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OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Philippi Park to reopen Memorial Day Weekend
Park closed in 2013
due to budget cuts
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
Darrell McSmith grew up
camping and ishing at Philippi Park
on the John Day River; it’s where he
learned to water ski with his older
brother and two sisters, and where
he’d bring his own daughters years
later for family reunions.
“It was just kind of this little oasis
in the middle this dry desert area,”
said McSmith, who owns All Points
Media in Beaverton. “It had a little
bit of everything for everyone.”
Located about a mile upriver
from where the John Day lows into
the Columbia, Philippi Park can
only be reached by boat. Budget
cuts forced the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers to close the park in 2013,
though the agency left the door
open for alternative management
proposals.
Wanting to do something in
memory of his parents, McSmith,
49, came up with a plan. He estab-
lished a nonproit group called the
OPAL Foundation in February
to restore the park, which is now
set to reopen over Memorial Day
Weekend.
Volunteers with the OPAL Foun-
dation have spent most of the last six
weeks mowing tall grass, removing
downed trees and cleaning up the
park’s sandy beaches. At the same
time, they have started fundraising
to build up a maintenance and
operations budget for the next three
years, working with the Army Corps
of Engineers.
So far, McSmith said they’ve
Photo contributed by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Philippi Park, located on the John Day River about a mile upstream from the conluence with the
Columbia River, will reopen Friday, May 27 for Memorial Day Weekend.
raised $63,200 of their $250,000
goal. The foundation recently
recruited a summer camp host, and
future projects might include adding
wildlife viewing trails and new
eco-friendly showers.
“It took a lot of effort just to get it
started again,” McSmith said. “We
wanted it to be about community,
and bringing back these types of
recreation opportunities that are
unique to the Gorge and the North-
west.”
Philippi Park was established
by the Corps in 1978 and it soon
became a popular attraction for
boaters and ishermen, drawing in
roughly 13,000 people every year.
By the 1980s, McSmith said the
park would be packed with visitors
during annual bass ishing tourna-
ments.
McSmith said he and his family
would make trips every year from
Woodburn — sometimes two or
three times every year — to enjoy
the sunshine and water.
“We’re one of probably hundreds
of stories of people who have spent
a lot of time enjoying this park,”
McSmith said.
McSmith lost his father unex-
pectedly in 2001, and his mother
died from cancer in 2007. Both
loved the outdoors, and he knew
he wanted to do something in
Bear dogs help wildlife oficers
By RICH LANDERS
The (Spokane)
Spokesman-Review
SPOKANE, Wash. —
Barking at bears, romping
through the forest, snifing
for poaching evidence,
getting petted by a child
and maybe cooling off with
a swim in the Pend Oreille
River.
It’s all in a good day’s
work for Jax, a 1-year-old
Karelian bear dog employed
by the Washington Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife.
“The beauty of this breed
is that Jax can be calm and
licking the ingers of a kid
one moment and then turn it
on when he’s on the ground
scaring the heck out of a
bear,” said Keith Kirsch, the
Spokane Region Fish and
Wildlife police oficer who
trains, houses and handles
Jax full time.
The agency’s six Karelian
bear dogs are being used
across the state for wildlife
research, enforcement and
for conditioning bears,
cougars and moose to avoid
humans. The dogs also are
ambassadors and conver-
sation starters for public
wildlife education,
“They have the genetics
to do it all very well,” said
wildlife biologist Rich
Beausoleil, the agency’s
bear-cougar specialist in
Wenatchee.
Most of the dogs were
purchased over the past 13
years for about $4,000 each
from the Wind River Bear
Institute in Montana. Jax is
the irst Karelian assigned to
the Spokane Region.
These wildlife service
dogs are trained to confront
sometimes
dangerous
animals without attacking
or injuring them, Kirsch
said. “We’ve used them to
haze bighorn sheep off a
highway,” he said.
Other states using Kare-
lians for wildlife service
include Montana, Nevada,
California and the province
of Alberta.
