Hi Folks,
We've been back in the Pacific Northwest for about 3 weeks now and enjoying our first Oregon Spring in many, many years. I attended the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Seattle from April 12-16, where I gave a paper on the sabbatical research, visited with old friends, colleagues, and students, and took part in a great boat tour of the Port of Seattle (see pic above) organized by my former student, Michael Ewald. We toured the dockyards and up the Duwammish River mouth in which most of the port facilities are located to see several restoration projects - nice stuff!
Following our return to Oregon, and in between visits with family up and down the verdant Willamette Valley, I joined my brother Dan with several of his colleagues for a float on the McKenzie River. The crew included Tom Wolf and Karl Mueller from Oregon Trout Unlimited, Jim Capurso who is the Region 1 Fisheries Bioloist for the US Forest Service, and Jason Dunham of Freshwaters Illustrated - see the link at right for his organization that promotes aquatic awareness. The river was high but clear and cold on the nicest Spring day to that date, and while the fishing was slow the talk of conservation, food, and comraderie was second to none. Oregon Trout Unlimited, and the McKenzie-Middle Fork Willamette Chapter in particular, are championing the restoration of native McKenzie redsides (rainbow trout) to the lower river that Dan and I enjoyed so much years ago. The continued presence of these fish suffers from a put and take hatchery trout fishery that operates there today, and their restoration is imperative for the river and the green image of Eugene. I'll be learning more about this in the next two weeks and will report here and in the book later.
I'm returning to the mountains in mid-May to complete the fieldwork - have some fishing to catch up on too!
Cheers for now,
The Shive
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