4A • January 29, 2016 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Views from the Rock
Remembering the ‘artsy place where liberals came’
W
ith Betsy Ayres, who
needs a survey?
The National Cit-
izen’s Research Survey, which
sports a trademark symbol after
its name, “begins with a custom-
izable survey of questions rele-
vant to your community.”
The survey, commissioned by
the City of Cannon Beach, mea-
sures public opinion in eight key
areas of community livability.
“In each domain, residents report
their perceptions about the quali-
ty of their community and related
services, as well as their own en-
gagement within the communi-
ty,” survey authors state.
“I can understand why Or-
egon’s gotten more and more
popular,” Ayres said over coffee
at Sea Level in Tolovana. “It’s a
stunningly beautiful place. The
lifestyle, the access to the ocean,
the clean air, the safety, the
amazing beauty ...”
An essential detail about Can-
non Beach, Ayres said, is that
most of the residents moved
here because they wanted to be
here, not like most places, where
people live because that’s where
they were born.
Ayres relocated from Portland
in 1969, a time when, she said,
Cannon Beach was making a tran-
sition from a quiet out-of-the-way
logging town to a getaway desti-
nation.
“A lot of people in the ’60
moved here because the rent was
cheap and the environment was
beautiful, and it sort of began its
identity as an arts colony,” she
said. “Cannon Beach was the
place where the artsy liberals
came.”
Between family, a long histo-
ry of civic service and a glittering
personality, Ayres soon “knew
everybody, and everybody else
knew everybody,” she said.
Her grandmother’s name —
Lottie Anderson —is on a plaque
by the checkout desk at the Can-
non Beach Library.
Anderson, incidentally, sur-
vived San Francisco’s Great
CANNON SHOTS
R.J. MARX
Earthquake and Fire of 1906.
She moved to Cannon Beach in
1945.
‘Carmel North’
A real estate agent named
Richard Atherton — “a real pro-
moter,” says Ayres — ¿ rst mar-
keted Cannon Beach as “Carmel
North.” “That was his idea as the
way to draw people,” Ayres said.
“It didn’t seem to stick, especial-
ly when people began buying and
tearing down all the wonderful
beach cabins and putting up Mc-
Mansions. Carmel restricts that.”
In the ’80s and ’90s, people
who came to Cannon Beach with
money sought the same comforts
they had in “a big house in Port-
land,” or wherever they were
coming from, Ayres said.
“Oregon’s gotten more and
more popular, because this is
such a stunningly beautiful place,
so people wanted to come here,”
she said. “I don’t begrudge their
creature comforts. Not everyone
wants to live with a woodstove
and be like ‘Little House on the
Prairie.’”
Serving as City Councilor,
member of the Planning Com-
mission, Emergency Prepared-
ness Committee and Budget
Commission, Ayres soon real-
ized some new residents held
little regard for environmental
regulations or the design review
process, and they came up with
some “pretty crazy ideas.”
A former Chamber of Com-
merce of¿ cial wanted to put
lighthouses the length of Cannon
Beach.
“She thought that would bring
people to Cannon Beach,” Ayres
laughed. “The City Council
wouldn’t go for it. She stormed
out of the meeting: ‘You’re try-
ing to ruin the businesses of Can-
non Beach!’”
Ayres recalled plans to pave
wetlands behind Spruce Street
for more parking.
“Traf¿ c is this long, knock-
down, drag-out ¿ ght,” she said.
“It never changes.”
In the summer, Ayres stays
home, or if she does go into
town, rides her bike or walks. “If
I don’t try to drive through town,
I’m good with that,” she said.
After years of service, Ayres
shied away from public of¿ ce af-
ter realizing it was not necessar-
ily a good way to make friends.
“If you’re in public of¿ ce,
there are people’s wishes who
are thwarted when you’re on
the council, and hi-how-are-you
relations became really hos-
tile,” she said. “I don’t have the
boundaries for that. If you want
to keep your friends, you have to
be able to just go home, shrug it
off and think, ‘They’re still peo-
ple. I still respect their views.’
Whether they respect mine, I
don’t know.”
R.J. MARX PHOTO/CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
‘True believer’
Betsy Ayres off ered her thoughts on Cannon Beach at Sea Level in Tolo-
vana.
Over the years Ayres has
worked for Head Start in Sea-
side, along with stints in land use
planning, as a motel maid, librar-
ian, and an assistant to a clinical
psychologist. She has a grown
daughter, Meadow, who lives in
Manzanita. Today Ayres is out
of city politics, watching from a
different role as a member of the
North Coast Land Conservancy
Board of Directors, a spot she
has held since 2010.
