Shrubs to Know in Pacific Northwest Forests
This full-color, simple-to-use field guide makes shrub identification easy and fun. It features 100 of the most common shrubs that grow in and around Pacific Northwest forests—from southern British Columbia to northern California and from the Pacific Ocean to the northern Rockies. It includes an overview of shrub communities in the Pacific Northwest; more than five hundred color photos; individual range maps and complete descriptions for each species; notes on range and habitat, response to disturbance, traditional and current uses, and origin of names; glossary of identification terms; and an easy-to-use, well-tested identification key.
Bernard Daly's Promise
The Enduring Legacy of a Place-based Scholarship
Published in cooperation with the Dr. Daly Project Association
Bernard Daly escaped the Irish Famine and with his family emigrated to America, where he became the town doctor in Lakeview, Oregon, and then a state legislator, Oregon Agricultural College regent, county judge, rancher, and banker. When he died in 1920, his estate, valued at about a million dollars, established a college scholarship for the youth of Lake County, ensuring that most of them could attend college.
It’s hard to imagine a place more distant from higher education than Lake County in south central Oregon, a county about the size of New Jersey with a population under eight thousand. When the Bernard Daly scholarship was first awarded in 1922, less than two percent of America’s youth went to college, and the percentage was even lower in Lake County.
Today, Lake County students are much more likely to go to college, graduate in four years without debt, go on to graduate school, have successful careers, and contribute to the larger community—all because of a scholarship established a hundred years ago by an immigrant who sought a better life, not only for himself but also for others.
Drawing on more than a hundred personal interviews, an extensive web-based survey, and archival materials, Bernard Daly’s Promise offers unique insights into the benefits of higher education and how it might best be supported—questions that we are struggling with today.
Willamette River Greenways
Navigating the Currents of Conservation Policy and Practice
The Willamette River Greenway Program, first proposed in 1966 by future Oregon governor Bob Straub, envisioned a nearly two-hundred-mile assemblage of public lands along the Willamette River for public use and environmental protection. While the Greenway Program fell far short of Straub’s original proposal, today it provides for significant riverside lands with a range of public benefits. The Greenway Program also offers a useful lens through which to view the successes and failures of Oregon’s environmental protection policies over the past few decades.
Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper, has spent countless hours paddling the Willamette, becoming familiar with its flora, fauna, and human neighbors. In Willamette River Greenways, he combines personal narrative about his experiences on the river with nuanced consideration of the controversies and challenges of the Greenway Program. Williams sheds light on current land stewardship practices, revealing the institutional and leadership failures that endanger the river’s water quality and habitat, and looks to the program’s future. He also takes readers with him onto the water, sharing what it’s like to travel the river by canoe, paying homage to the river’s natural beauty and the host of wildlife species that call it home.
Part policy analysis, part advocacy, and all love letter to one of Oregon’s great rivers, Willamette River Greenways offers valuable perspective to policymakers, land use managers, and recreational river users alike.
Indians, Fire, and the Land in the Pacific Northwest
This publication is supported by a generous grant from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde through their Cultural Resources Publication Sponsorship Program
Instead of discovering a land blanketed by dense forests, early explorers of the Pacific Northwest encountered a varied landscape including open woods, meadows, and prairies. Far from a pristine wilderness, much of the Northwest was actively managed and shaped by the hands of its Native American inhabitants. Their primary tool was fire.
This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to one of the most important issues concerning Native Americans and their relationship to the land. Over more than 10,000 years, Native Americans in the Northwest learned the intricacies of their local environments and how to use fire to create desired effects, mostly in the quest for food.
Drawing on historical journals, Native American informants, and ethnobotanical and forestry studies, this book’s contributors describe local patterns of fire use in eight ecoregions, representing all parts of the Native Northwest, from southwest Oregon to British Columbia and from Puget Sound to the Northern Rockies. Their essays provide glimpses into a unique understanding of the environment, one that draws on traditional ecological knowledge. Together, these writings also offer historical perspective on the contemporary debate over “prescribed burning” and management of public lands.
This updated edition includes a foreword by Frank K. Lake and a new epilogue by editor Robert T. Boyd. Contributors include Stephen Arno, Stephen Barrett, Theresa Ferguson, David French, Eugene Hunn, Leslie Johnson, Jeff LaLande, Estella Leopold, Henry Lewis, Helen H. Norton, Reg Pullen, William Robbins, John Ross, Nancy Turner, and Richard White.
