Learning Through Listening: Native American Issues in Rural Oregon Communities

Ethnic Studies and Sociology 499/599

March 26-31, 2006

by Danielle E. Fournier

Harney County

Welcome to my page for ES 599! The course spanned five days, three of which were spent interviewing the community of Burns and Hines in Harney County. The remaining two days were spent organizing for the week's tasks, travelling to Harney County, and refining our final presentation for the OSU audience. The empahsis was on listening to citizens express their opinions regarding rural sustainability concerns. Each day the class would formulate questions for the next day's interviewee. 19 students, two graduate facilitators and two instructors shared a once in a lifetime experience that challenged our stamina and willingness to be a part of a team for up to thirteen hours per day. For students from backgrounds as diverse as nation is demographically, it was no small task to come together to present all the findings to the stakeholders a matter of hours after the last interview was conducted.
Meeting with stakeholders each day revealed some common thematic challenges in sustianing rural development. Isolation, changing public policy, access to health services, and funding for programs were stated by many of our stakeholders as major roadblocks to sustaining development. Burns Paiute Wildlife and Fisheries Department
During our trip to Harney County we visited with city, county, and state employees, tribal officials, tribal employees, private entrepeneurs, and townspeople. In a small rural commmunity, we found that people worked well together because oftheir proximity, often referring to each other by first name.
Historical Walking Tour
Old Post Office
Student Looking Through Museum
One of our tasks was to explore the town of Burns on foot in a historical walking tour. The assignment at hand was to interview the townspeople about life in their community. My partner Loriann and I lucked out and got a guided tour of historic Burns by the Museum's curator Jan Cupernall. She is the author of the book Heritage Walk: a Walking Guide to Burn's Unique Past.
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge Malheur Wildlife Refuge
One of the trips the class took outside of the city was to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (seen right). The refuge was created in 1909 by president Theodore Roosevelt as a conservationist effort to preserve America's ecosystems. The Annual Migratory Bird Festival is one of the attractions that is drawing tourism to the area.
Owls are one of the refuge's residents
Students examine an owl pellet found by Dr. Peters at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge
Group Presentations
One of the unique and exciting facets of this course was the facilitating of a presentation to our stakeholders before we returned to Oregon State. The organization of pages upon pages of notes couls not have happened without participant cooperation and dedication. Working into the wee hours of the morning before our time to present our findings to the community, the class created a compelling 45 minute program, complete with slides and photographs.

In retrospect, it has become apparent that we were our own community, fuctioning much liek a represetative model of the one's we were interviewing. Each participant saw their role in the group differently. Some lead, some followed, some stayed silent, some were quiet but helpful observers. When it all came together, we all could say we had contributed to the success of the project.

Thank you to everyone who made this project possible!
Natural Resource Issues in Rural Sustainability plans

The following are excepts from my research paer on Harney County's Natural Resource Issues

Rural communities in Western lands face unique challenges with natural resource management policies and environmental issues. Subject to a century of changing federal environmental policy decisions, competing land use paradigms, and mounting resistance to traditional natural resource practices; towns like Burns and Hines are facing economic hardship, a loss of identity, and human resource depletion. Interdependent on the natural resource issues are geographical challenges that heighten the tension when attempting to sustain a level of production; isolation, high elevation, semi-arid climate, and short growing seasons. Transforming the Western desert into an oasis for agriculture has been rewarding in periods, but the depletion of non-renewable (or slowly renewable) resources has left many communities like those in Harney County wondering if their once boom towns are becoming ghost towns.

Oregon’s largest county is bigger than some states in the east. Ranging 10,000 square miles most of the county is at elevations over 3,000 feet. The predominant feature of the landscape is the rolling steppe guarded by cinder buttes that rise gracefully from the plain. Brush carpets the steppe in copious amounts, prompting the Burns newspaper to implement the motto “Covering Harney County like the Sagebrush since 1884”. Underneath the sage lives bunchgrass, a prime summer cattle grazing feed. Although old growth timber is available at higher elevations on the Steens and Strawberry ridges, only the occasional invasive juniper camouflages livestock on the range; a boon to the cattlemen who lease acres of Bureau of Land Management holdings in Harney.

Despite the challenges of utilizing natural resources in an increasingly environmentally-minded Northwest, Harney County drew over $60 million dollars in agricultural revenue in 2004. Laminated wood products generated an average of $40 million at the Louisiana Pacific mill in Hines. Along with government agencies that provide infrastructure and services, as well as oversee public lands, these two industries provide a backbone of the employment for the communities. Continual change in public policy, as well as the globalization of the marketplace, will deeply affect rural communities that are not service based economies. Many of these communities choose to reflect the preservationist philosophy by showcasing their forests, rivers, and streams as tourism attractions. Some towns in Oregon, like Bend or Newport, shift from extractive industries to tourism more easily. Some towns, like Gilchrist, lack the scenic beauty or population base to make a destination tourism locale achievable. Sustaining rural development is going to mean making dynamic leaps from the practices that have historically been reliable, like extractive industries. As freight becomes more expensive due to rising oil prices, exporting products from rural areas will not be viable. It is possible that technological innovations like the internet that make large call centers look promising, although there is a likelihood that there might not be enough people around to fill new positions if the outward migration from Burns continues.
Research Links Chief Paulina

Hines Lumber Company and Harney County Railroad History

Burns Paiute Tribe