Native Portland Series, 3: Oregon City and the Pow Wow Maple Tree

Find all Native Tour stops on the tour map.

The Museum of the Oregon Territory

Steps away from the Oregon City falls viewpoint is the Museum of the Oregon Territory.  This museum, part of the Clackamas County Historical Society, reveals its point of view when you walk in the door and find this crazy window memorializing settler-in-chief John McLoughlin next to the front door, which was in the original nearby St. John's (I am sure it is a coincidence) Catholic Church.  I suspect the church found it slightly embarrassing and donated it to the museum when they got their new building.

So yes, the museum is largely devoted to the history of European settlement in the Willamette Valley.  When I asked the very nice attendant at the door if the museum contained exhibits about the history of the contact between settlers and the first peoples in the region, she winced and said something to the effect that she had heard that it was not a history to be proud of.

But she did point me to museum's large room dedicated to the Native people, and I spoke with a volunteer guide who has devoted a lot of his time to becoming knowledgeable about the indigenous peoples of Oregon.  There are many artifacts and photos to peruse, and plenty to learn.  The real issue is in its lack of connection between the rest of the museum, which is dedicated to settlement history. So you have the first peoples, portrayed largely as "pre-history," and then the "real" history, that is "our" history--and the twain do not meet.  To me this indicates a weakness in the very premise of the museum's historical approach.

Fishing spears

Petroglyph, found near confluence of
the Clackamas and Willamette Rivers
 

End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

Just down the road from the museum is another historic site in Oregon settlement, the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.  The site marks the actual end of the trail which streamed hundreds of thousands settlers across the land starting in the 1830's, replaced when the railroads were built around 1869.  The Center contains virtually no reference to the impact of the trail on the lives of the Native people, although there is a faint reference to the Nez Perce on a step ("still stepping on Native people," it seems to say), and an excellent map documenting the lands "ceded" by Native peoples, which was put up by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde.

 

The Pow Wow Maple Tree, Gladstone

Who knew about this tree?  I sure didn't.  Just across the Clackamas River from Oregon City in the little town of Gladstone, this fine old big-leaf maple tree sits in a residential neighborhood.  Just a few steps away from the Clackamas River, it is almost 230 years old, and was apparently a meeting place for tribes and councils from earlier days.  It was later the site of the first Clackamas County Fair and Oregon State Fair in 1860 and 1861, respectively.  It is a historic tree, but apparently suffering from ill health.  Visit it and ask it to tell you what it thinks about what it has seen in its long lifetime.