Tacoma Celebrates Its Native Son

While you can find Dale Chihuly’s amazing glasswork all over the world in famous museums, botanic gardens, and office buildings, but nowhere is it more accessible and abundant than in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington.

Chihuly, born in 1941, grew up in Tacoma, studied interior design at the University of Washington, and narrowed his focus to glass art at the University of Wisconsin. While on a Fulbright Fellowship in Venice, Italy, he first observed the team approach in glass blowing to create large-scale pieces. Utilizing this concept, he cofounded the Pilchuck School of Glass outside Seattle, and began producing large, multicolored, glass art works. He established the glass department at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design and taught there for many years. Today he is considered the world’s premier glass artist and has made the Northwest a world center for glass art.

In Tacoma, many of his pieces are concentrated in an area known as the Museum District, a few blocks along Pacific Avenue adjacent to downtown. The Museum of Glass, Tacoma Art Museum, Bridge of Glass, and Federal Courthouse all feature Chihuly’s work. The best introduction to his style would be a stroll across the Bridge of Glass, a 500-foot span connecting the Museum of Glass and the plaza area of the Washington State History Museum on Pacific Avenue. The pedestrian-only bridge

showcases three Chihuly installations including two 40-foot, blue, translucent crystal towers. While they appear to be crafted from glass, they are made from a polyurethane material designed to withstand the elements. The main feature, however, is a tunnel called Seaform Pavilion. Inside, the ceiling displays over 2000 colorful, amorphous-shaped pieces of glass inspired by marine life in Puget Sound. On a sunny day, the sight is spectacular. Along the sides of the tunnel, are 109 glass sculptures, mostly Art-Deco style floral arrangements.

The bridge ends in a plaza adjacent to the Museum of Glass, easily identified by its silver, angled, conical shape. The museum houses a permanent collection of contemporary glass, and contains an amphitheater called the Hot Shot where visitors can observe a team of artists demonstrating glass making and glass blowing. There’s an on-site café, an excellent gift shop with unique glass items, and outside the doors, a mammoth, clear acrylic sculpture called Water Forest.

Back across the bridge, on Pacific Avenue, is the old Union Station, another successful historic preservation story. Built in 1911, it was praised as “…the most beautiful passenger station in the Pacific Northwest.”  With the demise of train travel, the station closed and the

dilapidated, aging facility was sold by Burlington Northern to the city of Tacoma for $1.00. After three years of renovation, the beautiful Beaux Arts building reopened as the U.S. Federal Courthouse. The interior is every bit as attractive as the outside and is decorated with examples of Chihuly’s glass work.  A colorful chandelier is suspended from the rotunda’s domed ceiling, and bright orange flowers cover the arched, north-facing window.  Altogether, the lobby area features five major installations.

Next door to the courthouse, is the Tacoma Art Museum. Nationally recognized for its collection of Northwest art, the museum has an entire gallery devoted to Chihuly pieces, many donated by the artist. Within walking distance of the Museum District, additional Chihuly installations can be seen at the University of Washington-Tacoma library which houses a striking red chandelier, and at the nearby Swiss Restaurant and Pub with an array of Venetian glass pieces above the bar.

Visiting these places requires a bit of pre-planning. The art museum is closed Monday, and the Union Station Federal Courthouse is only open on weekdays, leaving Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the best times to visit. A picture identification is required to enter the courthouse. While the bridge and courthouse are free, there is an admission charge at both museums. A pass is available ($35 for seniors) that includes these two museums, the Washington State History Museum and the nearby LeMay-America’s Car

Museum, and Children’s Museum.

You can learn more about Chihuly and his works and these museums as the following websites:

 

www.chihuly.com

www.tacomaartmuseum.org

www.museumofglass.org

www.traveltacoma.com

Exploring the Oregon Museum of Mental Health

Kirkbride U, Oregon State Hospital

The one good thing to be said about the old Oregon State Hospital is that the dilapidated, decaying building was a real star maker. The movie shot there, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, swept the 1976 Academy Awards winning in all the major categories including Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director (Milos Forman).  Thirty years later, a series of articles published in The Oregonian describing the facility’s deplorable conditions and mistreatment of patient cremains won the paper a Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.

