oregon Archives | Carol Patterson

How a trip to Portland turned me into a dancing grebe stalker

June 11, 2019 by CarolPatterson Leave a Comment

I’d never paid much attention to grebes, one of our prettiest but elusive waterfowl, until I got the chance to see grebes dancing. Then I was all in. I boned up on grebe behavior and watched a David Attenborough video of two grebes – chicken-sized waterfowl – running across a lake on their toes in a perfectly synchronized dance. It looked stunning.

At the YYC airport I waited to board WestJet’s inaugural flight from Calgary to Portland April 29. With free munchies and selfies with the flight crew, the departure lounge had a party vibe. “Why are you going to Portland?” asked a fellow traveler. “I’m going to see dancing grebes,” I replied. Her brows scrunched together in confusion. “Dancing grapes?” she uttered.

“No, dancing grebes. They are a type of waterfowl and one of the best places to see their courtship is in Southern Oregon. Portland’s a great place to launch explorations of the state,” I explained.

Touching down in Portland

I planned my assault from Tore, the rooftop bar of The Hoxton, a downtown hotel with lots of cozy gathering places. Friends of the hotel select ten of their favorite books for each room. Mine had books on ghosts and dream interpretation but I didn’t need them to tell me I’d be dreaming of birds.

To get the blood moving after sitting in the plane I took a short bike tour of the river valley to learn more about the city. I discovered Portland was a great destination for outdoor lovers. There’s 500 kilometers of walking, hiking and hiking trails and a multitude of breweries, urban wineries (where grapes are purchased not grown by winemakers) and doughnut makers to give you a reason to move more.

I could’ve taking public transit from the airport and then road an Amtrak plane train all the way to Klamath Falls if I wanted but I had a stop planned at Smith rock State Park so I picked up my rental car and drove south five hours to Klamath Falls, a few kilometers north of the California Oregon border.

Why birds and bird lovers like Klamath Falls Oregon

Klamath Falls is unknown to many human travelers, but birds know it. The Pacific Flyway – a migratory route for North American birds – passes overhead and narrows near the Cascade Mountains. This pinch point and six national wildlife refuges nearby with wetland habitat mean 80% of North American waterfowl pass through the Klamath Falls area.

That means a lot of birds to see but I arrived with only one species in mind and the western grebe with a long graceful neck, cherry-red eyes, and a long narrow beak, is easy to identify.

I met up with Diana Samuels, coordinator of the Winter Wings bird watching festival, to improve my chances of seeing their courtship rituals or dancing. “It’s called rushing,” she corrected me.

“Am I too early to see it?” I asked. In the hours since I’d arrived I turned into a grebe stalker asking everyone I met where I could see the grebes and if they’d seen them dancing.

“It’s too early.” “It’s been too cold.” “Spring is late this year.” I was told. My spirit sank as I considered I may have come all this way to see only paddling, not dancing, grebes.

“Nonsense,” Samuels exclaimed when I told her of my worries, “I saw a pair rushing yesterday. We’re going to find you some birds.”

Finding grebes

They take their grebe watching in Klamath Falls seriously. Samuels produced a couple of lawn chairs from her car and we settled in at Putnam Point on Upper Klamath Lake. I hadn’t yet sat down when a male grebe floating near shore passed its mate some wet reeds. “That’s the reed dance! “Samuels exclaimed. “It’s the first part of the courtship but I’ve never seen that before.”

If there is a romantic in the bird world it’s the western grebe. Each year they engage in elaborate courtship rituals, the male presenting his beloved with reeds or a fish before they perform a series of head movements in unison. I watched one pair work themselves into an agitated state until they swam rapidly towards each other, bills clicking out a sound like angry frogs, and then Shazam!

The two birds had lifted their bodies vertically and were propelling themselves rapidly across the surface with their web feet, the sun glinting off their white breasts, wings arched backwards as they danced on the lake for a few seconds, their next arched in a graceful S-curve.

An Oregon wildlife spectacle

I felt like David Attenborough when I realized I’d seen a duck-style Paso Doble ballroom dance, and been lucky to capture it on video. Like a sugar addict with a box of donuts I wanted more. We sat for a couple of hours listening to the frog-like chatter of the grebes, leaping up when a pair rushed across the water, and soaking in the quiet rhythms of spring unfolding.

“In other places if you want to see marsh birds you have to go to a marsh. If you want to see forest birds you go to a forest, in Klamath Falls it feels like the birds are all around,” Samuels explained on the magic of Klamath Falls. As I headed back to Portland I felt like I had left the bird lovers Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were a pair of grebes.

Travel Oregon, Discover Klamath and WestJet sponsored Carol’s trip but the opinions expressed are her own.

Tweetables

Discover how my friend, @Reinventure’s trip to Portland turned her into a dancing grebe stalker – Click to Tweet.

If you’re traveling to Oregon in the future make sure you take time to see the dancing grebes – Click to Tweet.

Portland Rocks and Rolls

May 15, 2019 by CarolPatterson Leave a Comment

When I flew into Portland on WestJet’s inaugural flight April 29 between Calgary and Portland, I snapped a picture of a snow-covered mountain towering alone over the landscape. Looking a bit like Mount Fiji, I figured I’d have no problems getting it identified when I landed. Imagine my surprise when I showed my picture to a local and she hesitated. “I’m not sure which mountain it is,” she said.

