By Jim LeMonds

Carl Wirkkala would love to make a splash on the country music scene. But if it happens, it will be on his terms.

The 33-year-old Castle Rock resident has written nearly 200 songs-a handful of which are currently being considered by publishers and producers-and released four albums. His sound is a combination of blues, folk, and old-school country. Something you might hear if Johnny Cash and Buzz Martin sat down to jam with Bob Dylan and Tracy Chapman.

Although Wirkkala writes about “the West” in general, his music is pertinent to the Pacific Northwest in particular, with subject matter that includes logging, mill closures, and used-up towns.

“Some people probably think I should be chasing commercial country music,” Wirkkala said. “But I have to write what I know and what I like. It’s what I call ‘American music.’ It’s relevant to working people, not just cowboys with big belt buckles.”

Train Town, the newest effort from Wirkkala and his band, the Ghost Town Boys, is due out later this year.

Getting noticed is difficult-even if you have talent. Nearly all radio stations, regardless of the genre they favor, adhere to intensely-hyped, pre-scripted playlists. “I could call every country station in the area, but it wouldn’t make a difference,” Wirkkala said. “No matter how good the song is, they aren’t going to be able to play it.”

Wirkkala sees himself as a writer first and a performer second. “I’m not trying to market myself as an act,” he said. “I’m trying to get my songs out there.” And in the country world, out there means Nashville. Carl has made four trips to country music’s hometown, the most recent in March of this year. Chad Mitchell, a high school friend and fellow songwriter, helped Wirkkala connect with several producers, including Cowboy Jack Clement.

“Cowboy Jack is an icon in Nashville,” Wirkkala said. “He produced Charlie Pride’s first albums. He knew Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. It was a thrill to talk with him and hear the stories he had to share.”

Wirkkala recorded a song in Clement’s studio with Cowboy Jack accompanying Carl on the guitar on “The Man in White,” a tune dedicated to Cash. Clement is currently holding “Man in White” and “Freedom Town”-the title track from an album Wirkkala released in 2006-and determining whether they will be broadcast on the Sirius radio program he hosts each week.

Carl’s father Orval and uncle Allan worked in the woods as shovel operators and rigging men for many years. Orval eventually formed a robust gyppo outfit called Liberty Logging that was active in southwest Washington for two decades.

Carl worked as a chokerman during the summers when he was attending Castle Rock High School and Lower Columbia College but had no intention of making logging a career. “I was a junior at Eastern Washington University in 1997,” Wirkkala said. “My brother had left school, so I was by myself. I was running out of money, and I didn’t feel like college was where I belonged.”

He quit school and went to work for Liberty as a chokerman and rigging slinger. “I told myself I’d just work one more summer,” he said. But that summer turned into nine years, a promotion to siderod, and full immersion in the workings of the company.

When Orval decided to get out of the logging business in 2006, he offered Liberty to Carl and his wife, Donna, but they declined. “I’d seen what my dad and uncle went through and knew that, even with all of their experience, they were having a hard time making a go of things,” Carl said. “That helped convince me to turn down the offer, but I also felt like music was tapping me on the shoulder.”

He admits that he misses the work and harbors regret about abandoning the family business. “For me, logging is the Final Frontier,” he said. “Being away from it is an open wound. But on the other hand, I’m thankful to be out of the woods with my knees and my health.”

If you’re looking for urban cowboys, you’ve come to the wrong place. Wirkkala writes about small towns, broken dreams, and times gone by. “I’ve always been a young guy who writes and sings about old things,” he said.

Wirkkala’s music features chokermen, bank robbers, forgotten mining towns, and even an ode to Rosco P. Coltrane of Dukes of Hazzard fame. There are no stampedes, honky-tonks, or hangovers.

Many of Wirkkala’s songs are about the Old West of the 1800s, but he tips his hat to the Northwest in some of his strongest numbers. Wirkkala recognizes that logger music is dying and does his best to call attention to an occupation and culture that have been decimated in the last three decades. “Rigging Men” (Ghost Town), “Haywire” (Freedom Town), and “Raingear Blues” are humorous yet accurate descriptions of the physical, close-to-the-bone logging life.

The narrator in “Raingear Blues” is plagued by a surly yarder operator, a demanding siderod, and the lack of a lunch.

Out here the wind’s a blowin’ the tail hold’s a goin’.
Why I’m still here I haven’t got a clue.
I’ve got the tight log-in-the-fog, kinked-up-choker-knob,
Ripped up raingear blues.

Bad weather and steep ground are the nemeses in “Rigging Man.”

When the logs are tight, and the ground is steep,
And it’s pounding down the snow and sleet,
It’s enough to make a greenhorn cry,
As he pulls on his tattered gloves to give it one more try.

“Haywire” carries a lament that could be uttered by hundreds and hundreds of Northwest chokermen who have pulled haywire during a line change:

I pull up that hill and down the other side.
I ain’t gonna stop ‘til the hooktender yells ‘line.’
Gonna pull that wire as long as I can.
My old man says it’ll make me a man.

“Frankfort,” another song with Northwest roots and a respect for the past, tells of a ghost town along the Lower Columbia River that Wirkkala visited as a boy with his father. Strong writing by Wirkkala, spot-on back-up vocals by Tim Current and oboe accompaniment – which does not seem at all out of place-by guest musician Skip vonKuske highlight this tune from the Freedom Town album.

I can hear the axes ring.
Whistles blow and the engines roar.
Another day. What will it bring?
A hundred thousand feet or more.

