Camp Polk Meadow Preserve

Transcript

Dirty Freehub [00:00:00]

This is the Connection. A dirty free hub podcast connecting gravel cyclists to where they ride through short stories about culture, history, people, places in lands.

I am Kira Corbett, and on today’s episode of the Dirty Free Hub Connection, we have Sarah Mallory of the Community Engagement Director at Deschutes Land Trust. Sarah Blends ecology, history and restoration, and discussions about an intriguing island of ecology at Camp Poke Meadows Preserve in central Oregon.

Thank you for joining us today. Bet. Happy to be here. So let us kick it off. Could you tell us a little bit about where and what is Camp Po Meadow Preserve and what makes this preserve such an important ecological area in central Oregon?

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

Sure. Well, camp Meadow Preserve is about 150 acre nature preserve.

It’s outside of Sisters Oregon, about 10 minute [00:01:00] drive from sisters. It’s a really special place where nature and cultural history come together. The land trusts protected, purchased, and protected the preserve in 2000. So we’ve had it for 25 years, which is kind of hard to believe. The preserve protects about a mile and a half of white choose creek and wetlands and meadows and Aspen Groves and Ponderosa pine stands.

It’s a really important place, ecologically and for nature because it’s one of only three large meadows. On y Choose Creek. The creek itself is 41 miles long and they’re only these three meadows kind of in this upper portion of y choose creek that are really important to wildlife. ’cause these meadows give the creek the space to spread out and slow down and kind of build lots of different kinds of habitat for fish and wildlife.

Camp Polk Meadow Preserve is, you know, we refer to it as like a biologically rich island in our high desert because it has so much habitat. For native fish and animals and plants. And it’s just a really great spot where kind of nature can play a leading role and be there for future [00:02:00] generations.

It also happens to be a really great birding hotspot. So we have more than 180 different kinds of birds that have been observed there. So it’s a really great place to visit and watch birds locally.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub

That’s kind of amazing to hear too, especially in central Oregon. With it being high desert, like having such an ecological standpoint there is kind of amazing.

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

Yeah. It’s a really cool, you know, green kind of oasis in the middle of some of our dry desert. Yeah.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub

Yeah. Now the site, from what I know, has some historical significance. Can you share a little bit about some of the Camp Oak’s history and its connection to Oregon’s Pioneer history?

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

Well first of all, it’s good to start well before that which was for thousands of years, camp Polk was an important place for Native Americans.

The Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Tribes and others lived or visited in the region. They visited places like Clamp Polk when they were on their seasonal rounds to hunt game or food or use plants for clothing to make tools and Ceremonial uses. Today it’s still a really important place for the tribes.

It’s [00:03:00] part of the land that was forcibly seated to the United States by the Confederated tribes of Warm Springs. So the Land Trust really considers the confederate tribes of warm springs important partners in our work at Camp Polk Meadow in terms of caring for the meadow and protecting it for future generations.

Camp Polk did play a really key role in the early settlement of Central Oregon. So the first European Americans arrived in the 18 hundreds and they actually camped and recorded descriptions in their journals of Camp Polk and nearby Indian Ford Meadows. So we know that because of the historical.

Drawings and writings, which is pretty cool. And then the San Am in 1868 camp Polk became an early outpost on the San Am Wagon Road. So the San Am Wagon Road was built in the 1860s to connect the Ette Valley to the grasslands of Central Oregon, and then gold mines in Eastern Oregon and Idaho. And Camp Polk was the site of Hyman’s Station.

A stopping place on the wagon road with a store and the area’s first post office. And it actually predated the town of sisters, so it was kind of where everything was [00:04:00] focused for a while. the station itself was called Hyman Station and it was run by the Hyman family. Samuel and Jane and their children ran the station and they basically settled at Camp Polk built a house and a barn and some other structures, and they would offer, you know, food for travelers on the road, a place to stay and a place for people to get the supplies they needed to continue on the wagon road.

Back in those days when there wasn’t a lot. Out here. And today all that remains of that historic wagon rotation is the Hyman barn. We the structure of the Hyman barn is still at Camp Polk Meadow Preserve. It’s sort of the inner timbers and framing. But it is one of the oldest structures we have in Deschutes County.

So it’s pretty cool to see.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub

Yeah, that’s kinda wild to think about all that. I mean, it’s not that long ago, even though in the grand scheme of things,

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

right? Yeah, for sure. And it’s a really neat structure when you get out there to see it is a really neat. Really neat wooden structure because Samuel Hyman built it himself with his hands.

And it’s just a really amazing thing that he built it that long ago. Yeah. And was able to make it happen.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub

How has restoring Whites [00:05:00] Creek through the preserve improved the habitat, especially for fish like steelhead and salmon is there any challenges that have come with res restoration?

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

Yeah, so we finished the creek restoration at Camp Oak Meadow Preserve in 2012.