“I do a lot of outreach, fund-
raising, which I enjoy, because
I’m a true believer,” she said. “I
want to make this place as won-
derful as it was when I was a
child.”
Ayres said she thinks the city
is “pretty solid,” but wishes more
people at City Hall had a great-
er personal history in Cannon
Beach.
“I wish there were more in-
stitutional memory about what
built this place into the fantas-
tic place that it is, and that there
were more focus on the services
for the people who live here,”
she said.
Ayres said she thinks there
should be discussion of a senior
center and affordable housing.
She’s bitter that 70 percent of the
room tax goes to tourism, and is
frustrated by efforts by the “real
estate lobby” to stymie land pres-
ervation.
She wants people to “squawk”
when the city starts cutting down
trees in the right-of-way, “and
not pave every road and have
glaring searchlights everywhere.
I don’t want Cannon Beach to be
like Beaverton, and it’s getting
more that way every day.”
“I love living in a small town,
I love living in a small area,”
Ayres said. “I like the web of
connections when you stay in a
community your whole life. For
some reason that gives me a lot
of comfort. It just has a tremen-
dous appeal to me.”
Take the
survey
You don’t have to be a
longtime resident to fi ll out
the poll. You can live, work
or just visit the city to have
your thoughts heard. Feed-
back will help guide the city’s
strategic plan, a two-year
process. Surveys will be
mailed to residents in late
January and due back at the
end of February, and the city
should have an analysis back
by March, Then the planning
process will begin, with
adoption of a strategic plan
likely in June.
To access the Cannon Beach
survey, go to http://ci.can-
non-beach.or.us/~Svcs/PS/
survey.html.
Every time of year is perfect for a sip of the bubbly
M
aryann and I celebrated
the start of 2016 by pop-
ping open a bottle of bub-
bly and having a rousing toast! Did
you? A glass of bubbles seems to
be the perfect way to say good-bye
to the past year and look towards
the upcoming year with a sense
of hope and adventure. But, you
don’t have to limit sparkling wine
to New Year’s Eve. Having friends
over for dinner? Bubbly! Sunday
morning breakfast? Bubbly! Got
your books back to the library be-
fore getting a ¿ ne? Bubbly!
What kind of sparkling wine to
choose?
Sparkling wine is made in
many countries, from a variety
of grapes and comes with many
different names. Depending on
where in the world you are, you
might call this drink Champagne
(France’s Champagne region),
UNCORKED RAMBLINGS
STEVE SINKLER
Cremant (France-anywhere other
than Champagne region), Spar-
kling Wine (U.S.), Cava (Spain),
Prosecco (Italy), Spumante (Italy)
and Sekt (Germany/Austria).
Sparkling wine can be made
by injecting a gas into still wine.
But, more often sparkling wine is
made using the traditional meth-
od, by fermenting wine a second
time, which creates the beautiful
bubbles.
Chardonnay and pinot noir are
the two most popular grapes used
in making sparkling wine and
are the two classic grapes used in
Champagne. For this reason, it’s
easy to see that Oregon has what
it takes to be a powerhouse in the
sparkling wine market.
Argyle, located in Dundee, is
Oregon’s best known sparkling
wine producer. They make a num-
ber of different sparklers, but my
favorite is Argyle Brut rosé, a
beautiful salmon-colored wine
made mostly from pinot noir.
This hard-to-¿ nd bubbly delivers
creamy À avors of strawberry that
make it a perfect choice to be en-
joyed by itself or with food.
Kramer Vineyards, from Gas-
ton, makes sparkling wine from
a number of different grapes, in-
cluding pinot gris, chardonnay
and pinot noir; but my favorite is
their Muller-Thurgau Celebrate.
Using Muller-Thurgau as a base
grape for sparkling wine is uncon-
ventional, but it works. The bub-
bles are delivered in a brut style,
packed with À avors of apricot, ap-
ple and pear. This sparkler is great
with food and is very popular with
customers who aren’t looking for
the creamy style of a classic spar-
kling wine.
Capitello Brut, made in Eugene,
is another hard-to-¿ nd selection.
Ray Walsh is one of my favorite
winemakers in Oregon (he also
makes our Puf¿ n pinot gris) and I
love it when he makes this bubbly.
Made in a classic style, Capitello
Brut is a creamy, delicious blend
of pinot noir and chardonnay that
stands up nicely against its coun-
terparts from Champagne.
