McKenzie River

There were a plethora of species and subspecies in the historic Columbia Basin's dam-free rivers about which we know almost nothing today.

My river brother, the writer and sage Barry Lopez, tapped into a version of this preparedness during the 50 years he spent observing spawning Chinook salmon on Oregon's McKenzie River.

He wrote, the world of variables salmon are alert to, to which they respond, is astonishingly complex.

The closer we look, the more we see the individual animal is a reflection of the organization of the energy around it.

And then kind of pretty much April, May, and March, there's a lot of moving around.

I mean, I could be on the McKenzie River in my drift boat fishing for trout.

Spring Chinook on the drift boat on the McKenzie.

I could be in the Portland area doing combo days for sturgeon and spring Chinook or in Depot Bay.

There's largemouth right out camp here.

And then you go down river and you see all the cormorants and the terns and the egrets out there.

There's an environmental group here in Oregon called the McKenzie River Trust, and they did a huge land buyout here on the lower river.

And they re-spent millions to kind of what they would call fixed estuary and create a habitat for smolt rearing, they called it, waterfowl, everything else.

So the first day Wendy was hiking McDowell Creek on our own because m- my flight was canceled.

The second day we went just to check out Greenwaters to figure out, like, where... how are they gonna have this here? Where's the parking? And we went to Sahelie and Coosa Falls off the McKenzie River.

Mm-hmm.

Nice.

My dog barked, the noise stopped, then started again, so I set off my air horn, which I always keep close after I had a run-in with a large coyote wolf.

My cabin is about 120 feet above the South Fork of the McKenzie River.

There are a lot of hiking trails and old logging roads nearby.

It's very wooded and secluded, and there are only a few houses and cabins on our road out here in the Oregon Cascades.

All right, well, welcome back to the Sawyer On Water podcast, the podcast where we talk about everything, rivers, lakes, and oceans occasionally.

Today, we are back on one of our favorite Oregon rivers, on the McKenzie River, and we're in a little different craft.

We're in a custom wooden drift boat built by no other than Jason right here in the back, and so, With this episode, we're going to talk to Jason a little bit about wooden boats, about the McKenzie River, and just about life in the McKenzie River Valley.

And no further ado, I'll turn it over to you, Jason.

Just kind of introduce yourself to the folks.

And we had to do it for some workshops.

And I ran it by Randy.

He was the director at the McKenzie River Discovery Center at the time.

Among this year's winners are Asheville Area Luxury Solo RVing in Fletcher, North Carolina, a private RV site with hookups, an outdoor kitchen, and even a hot tub.

And Upriver Paradise Private Retreat in Blue River, Oregon, which sits along the McKenzie River and can accommodate multiple RVs.

The new van and overland category puts more emphasis on privacy, open spaces, and the kinds of places that smaller, more capable rigs can reach.

One of those winners is The Lookout in Washington, a mountainside camping property overlooking Clear Lake with its own private mountain bike trails.

So we were heading on one of the back roads to Sisters, Oregon.

This is when we were staying on the McKenzie River.

And then we went up to a place where there's the Pacific Rim Trail, right? It's part of the national...

Hiking trail system.

Oregon.

Yeah, it's really, really cool to do that.

We didn't spend very much time there this time because we were doing the McKenzie River area mostly.

So Jeff went to a boat building school and learned how to build a river float boat.

He has seen the blue parrotfishes of the Cuban reefs and the leaping grayling of the Gallatin and the Au Sable.

He has tried the Incanu of the McKenzie River and the tarpon of the Florida reefs.

He knows the sparkling darters of the French Broad and the Swananoa, the clear-skinned Pescados Blancos of the Chapala Lake, and the Popeyes and Grenadiers of Three Miles Drop of Bering Sea.

Till you learn to know fish, you cannot imagine what the water depths still have for you to know.