Hospital grounds

The hospital, originally called the Oregon State Insane Asylum, was built in 1883 on 130 acres in what was then rural Salem, but is now well within the city limits on busy Center St. The grand, Italianate, brick building was constructed in the style devised by Thomas Kirkbride, a leading advocate for the mentally ill. His plans included a central administration building connecting two separate wings for male and female patients.  Over the years, additional wings and buildings were added, and the hospital grew to a peak occupancy of 3475 patients in 1958.

As state funding for mental health declined, so did conditions at the facility until it reached a state described in The Oregonian with adjectives like “grim,” “decrepit,” and “dreary.”  Amid mounting concerns for patient safety in the event of an earthquake, a governor’s task force in 2004 concluded it was time to tear down the hospital and build a new one more in line with current practices in treating mental illness. A preservation group rallied to put the campus on the National Register of Historic Places, and the original administrative unit was saved from the wrecking ball and incorporated into the new design.

Today the restored Kirkbride building houses the Oregon Museum of Mental Health. While small in size, it’s chockfull of pictures, artifacts, documents and interactive materials offering visitors an unusual opportunity to explore the history of mental illness and its treatments over the years, as well as the specific story of the Oregon State Hospital.  The exhibit “Why Am I Here” highlights patients’ stories and offers startling statistics on the types of diagnosis from dementia, menopause, or alcoholism that might mean a lifelong commitment in the asylum.

Another exhibit features equipment used in treatment ranging from straightjackets, lobotomies, insulin and electric shocks to the more benign hydrotherapy and cosmotherapy, a treatment encouraging patients to look their best. A section of the 1948-1951 financial statement for the Cosmotherapy Department shows line items for 224 eyebrow archings at 75 cents each, and 3071 finger waves at 50 cents each, for example.

Other displays show daily life at the hospital for both patients and staff, and there is a small exhibit related to the filming of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Using the hospital and patients for the movie project was extremely controversial at the time, but the hospital’s director, Dr. Dean Brooks, fought for it claiming the filming would provide jobs for patients and make for an exciting adventure for everyone at the hospital.  It might be noted that Dr. Brooks plays himself in the movie in the role of Dr. Spivey.

After leaving the museum, visitors should turn left and walk a short distance downhill to the Cremains Memorial. For years, the cremains of unclaimed, deceased patients were placed in copper canisters and stored in the basement of one of the buildings. Over time, water seeped in, corroding the canisters and turning the copper into marbled shades of blue and green. The labels on the 3500 canisters were mostly gone, and it took hospital employees two years to research the identities. Today the canisters reside in a special building allowing visitors to honor the dead.

The museum experience is a reminder of how our understanding and treatment of mental health has evolved over the years, and how much further we need to travel. To learn more about visiting, see www.oshmuseum.org.

Black Robes in the Northwest

Father Pierre deSmet

Before he had seen any white men and before there were horses in the northern Rockies, Shining Shirt, a medicine man of the Salish tribe, prophesized the arrival of pale-skinned men in long, black skirts. They would teach them a new way of praying and how to reach the place of happiness. This prophecy was reinforced years later when migrating Catholic Iroquois from Quebec confirmed the existence of white men in black robes (Jesuit priests) who carried crucifixes, said the Big Prayer (mass) and did not marry. The Indian religion was false and they would never reach the home of the Great Spirit.