Another favorite is Sokol Bloss-
er Sparkling Evolution. Sokol
Blosser, located in Dundee, throws
all of the conventional rules out the
window with this sparkler. Where
other wineries package their spar-
kling wines with high-end foils, la-
bels and heavy bottles to create the
image of sophistication and class,
Sokol Blosser goes the other way.
No foil covers the cork cage, no
heavy bottle, no elegant label. In-
stead of focusing on fancy, Sokol
Blosser’s Sparkling Evolution de-
livers fun. Made from a blend of
about every white grape grown in
Oregon, this sparkler delivers cit-
rus, apricot and peach À avors in a
crisp brut style. Delicious by itself,
this sparkler is a perfect compan-
ion to sushi, salads or spicy foods.
Oregon is really delivering on
the sparkling wines, so be adven-
turous and try different bottles as
occasions arise throughout the
year.
Cheers!
Just remember not to drink and
drive. If you think you’ve had too
much bubbly, give your keys to
the designated driver or call a so-
ber pal.
Even ‘common’ bird species face risks to their natural habitat
S
ure, it’s exciting to see rare
birds, as I noted in my “State
of The Bird Count” address
last month. But I would hate to
think what my backyard would be
like without our “common” birds
– like the red-winged blackbird
pictured here.
This time of year, we see big
À ocks of blackbirds, as red-wings
join forces with others like cow-
birds, starlings and Brewer’s. It
may seem like their numbers are
good but experts say that up to
54 percent of populations within
common bird species have disap-
peared in the last 50 years.
A few of the things we can do to
help our bird populations are pro-
tect habitat, support forests, pro-
tect wetlands, ¿ ght global warm-
ing and combat invasive species
Publisher
Steve Forrester
Editor
R.J. Marx
Advertising Manager
Betty Smith
watershed councils and many oth-
er passionate groups. I feel good
about our chances of keeping our
common birds around for all to
enjoy.
BIRD NOTES
SUSAN BOAC
Extra extra!
which I think includes keeping
domestic cats inside. Sorry, bird
feeders do not make the list
It feels like we are moving in the
right direction here on the North
Coast. Starting in my own back-
yard where I have planted willow,
twinberry and other native plants.
I also like to wait until spring to
tidy up my gardens. The leaf litter
and decaying plants make excel-
lent places for birds to ¿ nd bugs.
We also have champions for
the environment in the North
Coast Land Conservancy, local
Production Manager
John D. Bruijn
Circulation Manager
Heather Ramsdell
Advertising Sales
Laura Kaim
I am just home from work this
rainy evening and after three stops
in previous days, I ¿ nally saw the
female pine grosbeak hanging out
at the Netul Landing in Fort Clat-
sop Historic Park. Not common,
but worth a mention!
Six of us braved the cold in
January to make a loop around the
lagoons in Cannon Beach. Join the
group for more birding adventures
in the Cannon Beach area. We meet
the ¿ rst Sunday of the month at the
Lagoon Trail parking lot on Second
Street at 9 a.m. As a group, we de-
CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
The Cannon Beach Gazette is published every
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1555 N. Roosevelt, Seaside, Oregon 97138
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SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
SUBMITTED PHOTO/CANNON BEACH GAZETTE
Red-winged blackbird.
cide where the best birding is and
bird until about 11. Bring binocu-
lars and wear appropriate clothing.
Everyone is welcome! Upcoming
dates are Feb. 7 and March 6 – it is
bound to be warmer!
Also, please mark your calen-
dars for April 9 the fourth annual
Annually: $40.50 in county, $58.00 in and out
of county.
Postage Paid at: Cannon Beach, OR 97110
POSTMASTER:
Send address changes to Cannon Beach
Gazette, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR 97103
Copyright 2015 © Cannon Beach Gazette.
Nothing can be reprinted or copied without
consent of the owners.
North Oregon Coast Birdathon, an
event inspired by Cannon Beach’s
12 Days of Earth Day, April 11-22.
Together we will raise much need-
ed funds for the rehabbing birds
and wildlife at the Wildlife Center
of the North Coast. Information on
the Birdathon can be found on the
Wildlife Center’s website at Coast-
Wildlife.org.
Susan has spent her life enjoying
the great outdoors from the lakes and
woods of Northern Minnesota, Mount
Adams in Washington and now the
Oregon beach environs. After spend-
ing many pleasurable hours driving
her avid birder parents around, she
has taken up birding as a passion,
to the mixed emotions of her hus-
band Scott. The Boacs reside on the
Neawanna Creek in Seaside where
their backyard is a birder’s paradise.
THE NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING