An Addicting Kind of Terror

by OFN Graduate Research Assistant Em Knott

Set against the backdrop of turbulent sea-water, storm-battered row houses, and a charming downtown, the FisherPoets Gathering is held annually in Astoria, Oregon. This three day event allows commercial fishers from all over the world to gather and perform original poetry, prose and songs. The Oregon Folklife Network sent graduate students Adrienne Decker, Julie Meyer, and Em Knott to the Gathering to document the event and conduct interviews with the performers.

The men and women interviewed expressed their opinions concerning gendered interactions among fishers, environmental activism, and belief and spirituality. These themes were also echoed in their writing.

But it was in the wee hours of Friday night/Saturday morning that we, the graduate students, got to sit around a table with a multi-generational fisher family and their friends, that we gained true insight into life as a FisherPoet. One of the friends was discussing the performance she gave earlier that night. She confessed that she had terrible stage fright but she loved coming to FisherPoets to perform. She joked that it was an “addicting kind of terror”. The other fishers around the table laughed, and joked, “so is fishing”.

On Saturday afternoon we conducted interviews in the upstairs loft of the Lightbox Gallery. As we worked our way through the interviews, one of the constant themes was disaster stories. So we asked: what is it about fishing that continuously brings people back to it year after year, even as dangerous as it is. The resounding answer we received is that they loved it, and that they couldn’t imagine a life where they weren’t fishing.

Commercial fishing is an addicting kind of terror. Our informants continuously spoke of how the weather would be perfect and then, not an hour later, there would be swells towering a hundred feet over their heads. Their creative work reflected this as well. The poetry, prose and songs described the dangers of their profession as they wrote about waves crashing over the decks of their ships, and fellow fishers being catapulted into the icy water as the ship bucked with the raging waters.

Whether it is in a boat in the waters of the pacific or standing up in front of a crowd to perform, there is an element of addicting terror.

Save the Date: The FisherPoets are Coming to Eugene!

Jon Broderick and Jay Speakman, founders of Astoria’s FisherPoets gathering, will soon be performing and teaching in Eugene!

Thursday, May 1st at Cozmic Pizza:
Music and Poetry Performance: 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Writing Workshop: 4:00 – 5:30 pm

Friday, May 2nd at the U. of O. Longhouse:
Performances, conversations, and oral history of the FisherPoets Gathering: 12:00 – 2:00 pm

Traditional Storytelling Night at the Many Nations Longhouse on the U. of O. Campus

Co-sponsored by the Oregon Folklife Network

UO Many Nations Longhouse
Tuesday, March 11th, 2014
5 – 8 PM

From Gordon Bettles, Many Nations Longhouse Steward:

The University of Oregon Many Nations Longhouse is continuing the Native American tradition of Storytelling. This has to occur during the winter season in order to be proper. To do so otherwise is to invite winter to stay overlong. It is preferred to have respected Tribal Storytellers do the ‘telling’ in order to hear stories told correctly.

Virginia Beavert, who is now in her nineties, is a Elder of the Yakama Tribe. She has heard  the stories since she was very young and is a delightful Storyteller. Virginia received her Ph.D. in Linguistics and teaches at the Northwest Indian Language Institute.

George Wasson, an Elder of the Coquille Indian Tribe, is a retired professor at the University of Oregon. He was instrumental in the creation of the Native American Student Union. George’s Coquille stories will make you laugh and think at the same time.

Ed Edmo is from the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and grew up with the Columbia River Tribes. Ed is an accomplished poet, entertainer in several mediums and lately was on the Portlandia television show. Ed has been telling stories since….who can remember how long.

Folklife on the McKenzie River

by OFN Graduate Research Assistant Bruno Seraphin

OFN is involved in a multi-year effort to document traditional culture on the McKenzie, in particular the work of fishing guides.

This includes wooden drift boat building, legends and histories, stories about hatcheries, fishing, fly tying, dams, floods, the old white water parade, hunting and trapping, lodges, food traditions (Dutch oven cooking), and pretty much anything about this river and the people who live with it.

We are partnering with Ken Engelman of the McKenzie River Reflections newspaper and UO Professor Katie Lynch’s ongoing MyMcKenzie project.

I spoke with Randy Dersham, founder of the online McKenzie River Drift Boat Museum. Plywood drift boats such as this have a simple, elegant design, and are built for navigating rough waters. They are used around the world, but were invented right here on the McKenzie by Veltie Pruitt, in the early 20th century.

The project is off to a great start!

Mark Ross Remembers Pete Seeger

Pete was a giant. He taught us to sing, play the 5 string banjo, and
12 string guitar, started a movement that cleaned up the Hudson River,
stood up to the witch hunters in Congress, wrote songs that will live
forever, marched with Dr. King, popularized the song WE SHALL
OVERCOME, sang for peace, built his own log cabin, nurtured songsters
and pickers, was blacklisted, damned, picketed by the John Birch
Society, cut his firewood until shortly before he died at the age of
94, was married to a marvelous woman for close to 70 years, rode the
freights with Woody Guthrie, sang on picket lines, just about invented
the profession of modern day folksinger, the list could go on forever.
He was rightly called "America's tuning fork", and he could get all
of us singing together at the drop of a flatpick.  His actions and his
words matched up a thousand percent.

