Wednesday, July 15, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
BBR BOOK: Author
sought to delve fully
into land9s history
Continued from page 3
a powerful family connec-
tion to the Ranch. Her father,
Robert Muir Graves, designed
the iconic Big Meadow Golf
Course at Black Butte Ranch
in 1969, opening it in 1970.
<The first time I came
to Black Butte Ranch I was
probably nine years old, and
it was far from being done,=
she recalled.
Yoder, under Schafer9s
guidance, knew from the
beginning that the proj-
ect would be <very image
driven.= Historical images
provided by the Three Sisters
Historical Society and from
her father9s collection helped
her shape the narrative.
It was very important to
Yoder that the narrative went
deeper than the half-century
of the Ranch9s existence as a
resort.
<History started in geo-
logic time and included the
indigenous people whose land
Black Butte Ranch is on,= she
said. <I want to honor the true
history of this area, not just
start with Euro-Americans
who came through in the
1860s& It was part of what I
needed to do if I was going to
do the project 4 honoring the
land that Black Butte Ranch
is on and hopefully a little bit
of what that means.=
To recount that early his-
tory, Yoder interviewed
Northern Paiute Wilson
Wewa of the Confederated
Tribes of Warm Springs, a
descendant of Chief Paulina
for whom Paulina Springs on
the Ranch is named.
<I was surprised at how
much activity there was on
that land,= Yoder said. <It
gave me a deeper appre-
ciation for the story that was
there. It wasn9t always pretty.
Everything9s more compli-
cate than you think.=
After the Ranch was
developed as a resort, it
became a beloved destination
for generations of Oregonians
4 some homeowners, some
second-home owners, some
visitors.
<I interviewed a lot of dif-
ferent people who are home-
owners and people who have
been coming to the Ranch
for a long time,= Yoder said.
<They are so welcoming, and
so wanting people to come
and share the experience of
the Ranch. I just loved hear-
ing them talk that way.=
Black Butte Ranch has had
a tremendous impact on the
vitality of Sisters. Developer
Brooks Resources originally
created the town9s Western
theme and injected consider-
able economic energy into the
community. BBR has always
supported the local schools
and is a major employer in
the area. People from Sisters
go to the Ranch to enjoy live
music, dining and horseback
riding.
Yoder noted that many
people have grown up in
Sisters, worked summers at
Black Butte Ranch 4 and
stayed on to make a career
there.
<And they love it,= she
said.
Yoder said that she was
astonished to discover the
amount of volunteer time and
effort Ranch residents put in
to enhancing the Ranch, espe-
cially in creating habitat to
make it more and more wel-
coming to local wildlife.
Distilling the history of
a beloved place down to 88
pages of text and photos was
no easy task.
<The biggest challenge
was trying to figure out what
to leave in and being very
sorry for all the things I had
to leave out,= she said. <The
book could have been three-
times bigger for all the con-
tent I had&. Getting it down
to an essence was challeng-
ing. I tried to tell a complete
story. You can never do that
perfectly, but I was happy
with what I was able to
include.=
<Black Butte Ranch:
There Is A Place= is available
at Black Butte Ranch and at
Paulina Springs Books in
Sisters.
LETTERS
Continued from page 2
boost to it9s tax base that will probably con-
tribute in excess of $1 million annually to
Sisters9 schools and services.
That sounds like five wins to me!
Nick Veroske
s
s
s
To The Editor:
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted
for me the problem with banning single use
plastic bags and allowing reusable bags. The
world needs an alternative to plastic, but until
then, allowing reusable bags in retail stores is
a major public health issue based on scientific
studies.
Viruses and bacteria can survive on tote
bags up to nine days based on studies.
The risk of spreading viruses was clearly
demonstrated in a 2018 study published in
the Journal of Environmental Health. The
researchers, led by Ryan Sinclair of the Loma
Linda University School of Public Health,
sent shoppers into three California grocery
stores carrying polypropylene plastic tote
bags that had been sprayed with a harmless
surrogate of a virus. The researchers found
sufficiently high traces of the surrogate to
risk transmission on the hands of the shop-
pers and checkout clerks, as well as on many
surfaces touched by the shoppers, including
packaged food, unpackaged produce, shop-
ping carts, checkout counters and the touch
screens used to pay for groceries.
In a 2011 study, reusable bags were col-
lected at random from consumers as they
entered grocery stores in California and
Let us show you
how much you can
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23
Arizona. In interviews, it was found that reus-
able bags are seldom 4 if ever 4 washed,
and often used for multiple purposes. Large
numbers of bacteria were found in almost
all bags and coliform bacteria in half.
Escherichia coli were identified in eight per-
cent of the bags, as well as a wide range of
enteric bacteria, including several opportunis-
tic pathogens.
In a 2012 study, researchers analyzed
the effects of San Francisco9s ban on sin-
gle-use plastic grocery bags by compar-
ing emergency-room admissions in the city
against those of nearby counties without the
bag ban. The researchers, Jonathan Klick of
the University of Pennsylvania and Joshua
Wright of George Mason University, reported
a 25 percent increase in bacteria-related ill-
nesses and deaths in San Francisco relative to
the other counties.
Oregon and other states confirmed reus-
able bags spread disease by temporarily lift-
ing plastic bag bans for the current pandemic.
Reusable shopping bags are just plain
nasty and need to be banned.
JK Wells
s
s
s
To the Editor:
We will gather at Village Green July 25, 7
p.m. for an evening of solidarity and contem-
plation honoring George Floyd and the many
Black lives lost this past decade to police
violence.
Participants will be required to wear
masks and observe physical distancing.
Like many other communities, Sisters
W e’re
OPEN!
See LETTERS on page 25
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