Planning an Interpretive Center

VIDA: Efforts to create a new McKenzie River Interpretive Center moved forward last week during two workshops held at the Wayfarer Resort. The two-day planning sessions were part of a process dating back to 2007 when members of the McKenzie River Guides Association presented a proposal for a “Museum of the McKenzie River” to the Lane County Parks Advisory Committee.

Details of the concept called for the creation of a facility on the grounds of the Old McKenzie Fish Hatchery that would present the history behind  the development of the McKenzie River drift boat, as well as unique aspects of the area’s geology and fisheries.

Recent  developments have  included the completion of a feasibility  and  marketing  study  conducted  by the  University of Oregon’s Community Planning Workshop that supported the Interpretive Center plan by comparing it to six other similar sites in the Pacific Northwest.

Overseeing last week’s planning was the Portico Group, a Seattle based landscape architectural firm that has designed a number of interpretive centers around the world - ranging from the Korea National Marine Museum in Busan, South Korea; to the Issaquah Fish Hatchery in Issaquah, Washington;  and from the Mendenhahall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau, Alaska; to the Hatfield Marine Science Center Expansion in Newport, Oregon.

Image: Steve Schaefers, left, and Dick Helfrich took a closer look at an aerial map of the old McKenzie Fish Hatchery’s frontage along Hwy. 126.