Program Highlight: Culture at Every Turn

by Douglas Manger
Contract Folklorist, Heritage Works

Like a twisting myrtlewood tree growing by the sea, Highway 101 makes its way in serpentine fashion along Oregon’s Pacific coastline. In August, Joseph O’Connell and I began to trek this route seeking folkways that might be found in Winchester Bay, Dunes City, Seal Rock, Neskowin, Manzanita, Astoria, and beyond.

We’re finding tradition keepers at every turn. Clatsop County’s Andy Carlson is one of them. Bent slightly with age, Andy tends salmon sides in his home-built smokehouse. Like many in and around Astoria, Andy’s ancestry is part Finnish, part Swedish. His hands speak volumes of a life shaped by tradition, both on the Columbia River and the adjoining land. He was a tug boater for 12 years and a pilot boat owner-operator for 32 years. These days, he continues to fish and hunt—mostly elk and some deer. He skillfully fillets, cures, and hot or cold smokes sides of salmon that many locals call the best around. It took Andy eight years of trial, error, and guidance from a master smoker before his mentor (now passed) finally bestowed the acknowledgment: “I think you’ve got it.”