maintain this bone-tiring pace for six hours a day, pausing only to refuel his saw and take a sip of water. Greg is a timber faller,
a member of a fraternity of highly skilled workmen whose job is the first and most dangerous phase of the timber trade. SPRING 2009 Northwest Coast
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Second generation timber faller Jeff Hill puts an undercut into a second growth spruce tree in the Oregon Coast Range.
Although grammatically incorrect, timber faller (alternatively, timber cutter) is the parlance of those who practice this rugged craft. For well over a century their ability to lay trees down efficiently and with minimal breakage has earned them the distinction of being the most skilled and well-paid workers in the logging industry. As woods work has become increasingly mechanized over the last couple of decades, timber cutters remain one of the enduring holdouts 26 Northwest Coast SPRING 2009
where production is still determined by the physical limitations of the human body. But their ranks are diminishing. Mechanization has caught up with the timber faller—and now a new machine, called the “feller buncher,” threatens to eliminate them all together except on the most adverse terrain. A few more steps uphill and Timber Faller See dogs his chainsaw—known almost universally as a “power saw” by those who wield them for a living—into
another fir. His first cut is level, a foot above the ground, and about one-third the depth of the tree’s diameter. Greg then slips the saw’s guide bar out of the cut, and with a slight pivot of the saw, slices a lower, diagonal cut upward to meet the first cut perfectly. A triangular block reminiscent of an over-sized orange wedge falls to the ground. This opening, called an “undercut,” will direct the tree’s fall. He then maneuvers the saw to the opposite side of the tree and begins the “back cut” a few inches above the undercut. When the back cut is within an inch of the undercut the tree begins to list. The narrow strip of wood remaining between the back cut and undercut acts as a hinge, holding the tree’s descent, until the undercut closes and the tree vaults from the stump. The toppling fir is a spectacle as old as the Northwest logging industry itself. The scale of the action has changed—it would take one hundred or more of these little firs to equal the volume of one mature specimen—as have the tools of the fallers’ trade. In the years between the Civil War and the Second World War, sinewy men downed the big round stuff with little more than double-bitted axes and a crosscut saw. It was a relatively quiet enterprise with the rhythmic cadence of the ax and saw punctuated only occasionally by the faller’s warning cry of “Timber!” moments before the thunderous crash of a leviathan. By the eve of the Second World War, every phase of the logging industry had been mechanized except felling. Log production was expanding as bulldozers and log trucks replaced steam donkeys and logging railroads, yet fallers still employed rudimentary hand tools. Compounding this disparity was an acute shortage of hand fallers, most of whom were rapidly-aging European immigrants. As the old-line fallers wore out and shifted to less strenuous jobs, logging operators had trouble attracting new workers to the arduous occupation.
By the mid-1930s, the unwelcome buzz of a new, technological age echoed just over the ridge. Enter the chainsaw. Today, the power saw that Greg handles with seeming ease weighs just over 16-pounds and bears little resemblance to its lumbering predecessors. Those clunky, first-generation chainsaws weighed over 120-pounds, and required two men to operate: a young, husky logger gripping the bicycle-like handlebars on the motor head and an experienced faller guiding the “helper handle” or “stinger” at the other end of the bar. Wrestling the mechanical monster from tree to tree proved to be the most difficult challenge, but once in place and burrowed into a big fir, “it would cut to beat hell,” fallers reported. Power saws could cut three times more timber in a day’s time then hand fallers and required about a quarter of the crew. Still, most fallers were resistant to the change. The loudest objection arose over the chainsaw’s noise. Many cutters believed that the roar of the saw’s engine prevented them from hearing limbs breaking overhead and all but eliminated communication between a set of workers. Some quit out of sheer stubbornness when ordered to take up the unfamiliar machine, while others doubled their
Safety is an issue that today’s timber cutters don’t take lightly. The safety gear that Casey Redmond, a third generation logger, exhibits— hard hat, safety glasses, ear plugs, Kevlar chaps, and calked boots—is indicative of what all timber fallers wear.
efforts to prove that they could out-perform it. In a time when cutters were paid for the volume of wood they downed, a number of older “bushelers”—as the payfor-production cutters were termed— found that by teaming with a young logger they could extend their careers and bolster their paychecks. In the end, it took the Second World War and the call to service of most able-bodied loggers to make the chainsaw’s ascendancy complete. By the end of 1940s, the ax and crosscut saw were relics of a bygone era. Following the war mechanical improvements like an all-position carburetor as well as lighter alloys and plastics, allowed saws to become lighter, more versatile and increasingly powerful. But with improvements in the saws came drawbacks for the sawyers. There was, of course, the unregulated noise, which left most early power saw operators deafened before mufflers were improved and hearing protection mandated. Long-term ingestion of exhaust fumes and fine sawdust caused breathing and sinus difficulties for some. Still others suffered from a debilitating condition called “white finger,” caused by long-term exposure to excessive vibration. Known in medical circles as Raynaud’s phenomenon, bouts of white finger caused the blood vessels in the digits to constrict, provoking them to swell and turn white, resulting in aching pain and eventually complete numbness. Anti-vibration handlebars became standard in the 1960s and have virtually eliminated the risk of white finger. These dreaded ailments seem like distant memories to the timber fallers of Greg’s generation. A more palpable concern, and one that has always shadowed workers in this trade, is the ever-present danger of an accident. Pulled muscles, concussions, and broken bones are all-too-common contingencies of the fallers’ work. Many an unfortunate family has experienced the agony of
terms like “widow maker” (a limb that plummets from the forest canopy to deliver a lethal blow) and “barber chair” (a tree trunk that splits before leaving the stump, sending a many-ton slab crashing down). Moreover, felling timber is the deadliest phase of the Northwest’s most dangerous industry. In Oregon, for example, timber cutters comprise one sixth of the logging workforce but are involved in one third of all fatal logging accidents. In broader terms, they are 65 times more likely to be killed on the job than other working Oregonians. Despite these grim statistics, cutters do not possess an over-developed sense of fatalism. Part of their assurance comes from a belief in themselves. Timber fallers strive to control their work environment to ensure personal safety and maximum production. Being cognizant of their surroundings and aware of the innumerable “what ifs” in felling each tree is engrained in every experienced cutter. One lapse of concentration can result in disaster, which explains why fallers typically work a six-hour day. This too illustrates why training is essential for new timber fallers. “Breaking in” a new cutter is a time-consuming and often expensive task. Second-generation cutters like Greg See have an easier time of finding a tutor than most would-be fallers. When he broke in a dozen years ago, Greg was able to learn from his father Darrell, a sawyer of considerable experience. It was Greg’s job to cut the limbs off and “buck” the trees Darrell felled into desired log lengths. Greg watched Darrell’s every move. He saw and learned and experienced cutting as they worked together, day after day, through this traditional, if informal, apprenticeship. This longestablished arrangement has been the vehicle for passing on the cutters’ trade, but in recent decades mechanization has complicated matters. SPRING 2009 Northwest Coast
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The limbing and bucking jobs that served as initiation and training for Greg and countless other cutters are becoming scarce. A hulking machine known as a “processor” now performs the task on most logging sites. With its concave knives, the processor shears the limbs off a tree-length stem and with computer-aided precision buzzes it into logs. Several varieties of processors began to appear in the 1980s, and today they are quick, accurate, and ubiquitous. Processors changed cuttings’ direction. Instead of felling trees along the side slope where they could be safely limbed and bucked—as they had always done—fallers need only send the tree down the hill. Once skidded or yarded to the roadside the processor would do the rest. “Tree-lengthing,” as this form of felling is called, quickened the pace of the fallers’ work, and according to some, made it more strenuous. Rather than cutting limbs and logs between felling each tree, fallers are constantly marching uphill, saw in hand, tree to tree. This sea change in pace and process has resulted in many fallers focusing more on production than precision. Over the last decade, the premium on production has been upped even more by the appearance of the feller buncher. Unlike road-bound processors, feller bunchers take to the 28 Northwest Coast SPRING 2009
Matt Dietrich pauses for a moment by the cutting head on O’Brien Timber Cutting’s newest feller buncher. Dietrich, who spent over a decade cutting timber before becoming an operator, demonstrates the size of the head, which is capable of cutting trees up to 28-inches in diameter.
slopes and do the actual felling of the trees. Utilizing technology developed in Scandinavia and the pine growing regions of America, early models were reminiscent of an oversized pair of
scissors attached to the front of a piece of heavy equipment. Over the last two decades equipment manufactures have modified these tracked behemoths to work on the soggy, steep slopes of the
Pacific Coast. From the ground up feller bunchers are no nonsense, tree-cutting machines. From its aggressive tracks rise a self-leveling cab—allowing it to negotiate incredibly adverse terrain—and from its center of gravity sticks a blocky, two part arm with a rotating head that houses a huge, wide-kerf circular saw. As its name suggests, the feller buncher is dual-function machine that fells trees and bunches them into piles. The entire process takes only seconds. Depending on the terrain, in a day’s time this machine can rip through as much timber as five human fallers. Once in piles the trees are forwarded to a nearby road, manufactured into logs by a processor, and sent to the mill often without having ever been touched by a human. Underlying this shift to mechanized felling has been the continually shrinking harvest cycles on most industrial tree farms. Many of the Northwest Coast’s tree-growing corporations harvest their timber after only about 40-years growth. This produces trees that rarely exceed 24-inches in diameter—perfect fodder for the log-hungry machines. Still, a few timber companies, as well as the Washington State Department of Natural Resources and Oregon Department of Forestry, allow their trees to reach more mature proportions—too big to be handled by current technologies. It is in these stands that the chainsaw still rules, young fallers are most efficiently trained, and the cutters’ art is still practiced to its highest degree. Though the mechanization of tree felling has received little notoriety, its effects have been felt among the ranks of cutters. As sawdust-spewing machines take the choicest ground, a diminishing number of timber fallers are left to work in the steepest canyons and to down the over-sized stems that the feller bunchers cannot cut. This shift has been good news for some in the timber industry. Corporate officials can smile at the
increased production, lowered felling costs, and improved safety record that mechanization offers. In an increasingly global wood products market, these features help keep the Pacific Northwest’s forests competitive with world wood suppliers. For their owners, feller bunchers do have drawbacks. They might speed production and ease labor costs but their sticker price is staggering. A new machine can cost half a million dollars or more. The timber felling firms that can afford one quickly find out that they require almost continual maintenance. (Feller buncher operators commonly show up for work in their oil-stained coveralls.) And then there is the everfluctuating cost of diesel fuel. In the end, though, feller bunchers can cut. They, unlike their calk boot clad counterparts, are equipped with lights and are not constrained by daylight hours or hampered by windy conditions. Unlike the opposition to the disquieting introduction of chainsaws 60 years ago, there are no contests of modern-day John Henrys trying to singly outperform these Bunyanesque machines. In fact, with the recent salvage operations following the Great Coastal Gale of 2007, feller bunchers have worked through patches of blown-down forest that would have been extremely perilous
for human cutters to try to untangle. Although examples such as this might be rare, timber fallers are taking their new mechanical colleague in stride. With the timber faller goes one of the last tactile facets of harvesting trees, replaced by the relative comfort, distance, and security of Plexiglas and air conditioning. Fallers have always had a unique view of their forest surroundings, for they are the last to see an intact stand before they level it. For this reason they, more than any of their brethren in the timber trade, can fully appreciate what is being dismantled. Mechanical harvesting diminishes that experience, rendering it as impersonal and repetitive as assembly line production. As technology evolves to overcome the many variables inherent in logging, it undercuts much of the skill and color that has made it an iconic, if sometimes controversial, industry. Machines like the feller buncher continue to thin the ranks of timber fallers, relegating them to the steepest, most forbidding hillsides. But even then, in those places where technology dare not tread, men like Greg will hoist their saws and ply their trade. For we have not yet seen the last of the timber fallers.
