“The end is nothing; the road is all.” –Willa Cather

Siskiyou Passage: Working Notes, February 20, 2010 meeting. 


What is a Siskiyou?
Siskiyou is the name of a mountain range and pass, a national forest, a wild rivers area, a county in California, a local newspaper, an environmental advocacy project(1), a street in Portland and much more. But what exactly is a Siskiyou? The origin and original meaning of the word ‘Siskiyou’ is a minor mystery. There are several popular theories about what the name means and how it entered our lexicon. Is Siskiyou a word from the Chinook trading jargon that came from the Cree word for ‘bob-tailed horse’?(2) Does Siskiyou refer to a French-Canadian trapper’s term for Six Cailloux or the six stones crossing over the Umpqua River? Was Stephen Meek, the famed early explorer the first to apply the name for his ‘discovery’ of the Scott Valley in Northern California?

What we do know is that the Siskiyou Trail was an ancient foot path that connected the Columbia River and San Francisco Bay - through the Willamette Valley, across the ‘Siskiyou Mountains’, and into California’s the Central Valley. In the mid-1820s, the trail became a Hudson Bay Company trading route between British controlled Fort Vancouver and the Mexican controlled Sacramento Valley. When the people of the Oregon Territory raced to the California gold fields in 1848, they traveled by ship across the open sea or overland along the Siskiyou Trail. In 1887 the California Central Railroad aligned its new route along the Siskiyou Trail and is you drive to or from California today along US Highway 99 and Interstate 5, you follow the route of the Siskiyou Trail.

Regardless of origin or meaning of the word, there is a nice functional continuity between the ancient and historic Siskiyou Trail and the Passage we intend to create along modern-day Siskiyou Street.

Project objectives.
This design/build project is part of a larger multi-year phased project. This first phase will be built in May 2010 as part of City Repair’s 10th Village Building Convergence (VBC). The two components of this VBC project are: (A) to manage stormwater along the north side of Siskiyou between 77th and 76th and (B) to design and install a community art/information element in the parking strip on Siskiyou Street. Overall, the project has three primary objectives: (1) to calm traffic at the intersection of NE Siskiyou and 77th Avenue, (2) to manage the stormwater collecting on Siskiyou Street between 77th and 76th Avenues, and (3) to make community art an integral part of the traffic calming and storm water management objectives.

Site limitations.
The project site includes;

• The intersection of NE Siskiyou and 77th Avenue,
• The curbs and gutters along the north side of Siskiyou Street between 77th and 76th avenues, and
• The parking strip on Sally Heppner’s property.

Within the 10-foot by 89-foot parking strip, the site limitations (immovable objects) include:

• A gas line and water meter approximately 41 feet east of the intersection sidewalk,
• A 12-inch utility pole near the driveway, and
• A utility pole guy line and ground anchor approximately 32 feet from the pole.

This is a community-led design/build project. It is important that the neighbors collectively agree on the character of any intersection improvements and that the owner of a property on which part of the project will be located fully accepts any design element placed on their property.

Design Brainstorming - Meeting One.
The first brainstorming session every person attending was asked to voice their own ideas about how the two objectives (traffic calming and storm water management in the context of community art) could be met, where the work will be done, and how it might look. All ideas were welcome and nothing would be labeled a ‘bad’ idea. Over the next two weeks the group will refine the ideas into a buildable plan.

Bedrock Ideas.

• We have three main areas to address with the first phase of this project: traffic calming at the intersection of 77th and Siskiyou; rain catchment on the north side of Siskiyou between 77th and 76th; and art that has an understandable message.
• Local identity is important. Roseway neighborhood history is reflected in a wall mural on Sandy Boulevard and Portland business groups are using and East/West cultural theme. The message chosen for this project should reflect something from this place.
• The name Siskiyou is important; it reflects natural history, a journey, and a story about arrival and departure.
• The idea of ‘passage’ is central to the project.

Motifs.
1. Passage:

• A passage flows both ways; in and out, ebb and flow, and back and forth.
• Learning, growth, trade and change occur along the route and at the ends of a passageway. The passage elements can inform and educate.
• The passageway changes physically.
• The traveler learns from the journey along the passageway and the traveler leaves things behind along the passageway, changing the trail itself and changing the lives of the animate beings it interacts with (knowingly or not) along the way.

2. Cultural: Cultures meet and intermingle along a passageway.

• Native tribe to Native tribe.
• Hudson Bay to native and to Spanish.
• Oregon to California.
• Modern peoples: Native Oregonian, new-comers, Vietnamese and other immigrant groups.

3. Age: the ages of life - childhood to adult and back
4. Natural elements: Water flows, the wind blows, and the sun travels east to west.
5. Street painting motifs: How do all four corners of Siskiyou and NE 77th relate and interact?

• Abstract forms (Nazca-like).
• Organic materials.
• Footprints.
• Wind.
• Asian motifs, e.g. a flowing dragon.

6. Parking strip motifs:

• Use of native plant materials. Trees that look good in the winter and that catch the light or move.
• Habitat, food and cover for local animals.
• Rolling wave-like structure reflecting movement of water, wind or people. (Kinetic sculpture.)
• Kiosks with see-through areas.
• Six stones reflecting the Umpqua River crossing.
• Profile: the flow between Vancouver and San Francisco, water on the north and south with mountains in between (on top of the berm over the gas and water lines.)
• Materials: cob, metal, recycled products (wood, windows, bottles, and rocks), glass, and tile.
• Every material element of the project needs a reason for being, which work together to support the main theme.

Next meeting.

• Saturday February 27th, 10 AM - Noon. Sally’s house - 3105 NE 77th Ave.
• The objective is to refine these ideas into a recognizable theme and to develop more concrete forms. The meeting on March 6th will be the time to approve plans to send to City Repair for review.

1. http://www.siskiyou.org/about/index.html
2. In 1829 Alexander McLeod’s Cree-owned horse perished while the expedition crossed the mountains of southern Oregon and northern California.