I only spent any time with him on a handful of occasions, Resurrection
City in 1968, when the sloop the Clearwater would come sailing to New
York City. and the last time I saw him was when Utah Phillips invited
me to the Joe Hill Memorial in Salt Lake City in 1990. Pete, Earl
Robinson, Utah, Faith Petric, and Joe Glazer were there. They were
putting everybody up in the Hotel Perry which Utah remembered as a
Skid Road flophouse that he used to haul drunks out of when he was
working with Ammon Hennacy at Joe Hill House. In the ensuing years it
had been gentrified and turned into a posh upscale hostelry. At the
close of the weekend the Committee who had staged this memorial
invited us all down to dinner in the fancy restaurant off the lobby.
We walked in without a reservation of course, and asked for a table
for 18 (could have been more, I don't recall exactly). The staff
immediately starting putting tables together and setting them for this
unexpected influx. There was a large space cleared in the center where
they placed the chairs out of the way while they rearranged everything.
Pete immediately lined up the chairs and started to whistle POP GOES
THE WEASEL leading our dinner party around in a game of musical
chairs, Pete skipping with his hands behind his back.

I have been listening to him since I was 7 years old, and I will be
listening till the day I die.
We will never see his like again.

Folksinger Mark Ross was a 2012 TAAP awardee. He resides in Eugene, OR.

Apply for the 2014 Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP)

OFN is now accepting applications for our Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program (TAAP) through March 3, 2014. Traditional artists of exceptional merit qualify for $3,000 grants, which enable them to pass their expertise on to someone of great promise within their same cultural community. The mentoring artist and his or her apprentice apply together as a team and must demonstrate how traditional their art form is, how significant it is to the community they share, how strong their ties are to that cultural community, and the excellence of the quality of their work based on work samples, like images, videos, support letters, and press.
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More Results in for Folk & Traditional Arts Survey in Southeastern Oregon

Contract folklorist Douglas Manger has been researching folk and traditional artists in southeastern Oregon for the Oregon Folklife Network’s field survey. Later this spring, Manger will be in Malheur and Harney counties to document a wide variety of occupational, craft, music, dance, and leisure traditions to do with ranching, whip braiding, saddle making, fly fishing, storytelling, cooking, community celebrations, and more.

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2014 FisherPoets Gathering, Astoria, February 21-23

OFN staff and graduate students will be traveling to Astoria for the 17th Annual FisherPoets Gathering to document some of the men and women who perform poetry, songs, and prose about their occupation.

This celebration of Northwest fisheries and fishers takes creative license as far as it can go and entertains visitors with some of the best spoken word performances in the US. Attendees can enjoy regional specialties at local restaurants and clubs, which host the poets, writers, and musicians; explore the Columbia River Maritime Museum, which also sponsors some sessions; and step aboard some of the commercial fishing boats tied up at Astoria’s working waterfront.

For more information, http://www.fisherpoets.org/fisherpoets-gathering-2014.html.

And if you can’t make it up to Astoria, you’ll have the opportunity to hear a few of Oregon’s premier fisher poets for our OFN benefit at Cozmic Pizza, May 1, 7-9 pm.
Updates in our next newsletter!

OFN’s New Funding Partner:

A big shout out to the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) for their generous, two-year contribution totaling $30,000. While OFN receives grant funding through two other statewide partners, OHS is the first to provide unrestricted funding through a non-competitive process. This partnership commits OFN and OHS to various programmatic support, resource sharing, and cross-promotions. Watch for folklife articles by our staff and students in the Oregon Historical Quarterly.

You can now find the OHS logo among our sponsorship recognitions. Enjoy our joint projects like traveling exhibits or pubic programs in your local historical societies around the state.

We are so excited to see where this collaboration will take us into future, and grateful for the much-needed funding from our cultural partner, OHS. Please join us in celebrating the Oregon Historical Society and plan a visit to their facility next time you’re in Portland. Their event calendar is packed with exciting, educational opportunities, and with your annual OHS membership receive FREE UNLIMITED ADMISSION to all of their regular exhibits, discounts on special events and much, much more!

New Results, Folk & Traditional Arts Survey in Southern Oregon

LuAnne Kozma, project fieldworker

Lake and Klamath Counties

The Oregon Folklife Network’s Southern Oregon Folklife Survey got off to a start this past November in Klamath and Lake counties. Arriving in Portland by train from the Midwest, I drove south, crossing the snowy Cascade Mountains to Klamath Falls to begin meeting with people and documenting folk and traditional artists and their celebrations, crafts, occupations, and music. I immediately fell in with the Klamath Country Square and Round Dance club and joined Cece and Sarge Glidewell’s round dance lessons at a local church. Later in the week I returned for a Thursday night square dance where caller Larry Sprout sang out dance calls to popular songs.

