West Eugene Wetlands Mural at Prairie Mountain School

The students at Prairie Mountain School, a Bethel school for grades K-8 on Royal Avenue, have brought what they learned from field trips in the West Eugene Wetlands into their school. A 7 by 12 foot mosaic of more than 700 fire blown ceramic tiles depicting wetland plant and animals now stands out in the elementary wing entrance hallway.

Students grades 1-5 contributed the unique drawings on the tiles. There are deer, herons, aquatic insects, upside-down bats, fish and flowers of every color imaginable and even a squirrel driving a four-wheeler!

The Prairie Mountain PTO funded artist-in-residence Kay Irish who helped the kids create the mural. Many of the tiles were fired in the school’s kiln before Kay put them all together over the summer.

Many generations of students will take pride in this mural that illustrates the wetlands around them that they explore and enjoy each year.

September 6 Native American Wetland Cultures Day

On Saturday Sept. 6 the wetlands where humming with fall pollinators and high spirits. The first annual Native American Wetland Culture Day drew a crowd of more than 150 attendees who enjoyed actives such as basket weaving, presentation of a traditional Kalapuya canoe and traditional camas bake and tasting, information on native plants utilized by the Kalapuya for thousands of years, and a family activity of cattail boat making and floating.


Many excited attendees joined Adam DeHeer on a walk through the history of the local wetlands. As part of the day’s activities he led an interpretive walk down the Tsanchiffin trial starting 12,000 years in past, traveling through time past the eruption of Mt. Mazama, all the way back the present Willamette Valley and its current wet prairie. Adam focused on the way the Kalapuya participated in the Willamette Valley over this 12,000-year history and how their participation in Willamette Valley has helped shape the wetlands of today. It was a whirlwind tour of 12,000 years crammed into an hour, but participants must have lingered just long enough in the past, for there were a few attendees seen returning from the walk with a light dusting of Mt. Mazama ash on their shoulders. They made it back in time to think about what the next 12,000 years in the wetlands may be like and how people living here today might choose to interact with this habitat rich in Ecological relationships and cultural inspirations.

Sitting on the dried grass, sun warming our shoulders, a story transported each of us, young and old, to a time when Coyote had beautiful blue eyes. We were mesmerized as Esther described how those beautiful eyes were lost, and how Coyote now has yellow eyes. Esther is a storyteller and history keeper. She tells only Coos and Kalapuya stories. Her grandmother told her that it was bad luck to tell other people or other tribes' stories. Stories are regarded as private property, as are songs. She has thirteen stories she shares with the public. We all felt so lucky to hear a few of those stories on this beautiful day!-Holly McRae

In the early afternoon, everyone was gathered around the stage listening to the final singing and drumming for the day. I remember it gave me chills to listen to. I had my eyes closed and felt the warm September wind blowing and the drumming throughout my whole body. It really takes your mind back to imagine historical sights and sounds of this area. Afterwards, Esther and Eric Jones thanked everyone for coming out. When Eric said there was talk about repeating this event next year, there was a huge applause! The whole day was just amazing.-Windy Hovey

Thank you to Matt McRae for all the photos of the day.

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Home Economics, Kalapuya Style

Home Economics, Kalapuya Style

Tim: Like all other junior high school boys at the time, I was required to take Woodshop class. I used saws and chisels and drills and clamps and glue but it just didn’t stick. The best I could do was “C” work. While the junior-high schoolboys were constructing bookshelves, the girls were in Home Economics class. In her Home Ec class, Ann was taught to sew and to cook. She tells me that students were tested on their ability to choose the right-sized mixing bowl for preparing cake batter. Ann had a passion for sailing, not cooking. She couldn’t get a handle on it.

Ann: Fast forward from the 1960s to last week. On Friday Tim and I joined in with several other WREN team members and Eric Jones of The Institute for Culture and Ecology for a lesson in Home Economics, Kalapuya style. For the first-annual Native American Wetlands Culture Day, Kalapuya elder and storyteller Esther Stutzman was gracious enough to direct all of us in the art of roasting camas bulbs. And nobody graded us on proper bowl selection!

Esther Stutzman, Kalapuya elder and storyteller

The camas is a plant in the lily family, with a lovely blue flower.

Common Camas

Tim: The camas plant stores energy underground in a bulb, similar to the way a potato plant stores energy in a potato.

Camas bulbs

When properly prepared, the camas bulb is mighty tasty, and was a staple in the diet of the ancient Kalapuya of the Willamette Valley. You must know what you are doing, though, because uncooked camas bulb tastes yucky. Also, eating the bulb of a similar relative, death camas, will result in just what its name implies.


Ann: Here is the recipe for yummy roasted camas bulbs:

STEP 1:
Dig a pit about 2 feet deep. This will be the oven. If it’s late in the dry season, you’ll probably need to use a pick to penetrate the clay layer.

Tim digs his work . . .

You can always call in your buddy to finish the job with a shovel:

. . . Ann does too

STEP 2:
Spread the piles of dirt that came out of the pit all around it, to keep any stray sparks off the grass.

Holly and Ann spread soil around the hole

Also, be sure to water down the surrounding grass really well. Keep hoses and buckets of water handy, plus some nice wet burlap bags. Just in case!

Holly soaks the ground for fire safety

STEP 3:
Clean the camas bulbs. Elder Esther Stutzman demonstrates the proper technique.

Cleaning camas bulbs

Get some friends to help clean, especially if you have 5 gallons of bulbs to clean!

