Oregon California Trails Association

Oregon California Trails Association

2013 National Convention in Oregon City

Week of July 21, 2013

Trail Related Learning Sessions
* Opening Session with Keynote by Kerry Tymchuk
* Eight hours of speakers on various End of the Oregon Trail and settlement topics
* Chapter Meetings, Workshops, Book Room
* Heritage Resources Fair

Tours & Outings
* Two days of bus tours to Mt Hood, the Willamette Valley, or Oregon City
* Barlow Road hike
* Pre-convention caravan tours on the Oregon Trail, Cowlitz Trail, or Applegate Trail
* Fort Vancouver post-convention tour

Special Events
* Awards Banquet and Auction
* Authors Night
* Living History Night at the Abernethy Center
* Salmon Bake at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

The 2013 OCTA National Convention is titled End of the Trail and Beyond, Oregon City, Oregon. It will be held the week of July 21, 2013. Most of the events will take place at the host hotel, the Monarch Hotel & Conference Center, 12566 SE 93rd Ave, Clackamas, OR 97015 (1-800-492-8700 or www.monarchhotel.cc).

Three auto caravan tours are being offered Sunday and Monday before the convention. Chuck Hornbuckle will lead a tour to Puget Sound along the Cowlitz Trail including a dedication of an OCTA plaque in Tumwater for Nathan Pattison, husband of Oregon Trail emigrant Rachel Pattison, who died near Ash Hollow. Leta Neiderheiser, a descendant of Jesse Applegate, will lead a tour up from Yoncalla along the Applegate Trail. Roger Blair will lead a tour and hikes along the main stem of the Oregon Trail and the Barlow Road starting in Pendleton.

On Monday, before the start of the actual convention, will be two special events. The annual OCTA board meeting will take all day. In the afternoon there will be a Heritage Resources Fair, coordinated by Mary Bywater Cross and Lethene Parks. This first time ever event for OCTA and many of the participating organizations will be an opportunity to meet and ask questions of various people involved in many aspects of studying, recreating, or preserving heritage. Seventy or more historical societies, museums, genealogical societies, and similar heritage organizations will be represented.

Tuesday and Thursday will include over eight hours of speakers, workshops, and meetings. The convention will kickoff with a keynote address by Kerry Tymchuk, head of the Oregon Historical Society. Speakers will speak Tuesday afternoon and most of Thursday on the various topics that speak to the theme End of the Trail and Beyond, including Native Americans, settlement, claiming land, and beginnings of government, including a panel of pioneer descendants.

Tuesday will also include workshops on trail mapping using traditional tools as well as technology, historical pioneer clothing, doing historical research and creating smartphone apps for historical tours. Thursday afternoon will include chapter meetings.

Wednesday and Friday will be two days of convention tours. Participants will have the opportunity to take two of five tour options around Mt Hood, on the Barlow Road, to Oregon City, or into the Willamette Valley.

Mt Hood and the Barlow Road will be the center of attention on either a bus tour or a hike. The bus will circle Mt Hood by way of Multnomah Falls, Hood River, Government Camp, and Eagle Creek. Hikers will walk the Barlow Road at Devils Half Acre, Pioneer Woman’s Grave, Summit Meadows and Laurel Hill.

The Oregon City tour will include stops at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, the McLoughlin House, and the Museum of the Oregon Territory.

Two Willamette Valley bus tours will each have a different theme. The Missions Tour will look at the Catholic missions in French Prairie and Jason Lee’s missions at Mission Bottom and Chemeketa. The Settlements Tour will look at Champoeg State History Park, mountain man “Doc” Newell’s house, the utopian Aurora Colony, and Mt Angel Seminary. Both of these tours will be through the rich agricultural land of the Willamette Valley looking at vineyards, hop fields, and orchards.

There will be a special evening event every night of the convention. On Monday there will be a coming-together social at the Monarch. Tuesday will be our annual Banquet and Auction with entertainment by Phil and Gayle Neuman and Mick Doherty of the Trail Band. Wednesday will be Authors Night in the Bookroom, presented this year by Sallie Riehl. Thursday will be Living History Night in Oregon City at the Abernethy Center with historical re-enactments by Susan Butrille as Abigail Scott Duniway, Ray Egan as Father Luigi Rossi, and Karen Haas as Narcissa Whitman, interspersed with musical interludes by the Heartstrings duo of Nancy and Rob Downie. Friday will be our farewell Salmon Bake at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City followed by an evening of special entertainment courtesy of the City of Oregon City.

After the formal closing of the convention there will be two Saturday morning events. Lethene Parks will lead a tour of Fort Vancouver and there will be a reunion of the cast members of In Pursuit of a Dream at the Philip Foster Farm in Eagle Creek.

In addition to all of the above there will be other amenities and events including luncheons, the OCTA Bookroom, static displays, other entertainment as well as a few surprises we are saving for when you arrive.