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Reconstructing
‘Astoria’
30 Northwest Coast SPRING 2009
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Architect John E. Wicks and the Centennial Celebration of 1911 By John E. Goodenberger
s Astoria’s centennial celebration loomed, city fathers puzzled over how to rightly honor Astor’s men and the settlement’s birth. Flush with civic spirit, Astorians turned to Finnish-American architect John E. Wicks to design a replica of the stockade and blockhouses that comprised the original “Astoria.” But the memorial did not last. Like the original structure, it succumbed to the damp local climate and was toppled with a good shove. Fifty years later the city would turn once again to Wicks for help in reconstructing “Astoria.” “Uncle” Job Ross was the first person to wreak havoc on Astoria’s original landmark, or at least he was the first to brag about it. Born in 1811, the same year Astor’s trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River was built, his journey west from Ohio was not easy. During his first attempt, he was robbed of his supplies and held captive by members of the Pawnee tribe. Upon his release, he returned to Ohio. The following year, 1852, he and his wife Mary crossed the plains successfully. They constructed a house on the S.E. corner of 8th and Exchange Street in Astoria, and then operated a boarding house just west of today’s Clatsop County Courthouse. During the early years, Ross and his wife worked as a team. She cooked for boarders while he attended to basic chores like chopping firewood. It was while performing this menial task that Ross purportedly pushed over the remains of John Jacob Astor’s iconic trading post and burned it in his stove. In so doing, he reduced to ashes an internationally significant monument that helped substantiate the United States’ claim on the Oregon Country. Ironically, Ross’ less-than-iconic house survives as one of the area’s oldest structures. Although now substantially altered, it was once used for the Moose Lodge and the Mormon Church. It currently functions as a wing to Clementine’s Bed & Breakfast just above Astoria’s commercial district. Nearly 60 years after the post was destroyed, Astorians sought to correct Ross’ folly. A movement developed to reconstruct the fort. Diaries of those associated with early fur trading were brought to the forefront of public consciousness as Astoria prepared for its centennial celebration.
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The Centennial Committee, which was comprised of Astoria’s most prominent businessmen, considered several venues for the festival. Finalists included one near the ocean. It offered stunning views of the Pacific Ocean and, if selected, would be the first exposition of its kind on the shores of the western continent. Another site was on the edge of Uniontown, Astoria’s Finnish district. It presented sweeping views of the Columbia River. In the end, however, it was Shively Park that captured the committee’s imagination. Established in 1899 upon the crest of Astoria’s peninsula, the 12-acre Shively Park was near downtown and had land available for exhibition halls. More importantly, the park was chosen for its “unparalleled scenic view” enhanced by the clear-cut flanking its borders. Views to Ft. Clatsop, the mouth of the Columbia and the battlements of Ft. Stevens were vital to reinforce Astoria’s prominence in national history. The site selected to celebrate Astoria’s anniversary seemed to perfectly reflect the words of Lt. Charles Wilkes, whose expedition visited in 1841. He said, after making catty remarks about the settlement’s buildings, “…in point of beauty of situation, few places will vie
with Astoria.” After settling on a location, committee members needed to hire an architect to design an exhibit hall, outdoor theater and the reconstruction of Astor’s old stockade and blockhouses. Young John E. Wicks, a Swedish-Finn immigrant, was selected. It was natural for Wicks to be a part of Astoria’s centennial that celebrated the area’s many cultures. Wicks emigrated from Finland in 1899, then made his way to Leadville, Colorado where he worked briefly in a gold mine. There, he earned money for school and learned to speak English. Wicks later studied architecture at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. A voracious student, he completed three years worth of coursework in just one year. In 1904, John Wicks opened his architectural practice in Astoria. A year later, he married Maria Cederberg. She was a maid and cook for Astoria’s wellto-do including members of the Capt. Flavel family and candy maker Henry R. Hoefler, whose alcohol-laden “Centennial Chocolates” were the toast of the town. Wicks quickly captured the admiration of his early clients. His houses were on well-built foundations, constructed “hell for stout.” His designs reflected the fashion of the day, frequently recalling elements from the American Colonial period. Centennial committee members were keenly aware of Wicks’ abilities. He finished the construction of Astoria High School just months before winning their contract. The substantial building was the pride of the community. Wicks’ gift to meld function with beauty was readily apparent. Because of this, he later won contracts to design virtually every public school in Astoria.
Parenthetically, Wicks’ 1911 high school building, now called Towler Hall, will be renovated as the centerpiece of Clatsop Community College’s campus. Years of deferred maintenance and just plain butchery are soon to be erased or mollified.
Wicks’ approach to Astoria’s centennial structures was that of restraint. He was aware of those constructed for Portland’s Lewis & Clark Centennial in 1905. Instead of repeating Portland’s exotic Spanish and Asian style buildings, his were simpler, more utilitarian. This disparity likely reflects budgetary issues and is not reflective of Wicks’ abilities. His design of the Manufacturers’ Exhibit Hall is a case in point. The nearly 6,000 sq. ft. wood-framed building was little more than a double-gabled barn with a decorative, parapet front; a Fish & Fisheries Building was attached to one side. The 1,500 sq. ft. appendage was open to the air and had a canvas roof. Then there was Wicks’ Athenianinspired outdoor theater. Tucked in the elbow of a hill overlooking Young’s Bay, the stadium was carefully planned. No finer, more picturesque theater existed within the lower Columbia region. But, unlike those in Greece, the seats were made of wood not stone; the forest soon
swallowed the auditorium. When planning the reconstructed trading post, Wicks did his best to evoke Astor’s settlement. Dimensions of the 120 by 90-foot complex were lifted from drawings completed by Lt. T. Saumerez, who measured Ft. George in 1818. The new encampment was wrapped within an 8-foot high palisade. Bastions, 18feet high, were built on either corner. A warehouse, dwelling and shop were constructed within the stockade. Wicks required that all logs remain round, not hewn, and that bark should remain on the timber when possible. Roofing was hand-cut shakes. The Centennial Committee began the reconstruction of Wicks’ trading post on April 12, 1911, precisely 100 years to the day from when the Pacific Fur Company commenced construction of their
buildings.
Gabriel Franchere, a Canadian merchant hired by Astor, described the momentous day in 1811: “The spring, usually too tardy in this latitude was already far advanced; the foliage was budding, and the earth was clothing itself with verdure, the weather was superb and all nature smiled. We imagined ourselves in the Garden of Eden; the wild forests seemed to us delightful groves and the leaves transformed to brilliant flowers....” In 1911, snow covered the ground. Access to the park became more challenging. A foot parade, which included a military band from Fort Stevens, coast artillery corps and a battery platoon with
two field guns, staggered up the hill from downtown. A ground breaking ceremony was held at the park. The Rev. John Waters offered prayers, school children sang and the coast artillery fired a salute. Construction commenced. According to the journal of Alexander Ross, a Scottish clerk in the Astor party, there was no end to the difficulty in constructing the original trading post: “...silent and with heavy hearts we began the toil of the day...in order to secure suitable timbers for this purpose we had to go back some distance, the wood on site being so large and unmanageable, and for want of cattle to haul it, we had to carry it on our shoulders or drag it along the ground, a task of no ordinary difficulty. For this purpose eight men were harnessed and they conveyed in six days all the timber required for a building or store 60 feet long by 26 broad.” Thankfully in 1911, there were legitimate loggers, and if not gas-powered trucks then horse-drawn wagons. Unlike Astor’s men, no one involved in the Centennial was crushed by falling trees or had the misfortune to blow their own hand off with a gun. From all known accounts, things went smoothly. The construction contract was let to
What’s That Name Again? It is important to note the trading post was not, in its original incarnation, called ‘Fort Astoria.’ Astor’s men named it simply ‘Astoria.’ Later, when members of the British North West Company operated the trading post, it was called ‘Fort George.’ The name ‘Fort Astoria,’ or worse ‘Fort Astor,’ is attributed to a much later period, perhaps the 1860s, when locals romanticized the city’s picturesque beginnings. The misnomer remains, printed in virtually every tourist brochure and even carved into a plaque at the “Fort Astoria” Memorial Park. —J.G.
Edison & Gamble for $ 2,600. While little is known of Gamble, Jacob Edison built many Astoria houses, constructed numerous public projects and frequently collaborated with Wicks. Edison completed construction of the new trading post in two months. Then, he quickly departed and commenced construction of a new hospital at the quarantine station in Megler, Washington. Known as the Columbia River’s ‘Ellis Island,’ it is now one of the most underrated, little known landmarks and museums in our area. Arthur L. Peck was hired to lay out the city park for the Centennial. Peck was the founder of the Landscape Architecture School at Oregon Agricultural College, now Oregon State University. He founded the program in 1908 and is credited with introducing the western United States to formal training in landscape architecture. Furthermore, he was responsible for all landscape planning on the OSU campus. Peck used now-familiar plantings including European varieties of Purple Beech, White Birch and Mountain Ash. Rather than plant tree rows, Peck laid out vegetation according to naturalistic curves. Trees were placed for their romantic appeal, framing views and emphasizing the undulating landscape. The park plan was like an oval, cut in half across its width. Entry to the park was in the lower half. There, visitors were immediately struck by the reconstruc-
tion of Astor’s trading post. A forest was maintained and replanted behind it as a backdrop to the historical set piece. Both intellectual and emotional associations to Astoria’s past became forefront in the mind of the observer. After passing through the “forest primeval,” visitors were rewarded by broad vistas, shaped by ornamental plantings. Here, the educational component was found. Exhibition halls, an Indian encampment and the outdoor theater all played off the historically significant sites within view of the park. It was a magnificent setting. The park and its structures served the community well. However, when the celebration ended, the park fell silent. Minor events were held there, but essentially the structures were left to rot and the landscape was not adequately maintained. In 1917, the reconstructed trading post was donated to local Boy Scout troops for use as their headquarters. The boys carried out drills, held camp meetings and evening reveries. It must have been every boy’s dream come true. But the fun
ended shortly. In 1920, it was determined that the structure was unsafe and in a rapid state of decay. The City of Astoria tore down “Fort Astor.” Years later, the Clatsop County Historical Society determined that what our community really lacked was a reconstruction of Astor’s trading post. It turned to John Wicks for help. He dusted off his 1911 drawings and proposed a modest memorial. In 1956, a partial reconstruction was built on 15th and Exchange Street-- site of the original 1811 trading post. Wolmanized logs, left over from the reconstruction of Ft. Clatsop, were used to construct a bastion. Local signmaker Arvid Wuonola provided a bit of context by painting a mural on the wall behind the monument. Since then, the mural has been reinterpreted several times, but never more beautifully than by Roger McKay and Sally Lackaff in 2002. The false perspective is perfect. Local Chinookan people are portrayed with dignity, too. As Astoria prepares to celebrate its bicentennial in 2011, organizers will have one less thing to worry about. Wick’s reconstruction remains in good condition. And unlike its predecessors, the bastion is in no danger of being pushed over or chopped into pieces for firewood.