The dogs sometimes are
used to ind orphaned bears
so they can be taken to reha-
bilitation centers for eventual
release.
Nick Jorg, the oficer who
oversees Washington’s Kare-
lian program out of Seattle,
said his 75-pound Karelian
stepped up to another role in
an unplanned bear encounter.
“I was alone with Colter
when we discovered two
cubs up in a tree,” he said. “I
was trying to get out of there
immediately when I saw this
big, beautiful (black bear)
sow barreling in on me.
“Colter responded and
plowed into her side. He
rolled over a bear more than
twice his size. That gave us
a chance to get out of there.
their memory. When Philippi Park
closed, he said it was the perfect
opportunity.
“I was fortunate to have great
parents,” he said. “I just thought this
was something I wanted to do.”
McSmith reached out to the
Army Corps of Engineers to forge
a partnership, and he said they’ve
been supportive throughout the
process. Rural communities like
Rufus and Arlington have also lent
their support, recognizing impor-
tance of recreation and tourism to
their local economies.
The OPAL Foundation — which
combines the names of McSmith’s
parents, Oppie and Paul — has
spent every weekend since the
beginning of April returning the
park to pristine shape. McSmith
said they will be ready to reopen
on Friday, May 27, with the Army
Corps reinstalling the main boat
dock and turning water and power
back on.
Matt Rabe, spokesman with the
Corps’ Portland District, said they
would not be able to reopen Philippi
Park without the “truly unique”
partnership with OPAL.
“Because everything is boat-in,
boat-out ... it just compounds the
cost of maintaining that park,” Rabe
said. “It’s having the extra resources
from this outside organization that
allows us to reopen.”
Rabe said recreation is one of
the Corps’ primary missions, and
they’re excited to be able to offer the
opportunity again at Philippi Park.
“It’s a fairly secluded facility,” he
said. “If you’re trying to get away
from it all, it’s a nice place to go.”
Philippi Park will oficially
reopen May 27 with a boat parade
up the river, followed by a ribbon
cutting and barbecue. Those inter-
ested in attending can meet at 9 a.m.
at LePage Park, exit 114 off Inter-
state 84, where boats will launch.
McSmith said he hopes to use
Philippi as a model for reopening
other parks and recreation sites in
the future.
“It’s just an amazing feeling,” he
said.
For more information about the
OPAL Foundation, or to donate to
the Philippi Park project, visit www.
opal-foundation.org.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0825.
BLOOMIN’ BLUES
Small, slender sandwort
stands out in Blues
By BRUCE BARNES
For the East Oregonian
Name: Ballhead sandwort
Scientiic Name: Eremogone congesta
Rich Landers/The Spokesman-Review via AP
In this photo taken May 6, Jax, a 1-year-old Karelian
bear dog rides with his handler, Washington Fish and
Wildlife Department oficer Keith Kirsch, in Spokane.
Nobody hurt.”
Beausoleil handles a
Karelian named Cash that’s
been trained for a variety of
work. In some cases, Cash
will scent bears and cougars
and chase them until they go
up a tree so they can be tran-
quilized for wildlife study
and collaring without having
to be trapped.
“Cash has dealt with 500
bears and 130 cougars so far
in his career and saved a lot
of staff time,” he said.
The agency’s Karelians
are taken to fairs, festivals
and schools where they
break the ice for staff to
educate the public on living
with dangerous wildlife.
Jax came to Spokane
last year and debuted at 5
months old with Kirsch as
they responded to a black
bear cruising a North Side
neighborhood.
The dog gave Kirsch an
approachable platform to
explain bear management to
the crowd that had gathered
on Oct. 16 along Lyons
Avenue near Nevada Street.
Meanwhile, department staff
tranquilized and removed the
bear from a tree.
Kirsch traveled with the
crew to a release site and Jax
did his part to help convince
the bear to stay out of town.
“We don’t hurt the
animals, just condition
them,” Kirsch said.