The Ghost Town album includes “It Takes a Friend,” a poem written by Carl’s grandfather, Charles Wirkkala, during the 1930s. Carl set the words to music as a tribute to his grandfather, who was killed while cutting timber in 1962.

Carl’s father, Orval, left logging in 2006 to answer a ministerial call in Kingston, Minnesota. Spirituality runs deep in Carl’s life and permeates his music, but he avoids preaching and focuses instead on themes of redemption, tolerance, and optimism.

“A lot of people are hurting,” he said. “It’s not my job to judge others. I try to give them a message of hope.”

Wirkkala lists Johnny Cash and Billy Joe Shaver among his most prominent musical influences. Neither relied on fiddles or gimmicks, nor does Wirkkala. “I’ve always been a big fan of Johnny Cash,” Wirkkala said. “His music is so unusual and has such a wide appeal.”

Wirkkala’s gritty voice and stripped down instrumental arrangements play like a throw-back to a time before country music began sounding like a cross between the Osmond Brothers and Electric Light Orchestra.

Wirkkala and the Ghost Town Boys span the gamut from blues to ballads. “Train to Glory” (Freedom Town) is souped-up, with the tempo matching that of the train to paradise on which Wirkkala tells us we can all ride. The song relies on excellent lead guitar work by producer Kevin Nettleingham, who sat in on this number.

“Somebody Tell the Fool” from the new Train Town album is a beautiful, plaintive ballad of lost love that showcases Wirkkala’s songwriting abilities. With minimal instrumental accompaniment, the simplicity of the melody is a perfect match for lyrics that go straight to the heart. The words float atop the guitar chords.

Somebody tell the fool, she’s gone and she ain’t coming back.
Quit staring down the railroad track.
Somebody tell the fool.

Somebody let him know, she’s halfway to Birmingham.
Quit writing songs nobody understands.
Somebody tell the fool.

Wirkkala is at his best when he is specific. In “Gunfighter’s Last Ride” from the Ghost Town album, the narrator introduces the passengers with whom he is sharing a train car:

There’s a buck-toothed kid in the corner, cleaning on his old six-gun.

Sickly doctor next to him whose face has never seen the sun.

Tall man in a flashy suit, with a handlebar mustache.

His eyes are looking right through me, and he’s got two pistols in his sash.
“I’ve always had a knack for writing and storytelling,” Wirkkala said. He attributes his interest in writing to a childhood affection for Louis L’Amour books and the teaching of Gary Udd at Castle Rock High School, where Wirkkala graduated in 1993.

He wrote his first song, “Borderline,” which eventually found its way onto the Ghost Town album, in 1996. “I was home from college for spring break. Dad was shovel logging near Ryderwood. I wrote the song on the back of the bag my chicken strips came in.”

He takes instruction from singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, whom Wirkkala describes as a master at creating pictures with words. Unlike Cash, the Texas-born Shaver has never found commercial success, in part because his music, like Wirkkala’s, does not conform to the type of commercial country produced by Big & Rich, Rascal Flats, and other pop-country groups.

“I have a lot of respect for Billy Joe Shaver,” Wirkkala said. “I try to be as effective as he was at putting words together. I think I’m getting better because the more I write, the more my songs seem like poems. I’m working hard to develop consistent imagery and to be efficient with words.”

“Lost Highway” from the upcoming Train Town album could easily have been penned by a wanderer during the Great Depression:

I’ve got on my ragged shirt.

I’ve set my thumb in the wind.

I know I’ve fallen in the dirt,

But I’ve struggled up again.

I’ve walked the soles right off my shoes

On this blacktop nowhere road,

And what awaits in the miles before me

I don’t really want to know.

Wirkkala admits that he is still learning how to tell a story effectively in three minutes- the length of the average song. Like other writers, regardless of genre, he reminds himself to show, not tell. “It’s a real bonus to have the tempo and the sound to convey emotion and carry part of the load,” he said.

The Ghost Town Boys was formed in 2004 and maintains a limited performance schedule. Most shows include covers of numbers by Cash, Shaver, Waylon Jennings, and Buck Owens, but the majority of the songs are original compositions written by Wirkkala.

The focus is on acoustic combinations, along with steel and electric guitar riffs by Wirkkala’s talented cousin, Lucas Holmgren. Eric Mickelson (drums), Ron Robinson (bass) and Tim Current (rhythm guitar and backup vocals) round out the group. Lead guitarists Daryl Pipkin and Paul Allen occasionally sit in.

Current’s tenor adds a nice touch when he and Wirkkala sing together. Current has released a CD titled Convergence and is working on a new album with a rock emphasis. “I tell Tim I don’t like it when he sings,” Wirkkala said. “He makes me look bad.”

Wirkkala released a gospel CD called Time Above the Ground with friend Bjorn Sjolund in 2001. This was followed by Ghost Town (2004) and Freedom Town (2006) with the Ghost Town Boys. A second gospel album, The Love of God, came out in 2007. Wirkkala’s albums are engineered and recorded by Kevin Nettleingham at Deaf Jim Records in Vancouver, Washington.

Relying only on word-of-mouth marketing, Wirkkala has sold approximately 1,000 copies of both Ghost Town and Freedom Town. The bad news is that recording an album costs $8,000 to $10,000, so profits are hard to come by. In order for his music to generate a living, Wirkkala will need to sell songs to publishers. If those songs find their way onto records that produce income, Carl will be entitled to royalties.

To pay the bills, Donna works as a bookkeeper and Carl does part-time excavation and construction work. In the meantime, he writes.