Our Mothers, Our Heritage
The Travels of
Rosalie By Tracy Laine “The Travels of Rosalie” is the fourth and final installment in a series detailing the reminiscences of Tracy’s mother, Rosalie. Tracy is currently working on a postscript to this series that explores her mother’s prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s disease.”
A
feeling of helplessness swept over Rosalie as Ernie’s four black footlockers were loaded onto the plane. He was leaving for Turkey on a two-year tour of duty with the Air Force. Of their twelve years of marriage, this would be the longest they had ever been apart. 1963 seemed like an eternity away. Rosalie would be left to care for their six month old daughter Tracy all by herself. She hadn’t adopted a daughter to become a single parent, even if it was only temporary. Abandonment was not new to her. She remembered the sudden death of her father when she was just a little girl. In an instant she found herself back on the farm in Dos Palos, California, standing over her daddy’s body as it lay motionless in the field. He had left her too. Tears were held back for appearances’ sake. After all, she was an officer’s wife and had her own duty to uphold. She waved to Ernie with one hand, and clutched her baby tightly to her chest
with the other. Numbly she watched as Ernie walked up the tarmac and unto the plane, and then, just like that he was gone. Turning away as if in slow motion she headed toward the parking lot but her feet were in no hurry to get there. The car was packed and readied for her arduous journey from Mississippi to Minnesota where she was to live with Ernie’s mother. The family dog, a miniature white poodle, scratched at the car’s window as she approached. Her younger brother Bruce had been kind enough to manufacture a custom platform made of plywood for the back seat. The contraption fit snuggly from the rear window to just behind the two bucket seats and was then covered in blankets. This would give little Tracy room to crawl around on their 1200mile journey. Bo Bo the dog would ride shotgun in the front passenger seat. Rosalie drove straight through, stopping only for brief naps, to give the baby fresh bottles and diaper changes,
and to let the little dog out. This point A to point B discipline was ingrained from her many years of military relocation with the Air Force. When she finally arrived at her destination, Rosalie received a cold reception from her mother-in-law Auna, just as she had anticipated. Although small in stature, Auna’s presence managed to fill the doorway. She gave Rosalie and her new grandbaby a hard look, then turned her back against them and walked away. Left ajar, the door swung back and forth, creaking in the cold winter breeze. It turned out that more than the winters in St. Paul could be cruel. Rosalie stood there for a moment dumbfounded, then not knowing what else to do or having anywhere else to go, she cautiously entered the house. There proved to be an insurmountable distance between them. Rosalie wanted to turn and run, even if this was what Ernie thought was best for her and the baby. The long nights would be made even longer without pleasant conversaSPRING 2009 Northwest Coast
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tion to fill them. It was bad enough to have to live with her mother-in-law, another thing quite again to have to live there without Ernie to defend her. Thank God she had her baby girl—or else she
On the road again, Rosalie and Tracy at an Oregon park on their way to St. Helens.
36 Northwest Coast SPRING 2009
would have gone completely mad. Another problem that presented itself was that Auna did not own a car. Rosalie would often offer to take her into town to buy groceries. Hell, she even
offered to pay for the groceries. Auna adamantly refused to both. Instead, she enjoyed playing the martyr by taking the bus, which was a good ten blocks away from the house, only to return several hours later huffing and puffing; practically dragging her grocery bags on the ground. The neighbors would gawk first at Auna and then at Rosalie. Rumors be-
gan to surface about the selfish daughterin-law who had come to St. Paul to leech off Auna’s good nature. They apparently did not know Auna very well. This “pity me” routine went on for about three months until Rosalie had had enough. There was no way she could live under such hostile conditions any longer. She decided that she was not even going to try to explain to Ernie why she was leaving. He would only try and talk her out of it. Instead, Rosalie responded to his latest letter with as much gaiety as she could muster, fully intending to leave the next day. Little did she know that Ernie was not even in Turkey. Over a month prior, he had been assigned to an undercover detail in Germany. Here he would greet ambassadors and dignitaries from all over the world and ensure the safety of their comings and goings. He was forbidden to tell even his wife of his whereabouts. Hence, their ongoing correspondence was rerouted through Turkey so as not to give his location away. A military man through and through, Ernie would be well into his retirement before he would “leak” this information to his wife. The morning she left was a tense one. Auna came upstairs while Rosalie was packing, filled with accusations such as “I want to make sure you don’t steal anything.” To this Rosalie shook her head and rolled her eyes, trying to focus on the task at hand. When she finished gathering her things, she walked out the door with a flat “Well, I guess this is goodbye then.” Auna uttered not a single word in response but instead returned the farewell with a pinched-faced glare. And so it was that the wandering troupe of Rosalie—with Tracy and Bo Bo in tow—was on the road again. This time, though, they were headed for familiar territory: San Bernardino. The 1800-miles seemed to pass quickly because she was both
angry at her mother-in-law, and looking into the picture. This amplified when forward to seeing her sister and brotherthe child learned to walk at an early age. in-law. She would slip up next to him and pluck Helen and Jimmy were delighted to the olive right out of his perfectly mixed have Rosalie back with them, and havvodka martini. This horrified Rosalie, as ing no children of their own, were very Jimmy would turn red with anger his left excited about having baby Tracy around. eye twitching at the corner at this unRosalie’s old room had been converted solicited unruliness. “Would you please into a sewing room after she had moved learn to control your child Rosalie,” he out to marry Ernie. With Jimmy’s help, said commandingly. Children in his Helen restored her little sister’s room to book were to be “seen and not heard.” closely resemble what it had looked like Apparently, this child did not get that when she had lived there. In addition, memo. they had picked up a basinet at a nearby thrift store, and Helen had lined it with fresh pink and white checked gingham. The finishing touch was a stuffed giraffe placed gingerly on top of the covers to welcome the baby. When Rosalie walked through the front door she breathed a deep sigh of relief. She was home. Helen squeezed Helen O’Brien lovingly holds her niece Tracy in San Bernardino. her hand and kissed her cheek while Jimmy looked on with a smile and nodded at It turned out that the baby was not the wee one. Rosalie had made arrangecomfortable in her new surroundings ments for Bo Bo to stay with her best either. The hot California nights sent friend Patty on her nearby ranch. Patty her into fits of hysterics. Rosalie tried and Rosalie had stayed in touch since everything she could to do quiet her, high school and still remained the best fearing that the incessant wailing would of friends. She had married well—to an wake up her less than understanding established country club manager—and brother-in-law. Finally, Rosalie decided had two daughters. Now ages 10 and she would put the baby, basinet and all, 12, Patty’s girls were excited about the outside on the patio next to her bedprospect of a visiting four-legged friend. room. This seemed to quiet the child, the This arrangement at the O’Brien fresh night air lulling her comfortably house lasted for about three months, to sleep. While it might have calmed the but the babies’ antics would eventually baby, it caused Rosalie to sleep fitfully, prove more than the staunch retired waking many times throughout the night Colonel could abide. Used to a life of to check on her sleeping daughter. formal dinners and cocktail parties, he couldn’t quite figure out how a baby fit Ernie’s letters came like clockwork
every Wednesday. He said that he was well, and that he loved and missed both her and the baby. This day’s stack of mail also included an unusual pink envelope. It was an invitation from her younger sister Polly in Oregon, inviting her to come for an extended visit. To this Rosalie was overjoyed. The tension had been mounting at the O’Brien house, and she did not want to outstay her welcome. The last time she had seen her sister Polly was in Dos Palos. The two girls had met there when they were in their early
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thirties, nearly ten years prior. They had stood in front of the old family farmhouse and just stared at it. Neither one had the courage to go up on the porch and knock on the door. Deep-rooted memories of poverty and loss held them dead in their tracks. Instead, having driven a very long distance to get there, they went to the house next door. Their old neighbors informed them that the current owners had found dozens of marbles buried in the backyard where the eight children had spent so many summer
afternoons in their youth. Further, they had found the name “Rosalie” written in elegant cursive inside the cupboards, on the walls, and in other obscure places throughout the house. This made Rosalie blush, she had almost forgotten about that. It would be good to see her sister Polly again. Rosalie gave a heartfelt hug to Helen and Jimmy, thanking them for once again coming to her aide and taking her in. She promised to write or telephone whenever she could. On the way Rosalie
Little Tracy learns to ride a cow at her aunt Polly’s farm in Oregon.
would meet her mother Eola for lunch at a wharf in San Francisco. This would not only break up the 1100-mile trip to Oregon, but would also give her mother the opportunity to see her new granddaughter. Disappointingly, her mother seemed more interested in San Francisco’s waterfront than Rosalie’s new addition. Since Eola had eight children of her own and numerous grandchildren already, it must have taken the fun out of it for her. Regardless, this came as a slap in the face to Rosalie who understandably cut the visit short simply saying, “I better get back on the road Momma.” Once again she found herself on Highway 101 bound for Oregon, only 600 miles to go. Her sister Polly had married a man who worked for Burlington Northern Railroad and had settled in St. Helens on an eighty acre, timbered farm. It came complete with a turn-of-the-century farmhouse much resembling their childhood home, and a barn that housed all manner of animals. They had horses, ducks, chickens, and of course cows. The cows in particular reminded Rosalie of the dairy her father owned in Dos Palos. How she loved the cows. To her there was nothing better in this world than fresh cream, and baby Tracy agreed with her by smiling and saying “mmm-mm, keem.” On any given afternoon the sisters would hang out on the wooden fence looking at the cows and reminiscing about the early days on another farm dear to their hearts. One day, they propped little Tracy up on a cow, the sight of which for some unknown reason put them in stitches. Rosalie wrote excitedly to Ernie telling him about her recent move and explained to him how happy she was in Oregon. He on the other hand was not pleased at all that Rosalie had traveled cross country by herself with a child in tow, but then again what was he supposed to do about it? At least she was with family. Ernie would
never completely forgive his mother for treating Rosalie the way she did. Time passed and as promised, Ernie returned to the states exactly two years from the day he left. He bypassed his mother’s house in Minnesota completely and flew directly into Portland, Oregon. Rosalie and little Tracy were there to greet him. My, how his daughter had changed. She was walking and talking! He had not been there to see her take her first steps or hear her first words. He had missed out on so much serving his country. After exchanging long awaited hugs and kisses they walked out into a perfect 75-degree Oregon summers day. Ernie loved the climate and was glad they were not in the sweltering heat of their former residence in Mississippi. The reunited
family drove to the nearest diner they could find for a bite to eat and to bridge the gap of their two years apart that seemed lost in letters alone. They settled in at a table, and quickly began exchanging their experiences both good and bad. However, no sooner had the waitress set the glasses of water on the table than Tracy threw hers in her daddy’s face. Who was this man who was vying for mommy’s undivided attention? Rosalie was embarrassed, but deep down inside herself she had a little chuckle in her chest just the same. Serves him right for leaving us for so long, she thought to herself. Daddy’s little girl had become Mommy’s little girl.
Imbibe
HOPPY HOLIDAYS!
Ninkasi Oatis Garners Top Honors at Family Beer Tasting By Jim LeMonds
Like most families, ours has a sacred holiday tradition. Ours just happens to involve beer.