Foodways
Food traditions are alive and well in southern Oregon and a great way to find out more about various cultural groups. Early one morning that same week, I arrived at Laila Griffith’s house to observe the Sons of Norway women’s group making lefse, a traditional Norwegian potato flatbread. Each year, the group gathers to make hundreds of lefse for their annual holiday sale. A few days before, team of University of Oregon graduate students and OFN executive director, Riki Saltzman, joined me at Laila’s for a lefse tasting and cookie baking session, one of several the field experiences we shared [see article below for more on that].

Laila Griffith makes krumkake, one of many kinds of traditional Norwegian Christmas cookies, in her Klamath Falls home.
I was also able to meet Linda Romero, who makes traditional Mexican pan dulce at her La Perla Bakery. Linda shared her knowledge about cake making and pan dulce or sweet breads.

In Lake county, I stopped in at Lakeview Locker to hear about the owners’ weekly barbeques and sausage-making. The annual Methodist Church’s Harvest Dinner provided me with the opportunity to taste more local food as well as to meet folks and get leads for future interviews.

Natural Resources and Leisure Traditions
Southern Oregon is blessed with stunning scenery, fish, and game. Klamath Falls’ natural resources and a vibrant hunting and fishing culture are what drew Mark Kelley and John Kruger to the area. Both shared their wisdom and skill at making tied flies for fly fishing.

Occupational Folklore
Ranching traditions range from foodways to occupational lore. Ranch hand Larry Morgan of Lakeview showed me his exquisite leather braiding skills. Bonanza’s saddle maker, Dave Clowes, talked about the occupational arts of leatherwork and the tools of his trade. Lakeview’s hat artist, Lisa Ackerman, explained how to shape a western hat to fit the wearer; her special community niche is to provide hats and hat shaping services at roundups and other events.

Bootmaker and shoe repairer Mike Purves, who learned shoe making from his father and now teaches the trade to his son and grandchildren, shared his “tricks of the trade” at his Klamath Falls shop.

Another occupational group with their own folk traditions are fire fighters. And crew members of the Klamath Falls fire department were generous in sharing their humor, jokes, and stories—all part of how they cope with on-the-job danger, excitement, and boredom. Fire fighters, like police and soldiers, use such verbal arts to entertain each other during downtime and to pass on skills and knowledge to new workmates.

Quilting
Quilting traditions are strong here. I met and interviewed a tightknit group of quilting “sisters” in Chiloquin—who call themselves the Chiloquilters—and three people who have carved out occupations in the quilting world—Chiloquin long arm quilter Judi Doud and Merrill’s Tater Patch quilt shop owners Robin King and Diane McKoen.

Native Traditions
At the end of the trip I observed the Klamath Tribes’ Annual Veteran’s Day Pow Wow, heard great drum groups, saw wonderful dancers, and talked to local regalia and beadwork makers.

I will return to Klamath and Lake counties this spring to document more folk & traditional artists. Please contact  Riki Saltzman ( 541-346-3820 or riki@uoregon.edu) if you have recommendations for traditions, groups, or individual folk & traditional artists to be documented in Klamath and Lake counties.

OFN’s Southern Oregon Folklife Survey is funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Folk & Traditional Arts program.

Folklore Fieldwork in Klamath County

Em Knott and Julie Meyer, Folklore graduate students

As we drove back over the snowy Cascade Mountain pass that connects Eugene to Southern Oregon, I thought back over the last 24 hours. It had been our—Julie Meyer’s and Em Knott’s—first graduate school fieldwork experience. Under the guidance of OFN Director Riki Saltzman and folklorist LuAnne Kozma, we were able to shadow the beginnings of the OFN project to explore the folklore alive in Southern Oregon.

We observed five interviews in twenty-four hours, although there were two that made the strongest impression. Those were with long-arm quilter Judy Doud (Chiloquin), who invited us back to her log-cabin to view the fourteen-foot machine housed in her basement, and Laila Dahl Griffith, an active participant in the Klamath Sons of Norway. Laila, who makes a huge range of traditional Norwegian Christmas cookies, let us interview and photograph her while she showed us how to make krumkake, thin waffle cookies baked on a specially designed iron. She also made question to us, the graduate students, as to whether we were eating enough while we were at school.

We also had the opportunity to witness a cold-call: between the quilter and the baker, we stopped at a local, family-owned boot shop, walked in, and started making inquiries into the how and the why this man made boots. The next day, we hung out in the Lakeside Landing Café, where we spent a couple of hours with fly-tier John Kruger. Knowing nothing about fly fishing, we looked on in amazement as John talked to us about fly fishing, tied flies, and showed us just some of his vast collection. The various colors and textures were stunning, and the flies themselves were miniature works of art.

Our last stop involved a networking lunch. As we ate our Thai food, we watched as Riki and LuAnne begin to build new relationships within the community, laying down the groundwork to continue the project. That’s when we realized that folklorists are completely at the mercy of people. If our interviewees had not been willing to invite four strangers into their home, we’d be in trouble. We also learned the importance of sociability in fieldwork. We realized how critical it is to build rapport in the span of just a few minutes; this can easily make or break an interview.

Learning such lessons early on made this first foray into folklore fieldwork a success.

Em and Julie are first-year graduate students in the University of Oregon’s Folklore Program