“Donna and I haven’t talked about a stopping point (for his full-time focus on music),” he said, “but that could be out there if I can’t make ends meet.”

He has no illusions. He understands that there are no guarantees. “My goal is to write songs of value and take my music to the highest level I can. But you have to be good, and you have to be lucky.”

If You Want to Listen

Wirkkala and the Ghost Town Boys play twice a month at Hattie’s Restaurant in Castle Rock. “We’ve been getting plenty of calls and could definitely do more shows,” Wirkkala said. “But we’re trying to stay away from events that involve too much driving. I prefer to put my energy into songwriting.”

Wirkkala’s music can be purchased at Hattie’s and at Minuteman Press, Just Music, Cowlitz River Rigging, and Thiel’s Music Center in Longview. Online purchases and downloads are available online at Napster, iTunes, and CDbaby.com.

Carl and his wife, Donna, have two children, Lance (six) and Brooke (four). Lance is the subject of “All I Need” on the Freedom Town CD. Brooke’s photo graces the cover of that album.

Here a locavore, there a locavore, everywhere a locavore.

A locavore - the word of the year in the New Oxford American Dictionary – is someone who seeks locally produced food.

Their numbers here are sprouting.

Farmers markets in the region have been growing in size and numbers the past several years. And in Longview, a new group has taken farm fresh to a new plateau as it helps locavores connect with the farm fresh food they crave.

The year-old collaborative called Lower Columbia Farm is spearheaded by Joan LeMieux, who leads the group of volunteers that works to bring locally grown food to the family table. Like a garden rake, Farm to Table has a multi-pronged approach. The dozen or so people in Farm to Table, including farmers, nutritionists, gardeners and just plain food-lovers, have found fertile ground in the region for their return-to-roots movement.

Farm to Table’s approach is not so much about planting, but nourishing the many good seeds already growing here. Besides helping people find good food to cook, the group also sponsors dinners prepared by a local chef that entice the taste buds while giving diners a chance to meet the local farmers who grow their food.

LeMieux, a former schoolteacher, hospital administrator and Cowlitz County commissioner, said women have long taken responsibility for the food that feeds families and fuels communities. “The griddle is hot,” she said. “Fifteen years ago, this wouldn’t have worked.”

The organizer said she’s not out to incite political changes a la filmmaker Michael Moore, but to encourage small changes on the way to eating well. Few people have the resources or the will to adapt the all-or-nothing approach in author Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life,” she said, but even growing a pot of tomatoes on the deck can be a start.

The group stays close to the ground. Some people interested in Farm to Table are serving on the advisory committee for the Longview Community Gardens, working with Rich Beam, director of Longview Parks and Recreation. With the help of green-thumb mentors, the group hopes to draw new families into the fertile fold of growing what they eat and fill all 76 of the 20-by-40-foot plots, where Longview residents have been planting vegetables for more than 20 years.

Dixie Edwards, who with her husband, Scott, operates a nursery and garden just outside the Longview city limits, is a pivotal member of Farm to Table. They sell organically grown fruits and vegetables and eggs from pastured chickens.

“I only started for myself,” she said. “I want my family to have fresh, pesticide-free food.”

Farm fresh to me has special meaning.

I was reared on a Midwest farm that has been in my family for more than 110 years. After college, I moved to the city, relocated to the South, worked in the East, and ended up here with my husband, Bob. Wherever we roamed, I toted my memory of farm food along — and found that the old has become new again.

Today’s buzzword swirling around farming is sustainability. Dad called it conservation. To us, raising crops organically meant spreading cow manure in the fields. The globalization of agriculture was selling our wheat to Russia when the Soviet Union’s crop was destroyed by drought, or being able to buy bananas all year round.

Eating seasonally was enjoying corn on the cob twice a day until the last ear of sweet corn was picked. Seasonal thinking was Mother’s directive to “Go out to the garden and pick a quart of berries for supper.” When the berries reached their peak, we made strawberry jam. We dug potatoes for the winter, and stored them under the basement stairway. At Gram and Gramp’s farmhouse next door, apples from their orchard were stored in the cool of their root cellar. We bought our Thanksgiving turkey from a neighbor, and my aunt spent all day plucking every pinfeather off the bird for our family feast. For Christmas Eve, we made homemade ice cream with milk from our Golden Guernsey cows.

We never went hungry, but choices were limited in the off-season. You didn’t find red raspberries in the grocery store in February, and pineapple came in cans. Today’s families eat whatever they want whenever they want – as long as they can pay the price. Food is shipped in from continents and oceans away, and at the supermarket “in season” has become “always available.”

Yet few children have the fun of taking a break in play to run out to the garden, pull a carrot out of the ground, hold it under the hose and eat it right down to its green top. Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter never had it so good.

Trends may come and go, but for us farm girls one thing has not changed. Farm fresh is still farm fresh.

The farmers market is the most visible link in the Farm to Table movement.

The Kelso-Longview area has three farmers markets within the city limits of the two towns and a fourth is across the Columbia River in Rainier, Ore. The largest of the four is the Community Farmers Market of Cowlitz County, which is located at the county fairgrounds.

Last summer the bustling market had its best year ever, according to Dolly Hartzell, who writes the market’s online newsletter. Dolly farms with husband Scott on Puget Island. At their Kathleen’s Animal Protein, the family produces pastured-raised chickens, eggs, pork and turkeys.

“The best thing about selling at the farmers market is developing a personal relationship between the farmers and the customer,” Dolly said. “That’s why we love doing that.”