“We don’t call them
problem bears because the
problems often are human-
caused. Things like bird
seed, pet food and unsecured
garbage attracts bears and
gets them into trouble.
“It’s not healthy in the
long run for a bear to lose its
fear of humans.”
Last week, Jax, Cash and
Colter were used to condition
two young orphaned black
bears that had been caught
during
winter
hanging
around homes near Bead
Lake.
“They
were
skinny
and wouldn’t have made
it through winter, so we
trapped them and they were
kept alive in an Idaho reha-
bilitation facility,” Kirsch
said. “We wanted to do a
hard release to get them back
in the wild with the right
attitude.”
Hard release means they
scare the bear rather than
simply letting it go free.
A text-book example of
using Karelians to deal with
a nuisance bear complaint
goes as follows:
Oficers use a baited
culvert trap to capture the
bear. The animal is sedated,
given a health exam and
ear-tagged so it can be iden-
tiied later if encountered.
Neighbors are educated
to clean up their garbage
or other food sources that
attracted the bear into
trouble. Then the bear is
released either on site or
transported to a safer area. In
either case, the dogs are used
for a hard release.
Instead of just drawing
open the trap door and letting
the bear go, at least two ofi-
cers bring in dogs on leash
to bark and raise the bear’s
anxiety.
Another oficer might
carry a shotgun that ires
non-lethal projectiles to sting
the bear if needed to get it
running away.
The bear is given a head
start out of the trap before the
dogs are released to chase
and scare it more before it
leaves the area or climbs a
tree.
“The idea of a hard
release is to create a nega-
tive impression so the bear
learns to avoid the site and
humans,” Kirsch said. “You
need at least two dogs to be
effective. In the case of a
grizzly, the minimum is three
dogs.”
“Of 600 bears we’ve
hard released, 96 percent
have never been involved in
another incident,” Beausoleil
said.
Washington’s Karelian
Bear Dog program is funded
by
donations
garnered
online, from presentations
and fund-raising events.
“The GPS tracking collar
I put on Jax was donated by
the Northwest Sportsman
Club,” Kirsch said. The
collar allows the oficer to
know the dog’s position as
it roams while the oficer’s
working.
This small plant is one that is found from
Alberta and Saskatchewan to California,
Arizona, and Colorado.
It prefers open, arid or semi-arid sites,
from deserts to sagebrush steppe to alpine
slopes. It is often blooming in hot, open sun
in gravelly or sandy soil.
The plant forms small mats a few inches
wide with tufts of slender grass-like leaves
at the base. The leaves on the stems are
opposite each other and slightly united
around the stem, as often occurs in the
“pink” family, the Caryophyllaceae. The
lowering stems are the thickness of pencil
lead and about 10 inches high, twice as tall
as the leaves, topped with a single round
ball, about a half inch wide, of several tiny
white lowers.
Each lower has 5 slender petals. The
lowers are nearly impossible to photograph
as they bounce wildly around in the slightest
breeze.
The common name, ballhead sandwort,
seems appropriate, with the lowers in a
head-like sphere. It likes sandy soil, and
“wort” means plant, hence the name sand-
wort.
The genus name, Eremogone, which
replaced an older name, Arenaria, isn’t
quite so simple. Arenaria was OK, as the
Latin “arena” meant sand. Eremogone has
a preix “eremo,” which means solitary, and
Photo courtesy Bruce Barnes
Ballhead sandwort
the rest of the word may come from “gona,”
which means angled. The tiny seeds have
minute wings which may be the reason for
the ending on Eremogone.
Ballhead sandwort has been used by
some plains Indian tribes for medicine.
They used it to treat gastrointestinal prob-
lems, rheumatism, skin problems from sun
exposure, venereal disease, and as a blood
puriier.
Where to ind: From now through
mid-August you may ind it in an open dry
areas from middle to upper elevations. It
will be easy to spot.
Have an outdoors story or photo you would like to share?
Email ttrainor@eastoregonian.com or call 541-966-0835.
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