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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2017
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Rebecca Sedlak | Weekend Editor
rsedlak@dailyastorian.com
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OUR WALLOWA
ADVENTURE ENDS
By STEVE FORRESTER
In the United States, there is more
space where nobody is than where any-
body is. That is what makes America
what it is.
— Gertrude Stein
I
n retirement from The Daily Asto-
rian, I gained a new job description.
As president and CEO of our com-
pany, EO Media Group, one of my duties
is to fi ll in — as an editorial writer and
otherwise. Thus, three weeks ago my
wife and I headed to Enterprise, at the
foot of the Wallowa Mountains. I’ve
served as interim editor of the Wallowa
County Chieftain.
I’ve had a connection with Wallowa
County since the 1950s. We started com-
ing here because my father’s cousin,
Jean Sharff, lived in Enterprise with her
physician husband, Dr. Bob Sharff. In
those days, Bob was the only surgeon
in the county. He told stories of riding
horseback into the mountains to set a
broken leg of one of Supreme Court Jus-
tice William O. Douglas’ companions.
Douglas often summered at a camp in
the Wallowas.
W riter’s
N otebook
On a springlike afternoon, reporters Kathleen Ellyn and Steve
Tool converse with Steve Forrester, center.
Cheryl Jenkins/Chieftain
When our publishing company pur-
chased the Wallowa County Chieftain
from the Don Swart family in 2000, our
family’s relationship with what is called
the Switzerland of America deepened.
I
t has been a gift to reside here for more
than a two-day stay. Out the kitchen
and living room windows of our house
rental, the Wallowas rise sharply, their
peaks cloaked in snow. One could med-
itate on this mountain range, as the Jap-
anese do with Mount Fuji. In my own
musing on the mountains, I imagine
that the Valkyries of Norse and German
mythology live up there. It’s where they
fl y to on horseback, with fallen heroes.
In both Astoria and Wallowa County,
the weather dynamic can change in a
matter of minutes. In Astoria, the Pacifi c
Ocean generates the weather. In Wallowa
it seems to be the vast mountain range.
While heavy
snow fell
outside, the
Hurricane
Creek Grange
was warm
with fiddling.
Brenda Penner/
For The Daily
Astorian
J
oseph, up the highway from here,
had its rebirth many years ago. Enter-
prise is about to have its renewal. It is
the same thing one observed years ago in
Astoria. A local builder, Darrell Brann,
has bought the OK Theatre. On our fi rst
night here, we heard a bluegrass guitarist
and singer, Billy Strings, and his band.
The OK Theatre rocked that night. Brann
has equipped the theater for recording,
and groups now come here to cut their
CDs.
Brann owns a downtown building he
will recondition. I met another man who,
with his wife, renovated an aging build-
ing that now houses Wild Carrot Herbals
and Dandelion Wines. Another developer
is remaking an old apartment building.
During the night at the OK Theatre,
it was apparent that Wallowa County is
gaining a new, younger demographic.
Sound familiar?
Last Saturday night we saw the
Blue Mountain Old Time Fiddlers at
the Hurricane Creek Grange. The scene
was out of a movie. My wife drove us
home through a blinding snowstorm. On
another weekend, we climbed the East
Moraine of Wallowa Lake. At the top,
the Wallowa valley was at our feet, and
we could see well into Idaho. Through
Bruce Buckmaster, we met Holly Aken-
son, a wildlife biologist who has mules
and a salmon spawning stream on her
property.
I
f you write for a daily newspaper, your
nervous system becomes wired to
reach a peak at certain hours in the day.
For me, at The Daily Astorian, it was 10
a.m.
The weekly newspaper rhythm is dif-
ferent. I had done this once before, in
See WALLOWA, Page 2C
This was our view of frozen Wallowa Lake as we climbed the
East Moraine.
City dwellers succumb to the illusion that big
things don’t happen in small, rural places. But they do.
Steve Forrester/EO Media Group