Blog

In celebration of University Press Week, our guest blogger for today is Bruce A. Byers, author of The View from Cascade Head: Lessons for the Biosphere from the Oregon Coast. In today's post, he talks about the genesis of his book, the beauty and ecological significance of the Oregon Coast, and the importance of nature-writing to science and the conservation movement.

In her gripping and courageous debut memoir, Tina Ontiveros leaves it all on the page, inviting readers to lean into her experiences as a young girl growing up in and out of logging camps amidst intergenerational poverty and trauma in the Pacific Northwest.

In early September, historic wildfires spread across the West, devastating land and communities in Oregon. The unprecedented and powerful east winds that blew down from the western Cascades on Labor Day 2020 unleashed the most destructive wildfires in Oregon's recorded history. Compared with the Holiday Farm Fire's colossal destruction in the McKenzie Valley, the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest was affected lightly only on its southwest edge.

Anyone who has spent time at the Oregon Coast knows there’s nothing like it. The Pacific Ocean can fill you with a sense of wonder and awe on the sunniest or the stormiest days, but life on the coast can be rough, tough, and risky. Author and journalist Lori Tobias knows that all too well. She spent the past decade covering the stories of those who call the coast home.

The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge in collaboration with the Hawaiʻi Ponoʻī Coalition has launched the first Hawaiian History Month  to increase awareness around the Native Hawaiian community. Throughout the month of September, there will be virtual events where you can engage with Hawaiian history through storytelling, art, and action. The first event kicked off on September 2nd with a celebration of the 182nd birthday of Queen Liliʻuokalani’s 182nd birthday—the last reigning monarch of Hawai’i.

John Haines—writer, community investor, and adventurer— kayaks, bikes, and survives various terrains in his first book, Never Leaving Laramie: Travels in a Restless World. Haines traverses multiple continents, and the message of taking risks and experiencing life stays at the core. From Laramie, Wyoming, to Mali, Africa, the need for independence and adventure run wild through Haines’s writing and voice. In this interview, Haines takes a moment to dive deeper into the intrepid waters of his life on and off the river.

Avel Louise Gordly, the first African American woman elected to the Oregon State Senate, begins her book, Remembering the Power of Words, with an epigraph from poet Audre Lorde:

“While we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.”

That words have power is a constant undercurrent in Gordly’s memoir and a truth she learned early in her life. “Growing up, finding my own voice,” she writes, “was tied up with denying my voice or having it forcefully rejected.” For too long black voices have been diminished in America. Today, amidst the widespread outrage and sorrow over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and other victims of police brutality, it’s time to amplify those voices. OSU Press stands in solidarity with all who fight for racial justice. To help Oregonians better understand our state’s long history of racial exclusion, white supremacy, and efforts at resistance, we recommend the following books and resources.  

We’re excited to promote and celebrate the publishing birth month of Bob H. Reinhardt’s Struggle on the North Santiam: Power and Community on the Margins of the American West. With the restrictions and unfortunate outcomes of COVID-19, we offer an excerpt of Reinhardt’s brilliance as a satisfying distraction from these quarantine times.

INTRODUCTION

Next to a well-traveled highway on the margins of the American West, there is a place that seems easy to ignore. This particular place is the North Santiam Canyon, a fifty-one-mile stretch along Oregon’s Highway 22 on the western side of the Cascade mountain range, surrounded by Douglas fir trees on the banks of the North Santiam River. It takes about an hour, depending on speed traps, to drive through the canyon. A few landmarks jump out to motorists: Mt. Jefferson to the east, occasionally peeking out over the treetops; two large dams (Detroit Dam and its regulating dam, Big Cliff) and their full reservoirs or empty reservoir beds, depending on the season; and always the North Santiam River, burbling, swirling, crashing, pooling, and tumbling alongside the highway. Houses and buildings are scattered along the roadside, sometimes gathered into villages and towns, and perceptive drivers might even notice the signs alerting them that they have entered or left behind one of these communities. But driving along at fifty-five miles per hour, one would be forgiven for not finding anything remarkable or memorable about the North Santiam Canyon, like so many other marginal places in the American West.