Trail guides now available!
Portland Forest Hikes and Hiking from Portland to the Coast now available at Powell's, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, and other major book retailers.
Author readings scheduled at Powell's (SE Hawthorne) on March 9th at 7:30 PM. Also at Annie Bloom Books in Hillsdale on March 17th at 7 PM.-
Recent Posts
- It takes a Forest. Part 2
- It takes a forest. Part 1
- What’s in a name?
- The chaos at the end of Belding Road.
- North Fork of the Salmonberry – alternative access to the Salmonberry River
- Excerpt from coming book on NW Oregon: What was Illahee?
- The river that connects us; the river that divides us.
- Tales from the Salmonberry River
- Moonshining along the Lower Columbia River.
- Kerfuffle in the St. Helens Schoolyard.
- Be careful what you ask for.
- The Grange movement – the Internet of its day.
- “Animals to Avoid”
- The Wreck of the 104
- 32 Indian and Pioneer Trails in the North Coast range – compiled by R. L. Benson
- Shoot-out at the Sophie Mozee homestead!
- How to avoid becoming a statistic in the Oregon Forests
- Hindu gems hidden in the hills above Scappoose.
- What the Indians really smoked in their peace pipes.
- My “deliverance” hike on Cronin Creek
- Close encounters with an Alder
- Kamaiakin and the Klickitat Wars of 1855-56
- Following the Golden Rule
- Timber Legacies 4: The Timber Wars
- The first big environmental battle in Oregon’s brewing timber wars.
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Setting up and maintaining the information behind this site is a huge undertaking, and any contribution that you can make to cover expenses would be most gratefully accepted. Happy Trails, Jim Thayer
Category Archives: Indian lore
Portland landscape 200 years ago.
When I’m climbing in the hills above the Columbia River I often stop to gaze down into the valley and try to imagine what it looked like before contact with the European cultures. Most people’s preconception of what the lower … Continue reading
“Sauvie” Island? Why not “Logie’s Island” or even “Wapato Island”?
Nowadays the island at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, is referred to as “Sauvie Island”, or sometimes “Sauvie’s Island” by the older residents. It’s a favorite spot for Portlanders to cycle, to hunt water fowl, or even … Continue reading
You may never appreciate a clear-cut, but…
You may never appreciate a clear-cut, but there is more to this practice than merely wanton violence perpetrated upon nature. For many people the sight of denuded hillsides is both depressing and incomprehensible. I won’t disagree, though I take a … Continue reading
Posted in Indian lore, Logging history, Uncategorized
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Wishing for a mattress sandwich on a hot August day…
In pre-contact days our nature was stable, clean and nurturing… Finally, it’s getting decently hot in Oregon! This is the time of the year when our landscape begins to burn up around us. So far this year we’ve been blessed … Continue reading
Posted in Indian lore, Logging history
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Spring is here; the Trilliums have arrived!
This iconic flower is frequently all that heralds our Pacific Northwest spring, since the common characteristics of this vernal season, like warming weather and diminishing rain are so often missing in our chilly jungle. March 8th dawned clear and sunny … Continue reading
Posted in Indian lore, Plant lore, Saddle Mountain Trails
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