Adam and Jules help Esther clean the bulbs

STEP 4:
Get some more friends to help.

Ann joins the fun

STEP 5:
Get lots more friends to help!

It's a party!

BEFORE and AFTER:

Since our bulbs were on the small side for camas bulbs, Esther had us leave the skins on to protect the bulbs from overcooking.

Before cleaning

After cleaning

STEP 6:
Now you’re ready to line the bottom of the pit with dry river rocks. They must be very dry, or they might explode when they are heated.

Cobble in the oven

STEP 7:
Now light a fire in the pit, right on top of the rocks:

Eric ignites

STEP 8:
Keep adding wood until you’ve got some nice coals going:

Hot stuff!

STEP 9:
Once you’ve got a nice bed of coals, start layering:

First some fern fronds:

Esther places fern fronds onto the coals

Then pour in the cleaned camas bulbs:

Bulbs away!

Add another layer of fronds, and water it really well:

Esther adds lots of water to create steam

And another layer of greenery to fill up the hole (we used blackberry branches), which you will tamp down nice and firmly and water again:

Even more water!

Cover the whole layer cake with wet woven mats (We didn’t have any mats, so Esther said wet burlap bags would work)

Tim adds the final burlap "mat"

STEP 10:
Add more fern fronds:

The final layer

STEP 11:
Now shovel dirt all over the whole thing:

The frosting on the cake

STEP 12:
Have an all-night slumber party around the pit, to make sure that the fire stays put.

(We don't have any pictures--we were too busy strumming guitars and singing. Calling the sounds Tim was making "singing" is giving him the benefit of the doubt.)

STEP 13:
The next day, ENJOY!

(Once again, no pictures. We were too busy stuffing our faces. Check back later for an update of this post. Someone out there will have some photos. For now, just imagine smiling faces and "Ooh, these are good!" The camas bulbs were sweet and tangy with the consistency of a boiled potato.)

Tim: As Ann and I munched on the roasted bulbs, along with lots of other folks at the first-annual Native American Wetland Cultures Day, we thought about people long ago doing this very same thing perhaps at this very spot. We are told that ancient pits lined with rocks, presumed to be camas ovens, have been found in the West Eugene Wetlands. Evidence from those old ovens tells scientists that people were roasting camas bulbs here long, long ago--long before the Egyptian pyramids at Giza were built!

Ann: Our thanks to Esther Stutzman for the Kalapuya Home Economics class and for keeping the Kalapuya traditions alive. See Esther at:

http://www.turtleislandstorytellers.net/tis_oregon/transcript_e_stutzman.htm

Summer
It's summer, and the vernal pools are drying,
hidden by tall grasses going to seed.
Spring's night and day chorus of frogs has faded;
tadpoles grown and hopped away.
I stood at Meadowlark Prairie on the last day of May.
Canada geese came and went
with loud announcements of arrivals and departures.
A red-winged blackbird sang,
liquid notes slipping through the willows.
Families on bikes stopped to look out
over the wetlands.
A young girl left her pink coat on the bench,
coming back for it in response to my call.
A great blue heron stalked below the bridge
carefully moving one stilt-like leg at a time--slowly, slowly.
Swiftly the plumed head darted out
and came back with a crawfish crosswise in its bill.
I thought I could hear the crunching of sturdy exoskeleton
when the bird moved the struggling creature sideways,
as if flattening an ear of corn.
With a toss, the crawfish was turned, then gulped and
moved down that long, slender neck,
the way a snake swallows a toad.
The heron went on to repeat
this precise performance three more times.
Although I have only once seen the elusive bittern,
stretching its neck upward,
pretending to be stalks of grass,
there is something deeply mysterious beneath the feathered facade
of its more common cousin.
Great blues carry secrets of past and future,
from Mt. Mazama's eruption and the settling of volcanic ash
into the clay that lies beneath its feet
to whatever may lie ahead,
and I have no doubt
that this bird, this essence of wetlands,
becomes a spirit after dark,
moving across the wet prairie--
an unseen shadow
whose silent passage is marked only by the bending grasses.
The vernal pools are drying.

August Wander

This week's wetland wander was a stroll into the area at the end of Royal Avenue. This site was new to me, a walk along the Army Corps of Engineers access road. Our leaders were Jules Abbott, a WREN staff member with botany expertise, and by the new wetlands' summer site host, Tim Downey. We brushed against the sticky (and smelly!) tarweed, admired the last blossoms for the season of Douglas Spirea, and found Water Plantain growing in a dry vernal pool. Tall grasses, some the non-native reed grass (looks a little bit like bamboo), grew along the edge of the roadway. Restoration work has turned much of the vegetation back to native species.


To my surprise the seemingly dry landscape held large ponds, regulated to maintain water levels. The previous day a family of otters had been spotted in one of the ponds but we found only dry otter scats with bits of orange crawfish shells being their one bright color.
Several great blue herons waited patiently along the edge of one large pond and some distance away we spotted a row of white egrets (10). Kingfishers flew across above the water, sometimes hovering like a kestrel, and then diving. The ponds hold bullfrogs and we saw tadpoles and some minnows along the edges. A viewing platform provides a great place to sit and look about. At this time of the year the platform sits high and dry above a dry vernal pool although another nearby large pond provides an opportunity for watching shore birds and ducks. Birds spotted during the trip included a dowager, pelicans, and those mentioned above.

We also came across the skeleton of an animal but couldn't figure out what it was since the skull was gone. It had long toes though!