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For
nineteenth-century pioneers, driving in
covered wagons over the mountains and
deserts of the Oregon Trail, the
Willamette Valley was the promised
land. Rich and fertile, it became the home
of Oregon’s first settlements and towns,
and the valley is still the heart of the
state’s social, political and cultural
existence, its citizens proud of their
traditions and keen to keep the worst
excesses of West Coast development at bay.
Portland, the biggest city, has a
cozy European feel; Salem, the
state capital, maintains the air of a
small town; and Eugene, at the foot
of the valley, with its hippies, jogging
trails and modern downtown, is a likeable
college community.
Just
east of Portland, waterfalls cascade down
mossy cliffs along the Columbia River
Gorge, south of which the twisting
path of an old pioneer road leads through
more beautiful scenery around Mount
Hood. Central Oregon, and the hip
sport town, Bend, is located on a
high chaparral desert with sage and
juniper trees, with close access to the
southern Cascades, numerous lakes and
rivers dropping into impressive canyons.
Further south, around Grant’s Pass
the major rivers drain to the Pacific
carving steep gorges making for some
excellent white-water rafting. Several
highways link the Willamette Valley to the
rugged coast, whose most northerly town,
Astoria, enjoys a magnificent
setting and is strewn with imposing
Victorian homes. South along the coast,
wide expanses of sand are broken by jagged
black monoliths; white lighthouses look
out from stark headlands; and rough cliffs
conceal small, sheltered coves. With its
sand dunes, dense forests, and sheer
variety, the coast is every bit as
appealing as its Californian counterpart,
albeit not as warm. Along the coast are a
couple of working ports and several small
resorts, busy in summer, half-deserted and
lashed by waves and wind out of season.
Eastern Oregon
is more remote and was only settled on any
scale once the prime land in the west had
already been taken, and the process
involved not only ferocious “Indian
campaigns” but also the bitterly violent
“range wars” between sheep-farmers and
terrorist “sheep-shooters” (associations
of cattle ranchers). Sheep and cows now
graze in peace, and some small towns still
celebrate their cowboy roots with annual
rodeos.
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