Many would agree. In Washington State, the number of farmers markets has increased to 127 from the 14 reported by the Washington Farmers Market Association in 1978. Oregon now has 11 markets on the coast alone. The burgeoning growth is part of a nationwide trend. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there were 4,385 markets in 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available. This was up 18.3 percent from 2004. Farmers markets on the Northwest Coast are among those making their culinary mark. (See accompanying listing.)

Fans of farmers markets seem more in tune with the seasons, and better understand the proclivities of nature in the too much rain-too little rain Northwest. Many develop a feeling of trust looking in the eyes of the man or woman who grew their berries or their beef.

Taking a page from Wahkiakum County’s beautiful brochure listing Puget Island, Skamokawa and Grays River farms, the newly minted Farm to Table volunteers gathered additional information to publish a three-county guide to individual farms last summer. The guide provided information so consumers could visit a farm and pick fruits, buy vegetables, or purchase meat, poultry and eggs in Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties in Washington and Columbia Country, Ore.

The 1,000 copies of the free color brochure, which featured a map to the farms, were distributed throughout Chambers of Commerce, libraries, hospitals, The Longview Daily News, and the Washington State University Extension offices. A second guide is planned for this summer. The group hopes to eventually have the information on an Internet site.

High-quality, just-picked produce satisfies hunger while tickling the senses – something that over-packaged, preservative-rich meals try to do with lots of high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats. But what of the person who has never cut into a ripened-on-the-vine local tomato in August, or doesn’t know that a ripe strawberry is red all the way through? A truly wonderful meal can be a turning point.

Working with the Lower Columbia Farm to Table, Chef Bryan Burt of CFD Café in downtown Longview cooked several seasonal dinners last year based on products available locally, including leafy greens, berries, tomatoes, homestead cheeses and lamb. He also created recipes using Oregon beef raised without hormones or antibiotics.

Because farm fresh foods have so much natural flavor, Burt said it’s best to keep “the dishes simple.”

The Farm to Table dinner patrons learned to expect the unexpected. Tomato cobbler isn’t on many dessert menus, but pleased murmurs worked their way around the room when the delectable dish was served. Burt said customers especially enjoyed meeting the farmers who grew their food.

“People love the idea of less travel time for food,” said Burt, who studied at Western Culinary Institute in Portland. Though finding the local goods can sometimes be challenging, he said, “it’s the best way to go.”

The good taste of local has made its way into fast food, too. Burgerville, a Vancouver-based chain, serves strawberry shakes when the local berries come into season and also features Walla Walla onion rings. Burgers are made from Oregon-grown beef. A U-turn is a necessity when the sign for Oregon hazelnut chocolate shakes go up, or when thoughts turn to Tillamook cheese melting onto a sandwich.

Farm to Table is in good company. We retired to the Pacific Northwest after two decades in Pittsburgh, which had a thriving chapter of a chartered, international organization called Slow Food. Slow Food-Pittsburgh sponsored a series of meals that featured everything from heritage turkeys to organically grown sweet corn. The group dined in restaurants, a community center – and even a barn.

Slow Food was organized in Italy after the first McDonald’s opened there, and the Italians began to worry that their country’s food traditions might be devoured by American-style fast food restaurants. The Slow Food emphasis is on cooking and serving food that feeds the soul as well as the body.

Farm to Table dinners extend that satisfying idea by emphasizing local food. Other activities included a free film series on the pressures that threaten the American food supply.

As the Lower Columbia region turned its taste buds on to local foods, the question arose: just what constitutes local? It may be food grown within 50 miles of the farmers market, or a day’s drive away in Eastern Oregon or Washington. “Local” pumpkins may come from your neighbor’s backyard garden, though it takes a Walla Walla farmer to grow a “Walla Walla sweet” – what industry wags call the “designer onions.”

The term local is relative. The plain fact is you can’t grow everything everywhere. It’s infinitely easier to grow a “Hermiston melon” in northeastern Oregon than in our shady back yard. In fact, when my husband and I married and moved to a log house in the rural Rainier hills, co-workers inquired what we’d planted in our garden. “Lettuce,” we said and went on to add a grocery list of vegetables. When we ended with “… and watermelon,” everybody laughed. Poor soil, too much elevation, too short a growing season. We should have stuck with zucchini.

Farm to Table member Dixie Edwards and husband Scott don’t have that knowledge gap. The couple specializes in growing plants native to the Northwest, including more than a hundred species of ornamentals, vegetables and fruits on their six acres off Ocean Beach Highway.

Scott said you may call him an urban farmer, gardener or horticulturist. “I’m a plant person,” he said. One who went organic before it was popular, said his wife.

A WSU Master Gardener, Dixie took me on a tour of the greenhouses, orchards and plantings on their farm, Watershed Garden Works. A former preschool and sixth-grade teacher and the daughter of educators, she gardens organically, although she hasn’t sought government certification because of the high costs involved.

Her organic methods include the flock of perhaps 40 hens that roam the place. “The ‘girls’ are our first line of defense against insects and slugs,” she said. “We used to have lots of slugs before we got chickens.”

Deer are a bigger problem. Most mornings they drop by the farm. “They look down one row, then another,” Dixie said. “They consider our crops their personal smorgasbord.”

Staying in tune with Mother Nature does have its pitfalls. As we turned the corner along the back border of their place, she pointed to some paw prints in the rich mud — silt clay loam, which Dixie described as a “Class A soil that will grow anything.”

The tracks? “Probably a possum.”

