Outdoors
Rec
B
Saturday, November 6, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
DENNIS
DAUBLE
THE NATURAL WORLD
A brief
history lesson
in salmon,
trout names
I
magine yourself as a natu-
ralist, two centuries ago, when
up to 20 million Pacifi c salmon
and steelhead returned annually to
spawn in the Columbia River Basin.
Several species of resident
trout also ranged throughout the
Columbia and Snake rivers and their
tributaries at the time. How would
you describe these strange and won-
derful fi sh when only one species,
the rainbow trout of eastern Russia
(Salmo gairdneri), had previously
been accounted for?
Journal passages from the 1805
Lewis and Clark Expedition alluded
to fi ve diff erent salmon and trout
west of the Rocky Mountains.
Included in their list were “salmon”
(chinook salmon), “white salm-
on-trout” (coho or silver salmon),
“salmon-trout” (steelhead/rainbow
trout), “red charr” (possibly sockeye
salmon), and “speckled” or “moun-
tain trout” (cutthroat trout). Other
salmon and trout species were either
scarce or the explorers failed to rec-
ognize them as diff erent.
For example, there was no men-
tion of pink or chum salmon when
both are seasonally abundant in
coastal waters. In their defense,
Lewis noted on March 2, 1806, “I
have no doubt there are many other
species of fi sh ... which we have not
had the opportunity of seeing.”
In contrast to how newly discov-
ered plants and animals were saved
for further study, early naturalists
had no means to preserve fi sh spec-
imens. William Clark, the prin-
cipal mapmaker and illustrator of
the Expedition, made sketches of
only two of 11 fi shes encountered
in western waters: the eulachon or
Columbia River smelt, and “white
salmon trout.” Rarely were any
measurements taken.
Only when the U.S. Exploring
Expedition conducted surveys to
determine the most feasible route
for a transcontinental railroad did
thorough description of salmon and
trout of the Pacifi c Northwest take
place. Consequently, the taxonomy
of various trout and salmon species
remained in fl ux through most of
the 19th century.
Approximately 50 species of
western trout were initially cata-
logued by early naturalists. The
renowned ichthyologist, George
Suckley, in an 1861 treatise titled,
“On the North American Species of
Salmon and Trout,” managed to pare
See, Dauble/Page B2
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Tamaracks blend in with their green coniferous neighbors during the spring and summer, but each autumn these deciduous conifers put on a show as their needles
turn yellow-orange before falling off .
Tamaracks brighten the Blue Mountains every autumn
JAYSON
JACOBY
ON THE TRAIL
W
hoever named the
Blue Mountains
didn’t account for the
tamaracks.
Perhaps this person, whose
identity is lost to history, never
saw the mountains during
autumn.
Because when the tamaracks
— a deciduous conifer common
in much of the mountain range
— are in the midst of their sea-
sonal shedding of needles, blue
would not seem to be the color
most likely to occur to a viewer.
Or maybe “Yellow Moun-
tains” just didn’t sound right.
Tamaracks — formally
known as the western larch —
not only fail to hold onto their
needles year-round like their
neighboring fi rs, pines and
spruces, but before the needles
fall they transition from their
usual pale green to gaudy shades
of orange and yellow.
At the peak of their autumnal
show, tamaracks positively glow
in contrast to their more dour
coniferous cousins. And they
have plenty of needles to show
off — they’re in bundles of 15 to
30 at the end of each twig, com-
pared with, say, pines, which
produce from two to fi ve per
bundle.
A single tamarack in a grove
of evergreens is almost as con-
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Tamarack trees brighten the landscape on High Mountain, north of the Anthony
Lakes Highway. The pile in the foreground is of trees cut as part of the East Face
project, designed to create fuel breaks along roads.
spicuous as a candle in the night.
But to me the more stirring
sight is a hillside where tam-
aracks predominate — where
their great splashes of brightness
briefl y illuminate scenes that for
most of the year are compara-
tively staid.
There is a surfeit of spots
around Northeastern Oregon
to behold the glory of the
tamaracks.
They’re suffi ciently profuse
on the east slopes of the Elkhorn
Mountains, for instance, that
even from Baker City, a distance
of 10 miles or so, the bands of
tamaracks are easy to discern.