Realizing Portland residents have several of these rocky peaks to gaze at was my first hint things were different here, and if you follow that old adage when in Rome do as the Romans do, it means if you’re travelling to Portland, Oregon you’ll want to spend part of your trip on a bicycle.

Portland has many bridges to cycle over and under

City planners have worked hard to make this one of the greenest cities in the U.S. and tourists are encouraged to use less energy on their visits. There’s over 500 km of multi-use trails in the city (and the highest rate of people biking to work of any U.S. city). It’s easy to get in on the cycling fun as downtown hotels such as The Hoxton and Hotels Zags offer free short-term bicycle rentals to guests.

Hotel Zags gear room has plenty of toys to borrow

If you want to pedal longer Cycle Portland can help. Located downtown, owner Evan Ross says the most popular cycling destinations are breweries and wineries. Known as Beervana for 70+ craft breweries downtown, leaving the car behind in Portland can be a good choice.

Cycle Portland also offers guided cycle trips through the Willamette River valley and let its guides customize interpretation based on their interest. Ross with a background in Outdoor Leadership and Education likes to point out architectural features designed with the environment in mind, and why cycling is easy in Portland, “The 1971 Oregon Bicycle Bill says anytime you build a road or do a major renovation to a road you need to have a bike lane.”

Portland has created 37,000 hectares of green spaces surrounded by shops, festivals and restaurants making it fun to tour by bicycle. Make sure to check out another round object – the crazily topped doughnuts that have become a Portland attraction. At Blue Star Donuts, bakers take 18 hours to make the perfect dough before turning it into flavours like passion fruit cake, Mexican hot chocolate, or real maple bacon.

Reward yourself with a donut after your cycle

Portland has several attractions that I didn’t have time to visit – Portland’s International Rose Test Garden,I’m looking at you – but perhaps it’s a reason to return and kick my cycle into high gear!

Myths of the Old West

August 12, 2014 by CarolPatterson Leave a Comment

Was the Wild West really wild? Watching John Wayne westerns as a child, I believed early North American settlers faced constant peril from gunslingers, Cheyenne ambushes, and stagecoach robberies.
The west was not a California sound stage or even the most westerly of states. It included many places in the Midwest that have much duller reputations today. I recently set off on a press trip to Nebraska, home of the Platte River Road and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, to uncover the truth.

During the mid 1800s, approximately 400,000 American settlers moved west from Missouri on the Platte River Road to Oregon, Utah and California. For the emigrants crossing Nebraska western life was dangerous, but not from violence. Although some people died in fights with Sioux or Cheyenne warriors, many more died from cholera, accidental gun discharges or trying to cross a river with eight oxen, a wagon and no swimming skills. As I wandered among the exhibits at Chimney Rock Historic Site, it seemed settlers were more likely to describe the crossing as difficult, but tedious, with each day bringing more walking, insects and hard tack biscuits.

The Pony Express is perhaps one of the most enduring symbols of the Wild West. Nebraska had more miles of Pony Express trail than any other state and celebrates the partnership of horse and rider at a monument in Sidney, Nebraska. I felt like I was being told there was no Easter Bunny again, when local historian and City Manager, Gary Person explained that the Pony Express, an enduring symbol of the Wild West, was only in existence for eighteen months and was hailed by some as merely a publicity stunt. Three gentlemen hoping to secure a government contract for mail delivery started the Pony Express. Riders carrying mail raced from Missouri to California on horses, changing horses every sixteen kilometers or ten miles. Riders were not grizzled cowboys, but twelve to thirteen year old boys, light as modern-day jockeys, asked to sign an oath swearing they would abstain from alcohol, swearing, and fighting. Orphans were preferred; perhaps because riders were not issued guns, instead, they were instructed to outrun interlopers!

Train robberies really did happen in the Wild West, but not as often as I thought. Union Pacific Railways was first robbed in 1877 at Big Springs, Nebraska. When bandits discovered there was more money on trains than stagecoaches, they started attacking people on rails. Train companies got tired of losing money and hired the newly formed Pinkerton security company to be badder than the bad guys. Within in a decade, train robberies became much less common.

But there was one place were the west was truly wild. Sidney, Nebraska became a major staging area from 1875 to 1891 for people seeking gold in the South Dakota’s black hills. There were eighty legal saloons on Front Street, brothels and an all-night theater. There was lynching and murders – 56 during this time period – earning the town the moniker “Wicked Sidney”. Three local newspapers struggled to keep up with the reports of the debauchery, popular with readers in eastern states.

Sidney had one sheriff for the town and a county area that was larger than some eastern states. Lawlessness prevailed and The Union Pacific Railway, tired of the violence, told the town they had to restore order or they would no longer stop there. A notice was posted telling all criminals to get out of town or risk hanging. The threat was so successful that nearby Dodge City, Kansas adopted it, creating the line made famous on the television show, Gunsmoke. “Get out of Dodge was based on policy started in Sidney, but get out of Sidney doesn’t sound as good,” said historian and Sidney City Manager, Gary Person. Today, Sidney is home to Cabela’s, a large hunting and outdoor recreation retailer, the new face of the Wild West.

So, I’m curious, what myths have you uncovered in your work? Anything that reaffirmed your faith in the story you were told or did you discover that more exploration gave you a new worldview?

TWEETABLES

Inspiring Everyday Explorers: Myths of the Old West via @Reinventure. Click to Tweet.

Was the Wild West really wild? Click to Tweet.

Discover why the Pony Express in Sidney, Nebraska was only in existence for 18 months. Click to Tweet.