Although there is a family of hawks on nearby Mount Solo, opossums and raccoons are the biggest threat to the chickens, who were happily pecking and scratching and climbing a hill of potting soil as they anticipated the sound of their feed bucket filling up. When night falls, they head for the indoor laying boxes where they roost and deposit their eggs.

Dixie said her hens can live to a ripe old age of seven (factory layers seldom see their first birthday). The black Australot, which lay brown eggs, have turned out to be her best egg producers, though she also keeps a few Anconas, the breed that lays the pale-colored, so-called “Easter eggs,” as well as the perky Bantam hens of my own childhood.

Are these frolicking fowl what chefs refer to as “free-range’?

Joked Scott: “Free range. Pastured. All over, every which place.”

When I made my early spring visit, Dixie and I walked past the neat rows of garlic peeping through the soil. She has tried more than 40 varieties of the pungent seasoning. Planted in the fall, garlic “will be gone by the Equinox – June 21,” she said.

But other crops, from green beans to grapes to figs, take their place, and people will come to the farm to experience the good taste of fresh food. Artichokes and cabbages are two favorites.

Scott said he hoped a new generation will become interested in farming. Lower Columbia Farm to Table is counting on it.

Here a chick, there a chick, everywhere a chick-chick.

   In an age where generic big box chain culture and soulless cookie-cutter developments are rapidly changing cities and transforming landscapes, special communities with a unique and powerful sense of place offer a deep connection with the authentic. Psychologists posit that when we are detached from the place we live in, we are detached from our deepest selves as well. Perhaps the old adage that “we can’t know who we are until we know where we are” is truer today than ever. 

   Astoria, Oregon defies easy labels and descriptions. While it may seem unconventional to use an Italian fish soup to describe a town steeped in Scandinavian heritage, Astoria is much like a hearty bowl of Cioppino. Begin with one small historic town with Victorian homes on tree covered hillside promontories, and surround on three sides with water, water and more water. Add world-class views of the mouth of the Mighty Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean. Throw in rugged, dramatic and changeable weather, an iconic bridge, salty people, zesty artists, and a real working waterfront. Mix in eccentric characters, salmon-salmon-salmon and old-old-old along with ghosts of the past, and you may get a taste of Astoria, a place still filled with mysteries, stories, and the scent of home.

   Lisa Tarabochia Clement comes from a fourth generation Croatian fishing family whose livelihoods have depended upon the gifts of the Columbia since Astoria was first established. Lisa is grounded here. “This is what I am, and no matter where I am, I am always this: a Columbia River Tarabochia. It’s what gives me the stability to live my life.”

   While Astoria’s infamous weather can be challenging, people who have chosen to live in this nationally and internationally significant place (thanks in large part to Lewis & Clark) can’t imagine living anywhere else. They can’t imagine leaving the Columbia River, a river which “has magic in it.” 

   Lisa believes “Astoria is the beginning of everything. No one has the history we have, the captains’ homes, the maritime culture, the fish, all this shifting energy here! In order to preserve the character and heritage of our area, we now have to embrace tourism. Tourism is what could save our old buildings, our rusting monuments to the past, and it could help us avoid large scale industrial development.”

   Locals say that in Astoria you can feel what has happened over generations as you walk down the street. They say there are spirits in the old abandoned buildings.  They also say that it is possible to honor the past here and still live in the present.  

   Logging and fishing still provide livelihoods for some in this Clatsop County community, and trade ships still ply the waters of the Columbia. The arts, though, along with historical and cultural tourism, are on the rise. Perhaps visitors can sense the real community heart beating beneath the trolley, column, museum, gift shop, boutique hotel and restaurant experience. Even Astoria’s wabi-sabi (or “imperfectly perfect” element in Japanese) contributes to the genuine feeling which exists here: the rust and moss, run-down buildings, homes and piers. 

   Old buildings in a state of disrepair on Astoria’s main street may be considered “blight” by some, but others relish them as part of Astoria’s history and gritty past. Local artist Sally Lackaff was attracted by “the old decrepit feel of the town.” She says that old and funky can be a monument to history, and she’s concerned about Astoria’s past being erased by the shiny and the new as more people “discover” Astoria’s singular charms.

   Although Astoria’s “renaissance” in recent years has brought upscale restaurants and sophisticated stores to the downtown core, Sally says “Abandoned buildings add to the character of this place; they tell stories of where we’ve been. They connect us to our past. The old pilings in the river speak a language we need to listen to. The moss and the rust give Astoria a real feel.  Someone should put a plaque in front of the old turn-of-the-century Whitestar Cannery Boiler in the river.  It’s not garbage; it’s a piece of history-a rusted sculpture which is beautiful on its own.”  

   Historian John Goodenberger notes that Astoria was once known as the place where the debris meets the sea. “There have always been oddities and eccentrics here from ‘Day One’, and you can still feel their influence here. The founders, who imagined Astoria as the ‘

New York of the West’ ignored the geography and topography of this place. Astoria was laid out in urban fashion with houses close together and small commercial districts.” 

   Goodenberger, who is a founding member of the Lower Columbia Preservation Society and a historic building consultant with Ecola Architects, says “That early, if unusual, planning has actually worked in Astoria’s favor. Today Astoria is a prime example of the new urbanism. We are walkable, and we have a vibrant downtown with a lot of mixed uses going on. We are actually a city for the future because we are a green place.”