The tribes of the Inland Northwest (Salish or Flathead, Nez Perce, Coeur d’Alene) became obsessed with the desire for a Black Robe to come live among them and teach this new religion. They sent a total of four delegations over ten years to the Catholic Church in St. Louis and, finally, in 1841, Belgium-born priest Pierre deSmet arrived. He established a mission and small settlement in the Bitterroot Valley of what is now the state of Montana, and named it St. Marys. Later, he returned to Europe to recruit additional missionaries, among them Father Anthony Ravelli. Ravelli, born to a wealthy family in Italy, brought with him a range of skills: pharmacist, doctor, artist, architect, engineer. His talents are visible today in the mission church he built and decorated in classic Renaissance style with paints created from local berries and minerals. He sculpted statues of Mary

Saint Marys Mission Church

and St. Ignatius of Loyola, and used a hand lathe to carve the altar rail and baptismal font.

Cataldo Mission Church, Idaho

St. Marys was the first of the Pacific Northwest missions, but it was soon followed by others. The Cataldo Mission in the Idaho Panhandle near Coeur d’Alene was established in 1850, and is the state’s oldest, standing building. This charming, Italianate church is another example of Father Ravalli’s ingenuity and workmanship, and is created from the simple tools and local building materials available on the frontier at that time. He faux-painted the altar to resemble marble, crafted chandeliers from tin cans, and stained the ceiling with huckleberry juice. There’s not a nail in the entire building.

Interior, St. Ignatius Church

By far the most prosperous of the missions was St. Ignatius, also located in Montana, north of present-day Missoula. It had a saw mill, grain mill and school for boys. Later, the Jesuits were joined by the sisters of Providence and Ursuline who established a girls’ school and hospital. In the early 1890s, the need grew for a much larger facility and the current church was constructed using a million bricks made from local clay. However, the building’s most striking feature is the interior collection of 58 colorful frescoes painted on the walls and ceiling. The artist, Brother Joseph Carignano, was the mission’s cook and had no formal training in the arts.

All of these mission churches are National Historic Sites and open to the public.  St. Marys, located in Stevensville, Mont., about an hour’s drive south of Missoula, is open during the summer months only. Visitors are welcomed to explore the mission grounds including a museum, visitor center, Father Ravalli’s cabin and pharmacy, cemetery, Salish encampment, but a guide is required to view the chapel interior.

St. Ignatius on the Flathead Indian Reservation

St. Ignatius, about an hour’s drive north of Missoula, remains a functioning Catholic church located on the Flathead Indian Reservation and is open daily.  In addition to the beautiful paintings inside the church, the grounds include original log structures housing a small museum with mission and native artifacts.

Interior, Cataldo Mission

The Cataldo church is the centerpiece of Old MissionState Park, 25 miles east of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, along Interstate 90. With its pretty, hillside setting and charming rustic interior, it is not surprising that it is a popular venue for weddings. Of the three missions, this one offers the most extensive visitor center and museum. The first-rate exhibition, Sacred Encounters, was organized by Washington State University and explores the complexities of two intersecting cultures: European Christian missionaries, and indigenous populations with a very different sacred belief system and lifestyle. Highly recommended.

 

 

Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park

Typewriter Eraser, Scale X

Among the items in the bin of obsolescence, you’ll find rotary phones, cassette tapes, carbon paper, hardbound encyclopedias, and a funny little round, rubber circle with a plastic brush attached.  Remember the typewriter eraser?  It has not been forgotten by the famed husband/wife team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen who created a whimsical, 19-foot sculpture of stainless steel and fiberglass called Typewriter Eraser, Scale X for the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park.

Located on the waterfront north of downtown in the Belltown neighborhood, this nine-acre park combines landscaping, art, and a stunning view of Puget Sound and the snow-capped Olympic Mountains to create an urban redevelopment success story. The site was previously occupied by Union Oil of California as a transfer facility and tank farm. When they pulled out in the 1970s, they left behind a blighted, industrial eyesore with soil contaminated by years of oil seepage.

The idea of creating a sculpture park in this wasteland grew out of a collaboration between the Trust for Public Land and the Seattle Art Museum. Sufficient funds were raised to purchase the land, clean up the contamination, and engage the New York architectural firm of Weiss/Manfredi to transform the property into a vibrant green space to showcase art.

