Transcript

Dirty Freehub

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.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

Malheur Field Station is a friendly nonprofit lodging destination where cyclists, families, and groups can slow down, cook a meal, share stories, and rest for the next day’s adventure. They have public lodging units, including kitchens, and larger groups can even arrange dining services and make use of their gathering facilities.
While you’re here to explore or check out the gift shop, you can also watch for birds right outside your door and follow the development of the new museum. Every stay supports the field station’s educational mission and supports their ongoing work to bring students of all ages and visitors to this magical place.
Today, I have Elizabeth Basa, who is a transplant to the field station [00:01:00] from Chicago. Leading up to her position as director, Elizabeth spent her career in K-12 science education as a middle and high school teacher, many years in curriculum development, and also founded and ran a social business serving families in need in the Chicagoland area.
Thanks for joining us. I’m so happy you’re here today.

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Thanks for having me.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

Yeah, let’s kick it off. So for writers who’ve never heard of it, what is the Mallory Field Station and what makes it different from a typical hotel or campground? Maybe you could tell us a little bit about a typical stay for cyclists.

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Sure. The Malhare Field Station is a nonprofit educational facility. It has a long history where it originally was a site for scientific research and field classes, back in the ’70s and ’80s, which is where the name comes from. that is something that stopped happening and we’re hoping to bring it back.
And since then, the field station has kind of been, little tiny secret burning hub. But, I am [00:02:00] been brought on as new director to revitalize the field station into, its former glory and beyond, which is to be this wonderful facility out here on the Malhair National Wildlife Refuge that welcomes people, in many ways.
So we do have public lodging, which is open year round. So from an individual to groups up to 75 people can come stay with us. Our facility is located actually on the refuge itself, and we have about 30 buildings, the different combination of lodges, dormitories. We have a dining hall, main building. So it’s a whole campus actually.
what makes it different outside of that is that staying here, you are part of this community and that Fe – the Malheur Field Station is developing and growing that has been here for a long time, but we’re just looking to expand. So when you come here, you’ll feel that energy where everything that we’re doing here is really, trying to connect people with [00:03:00] nature, with science, with, we’re also bringing in arts and wellness.
So there’s just a lot of activity going on. But you can also just come and stay here and do your own thing. So in that way, it, can be similar, but, there’s a lot of other things going on as well. So if a group were to come, so we do offer group facilities and group services. So for a group of 10 or more, you can rent our dormitory building that can sleep up to 21.
we have even larger buildings than that, but you can also hire our kitchen services. we can cook for you. And we have a really fabulous, fresh, very eclectic menu, that we offer for groups. and for smaller groups, you can come rent one of our lodges. Several of them have multiple bedrooms.
You can have like six people or 10 people in one. and they all come with full kitchens. And so you can bring your own food out, you can do your own cooking. They all have wifi, drinking water, full bathrooms, and we’re really working on a lot of renovations, So it should be a comfortable, [00:04:00] cozy stay and has everything you need to be out away from civilization.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

That sounds like an amazing time. So is it open year round? Like if I wanted to go tomorrow, I could go to the Malheur Field Station.

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Absolutely. We are open year round and currently we’re working on a new website where you’ll be able to just go online and reserve a room, but right now you have to call or email us. but we do have lodges and almost all the time we have something available. So you can come on out and, stay with us.
Again, it’s on the refuge itself. So if you wanna explore Melhere, we’re accessible to a lot of other areas like the Steens or the Albert Desert. They’re not far off. you don’t have to take that drive back and forth to Burns, which is where, other hotels are.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

That is so neat. Yeah, there’s a lot of really interesting things out there that people might not even realize.

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Absolutely. And we also have, in addition to being very famous for birding, we have the darkest sky on earth. We have a level one border dark sky. So we have a [00:05:00] lot of dark sky enthusiasts and we’re working on dark sky programming as well. But if you come out and you’re out here riding during the day, you can count on the fact that at night you’re gonna have a night full of stars.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

my gosh, that would be amazing to see. Especially if you’re in the city a lot. You don’t get to see that very often.

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Really don’t. Yeah.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

So the field station has an educational mission behind it. Can you talk about the students and the visitors you bring out here and how the riders stay supports that work?