   Goodenberger feels that Astoria is at a critical point now. “We have to think about how we can survive and thrive here. We have a magnificent location and a rich cultural heritage. A historic preservation program could become a vital and successful part of community development here.” Goodenberger and architect Jay Raskin are working toward this goal with an eye to Astoria becoming a major national center for historic preservation training, offering classes through Clatsop Community College, among other things. This compatible and sustainable economic development, arising out of what is already here, could be key to keeping Astoria “real” without altering its essence.  

   Growing gentrification has become a buzzword of concern for locals recently. Northwest artist Royal Nebeker says that if people move and try to transform a place into something generic, something perfect, then they lose what only that place could give them.

   A group of dedicated people with “Destination the Pacific,” a non-profit group formed during the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, are currently working to have Astoria and the Columbia-Pacific region designated as a “National Heritage Area” by Congress; it would be the first on the West Coast. Executive Director Cyndi Mudge says that national designation would become a tool to continue economic development in line with community visions and goals, and “It would be a boon for sustainable tourism. This region has a unique sense of place, and a past which is visible even in the present.  People are still doing some of the same things they did two hundred years ago. This is worth preserving.”

   Fins, Finns & Astorians author Greg Jacob grew up in Astoria listening to the sound of fog horns, the southwesterly blowing through the Douglas Fir trees, the shrill cry of the seagulls, the squeak and groan of the pilings as the tide ebbed and flowed, and the gentle splash of waves on the shoreline. “You can still experience this in Astoria today. The town hasn’t been paved over yet and there are ongoing events which connect Astoria with its Scandinavian heritage. The ethnic character of this place provides a ‘

nice mix of craziness’ which is part of Astoria’s charm. This is not a fluff place; there are deep roots here which, along with the weather, grounds people. The fog and rain add a seafaring atmosphere and nurture the inner strength of the people who live in this North Coast town.”

   The authentic essence of Astoria has attracted artists and independent spirits for decades. Astoria is not about the façade, the superficial or the beautiful, in spite of its spectacular geographic location. This small city of 10,000 still speaks of its true identity, and gives it the character residents and visitors feel.   

   Daily Astorian newspaper publisher Steve Forrester observes that Astoria is not a theme park, that it is not contrived or faux. “It has a real economic base, which is more diverse than most people realize.” KMUN, a community radio station with more than 100 volunteers, has been spinning tunes and telling tales from downtown Astoria for over 25 years, and the natural foods Astoria Co-op has been serving the Columbia Pacific for over 30 years. Astoria’s mystique and vibrancy seem to attract characters who do interesting things, which adds to its vitality and peculiar sense of place.

   “Shanghaied in Astoria” is a summer melodrama performed in vaudeville style which preserves regional folklore along with regional performing arts. Live theatre performances celebrate local Astoria culture and provide opportunities for people to understand what it is to be Astorian. “Shanghaied is part of cultural tourism.  It tells the story of the fishing and cannery life here,” says Judy Niland, Managing Director of the Astor Street Opry Company. Judy figures that if newcomers can respect who and what is already here, and if they are willing to volunteer and participate in the community, then Astoria will make a place for them. “People are not judged on appearance, possessions or educational background here. The rough edges of this town allow people to be themselves without pretense.”

   There are different, contrasting and complementary powers at work in Astoria. These currents intermix and create a unified and unlikely whole-a North Coast community with a strong sense of self-with pride in its history, embracing even the sordid elements, and faith in its future. As high-end art galleries and new eateries nestle next to shabby buildings successfully, elements which may at first seem impossible to work together, do. Juxtaposition be thy name, Astoria!

   The old, the worn, the weathered and the respectfully restored contribute to the “real” in Astoria, and it appears that this kind of “real” can co-exist harmoniously with the new. Allowing imperfect elements to remain in a place, and even celebrating and honoring these elements, may also allow people, who are imperfect as well, to be more genuine – to be authentically themselves without artifice. 

   Astorians have “sisu” (the Finnish word for “guts”). Whether this inner fortitude and grounding comes from the place itself, or from the people in this place, the town has the feel of “sisu” too. Astoria was built on dreams, and today those dreams still affect old-timers and newcomers alike. Every part of Astoria is alive with complexity and interconnection, and like a superb Cioppino, it nurtures and sustains the spirits of those who live and visit there.

   A stark gray wooden church, some weather-wrecked remains of small buildings standing amid scotch broom and canary grass. A wooded hillside to the north, the Columbia River on the south. I was standing on an arc of sandy riverbank, ready to begin the most important archaeological project of my career, and wondered if we would end up finding anything.

   I had driven past this area a hundred times, thinking the church photogenic. But I dismissed the few acres around it as a pretty boring piece of landscape, albeit with a spectacular view of the river. Now I was responsible for figuring out the history of the place, the lives and behaviors of those who had lived here, and whether enough remained of their activities to make the site significant to America’s sense of itself.

   The Washington State Historical Society (WSHS) pushed hard for a study of the area around the church, two miles west of the Astoria Bridge. This would be the site of an interpretive park to commemorate the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s arrival at the Pacific Ocean in 1805. The National Park Service coordinated the cultural resource study, contracting with my company to perform a series of historical and archaeological researches at the site.

   The Historical Society negotiated purchase of about fifteen acres of this rivershore, a crescent-shaped parcel separated from the Columbia River by the riprapped roadbed of Highway 101. The plan was to realign the highway from its dangerous curve along the river and run it straight through the property, utilizing the area freed up between the new highway and the old for a commemorative park.