And it was really a culmination of lots of years of work with a huge coalition of partners here in Central Oregon. And it basically took a really dry, dusty meadow with a. Super straight creek and transformed it into this lush wet meadow with multiple creek channels meandering across the land.

And that’s what it would’ve historically looked like. So part of our goals for the restoration were to sort of get it back to that place where it could provide this wet meadow habitat. We built lots of new. Meandering Creek channels, including side channels that create habitat for fish. We increase the number of wetlands on the property so there are more habitat for frogs and other critters.

And then we also, the fact that we, when you do these restoration projects, it helps raise the overall groundwater level because the creek helps recharge that groundwater. Once it can kind of move across the landscape. So. [00:06:00] I mean, the short answer is that it drastically improved habitat. There was very little habitat for salmon and steelhead before because the creek just ran so quickly through the meadow that there weren’t places for them to spawn or places for them to hide and for young salmon and steelhead to, grow.

So. The habitat options are awesome now. Lots better places for salmon, steelhead to spawn or hide or grow. And in fact, the land trust, the preserve actually hosts a fish acclimation tank at the property where our partners from Oregon Fish and Wildlife and the Warm Springs Tribes place salmon a steelhead every year to help release into the creek.

And that tank is there to help those. Those fish basically imprint on the smells of Y Cheese Creek so that when they come back from the ocean, they have a way to know where they’re going. So, the larger story of bringing fish back in Central Oregon is a really big challenge for all of us to work on.

But I think places like Camp Polk are really important ’cause it provides that habitat they need when they get back here and they are starting to come back in small numbers, but it’s gonna take a while to get there. I [00:07:00] mean, lots of challenges with restoration projects at that scale. You know, fixing a mile and a half, two miles of creek.

I mean, the biggest one is just, is cost, right? It’s very expensive to do big restoration projects, but luckily we have a really great coalition of partners who help make them possible.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub

Yeah. Kind of segueing into that, what role does the Deschutes Land Trust in a lot of the local community play in maintaining and protecting a lot of the meadow today?

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

Yeah, we, well, the Land Trust’s job is really to protect and care for Camp Polk forever. So a Land Trust model is a nonprofit organization that really is there to ensure that land is protected in perpetuity. So it’s our job to make sure that it’s there for future generations and that’s future generations of people and fish and wildlife.

And I think it’s really because we own the preserve that a lot of our regional partners were willing to do. Make an investment in stream restoration projects like that. ’cause they know that the preserve and that those habitat improvements will be here for a long time, long after we’re here. So, you know, our job is really to keep [00:08:00] it and protected and help it stay healthy for future generations.

The community also plays a huge role in protecting the meadow. We couldn’t have protected Camp Oak Meadow Preserve and cared for it all these years without a strong community of supporters. So, you know, if everything from donors of all sizes who helped fund our work, we have volunteers who have put thousands of hours into restoration.

You know, there were hundreds of thousands of plants put into that restoration project. And those were all volunteer. A lot of volunteers out there helping us with that. And then community partners, right, who’ve rallied around the property and just helping to share and protect this place too.

It’s been a really cool. central way for people to get involved. So you know, if you’re out there and listening and help or connected with Camp Polk thank you. We appreciate it.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub

Thank you. Yeah. And what can visitors expect throughout the seasons? You mentioned bird’s a good opportunity.

Is there other seasons for wildlife or other guided tours, things like that?

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

Now you bet. Camp Polk Meadow Preserve is, has a small visitors area called Hyman Springs and it’s open to the public all year round. It does sometimes get blocked kind of in the winter with snows, but there’s an interpretive trail that has [00:09:00] interpretive signs that talk all about this.

Natural history and the cultural history. And there’s also a great little parking lot in a restroom. Fall, since we’re in fall can be a great time to visit and see fall collars and watch fall bird migrations. The aspen trees there are really awesome and really light up the meadow. Winters definitely quieter.

Sometimes snow will block the entrance to the preserve, but that’s a good time to also just come out and absorb the quiet. And then really the preserve really shines in the spring and summer. It’s got great bird watching when all the spring birds are out. Wild flowers are booming, butterflies visiting.

We had some monarch butterflies out there last year, which is pretty exciting to see. So lots of things to explore in the spring of the summer and the Land trust offers guided hikes at a preserve from April through October. So we’d love folks to join us for those.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub

That’s lovely to hear.

Thanks for sharing all the information. Is there anything else you would like to add?

Sarah Mowry – Deschutes Land Trust

Just that we have a lot of great information on our website, lots of information about the history the natural history and the cultural history, and you can find all those hikes listed up on our website, which is deschutes land trusts org.

Kira Corbett – Dirty Freehub [00:10:00]

Thank you so much. Dirty Free Hub is a nonprofit organization field by your generous contributions. Find us@dirtyfreehub.org.