The landscaping, an important element in the design, consists of four Northwest ecosystems: Valley, Meadows, Groves, and Shore. Each is planted with native trees (over 500), shrubs, and wildflowers; and the entire area is connected with a 2200-foot long, Z-shaped, pedestrian path.

Interspersed along this path is a collection of monumental, modern sculptures designed by some of the best-known regional, national, and international artists.  Probably the most recognizable is Alexander Calder’s bright red Eagle which provides a perfect picture frame for Seattle’s Space

Caler's Eagle

Needle.  Other noted artists represented in the collection include Mark di Suvero, Richard Serra, and Louise Bourgeios. The twenty-plus sculptures are mostly metal and abstract including benches mimicking eyeballs, curving monoliths in oxidized steel, and a 50-foot tall stainless steel tree.

One unusual piece brings together art and science. The Neukom Vivarium consists of an 80-foot greenhouse occupied by a giant, dead “nursery log” where viewers can observe life and decay amid the ferns, lichens, and insects that have made the tree their home.

The park is open all year and is free to the public. In summer months, a café serves espresso and snacks, and the park’s amphitheater hosts a variety of special concerts and other events.

Love & Loss

 

Lasting Legacy of the CCC

 

At the Forest History Center on State Street in Salem there stands a life-size statue of a hunky, shirtless, young man leaning on a shovel. 

CCC Worker Statue

He is posed in front of a wooden, green building with a pair of gables and twin dormer windows. Their connection is a federal program initiated by Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after his inauguration to provide jobs for the nation’s growing number of unemployed young men.

Known as the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, it operated between 1933 and 1942, and was one of the most successful and popular New Deal programs.  Oregon was an active participant with over 60 camps scattered around the state. The men built roads, bridges, trails, campgrounds, fought forest fires, and planted trees. In exchange for their labor, they received education, job training, food and shelter (three hots and a cot) and the grand sum of $30 a month. They could keep $5 with the other $25 sent home to their families.  Even though eighty years have passed and many CCC efforts are long gone, about one-third of the permanent projects in Oregon remain and can still be enjoyed in forests and parks around the state.

Forest History Center, Salem

The Forest History Center is a good place to begin. The building was constructed by the CCC in 1936 to house their headquarters, and was moved to its present location from the east side of Mill Creek in 2001. Today, a section of the museum is dedicated to the CCC program and features camp photos, a wall map with site locations, and miscellaneous memorabilia donated by alumni. The CCC Worker Memorial Statue in front was dedicated in 2002.

Silver Falls Lodge

One of the program’s permanent projects is a short distance east of Salem at Silver Falls State Park. The CCC was responsible for constructing much of the infrastructure seen in the South Falls Day Use Area including rocks walls, bridges, stairs and the rustic South Falls Lodge. The lodge and surrounding ten acres are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, the CCC developed the park’s popular Trail of the Ten Falls.

West Shelter, Cape Perpetua

The Oregon Coast hosted several CCC camps, and remnants of Camp Cape Creek remain visible on the site of the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center, two miles south of Yachats.  Workers here built the campground and network of trails, but their most noted accomplishment was the West Shelter observation point at the top of the headland. Built of rocks, this sturdy structure has survived years of Pacific storms and even served as a coastal watch station during World War II.  Today’s visitors are more interested in spotting migrating whales than enemy boats or planes.

Mt. Hood National Forest, east of Portland, also saw many CCC projects. Camp Zigzag on Highway 26, was the longest running camp in the Northwest, and its workers built the Zigzag Ranger Station on the south side of the road. This compound consisting of various outbuildings is constructed in the Cascadian Rustic style using natural materials such as wood shingles, weatherboard, and native stone.  A similar, but more off-the-beaten-path ranger station can be visited on Forest Road 42, about 20 miles southeast of Government Camp. Here, at the Clackamas Lake Historic Ranger Station, are eleven buildings including a small visitor center. The ranger’s residence was built by the CCC in 1933 and is available for rental during the summer months.

