Oregon!

We made it!! We are in Oregon, staying at Emigrant Springs State Park which has been our home base for exploring northeast Oregon for the last four days.

We have not, however, made it to the end of the Oregon Trail. The end of the trail – the destination of the emigrants – was the Willamette Valley, which is another 300 miles west of here.

This part of Oregon was not settled until the discovery of gold in the 1860s and is relatively sparsely populated today. The emigrants were just passing through here on their way west; no different really than present-day Nebraska, Wyoming or Idaho.

As the name implies the park encompasses a spring that was a favorite resting spot for the emigrants. The pine trees and cooler air of the Blue Mountains marked the end of the long trek across the desert that had essentially begun all the way back at Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

President Warren G. Harding came here in July, 1923 to dedicate a plaque honoring “the intrepid pioneers” that “saved the Oregon country to the United States.”

Saved? That’s an interesting way to characterize what was in fact a bald-faced theft of land in territory claimed by another country. 

When they crossed the continental divide back in present-day Wyoming the emigrants left the territory that the United States had even the slightest legitimate claim to.

What they did back then would not be unlike today having several hundred thousand Chinese suddenly “emigrate” to Guam, or American Samoa or Puerto Rico and establish farms and communities and then, a few years later, decide to make it a province of their country. Or imagine that the Russians had “emigrated” in mass to Alaska in the 1950s, before it became a state.We probably would not think of them as "pioneers"; yet, how would they be any different than the Oregon Trail emigrants?

In recent days Betsy has been astutely asking; why Oregon? Why did they pack up and travel 2,000 miles from Missouri to steal land from the Indians here when there was a lot of land much closer to Missouri that could have been “emigrated”?

We have not yet heard a crystal clear, concise answer to that question but part of the answer appears to be hype. Ever since Lewis and Clark reported on the broad, flat, fertile lands and temperate climate of the Willamette Valley – reports that were bolstered by subsequent trappers and explorers – the area gained an almost mythic status. When the bank panic of 1837 and subsequent recession/depression made life in the states more difficult - and the wagon route west became better defined – the rush began. While the U.S. government did not play an explicit role in promoting this migration there is no doubt that it did nothing to discourage the movement into the territory claimed by Britain.

This was justified, many had come to believe, because it was America’s "manifest destiny" - a term attributed to a New York newspaper editorial - to expand to the Pacific Ocean.

Betsy has closely bonded with several emigrant families on the Trail.

It will be a week or so before we get to the “official” end of the Oregon Trail in Oregon City (now suburban Portland), and another week after that before we get to the Pacific Ocean, but we have been planning the celebration. We’ve gotten kind of attached to these hardy emigrants and the difficult journey they made. We’ve also come to appreciate the effort that has gone into helping us understand and follow the trail.

That effort was begun in the early 20^th century by Ezra Meeker who came west on the trail with his parents and later spearheaded efforts to mark the trail. One of his early efforts resulted in the placement of a roadside marker here at Emigrant Springs. Thanks Ezra!

Really? These ruts were created by wagons 150 years ago and not by a Jeep last month? Hmmm.

Even though we had just arrived in Oregon we set our sights on looking back at Idaho across the Snake River at Hells Canyon. So we drove up a beautiful valley in the Wallowa Mountains to the artsy, laid-back town of Joseph, named for the Nez Perce chief that assisted early settlers and later tried, unsuccessfully, to stand up for his people when the U.S. reneged on a treaty because gold was discovered on the Indian's land.

Because of the distance and winding roads we decided to leave the trailer at Emigrant Springs and stay in a motel in Joseph. That allowed us time to do some hiking along the Imnaha River and check out some of the local breweries.

Betsy at the Blue Hole on the Imnaha River.

Dave does a double-take at the Hells Canyon Overlook.

Relaxing in downtown Joseph.

We also found time to take a tour of Valley Bronze, one of the country’s foremost producers of bronze art works.

It was fascinating to learn about this very complex, time-consuming process. I can’t say I fully understand all of the steps but the essential elements involve taking an art work – say something made out of clay – and then creating a hallow replica of that art work in a material that can be filled with 2,000-degree molten bronze. Larger pieces are done in sections which are then welded together.

Valley Bronze, for instance, did most of the bronze work for the WWII memorial in Washington and the Berlin Wall sculpture at the entrance to the Bush Museum in College Station. They specialize in animals and do many of the art works that you see at a Cabela’s or Bass Pro Shop. They employ about 50 people. 

After the tour we could better understand why some of the stuff in their retail store costs more than our truck. However, we limited our purchase to the $15 leaf pictured below. 

Our tour guide explains the complex process of creating bronze sculpture.

On our final day in this part of the state we descended back down into the desert on the other side (north) of the Blues to the town Pendleton, which is known for the woolen fabrics of the same name. 

We took a tour of the mill that was not nearly as well-done as Valley Bronze. It was interesting though to see the clattering looms.

We also drove out in the desert to a remote site to look at more wagon ruts, these were perhaps more believable than any of the others.

OK, OK. Maybe.