White oak rooted in at the River Walk path

Honoring the important traditions of “our grandmas, grandpaws, aunties, and uncles” was all called to mind as people gathered in Blue River last Sunday. “The things of the traditional world when we recall those days,” added Dietz Peters, “are especially important so when our kids get older, they can pass it on to their kids and grandkids.”

Deitz, himself an elder of the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde, was speaking to a group of about three dozen people interested in restoring some of the natural world that wildfires had swept away.

Katherine “K’iya” Wilson organized the event around White Oak trees. She identified herself as a fire survivor trying to “get back and help my community the best way I know—to try and inspire replanting areas in a way that honors McKenzie’s original people and the landscape.”

The plot she chose was “pretty much at ground zero” of where the Holiday Farm Fire burned the town of Blue River. It’s also close to the confluence of the Blue and McKenzie Rivers and is the location of the River Walk Trail, established in 2014. “Everywhere you look, you can see where the fire burned,” she said.

On Sunday, most of the three dozen people took Peters on his offer to sprinkle tobacco on potted white oak seedlings as part of their blessing and take one home. ”I’ve heard stories about these trees for a long time,” he said, encouraging hopes that the transplants “will be strong.”

Acorns from the white oak were a major food staple to many of Oregon’s original inhabitants, including the Kalapuya, Klamath, and Chinook. Dried nuts were a nutritious food source high in carbohydrates and fats. They were also ground for bread making, while bark and leaves also had medicinal values.

In contrast to wildfires, Indigenous tribes used controlled burns to manage groves of white oak savannas, creating open spaces where fir and conifers didn’t take hold. Those open areas supported wildlife for hunting and areas where camas and other beneficial plants like yampah grew.

McKenzie River Ranger District Archeologist Tom Fox also discussed fire. He pointed out that despite its destructive results, the Holiday Farm Fire and other recent events offered up “rich stories in the landscape that are allowing us to put together parts of the story” of what occurred before European colonization.

“This side of the mountain is wet and rainy and gets covered up by moss and brush very quickly,” Fox said. “Basically the window of opportunity to find things is about two years before vegetation grows back even thicker than before.”

While it’s believed native people didn’t settle in the McKenzie River area, quite a bit of evidence has pointed to them valuing their visits here. Besides returning home with foodstuffs like berries and dried salmon, the rich deposits of material at the Obsidian Cliffs in the Three Sisters Wilderness were valuable for high-quality tools and trade goods.

“Before we made rules and designated it a wilderness area,” Fox said, “It was a place where people from all over the region came to get extremely high-quality obsidian.”

A white oak was transplanted adjacent to the River Walk Trail as part of Sunday's gathering. Wilson says the nonprofit McKenzie Reel group that sponsored the event is planning others in the future and supporting a school for Native American filmmakers. For more information, contact Katherine Wilson at [email protected]