   But first, I needed to determine if there were any remains of the Corps of Discovery’s campsite, or intact remnants of the Chinook Indian village Lewis and Clark visited. Federal law requires that any such remains be carefully studied and documented before the road could be moved, or utilities installed. If finds were spectacular enough, the road and park would have to be redesigned to preserve them. But that was not my decision.

   What was so special about finding remains of Lewis and Clark’s short visit to Pacific County? Well, for one thing, during more than 28 months of travel, they set up camp over 600 times. Yet no physical evidence of their campsites has ever been found. Anywhere. So finding something, anything, which could definitively be associated with the expedition and their Station Camp, would be tremendous in its scientific and historical importance. Not to mention a huge tourist draw for the lower Columbia River area.

   Lewis and Clark ran out of continent when they arrived in southwest Washington in November of 1805. Their journey here was, by their own account, more miserable than anything they had encountered the previous 4,000 miles. The Corps of Discovery left from Fort Dubois near St. Louis on May 21, 1804, and arrived at the Columbia estuary a year and a half later.  From their night’s camp across from what is now called Pillar Rock, in Wahkiakum County, Clark exulted,

“Great joy in camp we are in View of the Ocian…this great Pacific Octean which we been So long anxious to See, and the roreing or noise made by the waves brakeing on the rockey Shores (as I Suppose) may be heard distinctly” 

   Clark was actually looking at the Columbia’s estuary, some twenty miles from the ocean.

   The group continued down river, spending two miserable nights on Gray’s Bay, being thoroughly soaked by torrential rain and high tides. After attempting for several tempestuous days to get around Point Ellice, they succeeded, finding themselves on a sandy beach. William Clark reflected on their situation:

“… Set out passed the blustering Point below which is a Sand beech, with a Small marshey bottom for 3 miles on the Stard. Side, on which is a large village of 36 houses deserted by the Inds. & in full possession of the flees…”

   The expedition made camp near the old Chinook settlement and stayed there from November 15th to the 25th, considering this place the end of their westward voyage. Both Captains Lewis and Clark scouted nearby territory from this new base camp, including Cape Disappointment and the Long Beach Peninsula. Clark also did extensive survey observations and calculations from this site, hence the name Station Camp. (At least four serious attempts have been made to precisely locate their campsite from Clark’s surveying notes, but the truth is, nobody knows for sure.) While staying at this site the captains met several Chinooks, including two chiefs, Comcomly and Chilarlawil, and discovered ample evidence of a lively commerce the previous decade between the Chinook Indians and maritime fur trade vessels from Britain and the United States.

   During their sojourn on the “butifull Sand beech,” the Captains polled the expedition members as to where they ought to spend the winter. In a remarkable exercise of democracy, the votes of the Shoshoni woman Sacagawea and Captain Clark’s slave York, plus those of the enlisted men, were also recorded. For this reason, WSHS Director David Nicandri has called Station Camp “The Independence Hall of the American West,” a place to be revered for extending self-governance to the continent’s farthest shore.

   The majority of expedition members voted to stay near the mouth of the river, rather than turning homeward and wintering with the Nez Perce Indians. On December 5th, Captain Lewis returned from a reconnaissance with information of a good site for a winter encampment on the shores of the Netul River, a short distance upstream from Youngs Bay. There they built Fort Clatsop, staying for 106 days before beginning their return trip to the United States on March 23rd.

   Along the lower river, the following decades saw Euro-American settlement proceed rapidly. Across the Columbia, John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company established a settlement at Fort Astoria in 1811. Near the site of Lewis and Clark’s camp, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) built a store in 1840, and in 1848 the Catholic Church established Stella Maris mission. In the next decade Irish immigrant Patrick J. McGowan founded a successful salmon packing business in the area. The ghost town of McGowan is now represented by a few remnant dwellings, as well as a 1903 office building, a 1904 church and a house built in 1911.

   The questions to be answered were these: What lies beneath the placid surface of McGowan? Would we find any remnant of Station Camp? Might there be remains of the Chinook Indian village that Lewis and Clark encountered 200 years ago? Did the salmon cannery operations leave behind any traces that we might recognize?

   To answer these questions, I worked with the National Park Service (NPS) to develop a detailed research design. My strategy then was to employ experienced and industrious archaeological technicians. These two scientists had been trained by the preeminent historical archaeologists in the Northwest, and would be the core of the team that worked so successfully at the site of Station Camp.

   The first thing we did was to dig a series of ‘shovel probes’, small excavations scattered over the whole area of the proposed park and realigned highway. Passing the sediments through fine-mesh screens and carefully recording the location and depth of everything found in the probes, we developed some ideas of where valuable information might be gained with more extensive excavations.

   I made some assumptions in analyzing the materials. For one thing, I figured that small glass beads were trade goods probably used by Native peoples for decoration. Stone artifacts relating to fishing, hunting and food processing were probably likewise of Chinook origin and use. Fire-cracked rock (FCR, as archaeologists call it) would be found where Native campfires were used to heat river-rounded stones, which were then placed in boxes and baskets to cook food. 

   We counted, weighed, photographed and mapped most everything we found, no matter how insignificant it might seem. That’s what you do in archaeology: you document what you find, because you are simultaneously studying and destroying forever the site where you are working. And you never know ahead of time what evidence you find will prove important in understanding the people who once lived there.

   As our work continued, the maps began to show patterns of distribution, both vertically and horizontally. As we expected, there was some disturbance of the deposits, as the construction of the cannery and associated buildings in the mid-19th century had stirred up the sandy soil, bringing up older artifacts. Normally, the older materials are beneath younger in a layer-cake arrangement. But when a garden is plowed, or a drainage ditch is dug, things can get confusing.