The eff ect is accentuated by
the tamaracks’ preference for a
relatively narrow elevation range
— generally between about 5,000
and 6,500 feet, although they
grow at much lower elevations on
cooler, north-facing slopes.
From Baker City the tamarack
zone is clearly delineated during
the month or so when the needles
are especially colorful.
Typically the show peaks
around Halloween. By Thanks-
giving it’s likely that most of
the needles will have detached,
coating the ground with a soft
yellow layer that for me is one of
the defi ning sights of this part of
Oregon.
I could no more pick a favorite
place to look at tamaracks than
I could choose the most stir-
ring vista of the Elkhorns or the
Wallowas.
The options are just too
numerous, too compelling.
But during a hike on Hal-
loween morning in the old
Anthony Burn country north of
Anthony Lakes Highway, I was
reminded that this area is par-
ticularly well-endowed with
tamaracks.
Although the 1960 wild-
fi re, which burned about 20,000
acres, left in places a near mono-
culture of lodgepole pines, tam-
aracks have also thrived in the
ensuing decades.
See, Jacoby/Page B2
Cove artist’s artwork selected for ODFW contest
Debra Otterstein scratchboard piece wins
upland game bird stamp art competitions
By ANDREW CUTLER
The Observer
COVE — Debra Otter-
stein loves capturing ani-
mals and outdoor scenes
through a variety of
artistic media.
One of those pieces, a
scratchboard piece of three
chukars, will be the face
of Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s col-
lector stamp series. Otter-
stein’s piece took fi rst
place in the upland game
bird category. She was one
of three artists selected,
joining Buck Spencer of
Junction City and Kathy
Peckham of Ridgway,
Colorado.
“I was so excited,” she
said.
Spencer, who won the
waterfowl category, Otter-
stein, and Peckham, who
won the habitat conser-
vation category, will each
receive $2,000 for their
winning artwork.
“The sales that they get
from my artwork help to
support their conservation
eff orts, and that’s, as a wild-
life artist, that’s important
to me,” Otterstein said. “I
believe in living alongside
wildlife, not destroying
wildlife. I like their eff ort.”
Otterstein, who has lived
in Cove for nearly 20 years,
has entered the ODFW con-
test for several years, but
this is the fi rst time a piece
of hers has been selected a
winner.
“I’ve been entering for
a few years, and I’ve come
in second and third, and
so it was wonderful to be
selected as the winner,” she
said.
Otterstein said scratch-
board art can be a very
labor intensive artistic
medium.
“I used a white clay-
board and added ink that I
then scratched off exposing
the white clay that I again
added ink to,” she said.
Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife/Contributed Photo
Cove artist Debra Otterstein, with her scratchboard piece of three chukars, won fi rst place in the upland
game bird category for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s annual collector stamp series con-
“I repeated the process
until I achieved the eff ect I
wanted.”
Otterstein said the
medium is very diff erent
from painting. Otterstein
also does feather painting
and acrylic painting on fl at
canvas.
“A small piece can take
up to 20 hours, so that one
is quite a large piece, so
it took a lot longer,” she
said. “I do a lot of diff erent
things.”
Otterstein, who went to
high school in Gooding,
Idaho, has been painting
since high school. She said
it wasn’t until her junior
year that she discovered her
artistic ability.
“I realized, Oh my gosh,
I really like doing art and
I have some ability for it,”
she said. “I didn’t grow up
in a family that was artistic,
so it was kind of a surprise
to me, so I’ve been doing
art since then.”
The artwork was judged
at the ODFW’s Salem head-
quarters by independent
judges and unfortunately
not open to the public, how-
ever, the People’s Choice
Award for 2022 is now
open for online voting until
Nov. 8.
“We are excited that
local artists won both the
waterfowl and upland game
bird contest,” said Kelly
Walton, an ODFW assis-
tant game bird biologist.
“This is the fi rst Oregon
stamp contest win for
Debra Otterstein and Kathy
Peckham, who have each
been entering for several
years. Spencer won the hab-
itat conservation and upland
stamp contests last year,
so it is quite the accom-
plishment to say that he has
now placed fi rst in each
of the contests. Although
the number of entries was
down slightly this year, we
had many good entries that
made for a tough choice for
our panel of judges.”