Astoria
An Oregon History
Before Seattle, before Portland, there was Astoria.
The rest of the country is just beginning to discover Astoria, Oregon, that historic gem of a town at the mouth of the Columbia River west of Portland, and the oldest European-American settlement west of the Rockies.
The author provides a chronological look dating back to the 1500s, including European exploration, Native American life, logging, fishing, Chinese laborers in the salmon industry, a giant cheese in the Civil War, Oregon’s first female surgeon, Victorian architecture, and valiant Coast Guard rescues.
Published by Rivertide Publishing and distributed by Oregon State University Press
A Tidal Odyssey
Ed Ricketts and the Making of Between Pacific Tides
Between Pacific Tides by Edward F. Ricketts and Jack Calvin is arguably the most important book about marine ecology on the Pacific coast of North America. At a time when almost all studies of life in the intertidal zones were taxonomic, Ricketts and Calvin revolutionized the field and helped to lay the groundwork for studies of the impact of environmental change on the natural world. Though Ricketts is perhaps best known as a quirky character in John Steinbeck’s fiction, he was a serious marine biologist who conducted pioneering research.
In A Tidal Odyssey, literary scholar Richard Astro and archivist Donald Kohrs explore how Between Pacific Tides came to be, covering both the writing process and the long journey to publication. They tell three interwoven stories: the development of ecology as a valuable new approach to the study of marine life in the intertidal zone; a case study of how new and dynamic science is published and reaches a larger audience; and the intellectual development of Ed Ricketts.
Not only a scientist but also an expert in music, philosophy, history, and literature, Ricketts and his work impacted a broad range of writers and scholars. A number of these intellectual figures appear in A Tidal Odyssey, including Ricketts’s co-author, Jack Calvin, and illustrator, Ritch Lovejoy; mythologist Joseph Campbell; novelist Henry Miller; composer John Cage; and of course John Steinbeck. The authors have drawn extensively from Ricketts’s archive, including previously unpublished letters, memoranda, notebooks, and photographs.
A Tidal Odyssey is for anyone interested in the world of Ed Ricketts as well as marine biology, intertidal ecology, and how ecological studies underpin our understanding of the impact of environmental change on the well-being of our planet.
White Poplar, Black Locust
Growing up in one of the West’s last company lumber towns, a small community called Hilt on the California-Oregon border, Louise Wagenknecht witnessed the dying years of a unique way of life. The lumber boom of the 1950s and 1960s would devastate the ancient old-growth forests of the Klamath Mountains as well as the people of Hilt, whose lives were inextricably tied to the company lumber mill. White Poplar, Black Locust is the story of that transformation, but it is also something more—a noteworthy addition to the literature of place, and a sensitive and richly textured family memoir. As Wagenknecht unravels the threads that still bind her to both Hilt’s history and her own, unforgettable characters emerge, and what should have been the happy ending to this story, the marriage of her divorced mother to a forester working for the Fruit Growers Supply Company, becomes instead the end of childhood innocence, foretelling the demise of the mill and the end of Hilt itself.
Originally published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2003, this first book in Louise Wagenknecht’s trilogy about life in the Klamath Mountains is now available through Oregon State University Press, together with Light on the Devils (2011) and Shadows on the Klamath (2021).
Shadows on the Klamath
A Woman in the Woods
In 1973, Louise Wagenknecht was just another college graduate, but unlike many, she wanted to go home, back to the Klamath Mountains where she was raised. When a job offer from the Klamath National Forest gave her that chance, she jumped at it. She landed in the logging town of Happy Camp, where she’d spent part of her childhood, as chronicled in her previous memoirs, White Poplar, Black Locust and Light on the Devils.
With Shadows on the Klamath, Louise Wagenknecht completes her trilogy about life in remote northwestern California. In this new work, she recounts her years in the Forest Service, starting as a clerical worker on the Klamath National Forest before moving to a field position where she did everything from planting trees to fighting fires.
Her story is about a Forest Service in transition, as forest management practices began to shift. Not least among these changes was the presence of women in the ranks—a change that many in the Forest Service resisted. Wagenknecht blends the personal and professional to describe land management in the West and the people who do it—their friendships, rivalries, and rural communities.