   The horizontal distribution of 19th century debris was clearer, as I had already done considerable research in local museums, libraries and other archives. I had a pretty good notion of where the McGowan buildings had been constructed and (most of them) demolished. Old maps, pictures, plans and even aerial photographs gave me some idea of not only where the buildings had been, but where there were roads, garden plots, ditches and other sources of disturbance.

   This locational analysis focused on the actual living areas where people in the past worked, processed fish and game, cooked, made tools, worshipped, built houses and engaged in trade. We drew maps of beads, FCR, ceramics, window glass, metal objects, stone tools, ash, fish bones, piles of stones, and unusual soil color and textures. Twice we imported a specialist in Ground-Penetrating Radar, whose printouts suggested features deep beneath the sand.

   All this work was done under clear skies, beneath the benign gaze of crows and bald eagles. From our site we could watch fishing boats and cargo ships passing on the river, and flights of brown pelicans skimming just above the waves. It was easy enough to imagine the cannery in full operation, then shift a mental gear and see the Natives fishing and trading with the Boston ships before Lewis and Clark. Beyond that into the mists of prehistory, we could not imagine.

   The hundreds of artifacts to analyze grew into thousands, though not the sort of things that you might imagine. The ceramics and the glass vessels were in small fragments we call shards, broken in use or after discard. But that was okay, since we could reap as much information from the shards as we could from intact forms.

   About two-thirds of the ceramics were produced in England in the late 18th century, of a type referred to as creamware. This was a bit of a surprise, since this type predates Hudson’s Bay Company ceramics (generally a transfer-print decorated white earthenware) by a generation. A number of shards of Chinese export porcelain called Cantonware were also found, along with just three pieces of transfer print.

   Other artifacts dating from the fur trade era included musket balls, gunflints and a lead seal, used to indicate the security of a bale of furs.

   Bones were small and many had been through a fire; on analysis, most turned out to be from fish, including both salmon and sturgeon. The iron objects were impossibly rusty, and most survived from the cannery days at McGowan. Native artifacts included arrowheads, ground stone abraders and a pecked stone net weight. Dozens of clay and stone pipes for smoking tobacco or kinnikinnik were found, carved from soapstone or argillite, a black slate.

   The glass beads, numbering in the hundreds, were widely scattered. Most of the beads were of a type called wire-wound, which was another surprise, and were deep ocean blue. At Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver, most of the beads are drawn, and white. This indicated a pre-HBC source of the beads at our site, matching the pottery implications.

   At the end of all this digging and drawing and mapping, we had a pretty good idea that there were intact living areas yet to be studied. This triggered the next phase of research at the site, this one organized by archaeologists at Fort Vancouver. The NPS has developed a remarkable resource at the Fort, with extensive lab facilities to supplement the interpretive functions. The staff has considerable expertise in excavation and interpretation of fur trade-era sites in the Northwest, and they were assigned to finish the work at Station Camp.

   The strategy now shifted from small excavation squares to larger units, and the work for the most part was carried out beneath impromptu shelters of visquene stretched over PVC pipes, like plastic Quonset huts. Since we were now into winter, the weather turned horrible, and many mornings the top layer of soil was frozen solid.

   Wind blew off the Columbia River, and the huts responded to changes in air pressure by billowing out, then compressing upon themselves. One of my colleagues remarked that it was like “working inside the lungs of a whale.” Those fortunate enough to excavate inside the shelters found themselves comfortable in t-shirts, while outside work required several layers to protect them from the brutally cold wind. Archaeology in good weather can be physically taxing; adding in the inclement conditions made it exhausting.

   The larger-scale excavations under the shelters defined several living areas in great and confusing detail. There were not so many artifacts, but traces of past life were recorded in the sand by subtle differences in color and texture. By separating out these ‘

features’ the archaeologists could identify where walls had been, as well as fire pits and storage or cache pits.

   Near the end of the scheduled project, several wide black lines were found running diagonally across one of the large units, right in the centerline of the proposed highway. Closer inspection revealed that they were charred planks from a Chinookan house, little more than stains in the soil. It was astonishing to think that the feature had survived 200 years beneath the sand, undisturbed by all that went on a few feet overhead.

   The stains and other features gave evidence of three structures, Chinookan plank houses used seasonally, part of what the Tribe calls their Middle Village. Nobody now alive can say if these are the houses that Lewis and Clark scavenged to build their shelter against the dirty weather of 1805. But there is no doubt members of the Corps of Discovery saw them standing on the beach, and that to me is an awesome thought.

   The excavations ended with over 10,000 artifacts, many dating from 1792 to 1830, being removed for study in the labs at Fort Vancouver. Within days of the onset of realignment of the highway, all work was halted by discovery of a number of Native burials, and the project is in limbo.

   What we discovered at the site was not Lewis and Clark, but a village where trade with Euro-American ships had occurred for a dozen years before the Corps of Discovery arrived on the scene for their ten days. The salmon cannery left traces of itself in hardware, tarred net fragments and canning solder. Tragically, diseases introduced by the traders and settlers nearly wiped out the local Native populations within a few decades. Their living descendents are even now working to reclaim their own history.

   On the last day of the dig, I was standing on the arc of sandy riverbank where I had begun, imagining the canoes paddling into the shallows of the river to net salmon. Up the beach, the plankhouses are wreathed in smoke from cooking fires, people are twining nets and flaking tools. On the horizon to the west, the first ships of foreigners bring trade goods and the strange ways of the outside world.