Sweet Roots
Chelsea Yarnell explores how people in Tillamook County are recovering the stories and flavors of heritage apple trees.
This Place
Each week on This Place, we ask one Oregonian to tell us about the places that matter to them. What is it like to be where you are?
The People and the Public: 2024–25 Consider This Series
In 2024 and 2025, join us for a series of onstage conversations about all things public.
Conexión con Nuestro Territorio
A hike and conversation in Spanish, presented in partnership with Vámonos Outside and Bend Parks and Recreation District.
En este espacio haremos una actividad de senderismo mientras te invitamos a que converses con otros participantes sobre tu relación con el territorio, y descubras nuevas formas de explorarlo. Conectémonos a través de nuestra cultura y experiencias compartidas. Tendremos alimentación y transporte incluído para quienes lo soliciten. Vámonos Outside estará a cargo de actividades para niños.
Tonalidades de la Vida / Shades of Life
Ana Maria Rodriguez on family, field work, and the many meanings of "green."
Losing the Forest for the Trees
Juliet Grable writes about how a massive die-off of white fir has unsettled the mountain community in Southern Oregon where she lives.
Trip to Richland
Laura Feldman writes about trying to make sense of a secret history.
The Toxins Beneath Us
Ruby McConnell on the long legacy of groundwater contamination in Oregon
Adventures on the Turtle's Back
Joe Whittle writes about hiking canyons in the Wallowa Mountains with people whose ancestors traveled those lands since time immemorial.
Mëshatàm Lënapehòkink: I remember the land of the Lenape
A photoessay by Joe Whittle about finding joy and mourning on four journeys home.
Re-Beavering a Monument
Scientists, activists, and government officials are working to bring beavers back to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
Not a Circle, Not a Line
Susan DeFreitas writes about Ursula K. Le Guin's long view of the American West
Burn Down Valley
Theo Whitcomb writes about the 2020 fires in Southern Oregon, cooperative land management efforts, and finding hope for the future.
Bringing Otters Back to Otter Rock
Heather Wiedenhoft talks with Robert Kentta about how the Elakha Alliance and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians are working to return a lost population of sea otters to the Oregon coast.
Art and Activism in Modoc Point
Contemporary Klamath Modoc artist Ka'ila Farrell Smith on receiving a 2019–21 Fields Artist Fellowship
So Much Together - The People’s Park
Lauren Everett is a Portland-based artist, community activist, and researcher. In 2020, Lauren led the creation of the People’s Park, a temporary community space created on a vacant lot in the St. Johns neighborhood. In this two-part workshop, she will share the story of how the park came about, framed by a discussion about the ideology of property in the United States. Participants will collaborate to design their own community spaces and learn some of the basic practical aspects of doing this kind of project.
So Much Together - The People’s Park
Lauren Everett is a Portland-based artist, community activist, and researcher. In 2020, Lauren led the creation of the People’s Park, a temporary community space created on a vacant lot in the St. Johns neighborhood. In this two-part workshop, she will share the story of how the park came about, framed by a discussion about the ideology of property in the United States. Participants will collaborate to design their own community spaces and learn some of the basic practical aspects of doing this kind of project.
Land Conservation: Roots, Realities, and Reimaginings
Join Katie Voelke, executive director of North Coast Land Conservancy, as she discusses NCLC’s work to protect Oregon's coastal lands. In this two-part workshop, Katie will walk participants through the organization’s own path of relearning the racist history of land conservation in the US and the ways that conservation, through the land trust’s tools of ownership, has perpetuated Indigenous land loss.
Lies of Discovery
Sal Sahme explores the doctrine that enabled European colonization and argues for it to be revoked.
Can the Land Make Us One People?
An excerpt from Jacqueline Keeler's book Standoff contrasts the standoffs at Malheur and Standing Rock.
Cekpa
Leah Altman reflects on revolutionary decolonization, ownership, and power.
Steelhead
An excerpt from Tina Ontiveros's memoir, rough house.
People, Places, Things
Gwen Trice in Maxville, Oregon
This Place Is Beautiful, This Place Is Gross
Sarah Cook writes about learning to see beauty and perseverance while living in The Dalles.
Relearning Home
Mark Putney writes about finding belonging in a Willamette Valley hazelnut orchard after leaving the wilds of Kodiak, Alaska.
Exploring Sovereignty
The treaty that established the Warm Springs Indian Reservation returns to Oregon in a new exhibit.
Deep Roots
Samantha Bakall writes about how Mudbone Grown, an urban farm in North Portland, offers celebration and community in the face of Oregon's white-dominated agriculture industry.
A Lot to Ask of a Name
Natchee Blu Barnd on how Native American names are used as symbols in white spaces
White Man's Territory
Kenneth R. Coleman writes about the exclusionary intent behind the 1850 Donation Land Act in this excerpt from his book, Dangerous Subjects: James D. Saules and the Rise of Black Exclusion in Oregon.