Anyone with an interest in the Klamath-Siskiyou region, or the history of women in natural resource agencies, or the many issues associated with industrial forestry, should read this book for its valuable firsthand perspective. General readers interested in the rural West and personal memoir will also be richly rewarded.
An Old Man Remembering Birds
In a series of short, engaging essays, Michael Baughman reflects on his lifelong fascination with birds—on his deck in southern Oregon, at the end of a shotgun, on the beaches of Hawaii and Baja California.
Birders are dedicated and passionate, and, like anglers, they all have their stories. But Baughman tells more than simple accounts of birds spotted in the field. He reflects on human-animal relations, why humans seek closeness with nature, how a dedicated birder can also be a dedicated hunter. He explores how environmental change has altered the rhythms of bird life: the ospreys that resurged after DDT was banned, the waxwings and juncos that appear rarely now as climate change takes a toll on bird populations. Baughman also describes encounters with wildfires and smoke and discusses how they shape the landscape and wildlife of contemporary Oregon.
In his eighty-plus years around birds, Michael Baughman has learned one immutable lesson: as long as you remain alive and human, the closer you get to birds, and the more time you spend among them, the more you love them.
The Northwest Gardens of Lord and Schryver
Foreword by Bill Noble
Published in Cooperation with the Lord & Schryver Conservancy
Lord & Schryver, the first landscape architecture firm founded and operated by women in the Pacific Northwest, designed more than two hundred gardens in Oregon and Washington, including residential, civic, and institutional landscapes. Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver met as young women and in 1929 established their highly successful firm in Salem; their work is acknowledged as one of the milestones in the history of garden design in the Northwest and beyond. Theirs is the only Oregon firm recognized in Pioneers of Landscape Architecture, compiled by the National Park Service. The Cultural Landscape Foundation describes them as “consummate professionals in the broadest sense, as they worked to raise the profile of landscape architects by involving an audience beyond their clients. Their work represented a transition from a formal symmetrical style of garden design to one which responded in a distinctive way to the unique features of Northwest climate, soil, topography, and plant material.”
Gaiety Hollow, their purpose-built Salem home, garden, and studio, is now owned by the Lord & Schryver Conservancy and is open to the public. The conservancy has lovingly restored the gardens at Gaiety Hollow according to Lord & Schryver’s original plans. They have also restored and now maintain the gardens at Deepwood, a former residence that is now a public park.
Students of landscape architecture, garden design, Pacific Northwest history, ornamental horticulture, and general readers who are interested in the contributions of women to once male-dominated professions will find inspiration in these pages.
Learn more about Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver at www.lordschryver.org
From Backwoods to Boardrooms
The Rise of Institutional Investment in Timberland
Since the early 1900s, forestland ownership has gone through two major structural changes in the United States and other parts of the world: the accumulation of industrial timberlands between the 1900s and 1980s and, since then, the shift from industrial to institutional ownership. From Backwoods to Boardrooms explores the history and economics of these two structural changes with emphasis on the latter. These ownership transformations have impacted tens of millions of acres of private landholdings and billions of investment dollars. Industrial structure, forest management and policy, research and development, community welfare, and forest sustainability have all been directly affected.
Through a historical examination of key events and players, prevailing management philosophies, public policy, and institutional factors, Daowei Zhang searches for an economic explanation and assesses the impact of these ownership revolutions with a three-pronged approach. First, he explains why industrial firms were able to profit from owning forestlands, and how the shift to institutional ownership came about. Second, he compares private timberland investments and public equity investments with respect to risk-adjusted returns and other dimensions of interest to investors and forest managers, including alignment of interests, capacity to exploit market inefficiencies, and their forest management and conservation records. Finally, he provides thoughtful commentary on the future of institutional timberland investments and global forest sustainability.
From Backwoods to Boardrooms is essential reading for forest managers, investors, and anyone interested in understanding the workings of the modern forest sector and the future of forest sustainability.
A Voice for Justice
Writings of David Schuman
As an educator, speaker, deputy attorney general, and judge, David Schuman was known for his ability to clarify difficult legal concepts. According to James Egan, chief judge of the Oregon Court of Appeals, he was the “intellectual giant of our generation.” A Voice for Justice reveals how David Schuman’s unique jurisprudence came to be.