Mt. Hood’s Timberline Lodge, probably the best known Depression-era project in Oregon, was constructed by the WPA, but the CCC worked on the lodge’s terracing, stonework, and landscaping. They built the Timberline Trail encircling Mt. Hood and worked on a variety of other projects in the area including Cloud Cap Inn and several campgrounds.

Malheur Nat'l Wildlife Visitor Center

In other parts of the state you’ll find evidence of the CCC at Crater Lake’s Rim Road and Rim Village, the rock work at Oregon Cave’s Chateau, the Visitor Center and Museum at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, Jessie Honeymoon State Park near Florence, and the Dee Wright Observatory at the summit of McKenzie Pass.

The CCC program lasted only nine years.  By 1942, the country was gearing up for WWII and young men were leaving to join the army.  However, their hard work through those difficult Depression years left a significant contribution and lasting legacy to Oregon’s public lands.

 

 

 

Port Gamble: Where the Past is Always Present

Turn onto Rainier Avenue in Port Gamble, Washington, blink twice, and you’d swear you had been transported to a tree-lined village in New England. And, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

In 1853, Maine lumbermen, Andrew Pope and William Talbot, sailed around Puget Sound seeking the right place for a Northwest logging outpost for their successful San Francisco- based timber and shipping company. They chose a small harbor off the Hood Canal, brought in mill machinery, and constructed a saw mill, bunkhouse, store, and cookhouse. Named Port Gamble, it became one of several successful, company-owned logging towns taking advantage of the plentiful, first-growth forests around the Olympic Peninsula.

When gold was discovered in the Klondike, workers abandoned their lumber jobs to seek fortunes in Alaska. It was obvious to the company that married men would provide a more stable, dependable workforce.  Pope and Talbot sought to recruit workers from their hometown of East Machias, Maine, and to lure them into taking the long trip west, they recreated the town on the shores of Puget Sound. A proper church, school, and Victorian frame houses complete with picket fences and lawns transformed the rough sawmill town into a little bit of New England in Washington State.

The mill and town thrived and timber from Port Gamble was shipped to ports all over the world including Australia, Hawaii, and England. However, by the late 20^th century, overharvesting, economic downturns, and some bad business decisions forced the company to shut down the mill in 1995. It was the oldest continuously operating mill in North America.

However, the company (now called Pope Resources) recognized the unique value of the town, and poured money into restoring the community to its former glory days.  The only remaining company owned town in Puget Sound, Port Gamble is now listed as a National Historic Landmark with tourism replacing timber as the main business.  The homes, commercial buildings, common outdoor areas, and water/sewer system are all owned by Pope Resources and are leased rather than bought and sold.

A good place to begin a visit is the General Store. In the downstairs level, is the Port Gamble Historic Museum (open May through October) where local history is interpreted through a number of realistic tableaux. On the mezzanine, is Of Sea and Shore Museum featuring a remarkable collection of seashells, part of one of the world’s largest private collections. The store, dating back to 1916, sells everything from candy to

sweatshirts, and houses an excellent restaurant serving breakfast and lunch.  Get there early as it is quite popular, but a good alternative is the award-winning Mike’s Four Star BBQ located nearby in the former service station.

The main street is lined with a number of attractive, frame homes and commercial buildings now occupied by antiques shops, retail stores, and a tearoom. You can’t miss the grandiose Walker-Ames house, next door to the General Store. The Queen Anne mansion, built for the mill manager, faces the bay so ship captains would spot it first. Today, it has a reputation for being haunted with mischievous ghosts residing in the basement.

Walker Ames House

Beyond the iconic, wooden water towers, sits the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, also a company-owned property. Built in 1879, its Gothic windows and needle spire are reminiscent of the Congregational church in East Machias, Maine. The church and a new pavilion overlooking the water have made Port Gamble an increasingly popular wedding destination.

