Dairy Creek sign In the past 2 years, I have worked on signage projects in the Portland area for agencies of the city or state. In 2025, I consulted on a sign for the Dairy Creek project on Sauvie Island. Over the period of several months, I met with people in the West Multnomah Soils … [Read more…]
America—the United States—is a multicultural, multi‑ethnic nation composed of Indigenous peoples and individuals who have emigrated from nearly every country and region in the world. Yet for much of the nation’s history, its historical narratives were written as though people of color, minority communities, and Indigenous nations either did not exist or did not matter. … [Read more…]
A set of news clippings from the 1870s is helping to hone in on where the Indian encampment was in Albany, OR. Previously, it was said to be on an island near Albany. But the murder of Charlie, by Jim Kirk, a native man, who apparently grew up on the Kirk Homestead in Brownsville, elicits … [Read more…]
The upper McKenzie River, in Oregon, has been a vast wilderness and a tourist fishing location for the past 100 years. Some 30% of the clean water in the Willamette River comes down the McKenzie. In the latter part of the 19th century, gold mining began and brought more people to the area. Then, hot … [Read more…]
Essays written in preparation for my Comprehensive exams, nearly 20 years ago. Anthropology and Government Policy Part of the government’s role regarding Indian people was to figure out what to do with them. Historically, the European nations and formed contracts and relationships with Indian tribes. Most of these contracts were based on trade. The United … [Read more…]