GROWLERS GULCH—Friends and family members had been shuttled over via four-wheel drive, the turkey was in the oven, and the gutters had started peeling off the house under the pressure of a 30-inch snowpack. Fifteen craft beers were lined up on a table in our basement for the 8th Annual Growlers Gulch Holiday Beer Tasting. Judges included eight veterans and three rookies hoping to earn varsity credentials. In a close vote that broke down along gender lines, newcomer Ninkasi Oatis took home the top prize, edging Left Hand Snow Bound Winter Ale. Eel River Climax Noel Imperial Red Ale finished third. Oatis (7.2 percent ABV) is outstanding oatmeal stout from Ninkasi Brewery in Eugene. Think deep, dark roasted
malt and a mouthful of smoky flavor with every sip. Open since 2006, Ninkasi has quickly established a reputation as one of the Northwest’s best breweries. The company’s website says the focus is on producing “flavorful, balanced beers,” and Oatis certainly fits the bill. Snow Bound (8.6 percent ABV) from Left Hand Brewery of Longmont, Colorado, was a surprise second-place finisher. Spice beers are fairly common during the holidays, but few brewers have the skill to do them right. Snow Bound’s complex blend of cinnamon, honey, ginger, and cardamom was smooth and well-balanced. Eel River Climax Ale (8 percent ABV), an aromatic Imperial Red, garnered strong reviews, but faded in the medal round against the big flavors of Snow Bound and Oatis. With fifteen beers in contention, the opening round was chaotic. Judges tasted each of the brews, sometimes more than once, before voting four off the island. First to go were Elysian Bi-Frost (boring), Great Divide Hibernation Ale (poorly balanced), Scuttlebutt 10 Below (watery), and Pike Auld Acquaintance (thin). Pike Auld Acquaintance earned the
dubious distinction of being named “worst beer,” with one judge calling it “an auld acquaintance that needs to be forgot.” Elysian Bi-Frost, the fourthplace finisher at the 2007 event, was surprisingly bland. Ditto for Scuttlebutt 10 below, which packed about as much character as Rod Blagojevich. Great Divide Hibernation Ale, a silver medalist at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival, drew widespread criticism from judges for the second consecutive year. Touted on the company’s website as “the most sought-after winter beer in Colorado,” Hibernation was sought after by no one on Growlers Gulch Road, although one judge’s comment (“tastes like dirt”) seemed a bit harsh. The second round saw the elimination of five beers—all decent but unremarkable. They included Laughing Buddha Purple Yam (funky aftertaste), Avery Old Jubilation (nothing special), Anderson Valley Winter Solstice (light, with minimal flavor), Anchor Steam Christmas Ale (a poor imitation of Left Hand Snow Bound), and Lazy Boy Mistletoe Bliss (smooth, but thin). Once we were down to six contenders in the third round, there were
no Cloris Leachmans, so the judging became more strenuous. The three beers we eliminated—Southern Tier Big Red, Port Brewing Santa’s Little Helper, and Maritime Jolly Roger Christmas Ale— were all good. Big Red (9 percent ABV) is hoppy with just a hint of sweetness; despite the high alcohol presence, it is smooth and
easy to drink. Jolly Roger is dark and malty with caramel sweetness; several judges rated it a more balanced version of Great Divide Hibernation. Port Brewing Santa’s Little Helper was my favorite. A true winter warmer with an ABV of 10 percent, it is dark and flavorful, with a sweet finish. Comparatively Speaking Beer aficionado Jim LeMonds is a freelance writer living in Castle Rock, Washington.
Start Your Own Tradition The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the most innovative brewers in the world. Why not join in the celebration by organizing a beer tasting for a family get-together or a party with friends? Tastings are not the place for pintpours. We use two-ounce glasses and do a lot of sipping. The ABV (alcohol by volume) of microbrews often ranges from 7 to 8 percent; a number of those we sampled on Christmas Day exceeded 9 percent. If you have any Bud Light (4.2 percent ABV) drinkers in your crowd, you might need to explain that pounding down a half-rack is not an option. Possibilities for organizing a tasting of your own: • If you have several breweries in your vicinity, purchase 22-ounce bottles or growlers from a single category—IPA or stout, for example—and determine the local champion.
• Compare stouts, IPAs, or winter beers from the large microbreweries, including Deschutes, Pyramid, Bridgeport, Full Sail, Red Hook, Alaskan, Sierra Nevada, and Widmer. • If you’re lucky enough to have a specialty beer shop in your area, ask the libations expert for a list of his or her favorites and purchase those for a tasting. • Do some research at ratebeer. com or beeradvocate.com. Check the highest rated beers, pick up a few that are available in your area, and make your own decision. We start the competition by deciding which beers we like least during the early rounds. By the time we get to the final four, we rate the beers 1 through 4 and then average the scores. The key is to be creative and have fun.
Rankings from Rate Beer (ratebeer.com) and Beer Advocate (beeradvocate.com) 1. Port Brewing Santa’s Little Helper 2. Great Divide Hibernation Ale 3. Ninkasi Oatis 4. Eel River Climax Noel 5. Avery Old Jubilation 6. Anchor Steam Holiday Ale 7. Southern Tier Big Red 8. Elysian Bi-Frost 9. Maritime Jolly Roger 10. Anderson Valley Winter Solstice 11. Laughing Buddha Purple Yam Porter 12. Left Hand Snow Bound 13. Scuttlebutt 10 Below 14. Pike Auld Acquaintance 15. Lazy Boy Mistletoe Bliss Rankings from the Growlers Gulch Tasting Team 1. Ninkasi Oatis 2. Left Hand Snow Bound 3. Eel River Climax Noel 4. Port Brewing Santa’s Little Helper 5. Southern Tier Big Red 6. Maritime Jolly Roger 7. Anchor Steam Christmas Ale 8. Lazy Boy Mistletoe Bliss 9. Anderson Valley Winter Solstice 10. Avery Old Jubilation 11. Laughing Buddha Purple Yam Porter 12. Scuttlebutt 10 Below 13. Great Divide Hibernation 14. Elysian Bi-Frost 15. Pike Auld Acquaintance
Trouble Brewing Beer and Coffee in New York City —
S tor y by Lynds ay F aye
—
W
hen my husband Gabriel and I first moved to Manhattan, I spent the winter prowling the streets, apparently aimlessly, but in fact I was a girl on a mission: I needed a good cup of coffee. I also wanted a good pint of beer. Now, a Northwesterner in her native land can hardly swing a squirrel over her head without hitting a fresh java pot or a frosty stein, as both beverages are something of a local pastime. But since arriving in the Apple, I’d felt singularly brew-deprived, in both the word’s glorious senses. I love a good cup of coffee. Whether it’s a mug of fresh joe at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon, or an espresso handed straight from the side of a hut in my hometown of Longview, Washington, coffee is about instant gratification, and in the Northwest we brew good coffee. We like it strong, and oil-rich, and earthy, and we like when it comes from a shop called “Alternative Energy” or “Mud Puddle.” Similarly, we like our beer strong, rich, and flavorful, and many of us want our pints as redolent as the pine forests in our backyards. Living in Manhattan didn’t mean I couldn’t retain my most treasured regional bad habits, I reasoned. So here I am, I thought, wincing at the cold as I embarked on my quest. New York is home to the world’s pickiest palates, and I want a good local beer and a good cup of coffee. I’ll head toward midtown. What could be simpler? I’d been walking toward midtown for ten minutes before I realized that I wasn’t. Thus, a word of advice: the first thing a girl from rural Washington needs to know about Manhattan is that when you exit the subway system, you can’t get to midtown by walking “toward the skyscrapers.” That might sound a clever premise, but its logic is slightly skewed in that every direction is “toward the skyscrapers.” So as you stride past florists
and delis and dozens of Rite Aids heading for the tall, shiny buildings, take a moment to consult street signs. More efficient still, look around you sheepishly: within ten seconds, a New Yorker with a mind like a Google terrain satellite will leap from the shadows demanding, “Where you headed?” Truthfully, my answer wouldn’t have mattered, since I’d already noticed that beer and coffee aren’t exactly scarce in New York City. If you walk ten paces in any direction, you’ll happen upon cement stairs leading into a neonfestooned, cellar-level dive bar. And if you walk ten more paces after emerging, you’ll encounter a Dunkin’ Doughnuts. So I thought to end my quest where I stood; the locals had glowingly assured me these Doughnut People would serve me up a fine cup of coffee, after all. My lips hovered over the steaming Styrofoam cup. I took a sip. I won’t fault fellow sentimentalists for giving fondly remembered foods and beverages more praise than is justified.
However, Dunkin’ Doughnuts coffee tastes like what Confederate soldiers steeped when they’d run through their stock of acorns. Maybe I’d have better luck with dive bar beer, I theorized. After all, there were promising cement stairs not ten paces away, and odds were good they offered something local on draft. The barkeep was lithe and active, and she chatted in the hail-fellow-well-met way that few tourists would guess characterizes New York locals. My options included Stella Artois, Guinness, Bass, Sierra Nevada, and a few taps I failed to recognize. I wanted an East Coast beer, and she readily poured me a draft brewed with apricots that purported to be a pale ale. I sipped. I savored appreciatively. Apparently someone had hit upon the ingenious notion of straining Miller High Life and apricots through a fireman’s sock. My hopes—after many similar experiences—were badly dashed. Didn’t they like strong, smooth coffee in New
York City, I wondered? Didn’t they like flavorful beer? For the record, yes they do. There are some outstanding microbreweries on the Eastern side of the country, now I’ve taken the time to find them. The Southern Tier Brewing Company folk of Lakewood, New York make an imperial unfiltered wheat beer called Heavy Weizen that brings tears to my eyes. I also lose my composure over Rebehoth Beach, Delaware: home of Dogfish Head, where Raison D’Etre is concocted by magical beer wizards. However, the sentiment Garrett Oliver—the urbane, skilled brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery—expressed in a recent New Yorker article sums up what I see as the bi-coastal taste divide nicely. “When a brewer says, ‘This has more hops in it than anything you’ve ever had in your life…’” he was quoted as remarking, “it’s sort of like a chef saying, ‘This stew has more salt in it than anything you’ve ever had—are you man enough to eat it?’” Blasphemy, if you’d care to consult my thoroughly Western family on the subject. Mr. Oliver can stir up a fine keg, and his love of brewing is palpable, but we are not of his mind. Extreme and experimental beers fire creativity and enthusiasm. They honor the traditions of ancient beer-makers, who added what ingredients came readily to hand! They inspire brewers to add white sage and hazelnut nectar and pomegranates to great glorious cauldrons of malt! I didn’t care about any of that at the time, to be honest, as I sipped fruited sock. I was thinking Northwest beers taste delicious, and that they don’t distribute much on the East Coast, and that
I wanted one very badly. Weeks passed. Despair hovered over my two-pronged campaign. Then one blessed afternoon in Hell’s Kitchen, I found half the solution to my brewed beverage dilemma. Casa Cupcake Café is lodged between the pizza joint where the vagrants (and the discerning) buy their dollar slices and a beautifully pungent spice
market filled with heaping barrels of turmeric and paprika. Casa’s huge white marble slab of a front table seats about fifteen, and the window provides a vista of the scenic rear entrance to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. I asked the fellow sitting next to the enormous red espresso machine for an Americano with steamed milk. Carrying it back to my coat and gloves, I drew a long sniff of foaming cream and espresso crema and went in for a taste. Perfection. Angels sang through the ceiling. There is a divinity that shapes our ends, I thought, for though I’d doubted, heaven had been merciful: there was a cup of coffee worth drinking in New York City. And I was drinking it. Still more weeks passed. Yet I’d
taken heart: if I could win the coffee theatre of war, my beer V-Day was surely at hand. And then, while perusing the Upper West Side one frigid afternoon, Gabe and I ducked into the Westside Brewing Company. Seated at the long wooden bar, I began chatting with Kirk—bartender, manager, and man in charge of beer ordering. He asked if I wanted a taste from a small Brooklyn operation, the Bolshoi Russian Imperial Stout by Sixpoint Craft Ales. I said yes. This time, the angels commenced a slow clap that ended in a thunderous round of divine applause. Sixpoint’s Bolshoi pours a shimmering black, with a head of finely laced caramel foam. It tastes like toast and black licorice and chocolate and bittersweet buttercream. And coffee. Bolshoi tastes like very, very good coffee. But it isn’t coffee, I thought through my contented reverie—it’s beer. Fantastic local Brooklyn beer. And though I knew I would still have to buy a plane ticket to enjoy my old favorites, there I sat happily sipping it while the winter winds blew outside, and the city turned the snow the color of boots. The Westside Brewing Company has since changed management, and Kirk has migrated to the 4th Avenue Pub in Brooklyn. But I’ll be forever grateful for the relief I felt that day, knowing I could drink a stellar American pint without packing a bindle and hopping a freight train, or begging my parents to ship me beer through the mail. Photos by Gabriel Lehner
New IN THE Northwest “They Are All Red Out Here”: Socialist Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1895 – 1925 Jeffrey A. Johnson
University of Oklahoma Press
One of early-twentieth-century America’s most fertile grounds for political radicalism, the Pacific Northwest produced some of the most dedicated and successful socialists the country has ever seen. As a radicalized labor force emerged in mining, logging, and other extractive industries, socialists employed intensive organizational and logistical skills to become an almost permanent third party that won elections and shook the confidence of establishment rivals. At the height of Socialist Party influence just before World War I, a Montana member declared, “They are all red out here.” In this first book to fully examine the development of the American Socialist Party in the Northwest, Jeffrey A. Johnson draws a sharp picture of one of the most vigorous left-wing organizations of this era. The book marks a major contribution to the ongoing debate over why socialism never grew deep roots in American soil and no longer thrives here. It is a work of political and labor history that uncovers alternative social and political visions in the American West.
