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Capital Press
A g
The West’s
FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 2018

VOLUME 91, NUMBER 31
Weekly
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
$2.00
Bauman’s Farm & Garden
A hay ride is one of many activities farms offer as they get involved in agritourism.
AGRITOURISM
ON THE RISE
Desiree Bergstrom/Capital Press
Brian Bauman is the great grandson of the
founders of Bauman’s Farm near Gervais, Ore.
The farm’s current agritourism operation began
with his second-grade class when it took a field
trip to the farm to get pumpkins.
For a growing number of farms and ranches, opening to the public
provides an enjoyable, educational and profitable additional business
By DESIREE BERGSTROM
Capital Press
G
Desiree Bergstrom/Capital Press
Bauman’s Farm and Garden on Howell Prairie Road near Gervais,
Ore., aims to offer visitors an authentic farm experience.
ERVAIS, Ore. — White wooden-block let-
While that may be true, Bauman’s has grown from a small
ters on the side of a large red barn near this
roadside stand into an agritourism hub in the last 30 years.
small town in Oregon’s Willamette Valley
The large red barn houses a retail store for fresh fruit and
spell out the name of one
vegetables, baked goods, candles, honey, a
of the state’s most popular
coffee shop and other items. There is also a
agritourism destinations.
nursery operation and a hard cider compa-
ny, and every fall the farm hosts its annual
Bauman’s Farm and Garden isn’t at
harvest festival, pumpkin patch and other
a busy urban intersection or along an in-
terstate highway. Rather, it’s on Howell
family-friendly activities.
Prairie Road, a two-lane that meanders
As guests enter the red barn, the
through the east side of the valley. “Our
smell of bread and other fresh-baked
location is our greatest disadvantage
goods lingers in the air from the bak-
ery in the corner. Looking around, vis-
because we are on the way to nothing.
Desiree Bergstrom/Capital Press
itors see fresh produce, pickled veg-
There is no reason you would be driving
gies and canning supplies in every direction.
by Howell Prairie Road unless you were like, ‘I need to take
the back road to Mount Angel,’” another small town down
Turn to AGRITOURISM, Page 10
the road, said Brian Bauman, the farm’s general manager.
Wolves wouldn’t let woman leave Washington forest
Researcher in tree
with no exit
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
The U.S. Forest Service em-
ployee rescued from wolves in
north-central Washington climbed a
tree twice to get away from a bark-
ing and howling wolf that cut her
off when she tried to walk away, ac-
cording to a report by the state De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife.
The second time up, the
25-year-old woman called her
boss on a satellite phone and
“informed him that she did
not think the wolves would al-
low her to leave,” according to
Fish and Wildlife officer Justin
Trautman’s report.
The woman “observed the
wolf appear several times and
howl in the distance,” Trautman
reported. “Once in the tree, she
waited for help to arrive.”
The Fish and Wildlife re-
port, obtained by the Capital
Press, describes the July 12 con-
frontation between the woman
and the Loup Loup pack in the
Okanogan-Wenatchee Nation-
al Forest. Officials say she was
researching salmon habitat and
apparently did not know she
was walking into the heart of the
pack’s summer territory.
Fish and Wildlife had told a
Forest Service biologist that the
pack was there, but the wom-
an was from a Utah-based pro-
gram that surveys habitat on
federal lands and did not check
in with the ranger district, for-
est spokeswoman Debbie Kelly
said.
Efforts to reach the woman
were unsuccessful.
The Capital Press is with-
holding her name. State law-
makers require Fish and Wild-
life to withhold the names of
ranchers who report conflicts
with wolves to protect their
privacy and shield them from
threats.
Turn to WOLVES, Page 10
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
A wolf chased a U.S. Forest Service researcher
up a tree twice in Washington state, according
to newly released documents.
Western wildfire season keeps firefighters busy
By DESIREE BERGSTROM
Capital Press
An army of firefighters and an air
force of planes and helicopters are
working around-the-clock to battle
more than 1,700 blazes across the West
as the wildfire season hits full stride.
As of mid-week, 23,409 firefight-
ers, 143 helicopters and 1,527 fire en-
gines were battling fires scorching 1.1
million acres of the West, according
to the National Interagency Coordi-
nation Center. The center didn’t have
the number of airplanes included in the
fight.
The 10 Western states account for
the vast majority of wildfires in the na-
tion and 23,000 of the 25,409 firefight-
ers dispatched across the U.S.
Most of the fires are in the North-
west, Great Basin and northern
California, according to the center.
The Great Basin has 573,645 acres
burning, and northern California has
256,115 acres burning. The Northwest
has 180,637 acres on fire.
“Year to date in the Northwest re-
gion there have been 1,726 fires,” Car-
rie Bilbao, public affairs specialist for
the National Interagency Fire Center,
said. The Northwest includes Oregon
and Washington.
High temperatures hurt efforts to
contain the fires, said Lori Wisehart,
an information officer for the Klondike
fire, approximately 17,987 acres, and
the Natchez fire, approximately 6,174
acres, burning in Southern Oregon and
Northern California.
The crews fighting those fires were
forced to redirect their efforts from
containment to managing incidents
such as spot fires, Wieshart said.
“We have been working both day
and night shifts” on the fires, Wieshart
said.
Though this year’s fire season is
busy, it’s not a record-setter. This
year fewer fires have broken out than
last year at this time, Bilbao said.
There were 38,617 fires across the
U.S. for a total of 5.4 million acres
last year, she said.
Turn to WILDFIRES, Page 10