To reach Port Gamble from the south, follow Interstate 5, US Hwy. 101 from Olympia, and Wash. Hwy. 3 past Bremerton and Silverdale. If you want the ferry experience, take the Seattle-Bainbridge Island or, further north, the Edmonds-Kingston ferry.  Other sites nearby include the neighboring town of Poulsbo known for its Norwegian roots, and the Victorian city of Port Townsend. Or, make your stop in Port Gamble a launching pad for a visit to the Olympic Peninsula.

A handy and comprehensive “Walking Tour of Historic Port Gamble” with map, photographs, and descriptions may be downloaded from the following website:  www.portgamble.com.

Cascade Locks

Cascade Locks and Bridge of the Gods

In the final chapter of her bestselling book, Wild, author Cheryl Strayed ponders her experiences on the Pacific Crest Trail while enjoying a soft serve cone at the Eastwind Drive-In at Cascade Locks, Ore. Located 40 miles east of Portland off Interstate 84, it’s the only town on the trail’s 2600-mile journey from the Mexican border to Canada, and the spot where the trail crosses the mighty Columbia River via the Bridge of the Gods.

The town, one of the oldest in Oregon, has long been a place where travelers needed to come to terms with their plans. An ancient landslide created a series of whitewater rapids and cascades that served as a major barrier in the river, forcing a long portage around them.  Lewis and Clark described the cascades as “…water passing with great velocity forming and boiling in a horrible manner…”,  and pioneers on the Oregon Trail had to choose between the hard trek over the Barlow Road, or facing the rapids in a make-shift raft with the possibility of losing everything.

 

In 1856, a portage road was built and mules carried freight around the cascades until they were replaced with the Oregon Pony, the first steam locomotive to operate west of the Mississippi. The Pony, described as an “ungainly contraption,” with its tiny engine carried around 200 tons of freight each day. Passengers rode in one small coach or aboard the flatcars.

Historical Museum

The era of portage railroad ended in 1897 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed a series of locks to move river traffic around the cascades. Later, when the Bonneville Dam and Locks were completed during the New Deal, the waters flooded the old locks leaving only skeletal stone and concrete outlines, and stairs leading to nowhere.  What remains is now a National Historic Site and can be viewed at the town’s Marina Park, owned and operated by the Port of Cascade Locks. This attractive, riverside swatch of parkland is also home to the Oregon Pony which currently resides in its own glass-enclosed and climate-controlled structure.  Next to it, occupying the former lock tender’s house, is the Cascade Locks Historical Museum with three floors of artifacts and mementos from the region’s past.  

At the east end of the park are statues of Lewis and Clark guide, Sacagawea, and their canine traveling companion, Seaman. Next door at the Locks Waterfront Café is the docking site of the Columbia Gorge Sternwheeler, a three-story replica of the ships that cruised the Gorge in the 1800s. Built in 1983 in Hood River, this 499-passenger paddle

Columbia Gorge Sternwheeler

wheeler offers narrated excursions, brunch and dinner cruises on the river between May and October.

A few miles downstream is an attraction well worth a short detour off Interstate 84.  While a working fish hatchery might not be on anyone’s top ten sightseeing list, the Bonneville Hatchery is located in a pretty, creek side setting with stone ponds, flowers, tall trees, and neatly manicured grounds, and receives over a million visitors annually.  The hatchery, opened in 1909, raises fall Chinook salmon, Coho salmon, and summer and winter steelhead. A self-guided tour leads visitors through the process. In the historic, wooden Egg Incubation Building, a small museum covers everything anyone would want to know about salmon and their fascinating life cycle. However, the biggest and best known attraction at the hatchery is Herman, a 70-year-old, 450 pounds, ten foot

Egg Incubation Building and Museum

long sturgeon. He and his buddies can be observed through an underwater, glass window. The adjacent Bonneville Dam and Locks also welcomes visitors.