Naselle-Grays River Valley Donna Gatens-Klint and the Appelo Archives Arcadia Publishing New from local author Donna Gatens-Klint and the Appelo Archives is Naselle-Grays River Valley, the latest pictorial history from Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. More than 200 vintage photographs were compiled in the new book, many of which were donated from residents’ own private collections. Located in western Wahkiakum County and southern Pacific County, with the mighty Columbia River the length of the land, Naselle-Grays River Valley presents the reader with the community’s history in photographs. The new book dates back to the arrival of the Chinook Indians who made the valley their home long before Lewis and Clark came down the Columbia on their expedition to find the Pacific Ocean. Profits from book sales will be donated to the Appelo Archives.
Bretz’s Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World’s Greatest Flood John Soennichsen
Sasquatch Books
The land between Idaho and the Cascade Mountains is characterized by gullies, coulees, and deserts— in geologic terms, it is a wholly unique place on earth. Legendary geologist J. Harlan Bretz, starting in the 1920s, formed a theory that the land was scoured in a virtual instant by a massive flood. His original thinking was rewarded with various forms of public and academic humiliation. Bretz’s Flood tells the dramatic story of this scientific maverick—how he came to study the region, his radical theory that a huge flood created it, and how the mainstream geologic community campaigned to derail him from pursuing the idea that satellite photos would confirm decades later. SPRING 2009 Northwest Coast
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Northwest Mystery Painter By Irene Martin
Who was the unknown painter? Local legend claims he was a “saloon bum” who painted pictures to earn money for drink. Another rumor says that he rode up and down the Columbia on the sternwheelers, stopping in all the tiny communities along the way to paint pictures....
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he name is Weidell. Just Weidell. The initial in the lower right hand side of the painting looks like an “H” but it is impossible to be certain. There is no title, no date. The scene of the painting is the village of Skamokawa on the lower Columbia River, probably in the1880s. A couple of landmarks, such as the Central School, built in 1894, and the Methodist Church, built in 1893, are not in the picture, so the painting predates them. The artist must 46 Northwest Coast SPRING 2009
have painted the picture from a vantage point on Lutes’ Mountain on the western edge of town. When compared with other photos of the era, the historic verisimilitude is accurate, although the painting’s style might nowadays be called primitive. The heavy canvas it was painted on may have been sail canvas from a boat. Although photos of Skamokawa in this era exist, none gives the scope that the size of the painting (20” X 36”) and the artist’s attention to detail provide. The village’s commercial center is on the left and includes Silverman and Thornburg, Dealers in General Merchandise, hotels, a saloon, and several gillnet boats tied nearby. Cordwood used by the steamers that brought in supplies is stacked at one end of the dock. On the near side of Skamokawa Creek, but in the background, stands the Howe Store with its false front. As there were no bridges in town at the time, housewives are rowing along Skamokawa Creek to the mercantile establishments to do their shopping, or perhaps attend a women’s club meeting. Note the woman waiting on the dock on the near side of the creek, and the ladies in hats rowing in her direction. Is she the hostess of the Ladies’ Aid monthly meeting? One woman is rowing another woman who is not wearing a hat, probably a young girl. Is she taking her daughter to school? Perhaps she is ferrying her home, and has dropped off the little girl in red who is walking towards the last house on the right, where her mother, also wearing red, awaits her. In
the days when clothes were home-made, it is not hard to imagine the entire family being clad in garments made from the same bolt of red cloth. The school at that time was held in the messhouse of the Colwell Mill. In the background, at the right across Skamokawa Harbor, are the houses built for the Colwell Mill and the mill itself. The larg-
er building to the left of the millhouses was the messhouse where the mill’s crew ate, children went to school, and officials convened meetings. Boardwalks connect the houses to allow pedestrians to avoid the ever-present mud of tidal flats and months of rain. The stumps and scattered vegetation on the hillside attest to recent logging and clearing activity. The rich greens and pale blue of the
color-starved residents’ desire for some brightness in their lives. The gillnet boats appear in shades of red or blue. The men are all dressed in black, and most of them are congregating near the saloon. Even the women’s clothing is dark. Only the child in the foreground and her mother on the house porch provide tiny splashes of red in an otherwise green landscape. The blue smoke coming from most chim-
sternwheelers, stopping in all the tiny communities along the way to paint pictures. No other works of his are known to survive. Before the days of color photography, a painting such as this one offers an insight into pioneer days on the Columbia that photographs do not provide. The colors are the story line that tell us about life on the water in the days be-
watery sky, accompanied by the drab greys, buffs and browns of most of the buildings provide the colors missing from the black and white photos of that time. One or two buildings are painted a pale blue. Most of the doors and windowpanes appear to be a cranberry shade, perhaps mute testimony to the
neys is another slight color accent, but also notifies the viewer that wood stoves heated houses and businesses alike. Who was the unknown painter? Local legend claims he was a “saloon bum” who painted pictures to earn money for drink. Another rumor says that he rode up and down the Columbia on the
fore roads, when both women and men rowed and children went to school in boats. Skamokawa earned the nickname “Little Venice” early in its career, and the picture shows us why. The charm and detail of this work are a testament to his talent, and a rich memory of a bygone era. SPRING 2009 Northwest Coast
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A Tale of Two Labels
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uring the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, the lower Columbia River was deemed the “Salmon Canning Capitol of the World.” This title has long since passed to more northern waters, but for nearly a century, beginning in the 1860s, packing the over-sized salmonoid in hermeticallysealed receptacles was big business. Although Astoria was the undisputed hub of canning activity, numerous packing houses dotted both sides of the lower river. In 1895, production peaked with 635,000 cases—each case holding 48 one-pound cans. Declining salmon runs and refinements in alternative preservation methods caused the number of canneries to dwindle until the last major salmon cannery closed in the 1970s. Throughout this century of salmon packing, a paper label was pasted on each can identifying its producer and contents. These labels represented the canners’ best opportunity to distinguish their product from their competitors’ in the eyes of the consumer. During the early decades of the fishery—from the 1870s to the 1910s—competition was especially fierce. This resulted in a period of colorful and highly stylized labels that represented a unique interface between art and commerce.
Lithographers from across the nation produced these labels for the canners, often rendering illustrations that were as fanciful as they were beautiful. Many early labels featured a whimsical rendering of a Chinook salmon that looked more like a scale-covered shad. Fishermen, Indians, eagles, and sailing ships also became popular adornments for
made them highly sought after collectibles. The two labels you see here are from the Pillar Rock Packing Company. Located along the rugged Washington shoreline, the firm borrowed its name from the bastion of basalt rising some 25-feet above the river’s surface about 1000-feet off the cannery. The
cans. According to the late Jack Edwards, the undisputed authority on the matter, most early tin cans sported a red label to disguise the discoloration caused by rust. As canning technology and lithography evolved, the illustrations became more refined and the colors more diverse. Sadly, these labels are among the handful of physical reminders of the Columbia River’s salmon bonanza. Only a very few old-time canneries remain— most either went up in flames or down through the ravages of neglect. The labels’ peculiar quality as both a historic relic and eye-pleasing work of art have
site, 22-miles upstream from the river’s mouth, had been used by the venerable Hudson Bay Company as a salmon saltery—one of its many far-flung export enterprises—and before that as a Native American encampment. In 1877, a salmon cannery took shape there. The older of the two is the “Boss Brand” label, dating from the 1890s. The bewhiskered gent sporting the bowler is John T.M. Harrington, founder of the Pillar Rock Packing Company. Called “Red” by his friends, Harrington was a hulking Irishman who began fishing the rich waters of the lower Columbia River
in the 1860s. He watched as canneries multiplied and canners made fortunes. In 1877, with the backing of his brokers in Portland, Sylvester Farrell and Richard Everding, Harrington built a cannery on the site of the old saltery. The venture paid handsomely. John Harrington became so identified as the “Boss” of Pillar Rock that his image became a brand. In 1907, the “Laird of Pillar Rock” purchased a country estate in Northumberland County, England, where in 1910 he took up residence and lived out his final years. The other label, which far outlived its originator, featured the iconic rock that stood off the cannery’s wharf. It dates from the first decade of the 1900s. On the label you will notice the can’s net weight, a requirement after the passage of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Both the “Boss Brand” and “Pillar Rock Brand” labels are representative of the labels produced around 1900, though far from the most colorful examples from that period. The Pillar Rock brand doesn’t end here, however. In 1930, the New England Fish Company (NEFCO) purchased the cannery at Pillar Rock. Despite diminishing runs, the new firm continued to pack salmon at the plant until the 1940s. The cannery languished and was eventually sold, but NEFCO kept the Pillar Rock brand. The firm folded in 1980, but the brand lived on. Ocean Beauty—an international seafood company based in Seattle—still cans wild Alaskan salmon under the Pillar Rock brand and markets it in the Midwest and southern reaches of the United States. The label still features sailboats circling the basaltic column in the rich waters of the Columbia River.
For additional information on Pillar Rock and historic salmon canning labels, see Carlton E. Appelo’s Pillar Rock: Wahkiakum County, Washington (1969) and Jack Edwards’ How Old is that Label? A Celebration of Pacific Northwest Salmon Labels & Dating Guide (1994, 2006).
“Lavender Rhodies,” by Noel Thomas.
