The Real Oregon

Most people come here to Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in spring, summer or fall. They don’t know what they’re missing by skipping the remote vastness of eastern Oregon’s Harney County during the months when the landscape is brilliant with cold and almost completely empty of people.

We’ve been making regular winter trips here for the last few years and love it. There is nothing quite as bracing as a winter dawn at Malheur, whether it’s 3 degrees on a sharp clear morning or 15 degrees and foggy.

And, yes, there are birds, even in the most challenging weather. We found a flock of Bohemian Waxwings next to the Blitzen River at Page Springs Campground — which was, inexplicably, completely empty on a beautiful (OK, chilly) weekend day.

????????Coyotes serenaded us day and night, and we saw half a dozen Great Horned Owls in the willows by the river — all cold enough to sit quietly while we watched and photographed them. We stayed, as usual, at the delightful Malheur Field Station, right inside the refuge itself.

Photos on this page are all courtesy Noah Strycker. mebeli

Rasmus Petersen, a Dane who came to Oregon in 1900 and died here in 1952, loved rocks. To see what he managed to do with them as an artistic medium, you need to travel pretty much to the middle of nowhere — OK, a few miles outside of Redmond, Oregon — and drop in on Petersen Rock Garden, the delightful folly that Rasmus built.

Petersen’s four-acre home is run as something between an informal public park and a very low-key tourist attraction. There’s no one selling admission tickets; drop $3 a head in the box by the gift shop to cover the family’s costs.

Then wander, amid a handful of peacocks, around the incredibly weird estate, decorated with Rasmus’ strange houses, castles, and even a replica (apparently not by Rasmus himself) of the Statue of Liberty.

Almost anywhere else in the world this would be considered valuable folk art and protected; here it’s just part of the community. A must-see for anyone within 100 miles. Or more.