Cascade Locks is the nearest town to a number of popular Columbia Gorge hiking trails.  In addition to the Pacific Coast Trail, there is access nearby to the Eagle Creek and Wahclella Falls trails offering some of the Gorge’s most spectacular scenery and waterfalls. This spring, a new mountain bike trail opened on the east side of town.

Herman

 

Bandon-by-the-Sea

 

When Irish immigrant George Bennett arrived at the mouth of the Coquille River on the southern Oregon Coast he brought the name of his Irish hometown, Bandon, to the new settlement.  Additionally, he brought an Irish shrub called gorse (ulex europaeus) and planted it as a fence hedge surrounding his property.

Gorse is plentiful along Oregon's South Coast

This ornamental evergreen with its bright yellow blossoms soon infested the area, spreading along the sand dunes and throughout the town. Unfortunately, the high oil content of its foliage made the plant extremely flammable, a factor that would change Bandon forever.

In 1936, the town was a thriving community: a logging and fishing center, home to cows and cranberries, and the busiest port between San Francisco and Portland. On a warm and dry September evening, a shift in winds brought a nearby forest fire closer to town. When it reached the gorse, the fire exploded into an inferno completely destroying the entire commercial district in a short time and leaving 1800 inhabitants homeless.

Coquille River Lighthouse

Like the mythological Phoenix, the town rose from the ashes and rebuilt itself. Today, Bandon-by-the-Sea, as it is known in tourism parlance, is a favorite destination on the Oregon Coast. The Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, a complex of five courses just north of town, attracts players from all over the world. Set on a bluff overlooking the ocean and dunes, it consistently appears on any list of top ten golf courses and compares favorably to some of the best in Scotland and Ireland.

There is more than golf to keep visitors coming back. Like any coastal community, the ocean is the big draw, and the setting in Bandon couldn’t be more spectacular. Wide, sandy beaches are easily accessible and offer a plethora of driftwood, agates, jasper, and petrified wood. Offshore are wildly sculpted sea stacks and monolithic rock formations providing sanctuary for a wide variety of sea birds. Where the Coquille River meets the ocean, an octagonal lighthouse with a tall round tower stands guard over the perilous bar. Built in 1896, it was the last lighthouse constructed along the Oregon Coast. It was decommissioned in 1939, but volunteers and lighthouse enthusiasts keep this landmark maintained and opened to the public during summer months.

Wooden, welcome arches lure travelers along Highway 101 to detour into Bandon’s Old Town. This compact downtown offers a variety of shops, galleries, restaurants, an excellent history museum, independent bookstore, and plenty of free parking. A walkable waterfront lines one of the two main streets allowing close access to fishing boats, charters, and fresh seafood. Bandon Fish

Market makes a tasty stop for fish and chips followed by a dessert visit to Cranberry Sweets located across the street. This local institution features all sorts of cranberry candy goodies, and they are most generous with their free samples.

Cranberries are an important business here and Bandon boasts of being “The Cranberry Capital of Oregon.” The acidic, sandy soil and mild climate make it a perfect place for cranberries and there are nearly 1600 acres under cultivation. Bogs can be seen along Highway 101 north and south of town with most of these berries destined for bottles of Ocean Spray juice.  On the second full weekend in September, the town celebrates this crop with a four-day cranberry festival.

Bandon Fish Market

Bandon is also known for its dairy industry and for years, Bandon Cheese was a popular stop for visitors traveling the coast. After the business was sold to Tillamook Cheese, the creamery and retail store closed, but a new cheese factory opened this spring. Face Rock Creamery will be offering a variety of their locally made cheddars as well as squeaky cheese curds and Umpqua ice cream cones.

The town of Bandon is bookended by two state parks. To the north is Bullards Beach State Park with a large campground, sandy beach, and access to the lighthouse. To the south, is a string of state owned lands including Face Rock Scenic Viewpoint and Bandon Natural Area offering beach access and close-up viewing of the rock formations offshore. Beach Loop Road parallels the ocean, connecting all these scenic vistas. No trip to Bandon would be complete without a stop at 11^th Avenue and Beach Loop Road at Coquille Point for a calendar view of the very best of the Oregon Coast.