Conflict In the Lawns Not that there was any talking to him, the new neighbor, bent on chain-sawing down the swath of high rhodies fringing the property line. The fell green swoop of it. A life-long enthusiast of machinery in the face of my stand-in coward. Vexed, I admit I shifted from foot to foot. In this lesson on love the anarchic brush strokes were erased. Uncensored, senseless what we inflict on one another. From this side the stub ends are hard to listen to. Not that they’re saying anything, I realize. (It’s complicated by, yes, life, death and how they expressed in May, a kind of joy—sheer armloads of froth in the borderlines) Yet, back here, for instance, deeper than the ear can hear, there is something wordless. Less. Some old loss, some thirst unslaked. In the illuminated stumpage a long string of goodbyes. Nothing more to get across. —Patricia Staton
Patricia Staton lives in Astoria, where she and her husband Noel Thomas build aged miniature structures, and teach their techniques in classes around the country. Her chapbook, “The Woman Who Cries Speaks” was recently published by Lost Horse Press. Other poems of hers can be seen at www.patriciastaton.com. To view Noel’s work visit the RiverSea Gallery in Astoria or log onto www.noelthomaspaints.com.
The Other Part of the Miracle is the red-wingeds’ return, black birds with a revel of crimson on their shoulders, a call that sags like a drawl, like the short-long-short of their flight. March has finally come. Mind you the birds perch on cattails sprung and faded, and the grass towering still above the swamp is dead. The mountains in view endure a thin chill of snow, and the ocean at my back grows tired of raging. But if I stand long, I see the birds are many, their electric-red flashes almost hard to believe. And the trees that edge the wetland flush a suggestion of chartreuse. We have outlived one more winter of storm and loss. Surely miracle enough. But the other part of the miracle is the red-wingeds’ return. David Crehner/iStock
—Tricia Gates Brown
Writer and poet Tricia Gates Brown found home on the Northwest Coast in 2004. She has authored non-fiction books and articles, a play, a children’s book titled Frederick and the Flute Maker: A Haystack Rock Story, and in 2008 released the poetry chapbook Sackcloth and Ashes. She holds a PhD in theology, works part time as curator of the Cannon Beach History Center and Museum, and resides in a woodland cottage by Foley Creek.
Painter of the Rain Coast Story and Artwork by Erik Sandgren
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e live on a lee shore— pounding waves, big trees, big fish, big water, First Peoples, confluences, and tectonic movement. William Blake’s Nobodaddy erupts anew from ancient deeps. Look: Sea stacks on the outer shore rhyme with the vertical accents of old cannery pilings and abandoned docks. They rhyme with remnant snags of old logging shows, rhyme with the standing runestones of snuff-dipping Swede forbearers. Conflicting claims and the booms and busts of extraction economies are incised into the landscape. Headlands stretch westward into the mammalian sea roads. Around them are otters, oystercatchers, grebes, guillemots, cormorants, herons, gulls, plovers, sea lions, dunlins, sanderlings,
Cape Disappointment, watercolor (15” X 22”)
and beached Humboldt Squid. Layers of stuff and duff are nutrients to the present growth.
Living this landscape—how do you set about to make a picture that teams with what you know, what you see, and what you half remember? These temperate rainforests, the old growth, are more densely biotic than anything on earth. There’s nothing like it. There are places you can hop out of your car and be swallowed by it—most other bits have been pushed far enough up and back and away that you are forced to earn your contact with the primeval. Europe has its cathedrals. We have trees and nurse logs as miraculous, and runs
of big quick strong fish with DNA as venerable. Pilgrimages to them have a different flavor, to be sure—ministered by ravens, ouzels, wrens, and voles. Moving waters; rarely is there a quiet moment in the drool and drip and sizzle—always going somewhere, and not a little spooky. Owls are not the tame icon of conventional wisdom here—more likely to be a Quinault death vision or a fighting word over the timber set-aside that impacts livelihoods and school funding. The artist’s aqueous media are perfectly suitable here: watercolor outdoors in the stay-damp about-to rain mode and acrylics or oils for the winter ceremonials—tucked away indoors for long grey months.
I moved back to the Pacific Northwest with family to a timber town best known for its hard times to teach art, of all things, at the small college marked by its chainsawn choker setter mascot at the highway entrance. Here I am close to country both different than and deeply familiar to my Willamette Valley upbringing: Doug firs, rain-shrouded mountains, rivers, mink-oiled boots, four wheel drives, Filson, Goretex, big bonfires on the beaches, and winter steelhead. We raised a child in this cradle of mists, among artists, skilled working people, family, and teachers—beautiful specimens of each—and more. Our first year here one hundred and thirteen inches of rain beat down on our shakebutt roof and house of roughsawn timber. We can just see a squint of the Chehalis river from the front room— shiny mud and bright grays, and the ridges ragged with logging. When we arrived twenty years ago, the A-lines and C-lines were open to hunters, not yet gated against tweakers and dumpers. There were inordinate numbers of Scandinavians and rivers new to me: the Bone, Palix, Johns, Elk, Bogachiel, Hoh, Queets, Quinault—each with complex networks of tributary streams. Still to be had for the price of a walk are clearcuts, tidefalls, clamming beaches, cobbled
Johnstone Strait, watercolor (11” X 15”)
shores, headlands, spruces, chantrelles, and tall trees tickling water droplets out of wispy mists curling back on themselves like green wood shavings fresh off the knife.
My father, Nelson Sandgren, couldn’t show me how to fish, instead we painted outdoors together—wet and cold sometimes—and living like kings in a glory of health and light, warming after by a roaring fire. Never turn your
Ghost Salmon, acrylic on panel (30” X 40”)
back on the sea, son. Every so often a sneaker wave comes in all the way from China. And don’t be playing on these beach-logs. It may only take an inch to flip those tons of wood. So all these years its been painting on the beach, from the headlands, perched on rocks, and ducking the wind behind piles of big silvery wood. Painting in the boatyards, I am still seduced into pure description by the splendid curves of boats bred to their waters and specialized by fishery: trawlers, trollers, bow pickers, long liners, crabbers, and still a few multi–purpose double enders from the 1930s. They have known the power of the sea and the resilience of sailors’ boundless faith in their seabounding shapes of wood. It is both humbling and satisfying to express oneself with a set of skills common to a long-valued profession. There are several strands a-weaving. My father’s teachers at the University of Oregon were Andrew Vincent, David McCosh, and Jack Wilkinson. McCosh had come west from studying with Grant Wood and developed here in the Northwest a freshly abstracted response to his newly familiar landscape. Through travel, books, and discussion in a home
Ninstints, watercolor (11” X 15”)
filled with painters and a perfume of coffee and turpentine, we also nurtured a deep familiarity with the art of Europe. Then, of course, there was the excitement of the Northwest School as they were being discovered: Tobey, Graves, Callahan, and others making special reference to the Pacific. My first introduction to the complexities and nuanced variety of Northwest Coast art came from collections at the Portland Art Museum and the carvings of George Kosanovic—not knowing then how that work would eventually inform my own. Studying at Yale I found that my love of light and landscape and a certain ability to find their equivalents in shapes and color—everything I had unwittingly brought with me to college—was supported, critiqued, and honed by other teachers. It found a new basis there in history and intellect. And then what? To paint, to show, to travel and to teach—what is there to paint that matters? The answer is a life of painting light and water.
The rain coast of Canada and Alaska is boisterously populated by Raven, the boreal bird of significance to any
who know it first hand. As Emblem of thought and memory for the Norse, Raven is a tricky omnivore for the Northwest First Peoples who spin out creation as rising from his omnivorous selfishness—a paean to the universal laws of unintended consequences. You can see this world through the lens of their stories, reminded by glyphs cut into the surfaces of stone: prototypes of the ovoid form lines of later coastal art. Tendrils of finger-wide grooves depict familiar fish and mythical creatures in a sinuous language of incised characters. They reach from the Chinese side of the
Pacific suggesting venerable dragons of transformative energies. Their significance are extensions of the very places you find them, unique to each spot—on a particular boulder, on this special stretch of beach, above that one particular twist of stone and water: Sproat Lake, Nanaimo, Gabriola and Denman Islands, Chrome Island (next to the lighthouse), Cape Alava, and Kuleet Bay, among others. Anthropologist Franz Boas points out that the old Northwest Coast art offers a special fusion of the demonic and the sacred—qualities usually separate in European culture. The relevance of this fusion has appeared to me gradually, as if emerging from mist. This particularly grand crash of land and sea continues to toss up inspiring polarities. Here we are, perched for a moment on the edge of a continent, on a slim and slippery sliver of time and space, painting something of the heart and something of the mind. Paraphrasing Gary Snyder: the artists’ job is to represent that part of the old mythologies that are relevant today. What isn’t already ancient in a throwaway culture? Let the moving waters guide your answer. All along this coast you can watch the sea as it was a thousand years ago and more, pounding the living rock. You hear the same strong suck and push of forces rockin’ the rim. Spirit Island, acrylic on canvas (44” X 54”) On loan to Washington Department of Ecology Headquarters
I have painted the rain coast bits and pieces at a time over the years alone or with friends, from Arcata to Sitka. The redwood coast feels different than the rest of California. The Northwest really begins somewhere above Mendecino. In Southeast Alaska one sees a mix of first peoples, extraction economies and tourism familiar from the Juneau photographs of Winter and Pond taken a century ago. In the art context, Barry Herem and Mary Randlett have “given me eyes,” as Mary says, for aspects of the Rain Coast. I paint alongside Mark Clarke and a whole clutch of hardy outdoor painters who show up each summer on the Oregon Coast. We respond in paint to familiar bits of landscape in changeable light, weather, tides, and feeling. My father’s heritage as painter and teacher is part workshop, part gathering: an ongoing study in the dialectics of variable and constant. Last summer I found a small black and white photo of myself taken at eighteen months, stick in hand, toddling up the path from the beach at Seal Rock. On sharing it, a friend said, “Ah, how rare these days to see a man walk in the footsteps of his childhood.” One could take that several ways but I choose to treasure it as a blessing. That and big trees, big fish, mountains, mists, and moving waters.
Painter and printmaker Erik Sandgren is tenured art faculty at Grays Harbor College.
Coast Redwood, watercolor (22” X 15”)
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Chris Bryant Coastal Colors. Available at Paradise Productions, Astoria, Oregon.
Don Nisbett Clam Chowder. Available at the Crew House Gallery, Ilwaco, Washington.
Dave Bartholet Power & Grace. Available at the Gilbert District Gallery, Seaside, Oregon.
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Becoming Astorian? Photo by Robert Potts
A Letter to My Urban Brother by Donna Quinn
Dearest Ron, Since you have asked me why I am still living here on the North Coast of Oregon in Astoria (which is always misperceived as remote—I ask, remote from what?), I’ll try to explain. You know I was disoriented when I moved here six years ago; I remember how you had to check on me every day to ensure I hadn’t thrown myself into the Columbia in a fit of pique because of the weather and the quirky Astoriacentric culture—so different from what I had been accustomed to in my previous lives.
moving around my house to a Norwegian Waltz or Finnish accordion music, enthralled by how “dorky fabulous” it is. “Only in Astoria,” I often mutter. Joanne Rideout’s “Ship Report” tells me we’re not in Kansas anymore as KMUN truly reflects what goes on “in the hood.”
