Author Archives: nsilvest@uoregon.edu

Beginning in this spring, the Oregon Folklife Network started year three of our multi-year Statewide Folklife Survey, this time in the Eastern Oregon counties of Union, Wallowa, Baker, Grant, Wheeler, Crook and Deschutes. As part of this work, UO Folklore graduate students and OFN staff joined our contract folklorists, Douglas Manger and Joe O’Connell, to observe and apply best ethnographic practices. As a side benefit, they get to experience some of the wonders of Oregon and meet great traditional artists. This project is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works as well as by the Oregon Historical Society and the University of Oregon.

Click the links below to read reflections on those fieldwork experiences in Eastern Oregon.

Folklore Fieldwork in Wheeler County

Folklore Fieldwork in Deschutes and Crook County

During 2015-16, year two of our Statewide Folklife Survey, OFN contract folklorists Nancy Nusz and Debbie Fant traveled all over the Columbia River Gorge counties of Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam, Jefferson, Morrow, and Umatilla as well as to the Confederated Tribes of Warms Springs and the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla to learn about the diverse cultural traditions of this region. Both also presented the results of their fieldwork at various sites in those counties. This project was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works as well as by the Oregon Historical Society and the University of Oregon.

Click on each story head line below to read just a bit of what they learned. Many of the culture keepers they documented are or will soon be part of the Oregon Culture Keepers Roster.

Western Gorge, Oregon – Nancy Nusz

Eastern Gorge – Deborah Fant

by Debbie Fant

One of the most wonderful—and humbling—things about being a public folklorist is the opportunity to explore and document other peoples’ lives. From September 2014 through September 2015, I was lucky enough to do folklore fieldwork for the Oregon Folklife Network in Morrow and Umatilla counties, where I met and interviewed amazing people—people who were generous with their time and with their stories. I encountered keepers of tradition who didn’t think what they did was anything special. So it was an honor to be able to share those stories with a wider audience in Heppner and later in Pendleton. But sharing with a wider audience—through the internet, through photos, through exhibits—is different from bringing the stories back to the people who originally told them.

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by Nancy Nusz

Native American fishing platforms on the Columbia River below the John Day Dam.

From the first inhabitants to its most recent migrants, the Columbia River and its many tributaries have always provided a source of livelihood, transportation, recreation, cultural practices, creativity, and much more. A look at the folklife of the people living in the region provides a snapshot of the diversity of cultures residing there today. The five counties of north central Oregon (Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Gilliam and Jefferson) are alive with music, crafts, occupations, foodways, practices, stories, and beliefs that have been passed down from one person to the next over generations. The people practicing these traditions are living links between the past and the present and knowing some of them can enrich all our lives.

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