His friends and associates knew that Oregon Supreme Court Justice Hans Linde convinced Schuman to turn to the Oregon Constitution rather than the federal one to protect individual rights. But even some of Schuman’s closest friends were unaware of his fiction, which provides a window into his deep capacity for empathy and casts new light on his ability to write elegant, sometimes funny, judicial opinions. His legal thinking also had deep roots in literature and political theory.
Schuman’s 672 judicial opinions are not just brilliant, but written so that anyone can understand them. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he knew there was nothing to gain by communicating only to specialists. He wanted citizens to be able to make up their own minds about important issues.
A Voice for Justice brings together for the first time writings that span over fifty years. Lawyers and laypeople alike will appreciate Schuman’s lucid, engaging observations, which are highly relevant to our current anxieties about institutional racism and democracy under stress. The short stories, speeches, op-eds, articles, legal opinions, and dissents selected for this volume constitute a call to action for everyone to become voices for justice.
Published in Cooperation with the University of Oregon's Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics
I Have Not Loved You With My Whole Heart
I Have Not Loved You With My Whole Heart is a memoir of trauma, healing, faith, and violence. At its center is the author’s father, the Rev. Renne Harris, a heavy-handed, alcoholic Episcopal priest who came out in the height of the AIDS crisis and died of HIV in 1995.
In a book rich with remembrances of the Pacific Northwest of the 1970s–1990s, Cris Harris pulls the reader through turning points in a household crowded with abuse, addiction, neglect, acceptance, and grief, as well as the healing that comes after reconciliation. In recognizing perpetrators of violence as complex people—as selves we can recognize—Harris wrestles with paradox: the keening dissonance of loving people with hard edges, the humor of horrible situations, and how humor can cover for anger. He shows how violence can mark us and courageously lays bare those marks, owning them as his own precious history, born of a fierce species of love.
I Have Not Loved You With My Whole Heart will speak to readers whose family members came out late in life, and to those who lost loved ones in the AIDS crisis of the late 1980s and 1990s. Those with complicated relationships to faith, survivors of abuse, and anyone who has lived with family crisis will also find healing in these pages.
Something Hidden in the Ranges
The Secret Life of Mountain Ecosystems
We all see the largest features of mountain ecosystems—the impressively rugged peaks, the clear blue lakes, and the extensive forests—but each of these readily visible features depends on largely invisible creatures and flows of material and energy. Something Hidden in the Ranges draws on a wide array of scientific research to reveal the complex ecology of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and, by extension, of mountain ecosystems generally.
Geologist Ellen Wohl has spent three decades investigating the streams and forests near her home in Colorado. In writing that is free from jargon and easy to understand, she tells the intricate story of how streams provide energy to adjacent forests, how lake sediments record the history of wind-blown pollutants, and how hidden networks of fungi keeps forests healthy. She guides readers through forests at both lower and higher elevations, revealing how trees rely on microbes in the soil, in the forest canopy, and even within individual pine needles to obtain the food they need. Other chapters focus on subalpine lakes, mountain streams, beaver meadows, and alpine tundra.
While scientists, students, and scholars will benefit from Wohl’s intimate knowledge of mountain ecosystems, Something Hidden in the Ranges is written for anyone interested in natural or environmental history. It will change the way readers perceive and think about natural landscapes.
Canyon, Mountain, Cloud
Absence and Longing in American Parks
What do we seek and what do we find when we visit parks and protected areas? What does it mean to become so deeply attached to a beautiful, wild place that it becomes part of one’s identity? And why does it matter if a particular landscape doesn’t speak to one’s soul?
Part memoir and part scholarly analysis of the psychological and societal dimensions of place-creation, Canyon, Mountain, Cloud details the author’s experiences working and living in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Denali National Park and Preserve, Adirondack State Park, and arctic Alaska. Along the way, Olstad explores canyons, climbs mountains, watches clouds, rafts rivers, searches for fossils, and protects rare and fragile vegetation. She learns and shares local natural and cultural histories, questions perceptions of “wilderness,” deepens her appreciation for wildness, and reshapes her understanding of self and self-in-place.
Anyone who has ever felt appreciation for wild places and who wants to think more deeply about individual and societal relationships with American parks and protected areas will find humor, fear, provocation, wonder, awe, and, above all, inspiration in these pages.