Photo by Roger Warren
Yes, I know I told you that this Columbia Pacific region wasn’t my “ecosystem” and that as soon as Lulu graduated from high school, I’d be moving back to a sunny sophisticated civilization. I admit to calling you lamenting the fact that I didn’t know anyone here and I couldn’t figure out how to connect my computer myself. Being the thoughtful and generous brother you are, you sent me flowers and then called ABECO and ordered a computer wizard to come help connect me to the rest of the world. We both found it humorous (and odd) that the computer repair and office supply store in downtown Astoria also had a candy counter with locally made chocolates, some in the shape of The Astoria Column, one of this region’s most famous phallic symbols. Ron, you listened to a fair share of my whining about relentless rain and “the gloom” and you were patient with me when I couldn’t see anything but negatives for at least the first year. I just couldn’t imagine how a lizard like me would survive here until Lulu graduated. Now that Lulu’s been at U of O for four years and I’m still here, you want to know why. What happened? Why do I feel more rooted in Astoria than any place I’ve ever lived? What magic has this “broken-down, beat-up, wabi-sabi town” worked on me? Why do I love it, what it
is that anchors me here in Astoria—here at the edge or beginning of the world, depending on your perspective? Here’s what keeps me grounded in this quirky place? Here’s what I’d miss if I left: Emma’s House—It’s a privilege to live in a quintessential Astoria Folk Victorian home. It has the good energy and character of the previous long-time resident, Emma, who was a Yogi. There is a peculiar peace and comfort in an old house, which no new domicile can ever offer. I hear sea lions barking at night and the trolley bell on brilliant summer days. And, although foghorns on the Columbia make my dog Ruby tremble, I love to hear them and to awaken in a misty dawn to see parts of a dazzlingly lighted ship gliding through river waters to the Pacific. KMUN—yep, it’s home base for a lot of folks (often labeled “free thinkers”) who live here. It offers me endless companionship with its eclectic programming and fierce dedication to community spirit and the unique sense of place that exists here. It’s the perfect antidote to canned generic programming, as individualized and wacky as each of the volunteer programmers. “The Scandinavian Hour,” on Saturday afternoon, has me
Astoria Co-op—Even before Michael Pollen’s book “In Defense of Food” made “real” food hip, I found healthy old-fashioned food and another kind of community here. From local strawberries (the tiny sweet ones which explode with flavor in your mouth) to wild-harvested mushrooms, to seasonal nettles, this place reflects the tastes and products of the region and the folks who live here. The Co-op’s deli sandwiches are a bargain; you know you’re doing something good for your body when you score one of these freshly made veggiestuffed, wax-paper wrapped meals.
Yoga Namaste—I have to have my Ute fix. There’s simply no one like this blue-eyed blonde German yogabody
Photo by Laura Bishow
Cranberry Whey Wine (your niece’s favorite!) and how poetry and chocolate are related. The words “eccentric” and “curious” come alive inside the tiny Shallon Winery.
beauty. “You vill do downward dog!” “Vhat, are these muscles on vacation?” “Breathe!” “Be present, now!” Her credentials and experience as a physical therapist make me feel comfortable that I’m going to be doing yoga properly without hurting myself. She knows bodies, inside and out! The studio itself is in a historic Astoria building and the space feels good inside. Whether or not it is stormy or sunny, I know it’s always an excellent day to go to a yoga mat with Ute. Shallon Winery—Just driving by the building makes me smile. How can one live here and not know Paul—sometimes described as “the Willy Wonka of Wine”? Fiercely independent and a self-described curmudgeon, Paul is there being Paul, offering visitors and locals his custom-brewed specialty wines you just can’t find anywhere else. One can while away moments or hours listening to this intelligent and funny man talk about blimps, Astoria’s checkered past,
Restaurant Culture—I know you have lots of big city choices for sophisticated dining and we’ll leave chain choices out because those have no appeal for moi, except for the grits and collards of “Cracker Barrel” (there’s not one anywhere in Oregon). With Blue Scorcher baking up tasty organic vegan chocolate fairy cakes, beans with greens and other wholesome breads and foods, I feel progressive right here in little ole rivertown USA. I crave Clemente’s fresh local seafood, Uriah’s Columbian Cafe cuisine, Fordinka’s Drina Daisy comfort food, Bridgewater Bistro’s savory menu and views, Ft. George’s beer, and Columbia Coffee Roaster’s lemon meringue pie. Except for Indian and Middle Eastern food, there’s no reason not to have a happy palate on the North Coast. Wild salmon and Willapa Bay oysters are reason enough for me to continue to stay here, and when our little nephews are in town, there’s nothing like the mythological Pig to give them an authentic Astoria experience. Brain/Entertainment Culture— When I take a Clatsop Community
College writing class from Nancy Cook, competitive with the loftiest offerings of any well-known university, I’m stimulating brain cells and fostering imaginative thoughts. Nearly every weekend I am conflicted about which event to attend, from Liberty Theatre concerts to Zen discussion groups at Astoria Coffee House. Then there’s Fisher Poet’s each year, ongoing Clatsop County Historical Society presentations, Voodoo Room music, Maritime Museum lectures, Shanghaied in Astoria vaudeville shows where I can throw popcorn and boo at the villain as I learn about Astoria’s history in amusing ways. What tourists only experience for a day or two, locals take advantage of all year long. Walking up to The Column with Ruby to see kind-hearted Dana for a dog treat and an expansive view of the incredibly beautiful geography of this place calms my spirit and reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive, here, now. The Riverwalk—Biking on the Riverwalk with my dog Ruby as we race swimming Sea Lions is a favorite thing to do year round. Breathtaking double rainbows over stormy waters, the sun glinting off of a tugboat pulling a barge filled with golden cargo, the movement of the ships, the clouds, the river, all of these things make me feel alive and part of the river’s journey. This ongoing ener-
gy in motion informs me that I am at the beginning of everything—that the world is all happening right here in front of our town, in front of me, so I don’t have any feelings of stagnation or of being stuck here. The Volunteering Spirit—This place is filled with people who want to help—the arts, historic buildings, the homeless, gifted youth, injured wildlife, the community as a whole—the list goes on and on. These people are truly the glue that holds this place together. This Astoria spirit makes me feel connected to a cause greater than myself—and connected to other Astorians, whether by birth or by choice, and with this town. Two volunteers who stand out for me are Terry Wilson and Jamie Boyd. Terry is Chief Engineer for KMUN. His Ham Radio experience and dedication to emergency preparedness in this storm-tossed region is a real gift. Jamie is a talented artist and tenderhearted volunteer who encourages and supports emerging artists by keeping Astoria Visual Arts (AVA) alive. My Health—I’ve been healthier here than anywhere I’ve ever lived. For the times when I am out of balance, I take a pro-active approach with Vicki McAfee at Gypsy’s Whimsy, who prepares magical herbal potions cus-
tom blended for me, and for Ruby. For more challenging conditions, I think naturopath Dr. Tracy Erfling is extraordinary. She gives me a sense of security and well-being—it’s nice to have a Health Partner in town. The fact that our sister Linda now lives here is also reason to stay. Our lively conversations as we
provides a measure of world-class sophistication in the midst of Astoria’s gritty and authentic. The Astoria Sunday Market is fun and the idea of jumping in the car for a beach outing down the Oregon Coast or across our iconic bridge to the Long Beach Peninsula creates a feeling of having lots of choices about where to
walk up and down Astoria’s steep hills keep us fit, mentally and physically.
go for a quick getaway. Astoria’s juxtaposition of old and new along with cranky eccentrics and an accepting mind-set for “being different” go a long way with me too. I’m not sure if I’ve answered your questions about why I’m still here, Ron. I continue to learn new (and old!) things each day about this place I call home, exploring exactly what it means to be a “local.” Perhaps I am becoming part of Astoria’s history too, as I nurture the locally renowned “sisu” (Finnish for “guts” or strength of character) within. You must come for a visit as soon as possible. Let’s see how long it takes for Astoria to work its magic on you!
What Makes Me (or Ruby) Happy—I’ve never had a bank I’ve been happier with. Astoria’s Bank of America staff is incredibly cheerful and downhome friendly. They also love Ruby! Too many B of A “dog biscuit withdrawals” however create a roly-poly dog! Each weekday afternoon I look forward to all the news I can handle in the Daily Astorian. I really appreciate publisher Steve Forrester’s columns; he is a well-traveled, big-picture voice of reason. HIPFISH is an essential; it’s über-hip and reflects the coastal culture I am now part of here. In this category I guess I’ll throw in all the cool historic architecture and the church steeples (which often make me feel I am in a Finnish village) along with the sound of church bells on a Sunday morning. Sitting in the lobby of the luxury boutique Cannery Pier Hotel
Miss you. Love you. dq
The Poetry of Julia Butler Hansen Weather And I
The Lilac Tree
Untitled
Grey rain Grey sky Grey water And my soul is red. All the grey in the world Could not make me dread Grey rain Grey sky Grey water. They will blue tomorrow, Shine with sun and splendor, Vanished their dull sorrow. And, I may likely be Grey soul Green heart Black temper.
The lane was filled with the dust Of years and years, And the orchard was wormy With long neglect. No path remained. The well Was left to reflect As best it could the April sky And the white fluffed clouds. The old house made a shameful cry Of rot and decay. All that was had passed away It seemed to me… And, lo! I spied a lilac in bloom By the open door.
The March wind yet is cold And barren lies the earth Beneath the autumn mold. Withal, is come spring’s birth. A lone golden crocus Rises among the blades Of weary grass. To us Who watch, the winter fades.
For What, Return? April Memorandum Dear Sir, Answering your inquiry Relative to man’s wistful hunting For a brief season known as spring, I am compelled to repeat our firm’s Memorandum to the weary. Plant A rosebush early, walk where worms Are wriggling toward the sun. You can’t Recover fully from the winter Until fish are running in the brook And earth smells like turning over, But we may add, that a careful look For beauty on the paths you Take will have inestimable value. We trust we have answered as fully As time permits, and are, Yours truly, April Incorporated
I would not wish youth back again For all the pink gowns I ever wore, Because sweet youth awaits her pain. Life is doubtful. None has gone before.
Kin I Go Ma, what’s the good of spring If it aint for fishin’? When the wind’s a singin’ ‘Cross our clover meadow An’ the cold brook holds the sun, Then it’s time to go for trout. Aint it, ma, aint it just about?
Ashes There may be freedom in young legs And beauty in eager upturned eyes, But wine has not been drunk to dregs Nor stars hung high enough I vaster skies. Return me not, dear God, I pray To those ruffled lands of long ago. Give to me each unknown today And though wilder winds may fret and blow I’ll make of it the new morrow Wherein I bury such useless dead As seems to need that short sorrow. And, when they’re done, not more will be said.
Mortal life is not unlike A thin-rolled cigarette. Lit, it burns until consumed. Then, there are but ashes In a purple dish.
Julia Butler Hansen The storied political career of U.S. Representative Julia Butler Hansen (1907-1988) has long overshadowed her quieter labors as a poet. Over two decades of service in the Washington State House of Representatives preceded her 14-year tenure in the United States Congress. Throughout her life, poetry offered “The Grand Lady of Washington Politics” a reprieve from the stresses of her office. “My love is writing,” Hansen once said, “politics is accidental.” In 1935, Binfords & Mort published her children’s book Singing Paddles, which won the Julia Ellsworth Ford Foundation Award for Juvenile Literature. Julia Butler Hansen’s historic residence in her hometown of Cathlament, Washington, has been restored and is now open to the public on Thursdays and Saturdays.
ARTIST UPDATE
Singer and songwriter Carl Wirkkala (profiled by Jim LeMonds in the Fall issue of NWC) and his band The Ghost Town Boys, have released a new album titled Trouble & Trains. Mixed in Nashville at the Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa, owned by legendary producer Cowboy Jack Clement, the record features 15 new songs in the traditional, stripped-down style fans have come to expect from Wirkkala’s music. Besides tracks penned by the songwriter himself, Trouble & Trains features three tunes co-written by the album’s producer Nels Niemela. Recorded and mastered at Nettleingham Audio in Vancouver, Washington, Trouble & Trains is available online and at outlets all along the lower Columbia.