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Absolutely. So our whole mission of the organization is education, and that falls into both informal and formal education. So currently we have a lot of informal programming where we have these all-inclusive programs that anyone can sign up for. Maybe it’ll be on birding, maybe dark sky, geology, might be an art program.
You come out here, we provide an educated leader, lodging, food, transportation around the area, and it’s all inclusive. So that’s, what we have that’s currently on, and active right now are [00:06:00] all these informal programs. And we’ve just been adding and adding to that docket. So you’ll see if you follow us, new programs coming in all the time.
And then we are working on reestablishing our formal education side, which is both with universities and, K-12 as well. So K-12 has had not a whole lot of presence here in the past, but my background is actually K-12 science curriculum development. So I’m really excited to start bringing kids of all ages out here.
This weekend, we actually have two university classes coming out, to stay at the field station. They’re doing some field course, one from OSU, one from Linfield University. And then we have, works in progress for high schools coming out and building outdoor school programs as well. So the whole education side is very robust and involves not just students who are in school, but the general public as well, because we’re all students of life.
So.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

That is true. I love that. And what can riders do to support this and everything at the Malleu [00:07:00] Field Station?

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Sure. Well, just coming and staying here supports us. Bikes coming and staying in our lodging, that supports us. We, accept donations as a nonprofit so people can donate either financially or even in-kind donations. So this year we’ve gotten just a huge amount of in-kind donations because out here, with all the buildings we have, we’re constantly in need of things, furniture, building materials, that kind of stuff.
We would also love to develop a group of our own bicycles that people could use while they’re out here. And currently we don’t have any. So any riders out there have some bikes they wanted to donate, we’d be happy to, uh, accept.
Oh, I’m sure there’s gotta be some. Yeah. Um, you mentioned the wheels are in motion for some of the gravel based programs, like even the bikes that you wanna develop there. What’s the vision there and what might it look like for the future of being there?
Yeah, absolutely. So when we found out that the Dirty Freehub had two trails already existing on the Malheur Refuge, we’re so excited because it’s already in [00:08:00] place. And staying at the field station puts you in position of being able to ride both of those trails. And then immediately though, well, gosh, you know, if riders come out to do that, we can create a program where you’re not just out here riding, but we can pair you up with a birder who also cycles.
And so you can have a birding experience out on one of these trails, which they are named bird trails anyway because the birding thing. And then at night we can have a dark sky cyclist who would come and, maybe do an evening ride and then when the dark sky comes, you can have a dark sky experienced leader with your group.
So that’s what we’re envisioning is to have, rider program where a group of cyclists come out, but then they get, to enter, have a birder and a dark sky leader as well. And of course we do all the cooking and camaraderie and connection that comes with the group program.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

I would be there every month. That’d be my, that would be my staycations

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

It’s very joyful. It’s very joyful.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

yeah. No, that’s very exciting. And it’s great to hear that too. There’s a lot of interest actually in like the birding and [00:09:00] cycling and that kind of combo. So it would be really cool to see that coming.

Malheur Field Station – Elizabeth Basa

Yeah, absolutely. We’re really excited about it and it’s, it’s an easy lift for us because we already have the facility and we already have the educators. So just putting pieces together and you should see that on our calendar
I would add that this is a very exciting time here at the Malhair Field Station because, it is an exceptional facility, but has been well loved, but also not fully maintained over the years. So there’s a lot of renovation, restoration that is going on, and there is just this huge amount of enthusiasm and support pouring out from the community as they watch us transform this field station into, everything it can be.
In addition to lodging, we have an old gymnasium that we’re renovating. You know, we have more dorm buildings. We’re renovating a museum. We just renovated our gift shop. We want our facility to become more than just a lodging spot. [00:10:00] We are building gardens, we’re building nature walks. So coming and being on the field station would give you the opportunity to interact, in a lot of different ways with nature, with this place.
And, yeah, it’s an exciting time to come join and be part of our community.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

I so appreciate it and I will definitely be there very soon.
Awesome.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

Thank you. Well, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much, Kira. I wanted to share also, we do have an e-newsletter that we put out every month, and it’s kind of like the pulse of the field station right now since so much is changing all the time. So every, if anyone wanted to sign up for a newsletter, it’s packed full of all of our programming and updated, progression in what we’re doing here.

Dirty Freehub – Kira Corbett

Awesome. I will definitely make sure we add that. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks so much.
Dirty Free Hub is a nonprofit organization fueled by your generous contributions. Find [email protected].