From Coquille Point

Ghost Canneries of the Lower Columbia River

 

 It was much more than our childhood memories of those unsavory, school-lunch salmon patties served with creamed peas that brought down the salmon cannery business along the lower Columbia.  A combination of overfishing, degradation of spawning habitat upstream, and the construction of dams on the Columbia and its tributaries combined to destroy what had been in early history, salmon runs estimated as large as 16 million annually.

For centuries, natives fished the river, preserving the salmon through smoking or drying processes. Early Europeans tried salting and packing salmon in barrels which were shipped to Hawaii and the East Coast with mixed results. However, improvements in canning methods meant the fish could be packed safely and travel all over the world.  The Hume brothers opened the first salmon cannery in 1866 in Eagle Cliff, Washington, a few miles upstream from present day Cathlamet. Their success spawned the development of more canneries along the lower Columbia River, and by the heyday of the late 1880s, there were 38 canneries in the area, packing as much as 30 million, one-pound cans a year. That’s a lot of potential salmon patties.

Pier 39, Astoria

The canneries brought jobs to the area along with a rich mix of ethnic groups whose cultures and influence have remained.  In the early days, much of the dirty work of butchering salmon was done by Chinese men supplied by labor contractors out of San Francisco.  With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, canneries turned to Filipinos and Japanese workers, while at the same time immigrants from Scandinavia, Finland, Yugoslavia and the Mediterranean arrived to fish and labor in the canneries.

Inside the Bumble Bee Museum

Astoria, Oregon, was the center of the canning business and carried the moniker, Cannery Capital of the World. Once home to 22 canneries, it’s a good place to begin a tour of what remains of this important industry.  Nearly all the wooden cannery buildings have succumbed to old age and blustery winter storms, but a few remain in Astoria. At the end of 39^th St. on the eastern end of town is Pier 39, the old Hanthorn/Bumble Bee Cannery.  It was the last operating cannery in the area, closing in 1980. Today it houses a coffee shop, pub, and the free Bumble Bee museum. Inside are wooden gill-netter boats, old cannery processing equipment, and photos of the days when Bumble Bee was Astoria’s largest employer.

Big Red, Astoria

Nearby, at the end of 31^st St., is a large, hulking, red building sitting out in the river and looking a bit tattered. Known as Big Red, it served as a satellite station for Union Fishermen’s Coop where fishermen could drop off their catch and spread their nets to dry. Over 100 years old, the wooden structure lost its top story in a wind storm in 2007, but efforts are underway to save this piece of history.

Cross the Astoria-Megler Bridge to the Washington side of the river and follow Hwy 401 east to Knappton Cove. Rotting wooden posts extending out into the water are all that remain of the Eureka and Epicure Packing Co. In 1899, the federal government built a quarantine station on the site of the abandoned cannery. Ships arriving in Astoria were inspected for any signs of contagious diseases. If infected, they were directed across the river to the quarantine station, or pest house.  Ships were fumigated with burning sulfur and passengers treated for disease. Today the building houses a museum open on Saturdays during summer months.

Knappton Cove Quarantine Station

Altoona, Washington

A bit further east, a winding road leads south from Rosburg to the ghost town of Altoona. A few houses and wooden pilings in the river are all that remain of a town that was once a major port for steamers traveling between Portland and Astoria. This stretch of the river had six canneries in the early 1900s, but today it is a quiet spot in a beautiful setting.  Large rock pillars topped with hemlocks sit in the harbor, and the end-of-the-road atmosphere makes it well worth the 13-mile, round-trip detour.

In the town of Cathlamet along the riverfront, a little upstream from the boarded-up Water Rat Tap Tavern, is what remains of the Warren Cannery. Two years ago, a large part of the building collapsed and today what little remains is being salvaged. Once gone, it will join its fellow ghost canneries along the lower Columbia.

Remnants of the Warren Cannery, Cathlamet