Odds
Ends
FALLINGWATER COOKBOOK Northwest Coast contributor Suzanne Martinson has co-authored a new book recently released by The University of Pittsburgh Press titled The Fallingwater Cookbook: Elsie Henderson’s Recipes and Memories. The book grew out of a story Martinson wrote about Elsie Henderson—the cook for the wealthy Kaufmann family at their Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home Fallingwater—in 1991 for the then Pittsburgh Press. Elsie’s adventures at Fallingwater are intertwined with recipes for the dishes she served during her 15 year tenure there. For more information visit www.upress.pitt.edu.
SCULPTURE WITHOUT WALLS Since last April, the coastal arts community of Cannon Beach has been home to seven unique works of outdoor art, all entrees in the 2008-09 Sculpture Without Walls competition. One sculpture, selected by popular vote, will be purchased for up to $15,000 and put on permanent display in the city. Visitors are invited to stop by Cannon Beach to view the sculptures and vote for their favorite on May 2, 2009. The winner will be announced at that evening. Voting for the 3rd annual Sculpture Without Walls contest coincides with the city’s annual Spring Unveiling Art Festival, May 1 - 3, 2009, featuring new works in 14 participating Cannon Beach galleries.
Museum notes The Heritage Museum
The Heritage Museum is located in Astoria at 1618 Exchange Street, Astoria, OR 97103. Call: 503-338-4849 or visit www.cumtux.org
Museum Hours _________________ Tuesday-Saturday 11:00 a.m. -4:00 p.m. Adults:
$4.00
Seniors:/AAA members:
$3.00
Children under 6-17:
$2.00
Under 6:
FREE
The Spirit of the Columbia
A person need not travel far from Astoria’s origins to discover a wealth of its history. Just a block east from where John Jacob Astor’s namesake trading post first took shape almost two centuries ago stands the Clatsop County Historical Society’s Heritage Museum. Dedicated on July 4, 1905, the building itself has quite a storied past. Designed by prominent Portland architect Emil Schacht, the 1904 neoclassical style structure served as Astoria City Hall, public library, police station and jail. Later it was the USO club for local servicemen. For twenty years it was even home to the Columbia River Maritime Museum. Since 1985, the building has been home to the Historical Society’s
Heritage Museum. Today, the museum’s diverse galleries showcase and interpret the area’s past from pre-contact Native American culture—featuring an exquisite replica of a Clatsop Indian longhouse—to the more modern history of European settlement. Objects on display include a 1,000 year-old hunting implement, finely crafted 19th century Chinook and Clatsop Indian baskets, and a sea otter pelt and beaver hat which illuminate the early history of Astoria. Logging and fishing, the two economic mainstays since 1870, are represented in collections of tools, equipment, and photographs. The stories of the many diverse ethnic groups that settled in the area are
depicted in the Immigrants Gallery. One of the features that distinguishes The Heritage Museum from the Historical Society’s two other museums (The Flavel House Museum and The Uppertown Firefighter’s Museum) is its first-rate Research Center and Archives. This unique resource offers researchers access to the Historical Society’s vast collection of images—numbering more than thirty-five thousand—as well as other hard to find primary documents. The large Parker Gallery on the second floor features the museum’s temporary exhibits, most recently the vintage fashion exhibit “Victorian Vogue.” Museum staff are currently working on the next temporary exhibit, “The Most Wicked Place On Earth,” which explores the less virtuous side of early Clatsop County society.
Goings On MARCH “Thoroughly Modern Millie” Aberdeen—March 6, 7, 13, 14 The Grays Harbor College Theater Department’s production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” a Broadway favorite and winner of six Tony Awards, will be held at the Bishop Center for Performing Arts in early March. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $16 adults, $13 seniors, $10 students, and $8 12 and under. Get your ticket today! For info: www.ghc.edu/bishop Beachcombers Fun Fair Ocean Shores—March 27 – 28 This 22nd annual event features exhibits, seminars, information booths, and vendors Saturday and Sunday. Children’s activities Saturday morning plus beach walks on Sunday morning round out the weekend. For info: www.oceanshores. com/events Liberty Theater Presents “Swing Kings” Astoria—March 13 On Friday, March 13, at 7:30 p.m., the Eugene Ballet takes the stage of the Liberty Theater to perform “Swing Kings.” Mixing classic big band music dance with the poise and beauty of ballet technique has created a piece of incredible energy and grace. Jitterbug, Jive and Swing in a tribute to the Swing Era of the 1940s. For info: www.liberty-theater.org Writers On The Edge Newport—March 21 The Nye Beach Writers’ Series presents Michelle Longo Eder, who will speak about her new book, Salt in Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife, and novelist Jim Lynch will read from his
latest work The Highest Tide. The event starts at 7 p.m. in the Newport Visual Arts Center, 777 N.W. Beach Drive. Admission is $5, and as always, students get in for free. For info: www.writersontheedge.org
Ocean Park, Wa
Taste of Tillamook County Tillamook—March 21 - 22 The 2009 Taste of Tillamook County will feature Tillamook County’s restaurants, microbreweries, wine cellars and seafood producers. There’ll also be cooking demonstrations, Black Box Chefs competitions and live entertainment. The Tillamook County Fairgrounds (4603 Third St.) host this weekend-long event. For info: www.tasteoftillamookcounty.com
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First Saturday Art Walk Seaside—April 4 Seaside area galleries and stores invite the public to mingle with artists during the monthly First Saturday Art Walk from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. It is a fun evening of art and live entertainment. Maps are provided to help guide you through participating downtown business, and keep an eye out for red stop signs labeled “Art Walk.” For info: (503) 738 – 6391 or www.seasidechamber.com The Liberty Theater’s 84th Birthday Astoria—April 4
presents the 27th Annual
Astoria-Warrenton Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival
April 24 - 26
Sunday Afternoon Live Presents The Alley Cats Raymond—March 22 America’s premiere doo wop group The Alley Cats will perform tunes from the 50’s and 60’s. The show is at 2:00 p.m. at the Raymond Theatre. For info:www.sundayafternoonlive.org or (360) 875-5831
APRIL The Flavor of the Northwest Oregon & Washington Wineries Crab Dinner served all weekend Variety of Culinary Treats Arts, Crafts, Jewelry Beer Garden Live Entertainment
Friday 4-9pm $8 Saturday 10-8pm $10 Sunday 11-4pm $5 Weekend Pass $18
Astoria-Warrenton Chamber of Commerce www.oldoregon.com (800) 875-6807
Birding and Blues Festival Pacific City—April 3 – 5 Celebrate nature with your head, heart, and soul at this year’s Birding and Blues Festival. The event, headquartered at the Kiwanda Community Center, will include guided field trips, indoor workshops and seminars, boat tours, and of course, some great blues music. For info: www.birdingandblues.com
Come celebrate the birthday of one of Astoria’s most venerable landmarks, the elegantly restored Liberty Theater. Be a part of the 2009 “re-shoot” of the theater’s opening day photograph, followed by a home-grown variety show at 1925 ticket prices. For info: www.libertytheater.org
18th Annual Spring Art Show & Sale Long Beach—April 3 – 5 A long time favorite of locals and visitors, the Peninsula Arts Association’s spring art show offers the work of more than 60 local artists in judged exhibitions. Don’t miss the unique shopping experiences in the “Inspired Creations” portions of the show, which is held at the World Kite Museum & Hall of Fame (303 Sid Snyder Dr.). For info: www.funbeach.org
5th Annual Bluegrass by the Bogs Grayland—April 12 Located at the Historic Grayland Community Hall (Just east on Grange Rd off Hwy 105), this year’s festival will feature two professional bluegrass bands and guest musicians vying for prizes. Expect good food, beer, and wine; shopping, entertainement, and good ‘ol fashion fun. From noon to midnightish. For info: (360) 267-3234
Tokeland & North Cove Studio Tour Cranberry Coast—April 18 Twenty local artists will hold open studio tours and public art displays throughout Tokeland, North Cove and Grayland. For info: www.westportgrayland-chamber.org
Grays Harbor Shorebird Festival Hoquiam—April 24 -26 Come celebrate the migrating shorebirds at Grays Harbor National Wildlife
Refuge and other birding hotspots in Grays Harbor County. Events include field trips with expert birders, lectures, exhibitors, vendors, authors, the shorebird fun fair, poster contest, and banquet. For info: www.shorebirdfestival. com The Astoria-Warrenton Crab & Seafood Festival Astoria—April 24 -26
Coast Community Radio your local public radio stations
KMUN 91.9 fm
Northern Oregon Southwestern Washington Coast
Classical + Folk + Jazz + News translating as
KTCB 89.5 fm Tillamook 88.9 fm Manzanita 89.5 fm Cannon Beach 91.1 fm South Astoria
KCPB 90.9 fm Serving the Mouth of the Columbia
Concert Music + Jazz + Public Radio News
Now in its 27th year, the AstoriaWarrenton Crab & Seafood festival features live music from Northwest bands, a great selection of seafood and other culinary delights (including the Rotary club’s traditional crab dinner), nearly 50 Oregon Wineries and about 100 booths filled with handmade arts and crafts from Pacific NW artisans. For info: www. oldoregon.com
MAY Spring Unveiling Weekend Cannon Beach—May 1 – 3 On this special weekend, Cannon Beach art galleries spotlight new work by their chosen artists. Unveilings demos and receptions take place all weekend long, making this event an unparalleled experience for the art lover. For info: www. cbgallerygroup.com
231 N Hemlock, Cannon Beach, Oregon www.georgevetterfotoart.com
59th Annual Loyalty Day Celebration Long Beach—May 1 – 3 Initiated in 1950, Loyalty Day is a National Salute to Patriotism and Long Beach boasts the longest consecutively running Loyalty Celebration in the nation. The centerpiece of the celebration is the Grand Parade—an event you don’t want to miss. For info: www.funbeach. com Astoria Sunday Market Astoria—May 10 – October 4 Every Sunday throughout the summer, Astoria’s 12th Street comes to life between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. with an open air market that features fresh produce, local arts and crafts, food, and music. On a typical Sunday there are over 200 vendors and there is plenty of downtown parking nearby. For info: www.astoriasundaymarket.com Annual Blessing of the Fleet Westport, WA—May 24 www.funbeach.com
Welcome to your port of call.
Discover the Port of Ilwaco eateries . charter fishing . saturday market galleries . gift shops . fresh seafood… all on the waterfront
© Bruce Peterson 2008
www.portofilwaco.org
www.ilwacowashington.com
Centered around the Fishermen’s Memorial, this annual event includes a parade, blessing, and Coast Guard rescue demonstration. This longstanding ceremony honors those who have lost their lives at sea and those who still make their living from the nearby ocean. For info: www. westportgrayland-chamber.org World’s Longest Garage Sale Long Beach Peninsula—May 22 - 25 With 28-miles of beach, there could be hundreds of garage sales all up and down the Long Beach Peninsula. Whether you are looking for something in particular or just want to look around, this annual and growing event is for you. For info:www. funbeach.com
All events and dates are subject to change. Please contact the event organizers or reference their websites for up-todate information.
Liberty Theater
For event or rental information 503.325.5922 www.liberty-theater.org Astoria, Oregon
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