Unclaiming the Land
Melissa Madenski writes about leaving her home of forty years and what binds us to the places in our lives.
The Orphan and the Oxbow
Matthew Minicucci writes about searching for the origin of a tiny sliver of public land in Marion County.
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Readers write about Claim
Stake Your Place
The Cully neighborhood of Portland offers a glimpse at the complex racial, ethnic, and economic factors at play in a community trying to resist the forces of gentrification, displacement, and change.
Who is Not at the Table?
Filmmaker Ifanyi Bell reflects on the making of “Future: Portland 2”
The Numbers
As Portland's urban core has gentrified, thousands of residents have been displaced to neighborhoods east of 82nd Avenue, an area that locals call "The Numbers." In this video, young people living in The Numbers talk about their hopes for their community.
The Opposite of What We Know
Writer Putsata Reang reflects on the project "Bitter Harvest"
Bitter Harvest
Writer Putsata Reang and filmmaker Ivy Lin explore the stories of Chinese laborers in the 1900s who helped establish the state's reputation as an international beer capital, despite exclusion laws that kept them from owning the hop farms where they worked.
Sanctuary in Name Only
Undocumented Oregonians are only as safe as the policies that protect them. An essay by Elliott Young
Earth on Fire
Writer Christine Dupres explores how our nation’s fire policies have threatened tribal lands and culture and how tribal responses provide a guide for how we can address climate change.
Future: Portland 2
Grappling with values, change, and nostalgia has shaped—and continues to shape—the largest city in Oregon. A film by Ifanyi Bell
Facing the N-Word
Writer Donnell Alexander reflects on the making of “An Oregon Canyon”
Words Have Life
Filmmaker Sika Stanton reflects on the making of “An Oregon Canyon”
Within Makeshift Walls
Author Eric Gold on the Portland Expo Center’s era as a prison for Japanese Americans during World War II.
Feeling It All
Oregon Humanities magazine editor Kathleen Holt on the complicated and blurry lines between private rights and public good
The Farmers of Tanner Creek
Writer Putsata Reang on the little-known history of Chinese farmers and vegetable peddlers in Portland
Wonder, Bread
Seeking the sacred in the mundane world. An excerpt from Great Tide Rising: Toward Clarity and Moral Courage in a Time of Planetary Change by Kathleen Dean Moore
Bum Count
An excerpt about searching for lost sheep in the wilderness of Hells Canyon from Joseph author Pamela Royes’ book, Temperance Creek
"I'm Not Staying Here Another Day"
A conversation about the Great Migration with Isabel Wilkerson and Rukaiyah Adams
A Tremendous Force of Will
A conversation about the Great Migration's and the civil right movement with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson
Not Built for Ghosts
Writer Helen Hill on consequences she faced after leaving her beloved home in the hands of others
Stolen Land and Borrowed Dollars
Creative resistance bloomed in the lead up to the Vancouver Olympics. An excerpt from Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics by Jules Boykoff
Between Ribbon and Root
Hope and a history of tragedy live together in a Cowlitz woman's son. An essay by Christine Dupres
Posts
Readers write about Root
Whose State Is This?
Journalist Brent Walth on how legal measures targeting Latino Oregonians reflect fears of change.
A Return Passage
Reporter Putsata Reang and photographer Kim Nguyen share their stories of leaving their home countries as refugees, meeting as students at the University of Oregon, and returning to Southeast Asia as journalists. A film produced by Dawn Jones for Oregon Humanities.
Life's Winter
The opportunities seem endless, but the season is not. An excerpt from Building a Better Nest: Living Lightly at Home and in the World by Evelyn Searle Hess.
Future: Portland
Civic leaders describe the loss of Portland's strong black communities and the hope of restoring them in the future in a video by Ifanyi Bell.
Another Life
I think often of the taste of my grandfather's grapes and of the meat from my father's knife. An essay by Hanna Neuschwander
Into the Welter
Editor Kathleen Holt on cities as more than just places
This Land Planned for You and Me
J. David Santen Jr. on what Oregon's communities look like forty years after the passage of Senate Bill 100
Imaginary Metropolis
What do the cities of science fiction books and films say about the way we perceive the cities we live in? An essay by Dan DeWeese
Design for a Crowded Planet
Cynthia E. Smith, the curator of socially responsible design at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewett design museum, talks about innovative solutions by and for city dwellers.
In-Between Place
Brian Doyle argues that life in the suburbs is far from the bland prison it is made out to be.
Belonging and Connection
Bette Lynch Husted on imperfect small-town life in Pendleton.
Where We Live Now
Abandoning the tragedy of the city for a new way of thinking and talking about place. An essay by Matthew Stadler
Drown
Two rivers; two Western tales of hubris